Brexit

I'm sure every one has been having an interesting time exploring the rifts in their own family that this has highlighted. The age thing is a case in point.
My son in law was born to two immigrant parents and so feels especially sore about this and naturally thinks that the older generation are against him and that they were 'duped' by lies and untruths. But then he had no idea about the fact that the UK population were duped 41 years ago when we voted to join the EEC, a financial union, not a political one, and the fact that this morphed into its true self of the political EU at the Maastrict Treaty. In many ways the Referendum is 24 years overdue....we should have been asked before we signed Maastrict.
Perspective is an important facet of this. Thats only something the older voters can be expected to have.

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Originally Posted by Witton Park

It is also interesting that we have highlighted the case of "we didn't know what we were voting for" or "we were misled".
I do think that politicians have to be more careful.
The Leave bus for example - I know it was only a promotional display but it inferred that £350M more could be spent on the NHS when in fact in discussions this was never said.
The £4300 worse off made it look like we would be £4300 per household poorer by 2030 when in fact that was not the case.

But the population also need to engage more, as deeper analysis and discussion of those figures was carried out.
If you didn't really know, then you only had yourself to blame, and there is no reason to suppose that it was spread across both Leave and Remain voters, and probably very small in number as well.

I also think that the Leave voters were generally "firmer" voters. I think the Remainers were less firm liek Corbyn for example.
Let's face it almost everyone that wanted to stay wanted a reformed EU and could not sell the EU in its current form.

The BBC in particular as a public service broadcaster could have played more of a role in this. Rather than hosting these adversarial debates, they could have put on a series of informative programmes looking at how trade functions, what the consequences would be of leaving the single market, of trading under WTO rules.
They could have looked at current immigration policy, the possibility of better border controls, and ask how immigration from outside of the EU seems to be higher than the Tory Govt target as well - if controls can work why isn't it?
There were a couple of attempts that I saw, but they really were too simple and just repeated the debating points without the ranting.

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Agreed - there should have been much more education/explanation, and less confrontation. Unfortunately the media loves confrontation, and it is so cheap and easy to base programs on this, with members of the public queueing up to both take part and to watch.

If the lottery told you you had a 1 in 1,000 chance of winning, you could probably claim against it when it turns out it is 1 in 14 million - yet when politicians lie to us, we seem to have no choice but to accept it, as that is the nature of politics.

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Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever

I read that the turnout in the 18-24 age group was 43%!

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That really does surprise me. My daughters tell me that all of their friends voted (mainly, although not exclusively, for remain) and my younger daughter was really upset that she was just a month too young to get a vote.

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Originally Posted by Witton Park

I think the LibDems are undoubtedly being opportunistic. With around 6-8% of the vote currently, they are just trying to tap in to that 48%.

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A political party being opportunistic? How unusual!:p

But, say what you like about the LibDems, they are the only party led by a fell runner:
http://grasmeresports.com/index.php/...ides-race-2015 (171st position; and also in several previous years' running of this race).

Apparently the turn out in 18-24 was 36% of which 75% voted remain, therefore only 27% of 18 -24 voted remain, make of that what you will.

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Originally Posted by RaceTheSweeper

Ok new vote please. However in the interest of fairness there are pre-requisites as tight as a fell runners mandatory kit in his bumbag.

Really Britain? Is this how far we have come? Get a blooming grip and start working together. My family was divided on the vote. At no time during our discussions did we throw insults at each other. At no time since the result have we thrown insults at each other. It's democracy! What scares me most is the hard line "In" voters that are hell bent on Britain failing regardless of what it will cost.

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Yes, I agree with RTS on this. The petition for a second referendum is ridiculous, and I hope Parliament treats it with the contempt it deserves. In a democracy, if the people vote Stupid, then it's Stupid we get. But it's still a better system than anything else that has been tried.

It would also be a disaster if there is too much dithering before the Article 50 process is started. Leaving us in a limbo with a declared intention to leave, but not actually doing anything about it, is what would really upset the economy - quite apart from the hard feelings it would generate among the 52%. But it's not actually clear that anyone in the Tory party (or anywhere else) actually has the guts to start Article 50.

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Originally Posted by anthonykay

Yes, I agree with RTS on this. The petition for a second referendum is ridiculous, and I hope Parliament treats it with the contempt it deserves. In a democracy, if the people vote Stupid, then it's Stupid we get. But it's still a better system than anything else that has been tried.

It would also be a disaster if there is too much dithering before the Article 50 process is started. Leaving us in a limbo with a declared intention to leave, but not actually doing anything about it, is what would really upset the economy - quite apart from the hard feelings it would generate among the 52%. But it's not actually clear that anyone in the Tory party (or anywhere else) actually has the guts to start Article 50.

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While I tend to agree on this, the point is somewhat undermined by Farage's statement that a 52:48 result would not be the end of the road, at a time when he thought it would go the other way.

PS: auto-correct on my tablet wanted to change Farage into Garbage.☺

So it's looking like leave is going to push for access to the EU common market.

The precedents for what's required for this don't bode well for some. Paying for access, implementing eu laws and regulations and allowing free movement.

Good luck selling that one now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/wo...on-brexit.html

Not just family rifts but rifts at work too. Anyway who would have thought that one Man's arguments could render impotent the likes of Obama, Cameron, Blair, Brown, Major and Carney? Make no mistake Nigel Farage is the real giant of the political world not Johnson or Gove. They rode on his back and I still don't think they appreciate that without him they wouldn't be where they are now. We shouldn't forget that those two never lifted a finger to help him over the years, they just sat there quiet while he took all the flack. Now some are pretending he didn't and doesn't exist.

Nigel Farage used the same arguments continuously over a sustained period and in the end many of those who didn't like his manner were agreeing. That's what won this referendum: Consistency of argument. The remainers had no intellectual voices.

I just hope now the new conservative leader doesn't try and con us. If they feed us the same nonsense as the European Union then we need to come down hard on them.

As far as leaders are concerned I believe Boris Johnson shouldn't be prime minister. Based only on their arguments I rate Liam Fox and Daniel Hannan, though Muddy tells me the latter can't be Prime minister. Theresa May should be dust after her cowardly performance.

A second referendum cannot happen and anything geared towards pressurising for one is a waste of time. A referendum was held and there is a result we have to abide by. To go back on that would reduce us to the level of a corrupt African country run by the likes of Mugabe, imagine our response if a Mugabe held a referendum which he lost and then held another until it came out with the right result, we would be scathing - actually he has probably done that and worse!

The fault was Camerons (and party advisers) for not laying parameters to work to, such as: "Article 50 will only be implemented after the referendum if exit voters win by a majority of 20% or more". Or something on those lines, at least one would know a serious majority of the British public wanted out. As it stands we have a temporary PM, the opposition barely exists and Scotland (who took part) is trying to back out of the result, despite just having voted to stay within Britain.
If ever there was a need for a strong leader to come out of the woodwork and steer this country through this mess it is now. But I don't see anyone.