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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49810261
@Getafix
Yet people still proudly cling to the whole idea that Brexit is somehow going to make Britain "great again", which, by the way, is synonymous with more money for the state and fewer immigrants. Twisted chauvinism at large. Medieval politics winning from rational thinking.
But hey, as a teacher, I can appreciate the fact that people make terrible mistakes if it means they'll learn from that. Too bad these mistakes will come at a great cost.
How many immigrants would you take?
That's the crux of the issue I think, and that's why I don't really see the point in a second refurendum. Yeah people were tricked (how ordinary working people thought that Farage Johnson etc were somehow more in the same boat as them than immigrants on the same socio-economic level is beyond me), and it was a close finish, but all the relevant information was out there for those who actually thought it through, and in my experience those who have been tricked into voting leave still want to leave. They won't listen to reason. It's leave or nothing, so the result will just be the same imo. I understand why Labour has promised one as a lot of their supporters want one, and if there is one I'll be voting remain for the second time, but it is a bit of a pointless exercise in my opinion because I'm pretty sure leave will be the result again and I feel that in promising a second referendum at all they're just going to alienate the leavers even more. Think they'd have been better off saying no, we had a vote and we're leaving, but we're not leaving without a deal. That would hopefully be enough to swing it and claw some leavers away from the Tories, and at least then we'd know we were in a safer position in terms of negotiations.
Another point, if they do have a second referendum then they should lower the voting age. Teenagers who will be just starting to make their own way in the world over the next few years in the economy Brexit leaves us absoloutely deserve a say in this. 16 would be fair. If they're old enough to leave school, legally have sex and join the army then they're old enough to have a say in their own future. It was heartbreaking seeing how angry some of them were at our generation and older after the last result and to be fair, why shouldn't a 16/17 year old be allowed to vote while a 90 year old who will be dead in a few years can?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/meet-the-75-young-people-who-voted-to-remain-in-eu
Seems like the consensus among the younger people (y'know, the actual future of the country) was to remain. If the voting age was 16 I genuinely don't think we'd be in this mess.
Does it sound ridiculous? Well it sounds ridiculous to me that a section of the country that will never be affected by the vote decide on the fate of those who do and won't be alive to live through their decision at the ballot box.
Definitely. These two old biddies were being interviewed about Brexit on the radio the other week (think it was on five live, not too sure as there's a constant war over what we have on) and they couldn't even remember what they voted for. I said it to the lads at work then and I'll say it again, how is it fair that they were able to vote while 16/17 year olds can't.
Know what makes it even more of a joke? The Tories have been firm on the issue, saying the voting age for any general election or referendum should stay 18. But in their own leadership elections such as the one recently, they allow Tory members aged 15 and upwards to vote. Pure hypocrisy. How anyone still wants those wankers in power is beyond me.
Don't worry; we're taking our share. We'll take more if we must. What else can we do?
Nah, on October 31st, 5,5 weeks from now, it will all be over ;;). Then the secession of the UK from the European Union is complete. Then we can all go on with our lives again. The hard way most likely, but we can go on at least.
Boris Johnson only wanted to be the man in power when the UK gets out. He gets that wish...with a No Deal Brexit.
Except the farce will still be going on because we'll still have to negotiate trade deals, just from a much much weaker position. I think the hard leavers will be in for a shock when they realise this. Actually who am I kidding. They'll be just be annoyed that the polish shop near them is somehow still open despite their leave vote.
Yes, you are correct. But it will happen anyway in a few weeks. And we can't do anything about it anymore. The Brits want out of the EU. The EU did not want to push the Brits out. It's the UK that needs to realize that in an ever-globalizing world being alone eventually, in the long-term, makes your economy, thus your prosperity levels, weaker. It's the UK that needs to realize that the 'Brittannia rules the waves' mentality need to be dragged out of its culture once and for all. Brexit will speed this up.
In a weird twist...I am actually looking forward now to the secession of the UK from the European Union. But for different reasons. I think the best experiments and ideas thrive on a bucket of complete chaos. We saw that after WW II. And we see that now. Humanity gets the best pragmatic progress out of its own emotional chaos-inducing flaws. So The European Union might get stronger out of this mess, and also get stronger democratic self-consciousness amoung European mainlanders and Ireland. Eventually...in the long-term...some 15 to 20 years from now UK leaving the EU might be perceived as a blessing, especially for the European Union.
We have to depend on the EU being the sane ones in this argument. If they're just sick & tired of British insanity on this topic then the farce gets cranked up several notches. If they're willing to give reason another chance then perhaps there is still hope...
Of course, what do I know? I'm an American and we have our own brand of "Cuckoo for Coco-Puffs" going on...
What's wrong with that? If they should (unlikely) obtain a majority in the future House of Commons based on the premise (or promise) of revoking Article 50, I don't see a problem. It would only show, after three years of discussions, manoeuvering, lying, and not least getting an impression of what Brexit might do, voters have changed their mind since the referendum. And why shouldn't they? Voters are fickle, and they should be able to learn - instead of saying the same thing on Wednesday that they said on Monday, no matter what happened on Tuesday - to change their mind if circumstances so demand. Which is why IMO referendums, especially those requiring only a simple majority, are completely useless and actually dangerous for making important
decisions with constitutional ramifications. The tide may have turned the next day. Something like Brexit should be dependent on obtaining a two-thirds majority - such as actually voted for joining the (then) European Community at the time.
Time's up to blame other representatives or point fingers at them. Face Brexit in silence and endure the godforsaken chaos that has been caused mainly by bluffpokering leaders in the UK since 2016. It wasn't Jo Swinson who called for a ridiculous referendum. It was Cameron. And his successors, May and Johnson, show how completely gridlocked the UK Representative Democracy is -district system, winner-takes-all-.
Mod edit: once again, Gert, F-bombs aren't any less problematic if you replace certain letters by * or x. We all know what it means; hence we don't want any of it one way or the other.
I have no problem with what you have put. But the Lib Dems would not put it into the public vote? She would just revoke! Cameron opened a Pandora's box when he took the decision to give us the Referendum 3 years ago. So if the public have changed their mind then fair enough, but don't do the complete opposite without consulting the people like they all go on about.
In the end...you cannot have elections once every 6 months or a referendum every month. The big deal of representative democracies is exactly the word 'representative'. You chose during a particular election. However, the UK democracy needs to have chambers that represent the people in better fashion. If you get 25% of the vote and 60 seats, and your opponent gets 32% of the vote and a whopping 305 seats: that's the problem. That's causing a lot of your shit.
@GertGettler
A few days ago, a "disguised" F-bomb was mod edited in one of your posts. About a minute ago, a second one was too in this very thread. Now you drop an S-bomb, knowing very well that on this forum we will not tolerate that! Final friendly before we move to a warning.
I....I am so sorry. I....meant to say "That's causing a lot of your problems". I find it difficult in a topic like this to refrain myself from certain language, when the fact is that 'problems' are perhaps too mild to refer to that.
When I typed my previous message, I wanted to stress the hopelessness of it all, not to personally hurt a forummember in here. Having said that dear Dimitri, if you are interested, you can hear me in the Brexit Podcast tomorrow (NPO Radio 1, Dutch equivalent of BBC):
https://www.nporadio1.nl/podcasts/brexit-de-podcast
Again my apoligies. I have to get several warnings sometimes, as with these debates I can be pretty 'thorough' and 'direct' and I myself am used to that. No more S-bombs and F-bombs then. Perhaps easier then if I type it exactly like that?
And don't forget the EU has had plenty of warnings that a lot of people thought it was going too far and the EU was not democratic enough. We've had two referenda, in France and The Netherlands, both trying to stop the centralisation and bureaucratisation of the EU. But they wouldn't listen to the people of the EU, they preferred to push their own ideology, a European super state to 'compete' with the US and China. The Euro was pushed through as an experiment to see if politics could follow a montary union, something that up until now had only been done the other way around. The result is that southern European economies have been held hostage by the success of their northern counterparts, whilst the next crisis (coming to you in 2020) is accelerated by the 'free money' the ECB is pumping into the EU (and thus also Norrthern) economy. In the very productive countries this results in high debts and huge risk taking.
I don't blame the Brits for wanting to get out of this experiment. I blame the Conservatives, and the likes of Farage and mogg-reese-teaspoon or whatever his name is for their blocking of a Brexit deal.
I started searching a bit now Dimitri. I must be honest, this is the first time I am reading this. Knowing myself, it would have helped that upon my return, or in general when new members enlist here, they get an invite with exactly these details as a 'must read':
https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/18300/moderating-the-forum#latest
Thanks @DarthDimi for pointing this out. It really wasn't the intention to hurt people.
Truly wise words @CommanderRoss. I agree on most of it. Especially when it comes to ultra-right-wing (and ultra-left-wing) populists kidnapping the more pragmatic, workable solutions and instead prefer to implant pure chaos. It's damaging, and 'damaging' is then a very mild choice of words.
In all honesty, I can support a referendum for important matters like independence or secession. The Dutch did that in 2010 for example with regard to its overseas territories (Curacao, Bonaire, Saint Maarten, Saint Eustatia and Saba).
As you see, for upcoming complex secessions and independences, you have to negotiate a treaty. But even more importantly, you need to 'force' voters to think about not just a simple "YES" or "NO", but about at least four options. This hasn't happened.
But my resilience towards referenda go deeper. During times of social rest, uttermost welfare and prosperity, like in the 1990's, there seems to be no support for complex referenda that need to be preceded by at least years of government educational preparation in which every party wants to highlight his/her options.
Referenda nowadays only arrive on the table when uttermost social unrest and straightforward nasty xenophobia and underbelly-induced emotions are the driving forces for referenda (the 2000's, especially after 9/11): wrong. Totally wrong. This is what happened during the Dutch and French referenda about the EU 'constitution' (it wasn't even a constitution: it is here where the lies start bubbling up).
(Representative) Democracy for me is a lifestyle with strict rules, that runs through all my veins. It shouldn't be an instrument which solemn goal is to strengthen power or a playing card in a dangerous game of bluff poker...over the lifes of many countless souls. Too many times in history dangerous men have abused democratic instruments. You can say that's the nature of democracy. But I say it takes years, perhaps even centuries of education to make people understand that 'radical direct democracies' never were sustainable (look at ancient Rome). In the end you need to have a system of representation: 'representative indirect democracies'. Changes for such a system are now very much needed in the USA and the UK.
However, do not think that referanda, formulated in almost Eurovision-esque ways, are the solution of all your problems. Capitalism, limits to economic progress, greed and the inability to be self-critical towards yourself are the real things that ought to be tackled. Ask what you can do to your own situation to that respect. Don't do nothing in times of peace and wonderful prosperity, and then later during great social unrest starting to throw balls (or poisonous bombs) at the governments of your country.
So I don't blame anyone in a way. But I do think it's important to realize that everyone in the UK, from farmers to doctors, from factory workers to council members, and from ordinary Brits to leaders like Johnson, Corbyn, and Farage, have a role in what's unfolding as a destructive No Deal Brexit. Everyone. We have to understand that we are all parts in a larger system. So what Johnson is doing has consequences, but also what you are doing, for instance putting your signature under a bad mortage, has consequences. The financial crisis in 2008 didn't happen because one president executed bad policies. It's because we all indulged and used such policies as well.
;-)
And those still harbouring the absurd idea that Johnson is doing this for "the country" or "the people" - wake the up! This man has only ever been out to serve one thing - and that's himself. He is the most dangerous politician we've seen in the UK since Oswald Moseley in the 1930s and people need to wake up to that fact. Fast.
Whatever one thinks of Johnson (or Rees-Mogg, or Farage), he/they combined, aren't a fraction of the war mongering snake that was Tony Blair.
People don't care mate. They'll back him regardless because he wants us out by October 31st deal or not. Nevermind the damage leaving without a deal would do to the economy and how those ordinary people would suffer. Democracy will have been served and we'll be putting the great back in Britain. Laughable.
Meanwhile after years of the two parties being fairly interchangable, we finally have a principled, hard left social democrat leading Labour. Someone who actually wants to change things and has shown time and time again to be putting the working class first. We should be united in supporting Labour. Instead a lot of the working class hate him. Maybe he's not racist and Islamophobic enough for their liking, maybe they've been brainwashed by Murdoch's propaganda, or maybe they just don't understand the lengths that higher taxes for the richest in society will go towards fulfilling these "unrealistic promises" Corbyn has made. Or maybe they're just idiots, which I have no problem labelling anyone who's calling him a chicken for not calling a general election (he welcomed it in 2017 and he'd welcome it now, but wants no deal off the table first, he's putting the country first, not so hard to understand if you have a working brain is it). Or maybe because he's a terrorist sympathiser, I read in The Sun that he advocated talks and had meetings with the IRA in the 90s! How terrible! Even though that situation was resolved by bloody talking. Or maybe it's because he didn't sing the national anthem. Traitor! Treason! How dare he politely abstain from singing a song showering praise on the monarchy, a concept so unfair, embarassing and outdated that they've only lasted as long as they have by having next to no actual power anymore.
All I know is that I genuinely despise the British public for not giving him the support he deserves. I've never really been that much of a patriot but the last couple of years have made me genuinely ashamed to be British.