UK Politics

There were sadly too many people who didn't read the instructions and thought they were voting to get rid of immigrants.
 
It is generally safe to assume in any campaign both sides throw out falsehoods. Immigrants will kill us all, without EU protections we will devolve into a proto fascist state.
 
Did you actually seen & hear any of the campaigning? Some of it was racist.
Some of it. I don't doubt it. But idiots are always on both sides and let's not kid each other that the remain voters are synonymous with Britain's elite. I bet that at least 80% of all the voters knew nothing about economy (the key aspect of the whole thing). Democracy, ladies and gentlemen.
 
Couple of points.
+1. It is very low and shockingly arrogant to play the 'you voted different, because you're stupid' card.
Hardly. Read what you're quoting:
But I can see how an intelligent person could vote for leave (and not only bigots and idiots)
Bigots & idiots did vote; even Judas (who you quote) excepts this.
There were sadly too many people who didn't read the instructions and thought they were voting to get rid of immigrants.
Exactly. Plenty of them.
Immigrants will kill us all, without EU protections we will devolve into a proto fascist state.
And who other than the stupid would believe these falsehoods?
...let's not kid each other that the remain voters are synonymous with Britain's elite.
Who's saying this?
I bet that at least 80% of all the voters knew nothing about economy (the key aspect of the whole thing). Democracy, ladies and gentlemen.
There's a big difference between uninformed & racist.

I'm just saying: there was a racist/xenophobic angle to much of the Leave campaign which centred around the issue of immigration. The idea that many people didn't vote along these lines is to be in total denial of reality. I appreciate that some people, including several people on this forum, who voted Leave, didn't vote along these lines. But I don't believe you guys were in the majority of Leave voters.

People from abroad, who have made this country their home (& that would be all of you non-English speaking, non-English looking [interpret this as you will] people on this forum, if you were living in the UK), now don't feel welcome here. They're worried. Not necessarily about being deported or anything that extreme; but worried about what people really think about them, how they're actually viewed. This is horrible. Should we expect them to feel some other way, looking at how this campaign was played out? It's really, really, disheartening &, frankly, worrying. I now look around & wonder whether people I know, people I work with; I wonder whether they too feel this way about foreigners, about these "other" people.

Xenophobia is not not understandable; but one would hope people would take a step back & think about whether they're fears (about whatever it is they're blaming immigrants for) are really the fault of other/foreign folk. I guess some people just don't think...
 
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@CriedWhenBrucieLeft Um, I'm not sure what you mean. I know idiots voted. On both sides. I just tried to point out that it's wrong to equate the opposite political views with stupidity. Judas acknowledged this, so I quoted to agree with him.
 
My summary until now (and for the ones concerned please correct me if I am wrong): It looks like no one out here voted Leave and
- have explained it well
- and that explanation has to do with a Brexit (explaining why a leave would solve/change matters the voter is considered about).

Albie, I appreciate your posts, you explain well what is going wrong in the UK but I don't see how it relates to (the chosen option of) the referendum. In fact, I even tend to think that you have voted for the wrong option.

Judas, you have explained why someone would go for the protest vote. I am not so easily accepting this because the EU if far too important to have it disintegrated just because people don't like the attitude of elite, or because they don't agree with local (national) political decisions and rules. And voting to get out will not change anything in these respects. Alright, I give you that the EU could reform faster now, but I don't think it would be good to do that without the UK (or any other country in the union).
 
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Voting Leave does not make one racist. Leave is not a political party or a series of ideas - it is a single choice that can be selected due to someone's adherence to any number of political parties or series of ideas. If you voted BNP you're racist, because BNP is a party for racists. If you voted UKIP, you are at the very least supporting racist policies - a racist act. But voting Leave is neither racist nor nationalistic, because there are a plethora of valid reasons to do both.

That being said, the scare tactics of the racist pro-Leave camp likely helped stress the win; the scare tactics of the pro-Remain camp failed to work as well, it would seem. The difference, of course, is that economic breakdown seems more real today than before. It's a very interesting period of time to not live in Europe.
 
Voting Leave does not make one racist.
Nobody in this forum said it does. All I said was: you're in the company of racists.
Leave is not a political party or a series of ideas - it is a single choice that can be selected due to someone's adherence to any number of political parties or series of ideas.
Again, this is self-evident; campaigning was cross-party.
If you voted BNP you're racist, because BNP is a party for racists.
The BNP are totally irrelevant in UK politics.
If you voted UKIP, you are at the very least supporting racist policies...
Xenophobic, certainly.
But voting Leave is neither racist nor nationalistic, because there are a plethora of valid reasons to do both.
Do you care to name some?
That being said, the scare tactics of the racist pro-Leave camp likely helped stress the win; the scare tactics of the pro-Remain camp failed to work as well, it would seem.
To date, what the Remain camp said would likely happen, is happening.
The difference, of course, is that economic breakdown seems more real today than before. It's a very interesting period of time to not live in Europe.
I'm still not convinced that many people voted Leave based solely on economics.
 
About the economics, markets do not like uncertainty and there is plenty of that for sure. But you cannot really judge the economics of this for some time, certainly not after 2 business days. Some uncertainties will be resolved quicker than others ...
 
A lot of it depends what happens with the various internal union of the UK, and what happens with the Brexit, and what treaties replace it.
 
A lot of it depends what happens with the various internal union of the UK, and what happens with the Brexit, and what treaties replace it.

There is that and there is resolution of internal politics .. who will be the next PM and to a lesser extent what will happen with the Labor party.
 
who will be the next PM and to a lesser extent what will happen with the Labor party.
Labour are in complete turmoil with untold resignations in such a short time. Sacking Hilary Benn never helped. I had high hopes for Corbyn to be what he was in the backbench, a bit of a rebel. He is, at the end of the day, another "go with the party line" MP.

@Forostar My reason to leave was that I simply feel it's a layer of Govt we don't need. The answer to most problems is not more Govt. On the whole people need to be able to just get on with their lives without interference - not matter how good a Govts (be it EU, national, local, etc) feels their intentions are.
 
The Scottish question is absolutely massive up here, but understandably covered only superficially in the UK-wide news coverage. Sturgeon has already said she is going to explore all possible options to keep Scotland in the single market. Like with the Independence Referendum many of the ideas being floated seem perfectly possible, but I doubt any of them will come to pass. Some of the legal minutiae is actually quite interesting in regard to precedence here e.g. in respect to Greenland/Faroe Islands/Denmark, Cyprus, & German unification in 1990. Scotland could stay in the EU, it's definitely possible.

If polling shows support for independence of 60%+ at any point within the next 6-12 months then I think a second referendum will be called very quickly. I'm not sure if polling will show any great shift though; will be interesting to see. In the short term the Scottish Government will likely call a vote questioning whether the Scottish Parliament consents to leaving the EU (as it has every right to do). That will likely come back negative (i.e. the widely reported Scottish Brexit "block"), Westminster will politely note this, but (obviously) ignore & move on with negotiations to leave. The Scottish Parliament has no legal veto or blocking powers.
 
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Okay, I just read that Juncker has said that he wants to "use the situation after Brexit" to push Eurozone even further and spread Euro to more countries.

1.) First of all, since when this is something the European Comission decides?

2.) Second of all, he really doesn't seem to take the cue, does he?

3.) Since Euro is a potential sore spot (to put it very mildly) for Czechs, we might be experiencing Czech Out sooner than later, if he succeeds.

Which brings me to my other points...

I kind of get what you mean, Foro, but… You are a very pro-EU person, that much is understood, however I don’t know whether it’s because you consider the EU only from the economical point of view (which is not that important in the end, however, or at least I don’t see the reason to fight for it that hard) or from the political/power point of view, that is, whether you’re interested in the United States of Europe with the EU actually more or less governing the states (in which case the UK is even more entitled to get the fuck out, because that’s not what was agreed upon in the first place – the EU and its predecessors were supposed to be an economical collaboration, not a political federation).

From a legal point of view it was always to be about a free and uniform trade and free movement… and the states have given certain privileges and powers away to secure that – that’s where the „power“ of the EU appeared. However lately it seems this is not the case anymore and that there are other political interests at hand. Remember that all the rights and privileges have been only lent to Commission and the other institutions by the states, those states are all still sovereign entities. This is your typical change-of-circumstances withdrawal – the goals and, well, the general approach of the European Union have changed so much, it would be unfair to insist any country must stay in if it doesn’t really want to.

United we stand, divided we fall… and the European Union is doing the best it can to divide. So far it cost them the UK, but unless a real change comes soon, I predict there will be more states to go. Sorry, but I see it that way.

Again, I’m looking at it the way a lawyer would. That of course does not answer whether or not the UK campaign/referendum has been tainted by racism, fear of immigrants or whatever. That would be sad, but there’s pretty much nothing you could do with that.
 
I see it from the Peter Gabriel point of view (Just one layer to get rid of? Can I have a laugh?):

So - In or Out?
This is an enormously important moment for our country, for the future of Europe and for the peace of the world.

It’s all too easy to forget Europe’s bloody history. There is nothing more important to our country and our families than securing and maintaining peace.

Isolating the UK puts us at risk and a Brexit may start a chain reaction that rapidly spreads nationalism, isolationism and racism across Europe, breaking it up for good - and leaving it so weak that those with dark ambitions see a Brexit vote as a green light - Putin, for example, might well continue what he has already started in Ukraine into the Baltic States and beyond without any real risk of retribution.

Together, Europe is an economic political and military presence that must be listened to.

It is pure fantasy to imagine we could have that sort of clout on our own.

Those days are long gone.

Immigration brings up real issues and fears which need to be urgently addressed across Europe, but each country creating their own completely disconnected policies will cause havoc and extraordinary suffering, with each country once again living behind barricades, fences and walls. I don’t believe those wanting Out really want to live like that.

We need to reform Brussels from the inside where we have some real influence, once out, we would still have to follow most of what Brussels requires of us in order to trade with Europe, without any means of changing what we don’t like.

There are also many examples of trans-European projects that are already paying off, in science, healthcare, technology, energy, transport and space, these would be badly impacted if we return to the old ways with every country funding and creating its own independent nationalistic project.

There are some football players who daydream that they could win their matches entirely on their own, in reality, they do much better as part of a team. So will we.

We can choose a backward-looking world that is based on hate, fear and isolation or a forward-looking world that is based on hope, trust and collaboration.
Please vote for hope.


- pg (posted on his facebook on June 22nd)
 
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I have well brought on the table how important the EU is. No one has shown how unimportant it is, unimportant enough to leave it.
 
hope, trust and collaboration.
Well, I think many Euroskeptics don't trust Brussels, because they feel that the EU is turning into a different thing than the one their country once joined. Even those who favour collaboration might feel uneasy at the thought of a United States of Europe.

Also, on the way to what they are today, the United States have had far worse than someone breaking out peacefully.
 
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