Brexit

[Dare]

I think it's bull to keep voting till you get the outcome
you want.They might have  a 3rd and 4th vote if the stay
voters lose again.

In the US a few candidates have won the popular vote
but lost the presidency because of the electoral votes.
IMO what the majority wants should prevail.

[Scott]

It doesn't look like it will happen anyway. 

So far, this is the best feature I've found on the whole affair.  It's worth a read, but it takes certainly 5 full minutes of your time, so grab a cup of tea, have a read and let me know what you think.  I think this guy nailed it.

The second paragraph almost sums up everything for me...if you get nothing else from it, pay attention - "a day when we’re being congratulated by Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, and nobody else"  ...so true.

or this one:  "As the tattered remains of the government try to work out what Brexit will actually mean in practice, more damage has already been done to our economy, to our prospects and to the job market than years of open borders ever could have."

Or just read the whole article below...

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/i-want-my-country-back

[Ian]

I've got as far as the 3rd paragraph and I'm disgusted, yet another scumbag invoking Jo Cox, I'll try to read the rest without puking. I'm not having a go at you Scott.

[Ian]

Sorry Scott but I have read this through twice and it's nothing more than the verbal diarrhea we have been fed in the run up to the referendum by people living in their ivory towers, totally insulated from the normal walk of life.

[Scott]

I honestly appreciate both sides to this whole thing.  What I don't agree with is the amount and type of inflammatory rhetoric that persuaded an unusual number of people who don't normally care about such issues to jump in and sway the vote. 

My points in the article below are simply that you must question the result when someone like Donald Trump congratulates the Leave side, and the fact that nobody, neither the Leave campaign nor the government itself has a clue what is supposed to happen now, and the EU leaders recognize that and have jumped all over it demanding immediate negotiations which will lead to impulsive mistakes that the UK will have to live with.  Where the heck is Boris??  I know he's keeping his head down so nobody takes it off, but still, get in front of a camera and show some spine.

[John S]

I was hoping to stay out of this but the article you posted Scott just takes the biscuit as far as I'm concerned. The New Statesman is a left leaning political commentary magazine and therefore it's no surprise if they are very much in the Pro EU camp.

The biggest idiocy of the piece though is to refer to the population who voted for leave like this; "and yesterday the frightened, parochial lizard-brain of Britain voted out". Just who appointed New Statesman writers as the proper super brains in our country. 

With intelligentsia like the author of this ill thought out attack on the ordinary folk of Britain it's no wonder we take no notice of their self opinionated scribblings. The monthly sale of the magazine by the way is about 21k copies, yes that's right just 21k. 

 

[Ian]

And now the knives are out for Boris, pro Cameron Tories are compiling a dossier on his private life to smear him, they should be back in the infant or primary schools they crawled out of.

[J.Clark]

Cos, Jeri, I'm not gonna get political here, but would the USA or Canada allow another country to dictate to them the size and shape of certain fruits or the power of a vacuum cleaner to them, because that's what we have to put up with, thanks to a spineless government. End of 

The simple answer is, yes.  The US Government has been guilty of telling us what kind of light bulbs we must use, put ethanol in our gasoline and a long list of other, some quite subtle, things they have been regulating over the past several years/decades.

I well remember the birth the the EU.  I was living in Spain from 1990-94, and then in Italy until 1998.  I watched the countries remove the border guards/customs officers from the crossings between countries.  I was dismayed by it.  I remember thinking - this is heading toward a "world government" and all countries will slowly lose their sovereignty.

Having been there during that time, I have perhaps, a slightly different perspective on this than most Americans.  Many do not have much of the background, and what they have of it is largely based upon a left-leaning US media's thoughts on the history of it, from inception to the current state.

I have no vote in the decision the Brits make, nor should I.  I thought our President an ass for his presumption of being in the position of telling you all over there what you should do, even to the point of a thinly veiled threat.  The decision is entirely yours, and I applaud your taking the initiative to make a decision based upon the will of your citizens.

[Dare]

I agree about Obama keeping his opinions to himself.I don't
know why the US thinks they have a right to tell other countries
how to tend to their affairs.

[Alianora La Canta]

Considering how much the government's income relied on the trade benefits brought by being in the EU that it is indicated we won't get to keep (not to mention avoiding the recession that looks like has just been kicked off)... ...I am extremely unhappy about Britain voting to leave the EU. I had hoped not to live in a bankrupt nation, but unless my vague plans to escape to Italy work out in the next 5 years, that's exactly what will be happening. That said, MPs have a statutory duty not to make the UK bankrupt, so it's unlikely we'll see Article 50 (the law that allows leaving the EU, that the referendum result allows to be used) invoked any time soon - something that was likely in the Prime Minister's mind when he declined to invoke the Article as he promised when the referendum was originally announced.

The EU is trying to protect itself by demanding a quick, clean exit, so that other countries don't follow suit before rebalancing of the group can be done. It won't get a quick exit because Mr Cameron would like to not be in prison after he leaves office in October. Boris Johnson might, but if so, the consequences will be extremely severe (for those wondering, losing 1/3 of the country's annual income in 2 hours on Friday morning is the beginning of the trouble).

And the USA are bound to think they have a right to comment - they will be much affected by their biggest ally altering its political arrangements as much as it is.

The New Statesman is American-leaning, which tends to limit its readership in Britain both ways - too left-wing for people looking for Americanised readings, too-pro-American for left-wing or even centrist British readers (both of whom tend to regard both major varieties of American politics as right-wing).

The article Scott mentioned does a decent job, if not a complete one, of describing what happened (Ian, the reference to Jo Cox was inevitable given that her getting shot by someone who shouted "Britain First" - a Leave slogan - at the scene contradicted Nigel Farage's claim that no shots were fired in Leave's victory). However, it does not particularly do a good job of describing why. Unfortunately I've yet to find somewhere that does. It is interesting, though, that the greatest pattern is not socioeconomic, but age. It's tended to be that under-50s voted Remain and over-50s voted Leave. Not sure what that says about the state of the country, but it is known that Britain's pensioners are already suffering from the decision due to reduced income from fixed-price funds (typically 2% for funds not linked to employer wages or inflation).

[Ian]

Ali, I have no doubts whatsoever that we won't leave the EU, too many high end companies and MP's have a vested interest in remaining. What sickens me is being called a racist for voting out, one of the main reasons I voted out was the fact that when I reached the age of 21 and was able to vote we elected a government we thought would run the country, make the laws, etc etc etc, now we have a government that is redundant and might as well be disbanded. Although I have posted on this subject which I think is too political for our site I will not be posting on this subject again.

[Jericoke]

Ali, I have no doubts whatsoever that we won't leave the EU, too many high end companies and MP's have a vested interest in remaining. What sickens me is being called a racist for voting out, one of the main reasons I voted out was the fact that when I reached the age of 21 and was able to vote we elected a government we thought would run the country, make the laws, etc etc etc, now we have a government that is redundant and might as well be disbanded. Although I have posted on this subject which I think is too political for our site I will not be posting on this subject again.

If we can agree to disagree whether Sebastian Vettel is the worst thing to happen to Formula One, I think we can survive debating something as trivial as international econo-politics.

We may not all agree Ian, but what I love about this site is that I feel like we're friends, and understand we're not going to see eye to eye, but we're willing to listen.  You may be in the minority on this particular issue, but don't ever feel like your opinion isn't something we cherish.

Other members (no names) are happy to hold unpopular opinions about many things, it doesn't stop them from posting! 

[cosworth151]

As a Yank, I've made a point of staying out of this. It's not really my place to comment on it. We have a saying here in the hills: I don't have a dog in this fight.

I just wanted to agree with what Jeri said about us all remaining friends here. However it all shakes out, that won't change.

[Steve A.]

I am gutted at the way the vote went. So much damage done and will continue to be done over the next few years. Boris and Trump in power is a real concern. I worry for the future, for my kids and their choices. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I have spoken to a few people who voted out and didn't know what they were voting for, they followed their friends. And some of those would now change their votes. One of the most Googled phrases at the moment is 'what is the EU'   that kind of sums it up.

[Ian]

Ok, going back on my word.......
DH, you're right 'what is the EU ?' I would be too ashamed to ask that question.
Jeri, you're right too, we are all friends on here and we all have mostly differenf opinions on things, but it don't matter 'cos we are friends.