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UK EU membership referendum

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  • TStaelTStael Member Posts: 861
    elminster said:

    Our federal government ended up passing legislation called the Clarity Act, but even that only went as far as saying a "clear majority" would be needed for any kind of referendum like that in the future (it did not define what exactly constituted a clear majority).

    As I lamented somewhere before, unfortunately these kind of referenda tend to provoke disunity and strife, and now UK has its own rather similar discussion on their own "union."

    Only, replace Brussels with Westminster, and how it is distanced from the democratic will of the Scottish people.

    I frankly think that once the dust settles, and UK is weakened; and Europe is weakened, though to lesser extent I think; and both Leave and Remain side shall have been disappointed - Cameron's political legacy will be disdainfully remembered. For a slim majority and intra-party appeasement, he took UK out of EU.

    Remain side is of course disappointed with the actual results, Leave side will be disappointed because of the unrealistic expectations what "Leave" means.

    Both UK major parties in crises, market turmoil and no plan forward keeping their EU-allies hostage to undeserved uncertainty...

    I am probably more than an outside observer being a future ex-EU co-citizen - but I just cannot help but wonder: how did we end up in this situation???

    Leave fine! But promote "Leave" without a plan? Disastrous and very risky.


    Eton class-privilege maybe? Cameron thought he will get away with placing politics over public service, and Johnson thought he can just play "Leave" in pitch to become prime minister.
  • Mr2150Mr2150 Member Posts: 1,170
    One phrase I'm getting sick with is 'mandate'. Everyone apparently has one...

    There must be lots of single men in the UK.
  • TStaelTStael Member Posts: 861
    Mr2150 said:

    One phrase I'm getting sick with is 'mandate'. Everyone apparently has one...

    But some do, and that's why Labour is in terribly ill-judged turmoil. This PLP-coup to depose current leader is bit like Brexit to me: the only aim is to get rid of the man, but criticism of an individual is not a matter of substance or alternative vision to follow...

    So they rush forth, without an alternative vision to challenge him, and here we are.. When arguably nation would need political leadership the most. Tory-trouble is entirely of Cameron's making, but I don't get the Labour timing at all! It just seems so very ill timed to engage in party-political power struggles.


    The only slight silver-lining to a slightly catty person such as me was that I indulged in a small act of citizens' participation.

    I courteously inquired from Soini, Finnish "UKIP equivalent" Foreign Minister, when he as a Euro-sceptic party leader holding the relevant ministry will present his congratulations to UK? Surely he will not leave initiative to ... Iran.

    That man wanted that role so he could fly around the world first class, and rub shoulders with powerful people. Now it seems he has to work for it a bit, and I certainly hope Soini will also have to own up to his anti-EU flirtations, done in purest populism.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Dow in the US plunges again, $1 trillion in US assets gone into thin air. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson claims the pound is stable as it crashes again today to another record 30-year low.
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137

    Dow in the US plunges again, $1 trillion in US assets gone into thin air. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson claims the pound is stable as it crashes again today to another record 30-year low.

    To be fair, it's a very stable low.
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137
    Okay, Reality Check time.
    Even the expectation of others that I ‘get over this’ asap seems to be further evidence (if indeed any were needed) of an abject failure to understand the enormity of what has just been done.
    Continuing to agitate will achieve nothing but worsen economic uncertainty. In short, being a whiny little cuss does nothing but hurt everyone in your country, the EU, and the world in general.
    At a minimum, every person who voted leave voted to put themselves and their country first.
    While voting in one's own interests and those of their nation is hardly a bad thing, I will note that the EU needs to die for the good of the many.
    It is directly responsible for the rise in popularity of Far Right political parties across Europe (poverty, unemployment, loss of social identity and austerity, that same magical combination that existed in the 1930s).
    It opposes human rights (most worryingly the right to free speech), is unashamedly federalist, and actively hates democracy.
    Its environmental policies are also disastrous, with its policies on supplementing gasoline with biofuels adding an estimated fifty million cars worth of CO2 to the atmosphere.
    The free movement of people is also causing a serious talent leech from the poorer nations within the EU as their doctors and nurses go to work here, rather than staying at home to help their own populations.
    The free movement offered by the EU causes an active humanitarian crisis as economic migrants (which the mainstream media may also call "refugees") are lured here at great personal risk to take advantage of EU welfare states rather than obeying international law and safely fleeing to neighbouring countries for asylum.
    The TTIP it's working on with the US threatens to give corporations the power to sue the governments of the EU for monopolies. Such as any nationalised industries, including the health services.
    France is currently under martial law, and desperately needs to control its borders and get its business in order before it collapses into a super recession.
    The EU and Germany's merciless policy towards Greece is killing the country, and its citizens are starving to death.

    By leaving the EU Britain both supplies a clear example to other nations that it can be done and a willing trading partner to protect them from EU bullying. It also makes it more likely that the EU will collapse before somebody has to elect Hitler II or manages to successfully implement communism, both of which would be terrible for everyone.

    Most importantly, the needs of the many do not outweigh the needs of the few, and it is grossly irresponsible to decree that the people of Britain should suffer so that the rest of the EU might benefit from its membership fees and vibrant consumerist marketplace.
    Before the wellbeing of all the other countries in the EU. Before global security which profits from a strong, united democratic block of countries.
    Global security would be NATO's department, and in Europe only the UK and France honour their spending commitments. The UK's capacity to enforce global security is not improved by being a member of the EU, and the EU's plan to have its own army is questionable at best in terms of how it would be led.
    Never mind that I am confident that their belief that they have done themselves good is completely erroneous, it doesn’t change the motivation. Inward looking isolationism is the antithesis of everything I believe in – everything I identify with. I will not stand alongside those who support it.
    Your friend should try actually researching this. The EU serves to suppress global trade and immigration. It is highly protectionist and has a terrible track record of actually managing to arrange trade deals with the rest of the world.

    Meanwhile, right after Brexit, South Korea and India have both made positive noises about bilateral trade agreements with the UK, and Hong Kong wants to become a UK territory once more. Super isolationist.
    And I dispute the idea that I am being somehow anti-democratic by refusing to accept this. Democracy doesn’t mean that we sit back after the result, throw our hands up in the air and say ‘well I tried’. If it had been a General Election, the result would have come in and immediately we would have got right back to fighting our corner. Why should this be different? If those ‘leavers’ had lost the vote on Thursday, the arguments would have continued. Especially as the vote was so close. Especially as the vote was ‘advisory’.
    Indeed, why should it be different? If it were a general election you wouldn't ask for another general election immediately because you were mad the other team won. This was more decisive and democratic than any recent general election.

    That said, if I might remind everyone, the vote was heavily skewed in favour of Remain and would otherwise have likely shown an even higher majority in favour of Leave.
    People that could vote included non-UK citizens such as the Irish, who were demographically more likely to support remain.
    People are inherently psychologically risk averse, making your average swing voter more likely to vote for the status quo.
    A number of non-UK citizens also were invited to register for the vote, my American spouse included.
    The media favoured Remain, as did the government (and many other peoples' governments), along with government funded leaflets and a restriction on the campaigning of the Leave campaign for much of the run up to the referendum.
    A number of "experts" who were not in fact experts on that particular branch of economics pitching dubious worst case scenarios which are already being proven to have been false.
    A disgustingly exploitative campaign using a murder victim to demonise the entire Leave campaign cost them around 5% of support in the polls and served to artificially push the campaign into a Right vs. Left political debate.
    I am appalled at what just over half of the British electorate did on Thursday – and in equal parts ashamed and incandescent about the idea that those EU citizens living in this country, who are now suffering the fallout from the Brexit legitimisation of what, at best, can be called narrow minded and parochial attitudes to immigrants and non-white British citizens
    Completely ignoring the scientific proof that multiculturalism reduces social cohesion, increases crime, and reduces peoples altruistic tendencies, and that humanism is evolutionary suicide, immigration really is a problem, and it's nothing to do with race, but infrastructure.

    The United Kingdom simply cannot handle an influx of five million people per decade. That's two hospitals, six hundred hospital staff (conservatively), and around fifty thousand GPs a year. And around four hundred houses per day to house them all. And again, this also steals a large amount of vital talent away from other countries, who sort of need their own nurses and doctors too.
    You will, therefore, forgive me if I refuse to share the cup. Instead, I will continue to protest, in whatever way I can think of. I will sign petitions to call for further referendums. I will change party allegiance to whichever party will reverse this outrageous vote. I will point out, without cessation and to anyone who is prepared to listen, quite how mindlessly stupid this vote was, and in how many ways this vote was so mindlessly stupid, until something changes. Because if I don’t, I will have accepted that just over half of my fellow nationals can, with one (it would be so much better if I could believe that it was just uninformed) vote, persuade me to accept giving up on not all, but something certainly fundamental, about what I regard is at the core of how I try to live: open-minded, respectful, hopeful, inclusive acceptance. And accepting Brexit is inimical to that belief.

    I will not be gracefully standing down.
    Speaking of mindless stupidity, this rabble rousing will not achieve anything, from independence for your unsustainable micronation to a repeat of a referendum that no sane politician would dare repeat, because standing against a 52% countrywide majority is political suicide.

    Instead you may achieve perhaps two possible things.

    1: The politicians elect to call a vote of no confidence, collapse the current government, and call a general election. Multiple parties stand on the platform that if elected they will reverse the result of the refendum and stay in the UK. Meanwhile UKIP will stand on the platform of successfully negotiating the British exit from the EU and a massive net reduction to immigration to sustainable levels.

    UKIP is far, far more likely to win with this platform, momentum from a pro-Leave campaign and a significant and growing majority in the country than the Conservatives (crippled), Labour (also crippled, with a historically pro-Leave party leader), or the Liberal Democrats (soulless political opportunists with a lot of people still mad at them from the coalition government). With a sizeable UKIP majority in the Commons, our exit from the EU will be harsher and more complete than would otherwise have been the case under the overwhelmingly pro-European parliament currently in place (which may even keep freedom of movement anyway) as well as being stuck with a UKIP government, which, depending how well they do, may stick around for several terms.

    2: Your continued agitating will perpetuate the atmosphere of political uncertainty, and with it the economic downturn, driving the country into an unnecessary recession and damaging the lives of all the people within the UK, the EU (who are already economically on the verge of collapse thanks to their reckless spending/borrowing policies and are suffering more than the UK as they stand to make the biggest loss), and the entire world.


    Maybe if your friend was actually open minded they would have considered researching both sides of the issue rather than assuming they were smarter and morally superior to seventeen million people?
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Pantalion said:


    2: Your continued agitating will perpetuate the atmosphere of political uncertainty, and with it the economic downturn, driving the country into an unnecessary recession and damaging the lives of all the people within the UK, the EU (who are already economically on the verge of collapse thanks to their reckless spending/borrowing policies and are suffering more than the UK as they stand to make the biggest loss), and the entire world.

    It is the vote to Leave that caused the political uncertainty, not the criticism of the vote to Leave. You are placing the blame on the wrong place here.
  • booinyoureyesbooinyoureyes Member Posts: 6,164
    I must say, it was fascinating viewing the referendum from afar, especially as I was writing a paper on the EU for a course I was taking through the night when the results were coming in. A welcome distraction from our domestic Trumpified political climate as well.

    I don't presume to know what is best for UK citizens, so I had avoided commenting on this thread until now, though I did enjoy hearing @Anduin 's take . However, since it has been a few days since the referendum, I feel more comfortable giving My Meaningless American Perspective.

    Looking at it from the outside, I'm a little shocked at the result. I had followed the debates for a few months now, watching the Sky News forums and from a news website I read regularly (called capx.co, which you should all check out) and it seemed like remain was the "safer" bet. I assumed that after the shooting public sympathy would also help swing the vote toward staying.

    Again, a little uncomfortable weighing in on someone else's domestic policy, but this is too interesting a topic for me to stay out (:p). From what I learned from the outside, I think I would have probably voted to remain if I was a UK citizen. However, I do share some of @Fardragon 's concerns about the EU's structure. Ideally, I think a Norway-style agreement would have been best, but the trade-offs in leaving seem to be too steep to make it worth it. That said, there was a detached and darkly curious part of me that wanted leave to prevail, just to see what happened.

    I have noticed that many remain people seem to callously dismiss leave voters' concerns, which is a little sad. I saw the same thing happen in the Greek bailout referendum, and having people so divided and unable to see the other side's perspective is a recipe for no good.
  • booinyoureyesbooinyoureyes Member Posts: 6,164


    Johnson now realizes he's going to be tasked with the mess he created, and is already equivocating and saying that they want a good relationship with EU, despite the fact that they are leaving it.

    How is that equivocating? He's been saying from the start that he'd still want access to the single market. Other nations (Norway, Switzerland) have similar relationships with the EU (though Switzerland doesn't have full access for its banking sector, which seems to be the most beneficial for the UK). Whether it is feasible or not is a different matter.
    Dee said:

    It's a joke to refer to the will of the people with a 52-48 split.

    Especially with only a 75% turnout.
    From what I understand, that is ten percent better than your general elections, yet no one seems to challenge their legitimacy.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited June 2016
    Polish immigrants are being harassed around the UK., some receiving cards in the mail saying, "no more Polish vermin". One Polish woman was told to get off a bus and “get packing.” A Polish man at an airport was told he “shouldn’t still be here, that we had voted to be rid of people like him.” And a Polish coffee shop worker was told “you’re going home now.” Muslims being told “get out, we voted leave.” In another incident, a white man at a grocery store shouted, “This is England now, foreigners have 48 hours to fuck right off. Who is foreign here?”

    This all sounded better in it's original German, no?? It's very clear that a sizable portion of the leave camp thinks this vote was a vote to get rid of immigrants, which is absurd from a humanitarian and logistical standpoint. It's the same thing we are seeing in the US with Trump. So I ask, what caused them to think this would be the result?? Is that to be blamed on the Remain side as well?? The fact is, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are demagogues, but they are also cowards who lack the courage of their convictions now that the onus has been placed on them.

    Meanwhile, 3.5 million people have signed a petition to have another referendum. How can that not be taken into consideration??
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @booinyoureyes I wasn't challenging the legitimacy of the vote, but the legitimacy of the phrase "the will of the people". Context, please.
  • joluvjoluv Member Posts: 2,137

    3.5 million people have signed a petition to have another referendum. How can that not be taken into consideration??

    As much as I wish another referendum would happen, I find the petition really unconvincing. Given that 16 million people just voted remain, and that voting is more of a hassle than signing an online petition, 3.5 million signatures isn't terribly impressive. Like, after the 2012 US presidential election, 22% of Romney voters could probably have been convinced to sign a "Redo the election!" petition.
  • booinyoureyesbooinyoureyes Member Posts: 6,164


    Meanwhile, 3.5 million people have signed a petition to have another referendum. How can that not be taken into consideration??

    So if 50 million people signed a petition for a revote after the 2012 Presidential Election in the US, we should have one? That sounds like utter nonsense. The vote isn't even legally binding.

    @booinyoureyes I wasn't challenging the legitimacy of the vote, but the legitimacy of the phrase "the will of the people". Context, please.

    @FinneousPJ
    Do people not consider results in democracy "the will of the people"? No president in the US has gotten as much as 54% of the vote in over thirty years, yet they all claimed to have a mandate.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @booinyoureyes The will of the people is clearly divided. The vote to leave is the will of 52 % of the people, but not "the will of the people".
  • Mr2150Mr2150 Member Posts: 1,170
    edited June 2016

    @booinyoureyes The will of the people is clearly divided. The vote to leave is the will of 52 % of the electorate, but not "the will of the people".

    ^^ Fixed that.
  • booinyoureyesbooinyoureyes Member Posts: 6,164
    I have never known the phrase "the will of the people" to demand unanimity, but this is becoming more of a semantic dispute. Unfortunately, democracy tends to be a zero sum game, and the pain of losing is amplified when a such a monumental decision is made. I don't like the result, but it doesn't seem right to deem it illegitimate just because its divisive. Then again, I don't have to live with the consequences as much as many of you do.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @booinyoureyes I don't think it was the will of the people. From the discussion here I think it's obvious. Feel free to disagree if you must.
  • Mr2150Mr2150 Member Posts: 1,170
    Another interesting article - a 'reality' check.
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137

    It is the vote to Leave that caused the political uncertainty, not the criticism of the vote to Leave. You are placing the blame on the wrong place here.

    Do not misunderstand me, I am well aware that this vote has massively, massively changed everything, and that voting to change from the status quo has caused instability. Now for the economy to recover the country needs to demonstrate stability and competence in the face of a globalist media desperate to portray them as anything but. Over-represented whinging millennials with a shaky grasp of democracy flooding social media and agitating for a do-over will achieve nothing but the perpetuation of that uncertainty.
    Mr2150 said:

    Another interesting article - a 'reality' check.

    The BBC prefers to ration out its "reality" in highly measured doses, particularly about this issue. Case in point, the same dodgy reporting that conflates the UKIP and Official Leave campaigns I've already debunked.

    Ultimately I'd imagine anyone who should be complaining about immigration possibly not being reduced should be the people who voted Leave for that purpose, while people who are complaining about Remain losing should be delighted that it apparently was nothing to do with xenophobia or racism since the same freedom of movement rules would apply.

    But if we're dropping doses of reality here:

    Brexiteers More Likely To Be Victims Than Perpetrators Of Intolerance: www.breitbart.com/london/2016/06/27/pro-eu-teachers-slur-working-class-brexiteers-narcissistic-selfish-racist/

    Leaked documents show that France and Germany really do aim to become a single United States of Europe: http://s.tvp.pl/repository/attachment/d/5/1/d51736df11c6ad23221e46543829f1df1467008961919.pdf

    EU decides that it should probably go on ahead with that EU army everyone said wouldn't happen:
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/06/27/foreign-chief-europe-needs-eu-army/
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/683858/EU-army-Brussels-diplomats-spell-out-plan-coordination-defence
    https://www.rt.com/news/348429-europe-united-army-brexit/

    EU decides that Free Speech is the least important speech: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1937_en.htm / https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/31/facebook-youtube-twitter-microsoft-eu-hate-speech-code

    “I do not take my mandate from the European people.”, the EU's determined policy of corporatism: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-didn-t-think-ttip-could-get-any-scarier-but-then-i-spoke-to-the-eu-official-in-charge-of-it-a6690591.html

    NATO confirms that Russia isn't actually a threat:
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-pavel-idUSKCN0Z616T

    A superstate that does not appreciate human rights or elections dominates much of Europe and places smaller nations under forced protectorate status. Muslims all across the continent are being put into camps while it creates an army to, apparently, disastrously invade Russia.

    I'd say it sounded better in the original German, but...?
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @Pantalion So you feel your human rights are being violated because you cannot incite violence against immigrants online? OK then.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @Pantalion Quoting facts with references is not hate speech. No one is suggesting facts should be censored.
  • joluvjoluv Member Posts: 2,137
    Pantalion said:

    ... www.breitbart.com ... www.breitbart.com ... Free Speech ...

    Pantalion said:

    ... Free Speech ... free speech ... free speech ... free speech ...

  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137

    @Pantalion Quoting facts with references is not hate speech. No one is suggesting facts should be censored.

    Really? Because there's a bit of a crime epidemic going on in Europe at the moment, and a whole lot of "don't talk about it, that's hate speech" going on. Try Germany: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1_rNT3k2ZXB-f9z-2nSFMIBQKXCs

    The way it is defined is any speech which "incites hatred or violence against a particular group". Like I said, "hate speech" is a very broad term, and highly open to abuse. What incites hate? What is hate? Who decides if something is hateful? The victim? The state? And is there balance? Where does it end? Do we support the law against inciting hate against Brexit supporters? Should the people saying Leavers are all racist jerks be arrested for their opinions?

    It would not matter if nobody were targeting factual statements over anti-hate speech laws, hate speech must be protected because history clearly shows the links between censorship and tyranny. For free society to persist it is more important to preserve the fundamental, inalienable human right of Free Speech than it is to prevent people's feelings from getting hurt.
  • Mr2150Mr2150 Member Posts: 1,170
    I think the debate is getting off track.
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137
    joluv said:

    Pantalion said:

    ... www.breitbart.com ... www.breitbart.com ... Free Speech ...

    Pantalion said:

    ... Free Speech ... free speech ... free speech ... free speech ...

    I'm sorry, was one of my eight sources from across the political spectrum too distracting for you?
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @Pantalion Hate speech isn't about feelings getting hurt. Hate speech is about protecting the human rights of others. You seem quite entitled to your rights, but mind you, you must also respect the rights of others.
  • dunbardunbar Member Posts: 1,603
    Only 37% of the voters voted Tory in the last General Election yet they are now The Government. Clearly then, if the EU referendum result was not democratic, neither was the GE result. Therefore Parliament must be dissolved immediately and we should carry on having General Elections until we get a result that everyone likes.
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137

    @Pantalion Hate speech isn't about feelings getting hurt. Hate speech is about protecting the human rights of others. You seem quite entitled to your rights, but mind you, you must also respect the rights of others.

    Yes, I am entitled to my rights. That is what a "human right" is, everyone is entitled to them. Note that I am also not opposing any other right:

    You do not have a right not to be hated.
    You do not have a right for horrible things not to be said about you.
    You do have a human right to say whatever you like, to gather with others to say what you like,

    Fact is, words do not interfere with the rights of others. Words are not violence, and repressing "hate" speech does nothing but push that hatred under the surface, where it cannot be challenged with reason, logic and truth. People must be protected from actions under their right to life and security, not ideas.


    @Mr2150 is right, we should probably bring this back to Leaving arguments, so I'll mention that even the EU agrees on Freedom of Expression: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights/human-rights-act

    Right in there, next to "respect for your private life, home and correspondence".

    Ultimately the restriction on reporting on serious and ongoing crime statistics also hinders the peoples' right to security and life by denying them vital information of dangerous areas and individuals.

    They just don't care.
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