Brexit |OT| UK Referendum on EU Membership - 23 June 2016

Did you vote for the side that is going to win?


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Also what makes this different than when Scotland tried to leave the UK a few years back and it seemed to be overwhelmingly rejected. Why is this one so close?
Scotland was way too close for comfort as well. It was only 55-45~.

This one is close because of the refugee crisis and the nebulous "Islamic Terrorism". At least that's what I've seen most people who I know are voting leave focus on.
 
gove-boris.jpg

Wait.

Is that the guy from Predator 2?
 
Long time no post GAF - the worst thing about this is that the decision is going to be made by people who are completely clueless as to the ramifications and have taken no steps to educate or inform themselves.

My wife and I have had incredibly frustrating conversations with our parents in the last 24 hours where they evidently have no idea of any facts but will be voting with their gut that leaving is best.

I was explaining to my Mum last night how a lot of her expressed issues were internal UK political issues etc and she became visibly upset and said 'I don't want to think about it or talk about it now'. I bloody love my Mum, she is smarter than me and she has been a teacher and charity leader for the last 40 years, but she is burying her head in the sand :(

My wife was speaking to her Dad this morning - he's voting out because the EU is 'a godless institution'. Well, OK, I guess? (I'm a Christian too, but I don't think about the world like that) She asked what difference it makes if he lives in the UK which is also 'godless' in his terms. He said we have a head of state who is a Christian (the Queen). She pointed out the Queen has absolutely no power and authority over internal UK politics (other than ceremonially, obviously). Then he fumbled about how Germany will still want to sell us cars, won't they?

I'm sure they will, but obviously the best conditions for them to do that exist today, in the EU, so what's your point?! We are all going for a family weekend away on Friday with my in-laws and if we vote Leave on Friday I'm not sure how I will avoid the conversation over the weekend...
This is the problem, a largely un-informed population making a decision about an incredibly complex institution they know practically nothing about.

Does your average brit know the difference between a an EU regulation and a directive?

What is is the ECC?

Can they even find Brussels on the map?

(Not accusing your parents of this btw) ..Everyone wants to go back to the good ol' days, when the streets were paved with gold and there weren't so many brown people to offend the eye.


man, fuck this country.

#britishvalues
 
I think really the worst thing is that people like our parents will be voting based on the fact that our political class has failed to address perfectly valid fears about globalisation and changes in the modern world. People are voting so that things will 'go back to how they were' but that doesn't exist anymore.

My Dad goes on about how 'we stopped making things' with no insight into the fact that it became cheaper to make things elsewhere and our economy has moved on to have strengths in other areas. Listening to the radio it sounds like there are lots of people who feel this way and the complete absence of decent political discourse over the last 20 years to address and help people make sense of those changes has left a vacuum for the sort of sentiment we are hearing from Leave, which continues to leave people uninformed, but does make them fearful and defensive, so, great...

It isn't just that really. The West still produces quite a lot of stuff. It's just that doing so requires fewer and fewer humans. Compare an automobile factory from the 50s with one now.
 
So can someone explain things to an American?


Britain, if they leave would it affect Ireland? And is this for the entire UK?

Also why would it be so bad to leave the EU? Over here in America we aren't part of a huge union of countries, so is it a necessity for Britain to remain in?

Also what makes this different than when Scotland tried to leave the UK a few years back and it seemed to be overwhelmingly rejected. Why is this one so close?

Eire or Northern Ireland?, would have issues with border crossings for starters.

You are comparing a United States with 319 million people to the UK with 64 million, alone, we don't have the clout to trade effectively.

Scotland rejected it because they sensibly knew they would be better off together, it's close now because the leave campaign have effectively played on peoples fear of "brown people"
 
Side note - I'm quite amused that on mobile for pretty much the last five days the two mobile ads at the bottom of this thread during my browsing have been exclusively either

VOTE REMAIN - by the Labour Party

JOIN US - The Dark Brotherhood, Elder Scolls
 
Dont discuss politics, had this with my mum this morning, who is voting leave, when I explained that she should be voting remain, as she has a holiday house in spain, in her 80's and lives in a tiny villiage that has zero immgrants, and for her all ends up remain is better...

She could not see it, all she wants is what the UK use to be like, when i explained she would be long gone before any semblance of what the UK use to be is returned, she just could not see it....

People get set and no changing to be done

You are essentially advocating your mother ignore what you think is best long term for you and vote in her own self interest while hoping she loses? Have I read that right?

Edit: It seems like you are advocating radical self interest as the only metric on which to vote.
 
It's likely she's not thinking of what the UK actually used to be like anyway. This is a perpetual problem in politics I feel. People wishing for things to be as they were, where they don't have a clear recollection of what things actually were like, but have an idealized version in their heads. Kind of like how some people want to live in the 18th century after watching a costume drama set in the time.

To be fair, the few conversations I've been subjected to about this by more elderly neighbours is that they feel England isn't England any more.

The GP isn't English, the pharmacist isn't English, the milkman isn't English, the paperboy isn't English, the doctors and nurses aren't predominantly English, people don't care about each other any more, people don't go to Church any more, the country has lost its moral bearings and a few other things that aren't worth repeating.

I think that's what people mean when they trot that line out, at least from my experience.
 
To be fair, the few conversations I've been subjected to about this by more elderly neighbours is that they feel England isn't England any more.

The GP isn't English, the pharmacist isn't English, the milkman isn't English, the paperboy isn't English, the doctors and nurses aren't predominantly English, people don't care about each other any more, people don't go to Church any more, the country has lost its moral bearings and a few other things that aren't worth repeating.

I think that's what people mean when they trot that line out, at least from my experience.

So?

I really don't care if my GP is Spanish and my milkman is Polish, being "English" isn't a prerequisite for being a good person, I know some fucking abhorrent English people.
 
This is the problem, a largely un-informed population making a decision about an incredibly complex institution they know practically nothing about.

Does your average brit know the difference between a an EU regulation and a directive?

What is is the ECC?

Can they even find Brussels on the map?


(Not accusing your parents of this btw) ..Everyone wants to go back to the good ol' days, when the streets were paved with gold and there weren't so many brown people to offend the eye.

man, fuck this country.

#britishvalues

Haha, that's a teensy bit patronising. I think British geography is fairly good.

It does tie in to a larger matter (which you probably didn't intend) that on the whole British people don't feel that connection to the continent that perhaps other Europeans do. Geographically, we're of course very close, but mentally we're floating out in the north atlantic somewhere.

I think there was a line in Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a small island' where he said something along the lines of "If you tell an Englishman in London that he's closer to Cherbourg than he is to Sheffield you will get a confused look, and he will reply "Well yes, in a strictly geographical sense..."'.
 
This is the problem, a largely un-informed population making a decision about an incredibly complex institution they know practically nothing about.

Does your average brit know the difference between a an EU regulation and a directive?

What is is the ECC?

Can they even find Brussels on the map?

(Not accusing your parents of this btw) ..Everyone wants to go back to the good ol' days, when the streets were paved with gold and there weren't so many brown people to offend the eye.


man, fuck this country.

#britishvalues

You know our MP's aren't special right ? What you just said about the British public will equally apply to the fuckwit morons that become MP's. They vote on complex things that they know fuck all about (why should they educate themselves they are told to vote the way the party wants them too).

Seriously why does the remain side have a problem with letting the British public decide what it wants the future to be ? I am a leave voter and I fully expect leave to lose tomorrow but I am not screaming from the rafters at how the British public should not be allowed to decide what they want their future to be.
 
There is categorically no way another Government in my lifetime or my children's will let us have another Referendum

No. But it's basically saying that the EU can't go batshit because if it did, parliament can always leave. Which meand it most likely won't, we won't need to leave.
 
You are essentially advocating your mother ignore what you think is best long term for you and vote in her own self interest while hoping she loses? Have I read that right?

Edit: It seems like you are advocating radical self interest as the only metric on which to vote.

if big and small businesses vote by self interest, then one has to use that metric, whilst i would love to see the world as this one big hugging love festival the reality is so different...

if you look through this thread you will see copious of posts about their jobs at risk, their houses etc etc..

Me voting to leave because rightly or wrongly I believe the future will be better that way is fundamentally self interest as that is what I believe, if I voted to remain I would be voting for something I did not believe in
 
Haha, that's a teensy bit patronising. I think British geography is fairly good.

It does tie in to a larger matter (which you probably didn't intend) that on the whole British people don't feel that connection to the continent that perhaps other Europeans do. Geographically, we're of course very close, but mentally we're floating out in the north atlantic somewhere.

I think there was a line in Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a small island' where he said something along the lines of "If you tell an Englishman in London that he's closer to Cherbourg than he is to Sheffield you will get a confused look, and he will reply "Well yes, in a strictly geographical sense..."'.

it was facetious in part but it lends to my argument, and the points I stated, gauche as they may appear; the public is not informed enough to make this decision on merits of the facts of the matter.

That lack of knowledge is what allows both sides to spew lies. Lies that went unchallenged for so long many accepted them as truth.
 
You know our MP's aren't special right ? What you just said about the British public will equally apply to the fuckwit morons that become MP's. They vote on complex things that they know fuck all about (why should they educate themselves they are told to vote the way the party wants them too).

Seriously why does the remain side have a problem with letting the British public decide what it wants the future to be ? I am a leave voter and I fully expect leave to lose tomorrow but I am not screaming from the rafters at how the British public should not be allowed to decide what they want their future to be.
Because some feel that the public isn't informed enough to make this decision or are making it because of unrelated matters. Just look at the amount of misinformation that is going around about the EU.

People elect their parliament and have them make these decisions for them, in the hope they are more informed and will make a good decision. Now that might not always happen of course, that is true enough.

It is just strange to me that the public suddenly needs to vote about these matters, instead of just voting for a political party then that aligns with their views about it.
 
You know our MP's aren't special right ? What you just said about the British public will equally apply to the fuckwit morons that become MP's. They vote on complex things that they know fuck all about (why should they educate themselves they are told to vote the way the party wants them too).

Seriously why does the remain side have a problem with letting the British public decide what it wants the future to be ? I am a leave voter and I fully expect leave to lose tomorrow but I am not screaming from the rafters at how the British public should not be allowed to decide what they want their future to be.


There are chancer MPs on all sides, but most spend hours in committee rooms discussing the issues, debating and interviewing relevant people etc.

They don't know everything about everything, but they know a lot.
 

I'm just pointing out that's what some people mean when they say they want the good old days back. Their English doctor, English whatever, etc, Church to be a cornerstone of society again, etc, etc.

It's not that they are imagining an idealised past, they just want things to go back to how they used to be but don't realise that's a product of the times and a casualty to progress.
 
I'm just pointing out that's what some people mean when they say they want the good old days back. Their English doctor, English whatever, etc, Church to be a cornerstone of society again, etc, etc.

It's not that they are imagining an idealised past, they just want things to go back to how they used to be but don't realise that's a product of the times and a casualty to progress.

Yeah, AA Gill summed it up very well.
 
So can someone explain things to an American?


Britain, if they leave would it affect Ireland? And is this for the entire UK?

Also why would it be so bad to leave the EU? Over here in America we aren't part of a huge union of countries, so is it a necessity for Britain to remain in?

Also what makes this different than when Scotland tried to leave the UK a few years back and it seemed to be overwhelmingly rejected. Why is this one so close?

Its a complicated topic, and as you'd expect, what people say will happen depends on what camp they're in.

So to broadly address each point in a kinda neutral way:

The Republic of Ireland is the only nation that shares a land border with the home countries of the United Kingdom, and a great deal of trade and passage occurs across said border.

Yes, this vote is across the entire UK.

The chief arguments for why leaving the EU would be bad tend to centre around what influence we hold while part of the EU - economically and politically in particular - which is presumed by those arguing such is too great to lose.

The nature of the EU is kind of a strange and nebulous thing, but it is sort of like the United States of America, or is seen by some as seeking such an end goal, meaning the member (Sovereign) states would fall more into line with the American understanding of a state. This fuels the sovereignty argument for those who wish for the UK to retain ultimate authority over our laws.

Scotland seeking to leave the UK was different in a number of ways: Leave campaigners then sought to leave the UK but not the EU, had a political majority in their devolved parliament actively supporting the exit campaign, but also the Union they sought to leave was over three hundred years old, if not older if you measure it by the monarchy. An independent Scotland was a dream, not a living or inherited memory. The nature of the EU has changed relatively rapidly, both in size and in terms of function - my parents were just under ten years old when the UK joined the then EEC, and twenty years later that became the EU. So the history and cultural considerations in the two separate referendums are vastly different.
 
You know our MP's aren't special right ? What you just said about the British public will equally apply to the fuckwit morons that become MP's. They vote on complex things that they know fuck all about (why should they educate themselves they are told to vote the way the party wants them too).

Seriously why does the remain side have a problem with letting the British public decide what it wants the future to be ? I am a leave voter and I fully expect leave to lose tomorrow but I am not screaming from the rafters at how the British public should not be allowed to decide what they want their future to be.

I find it amusing that you say this considering your position is firmly 'fuck facts I want to burn this bitch down'.
 
if big and small businesses vote by self interest, then one has to use that metric, whilst i would love to see the world as this one big hugging love festival the reality is so different...


Me voting to leave because rightly or wrongly I believe the future will be better that way is fundamentally self interest as that is what I believe, if I voted to remain I would be voting for something I did not believe in

The only way to change the culture behind the bolded is to enable that change yourself. Vote against the self-interest and selfishness of Johnson, Gove, Murdoch et al. If you show them we aren't up for that selfishness, then things will change.

Of course, then you have to turn to Cameron, Osborne etc who all do the same thing. But hey. They're a marginally lesser evil than Gove etc.

if you look through this thread you will see copious of posts about their jobs at risk, their houses etc etc..

Uh... where? "Copious" at least is a huge stretch.
 
I'm just pointing out that's what some people mean when they say they want the good old days back. Their English doctor, English whatever, etc, Church to be a cornerstone of society again, etc, etc.

It's not that they are imagining an idealised past, they just want things to go back to how they used to be but don't realise that's a product of the times and a casualty to progress.

It's kind of funny to see that from different countries as well. All the regulation from the EU on local streaming requirements and the recent thing from Paris about Amazon all have to do with keeping things from changing. Nationalization has the side effect of integrating different cultural aspects into everything and that seems to scare a lot of people who didn't grow up with it. The cultural divide between generations is more massive then it has ever been.
 
You know our MP's aren't special right ? What you just said about the British public will equally apply to the fuckwit morons that become MP's. They vote on complex things that they know fuck all about (why should they educate themselves they are told to vote the way the party wants them too).

Seriously why does the remain side have a problem with letting the British public decide what it wants the future to be ? I am a leave voter and I fully expect leave to lose tomorrow but I am not screaming from the rafters at how the British public should not be allowed to decide what they want their future to be.

Charles my lad, almost every other day I get Leave propaganda through my letter box, leaflets full of lies, half-truths and toxic rhetoric sprinkled with hints of xenophobia and racism.

I respect your decision to make your decision, but I will not sanction deception and violation of the people's right to know what they voting for, especially when it is apparent they are being misled.

Your MPs can be voted out, every 5 years if not less for the Prime Minister, this decision will affect future generations, it is not one that can be made lightly.
 
...
Scotland seeking to leave the UK was different in a number of ways: Leave campaigners then sought to leave the UK but not the EU, had a political majority in their devolved parliament actively supporting the exit campaign, but also the Union they sought to leave was over three hundred years old, if not older if you measure it by the monarchy. An independent Scotland was a dream, not a living or inherited memory. The nature of the EU has changed relatively rapidly, both in size and in terms of function - my parents were just under ten years old when the UK joined the then EEC, and twenty years later that became the EU. So the history and cultural considerations in the two separate referendums are vastly different.

I'm from Scotland and have been shaking my head at many/most of the ignorant and/or biased Scottish independence referendum references in this thread.
This one, however, was a pretty decent explanation. Good job.
 
Seriously why does the remain side have a problem with letting the British public decide what it wants the future to be ? I am a leave voter and I fully expect leave to lose tomorrow but I am not screaming from the rafters at how the British public should not be allowed to decide what they want their future to be.

I don't think anyone has a problem with the vote itself - the vote is a great thing - but it's the rhetoric of the leave side which is problematic. Even worse: that this toxic rhetoric is given an oober-platform by Murdoch's empire.

It's always the way. And in terms of general elections, Murdoch's empire is the only real voter. They literally decide which party wins or loses the vote. What's to say it won't be different here?
 
a good line from the guy a yougov, incidental if you dont want to read the whole article, all the pollsters think a small remain win, that could easily be a leave win with turnout


Joe Twyman (YouGov)


“A lot will depend on turnout. Nearly 4 million people voted UKIP at the last election and it is likely the overwhelming proportion of them will walk across broken glass in bare feet to vote to leave in this referendum. The Remain camp does not have a similar group they can rely on to vote to the same degree. My prediction of a Remain win is based on the assumption that a large enough proportion of groups favouring Remain, such as younger voters and Labour supporters, actually make the effort to get to the polling station.
“And whether or not that assumption holds true will depend on the last few days – perhaps even hours – of the campaign.”


https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonar...-eu-referendum?utm_term=.rmeAkkQ2x#.owDlkkoW1
 
Scotland seeking to leave the UK was different in a number of ways: Leave campaigners then sought to leave the UK but not the EU, had a political majority in their devolved parliament actively supporting the exit campaign, but also the Union they sought to leave was over three hundred years old, if not older if you measure it by the monarchy. An independent Scotland was a dream, not a living or inherited memory. The nature of the EU has changed relatively rapidly, both in size and in terms of function - my parents were just under ten years old when the UK joined the then EEC, and twenty years later that became the EU. So the history and cultural considerations in the two separate referendums are vastly different.

I'm from Scotland and have been shaking my head at many/most of the ignorant and/or biased Scottish independence referendum references in this thread.
This one, however, was a pretty decent explanation. Good job.

Scot here, and seconded.
 
oh oh

Farage gets the best IpsosMORI satisfaction ratings in final poll before referendum


CljUeDqWYAE8YIk.jpg:large

Funnily enough I used to work for Ipsos MORI.

Six years of turning over surveys and getting people to take part - probably did tens of thousands of surveys in my time, including many of the monthly political poll (MPM) which likely generated these results.

After six years my conclusion was: Polls are stupid.
 
There are chancer MPs on all sides, but most spend hours in committee rooms discussing the issues, debating and interviewing relevant people etc.

They don't know everything about everything, but they know a lot.

Funnily enough I thought they just played candy crush in those committee meetings.

Because some feel that the public isn't informed enough to make this decision or are making it because of unrelated matters. Just look at the amount of misinformation that is going around about the EU.

Ok then if that is the case and the public isn't informed enough to make this decision when remain wins tomorrow can we declare the result null and void then ? What I see is a remain side shitting itself (unnecessarily) and bad mouthing Leavers just because they think they might lose.

I find it amusing that you say this considering your position is firmly 'fuck facts I want to burn this bitch down'.

Erm what facts did I say "fuck" too ? I already accept there will be an economic hit to leaving the EU. You would have to be a fucking moron to not accept that. I am voting to leave Europe because we DO NOT belong in it. The UK is not interested in the EU it just wants somewhere to flog it's shit.

You just have to look in here to see that most don't actually want to be in the EU they just don't want to lose all the nice shit that comes with being in the EU. The UK will eventually end up leaving EU, we might do it now or we might do it in 15 - 20 years time. I am hoping we do it now because it will hurt a hell of a lot less now than it will in 15 - 20 years time.
 
I was a little wobbly on your choice of the word "dream" - suggesting it was unattainable/a fantasy - but on the whole you done good

Apologies then. Meant more in the sense that it was an ideal that they were aiming for but did not have a direct link to or experience of, compared to how there are people alive today who do remember - accurately or otherwise - a UK outside of the EU.
 
I've read it. Play semantics all you want, the Government will not do this again (and I'm voting Remain)

All it is saying is one option is permanent, the other isn't.

It makes no assumptions about likelihood. It's saying that if parliament chose to, they could make us leave in the future without doing a referendum. That's all. No playing here at all.
 

cool

Apologies then. Meant more in the sense that it was an ideal that they were aiming for but did not have a direct link to or experience of, compared to how there are people alive today who do remember - accurately or otherwise - a UK outside of the EU.

Nah I got you! There was no precedent, basically, in living memory.
 
Ok then if that is the case and the public isn't informed enough to make this decision when remain wins tomorrow can we declare the result null and void then ? What I see is a remain side shitting itself (unnecessarily) and bad mouthing Leavers just because they think they might lose.
No, I didn't say anything of the sort. But that is a reason why I think a referendum for these issues is not the best thing to do. That has nothing to do with who wins, but just my opinion on referendums.

And seeing the figureheads leading the Leave side and the facts they are simply ignoring, can you blame people for making fun of them? It's not a good look, let's be honest here.

Good thing Major isn't deciding that. I mean, China could join next year and India tomorrow. It's all possible. It's just not realistic.
 
a good line from the guy a yougov, incidental if you dont want to read the whole article, all the pollsters think a small remain win, that could easily be a leave win with turnout


Joe Twyman (YouGov)

https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonar...-eu-referendum?utm_term=.rmeAkkQ2x#.owDlkkoW1

An interesting point discussed at lunch was what if it rains on Thursday? Even that could make the difference, in my opinion. I can see many Leave-voting oldies being all too happy to don a mac and traipse down to their local primary school / church / mosque in the rain (if they didn't vote by post a fortnight ago), whereas Remain-leaning young'uns would probably be more likely to stay in bed*.

*No offence to any young'uns in this thread intended
 
An interesting point discussed at lunch was what if it rains on Thursday? Even that could make the difference, in my opinion. I can see many Leave-voting oldies being all too happy to don a mac and traipse down to their local primary school / church / mosque in the rain (if they didn't vote by post a fortnight ago), whereas Remain-leaning young'uns would probably be more likely to stay in bed*.

*No offence to any young'uns in this thread intended

No rain forecast in sunny Leeds. Good times.
 
His generation fought against a unified Europe...

That's one disgustingly revisionist view of WW2. "Down with peace and unity, up with divisions!"

It's not saying that. Please read it carefully.

No, he's right. We can't hold referendums whenever we like. Even this one was done as a bit of political fixing to satisfy a faction of a single political party and then try and make them obsolete with what was thought to be a slam-dunk rejection of Brexit.
 
An interesting point discussed at lunch was what if it rains on Thursday? Even that could make the difference, in my opinion. I can see many Leave-voting oldies being all too happy to don a mac and traipse down to their local primary school / church / mosque in the rain (if they didn't vote by post a fortnight ago), whereas Remain-leaning young'uns would probably be more likely to stay in bed*.

*No offence to any young'uns in this thread intended

I think we all agree London will have a huge bearing on the result, so turnout there could be key (in numbers)

Rain on and off all day

Thursday
A mostly cloudy, warm and humid day. Although there are likely to be some brighter spells, there remains a risk of further showers, these again torrential and thundery.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2643743?day=1
 
I can see many Leave-voting oldies being all too happy to don a mac and traipse down to their local primary school / church / mosque in the rain (if they didn't vote by post a fortnight ago), whereas Remain-leaning young'uns would probably be more likely to stay in bed.

ಠ_ಠ
 
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