Brexit - Time to scrap it and start again?

[QuintusSertorius]

What austerity? Greece has had austerity, the UK has slightly trimmed the public spending excesses of Gordon Brown, post-2000.

[Aexodus]

I beleive austerity led to Brexit, for multiple reasons.

The polls suggest that national sovereignty and migration were the driving factors behind Brexit.

https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/0...voted-and-why/

[mongrel]

I don't see a box for dodging the new EU anti-tax avoidance directive,which more skeptical people consider is the real reason why Brexit was emerging as an issue in late 2015 and why some very rich people poured money into the project.

I also doubt if I'm the only non-millionaire to have voted Brexit solely for personal gain.


For years our relationship with the EU was consistently a complete non-issue. Until Cameron offered the opportunity to kick his arse. It is really is obvious (see chart).


The main variables I would argue for ordinary people were austerity, manipulation of social media or dodgy money funding the Brexit cause. I could add that the Tories grandstanding on migration with their 'hostile environment' rather than do the hard work of imposing controls on EU migration as some member states did , ddn't help their cause.

What austerity? Greece has had austerity, the UK has slightly trimmed the public spending excesses of Gordon Brown, post-2000.

That's for another thread. But for more details, ask a severely disabled person, or someone dependent on benefits or a low-paid public service worker whose pay has either been cut or frozen over 10 years.

[QuintusSertorius]

Yet for years our relationship with the EU was consistently a complete non-issue. Until Cameron offered the opportunity to kick his arse. It really is obvious.

Were you not born before the treaty of Maastrict or something? The splits in the Conservative party over its ratification were "current" enough to make it into Harry Enfield and his Tory Boy character. That's about as mainstream as it could get.

The main variables I would argue were austerity, manipulation of soicial media or dodgy money funding the Brexit cause. I could add that the Tories grandstanding on migration with their 'hostile environment' rather than do the hard work of imposing controls on EU migration as some member states did , ddn't help their cause.

Are you for real? I was on Facebook during the campaign, every single thing I saw was pro-Remain. To this day Facebook remains (no pun intended) heavily pro-EU not least because of the demographics.

As for dodgy money, the Remain campaign outspent the Leave campaign. And benefitted from £9M of public funds for a leaflet campaign sent to every household. Then Britain Stronger in Europe moved money, data and people between itself and Open Britain, and thence to People's Vote, with nary a whiff of scrutiny.

Oh dear, you read Zanny Beddoes' rag? Once a proud publication, now nothing more than a Guardian-wannabe.

[mongrel]

Were you not born before the treaty of Maastrict or something? The splits in the Conservative party over its ratification were "current" enough to make it into Harry Enfield and his Tory Boy character. That's about as mainstream as it could get..

The chart no lie. Europe back then was an internal Tory issue. Everyone else had a life.

Are you for real? I was on Facebook during the campaign, every single thing I saw was pro-Remain. To this day Facebook remains (no pun intended) heavily pro-EU not least because of the demographics..

I can't take this seriously. Are you seriously suggesting that the infamous NHS bus and that dodgy migration poster featuring Syrian refugees were pro -Remain?

As for dodgy money, the Remain campaign outspent the Leave campaign. And benefitted from £9M of public funds for a leaflet campaign sent to every household. Then Britain Stronger in Europe moved money, data and people between itself and Open Britain, and thence to People's Vote, with nary a whiff of scrutiny...

Did they resort to breaking the law?. If the answer is no then they did not use dodgy money or data.

Oh dear, you read Zanny Beddoes' rag? Once a proud publication, now nothing more than a Guardian-wannabe.

Who the hell is he? What part of IPOS MORI commisioned by the Economist escaped you?

[QuintusSertorius]

The chart no lie. Europe back then was an internal Tory issue. Everyone else had a life.

Wrong, how do you explain major figures on the left like Tony Benn being noted eurosceptics if it were merely an "internal Tory issue"? There was also the matter of one Jeremy Corbyn, though he was just a no talent back bencher in those days.

I can't take this seriously. Are you seriously suggesting that the infamous NHS bus and that dodgy migration poster featuring Syrian refugees were pro -Remain?

Never saw either on Facebook, but then most of the people I know on there are Remainers, and they weren't sharing them.

The "infamous bus" which featured on TV more than anything else, and convinced no one.

Did they resort to breaking the law?. If the answer is no then they did not use dodgy money or data.

The biased Electoral Commission - half of whose board and CEO had to resign in shame over how unfit for purpose they were according to a High Court judge.

For someone who claims to be a Leaver, you sure do use a lot of Remain bylines and sources...

Who the hell is he? What part of IPOS MORI commisioned by the Economist escaped you?

She is the editor of the Economist, working hard at burnishing those SJW credentials and thoroughly deranged when it comes to Brexit; I guess you're less well informed than you like to imply. Pollsters do as they people who commission them want. They're more about shaping opinion than taking a barometer of it. Which is largely why so many of them have repeatedly failed to predict all sorts of electoral events.

[mongrel]

Wrong, how do you explain major figures on the left like Tony Benn being noted eurosceptics if it were merely an "internal Tory issue"? There was also the matter of one Jeremy Corbyn, though he was just a no talent back bencher in those days..

Because Labour politicians, particulary under New Labour, weren't obsessed by Europe to the point where it was all consuming.

The facts:

Callaghan fell- Winter of Discontent. Blair retired - Iraq, Brown fell - Financial crisis

Thatcher fell -Poll Tax, Major fell - sex and Europe, Ca-moron resigned- Europe. May's entire government is being destroyed by...Europe.

Never saw either on Facebook, but then most of the people I know on there are Remainers, and they weren't sharing them..

News for you, the world doesn't revolve around Facebook. I don't get Facebook posts on knitting or preparing Thai food but I know both exist. Relying on Facebook for your information leaves you confined to a bubble, as fodder for manipulation. Free your mind, not Julian Assange.

The "infamous bus" which featured on TV more than anything else, and convinced no one.

You have just called 42% of the population nobodies. When I say research before posting, I do mean it.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top...-nhs-1-5754245

The biased Electoral Commission - half of whose board and CEO had to resign in shame over how unfit for purpose they were according to a High Court judge.

The straight and honest answer is simply yes.

For someone who claims to be a Leaver, you sure do use a lot of Remain bylines and sources...

Thats because this thread is supposed to be evidence-based as far as is possible and unicorn free. I said Brexit was lucrative pour moi. For the vast majority its a massive kick in the fiscal bollocks. If there were many pro-Brexit sources that had a positive thing to say and were evidenced rather than ideologically based, I make use of them.

She is the editor of the Economist, working hard at burnishing those SJW credentials and thoroughly deranged when it comes to Brexit; I guess you're less well informed than you like to imply. Pollsters do as they people who commission them want. They're more about shaping opinion than taking a barometer of it. Which is largely why so many of them have repeatedly failed to predict all sorts of electoral events.

How the hell is the editor of the Economist, based in Canary Wharf, the heart of London's finance centre an 'SJW'? I can't make up my mind if your post is a stereotype or a parody. I'll let the forum decide. Selfish Brexit I get, I'd be a hypocrite otherwise, but ideological Brexit, where people openly despise businesses for daring to suggest it would affect them? That is messed up.Or have I got this wrong. is it the fact she is a successful woman that presents a problem for you, hence the ridiculous label?

[Muizer]

Pollsters do as they people who commission them want. They're more about shaping opinion than taking a barometer of it. Which is largely why so many of them have repeatedly failed to predict all sorts of electoral events.

The graph is based on these polls. I don't think the Economist had anything to do with them. They just used the results. Perhaps you can unearth a SJW in Ipsos mori for us instead, so we can comfortably continue to dismiss the data. Of course, they go back to the 70s, when things like sjw weren't a thing, so that may require a bit of mental gymnastics, but I'm sure you're up to the task.

[QuintusSertorius]

Because Labour politicians, particulary under New Labour, weren't obsessed by Europe to the point where it was all consuming.

The facts:

Callaghan fell- Winter of Discontent. Blair retired - Iraq, Brown fell - Financial crisis

Thatcher fell -Poll Tax, Major fell - sex and Europe, Ca-moron resigned- Europe. May's entire government is being destroyed by...Europe.

No, it's because many of those Labour politicians, for all their supposed issues with the "capitalist" (actually corporatist) European project were quite relaxed about the nascent Soviet Union clone developing across the Channel.

May's administration isn't being destroyed by Europe, it's being destroyed by her pathological lying and the inability of the Remain power bloc to simply cancel Brexit outright, even while pretending that's not what they're trying to do.

News for you, the world doesn't revolve around Facebook. I don't get Facebook posts on knitting or preparing Thai food but I know both exist. Relying on Facebook for your information leaves you confined to a bubble, as fodder for manipulation. Free your mind, not Julian Assange.

You said "manipulation of social media" was one of the major factors in the Brexit vote. Facebook is social media, I talked about social media exposure during the campaign.

I don't "rely on Facebook for my information" thanks for asking, I was merely sticking to the topic along the lines you raised.

You have just called 42% of the population nobodies. When I say research before posting, I do mean it.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top...-nhs-1-5754245

Ah yes, that impartial and objective source, The New European...

The straight and honest answer is simply yes.

How do you account for the recent travails of the thoroughly incompetent Electoral Commission?

Thats because this thread is supposed to be evidence-based as far as is possible and unicorn free. I said Brexit was lucrative pour moi. For the vast majority its a massive kick in the fiscal bollocks. If there were many pro-Brexit sources that had a positive thing to say and were evidenced rather than ideologically based, I make use of them.

Hardly "evidence-based" when you merely reproduce partial sources that support your biases. We could all play that game.

How the hell is the editor of the Economist, based in Canary Wharf, the heart of London's finance centre an 'SJW'? I can't make up my mind if your post is a stereotype or a parody. I'll let the forum decide. Selfish Brexit I get, I'd be a hypocrite otherwise, but ideological Brexit, where people openly despise businesses for daring to suggest it would affect them? That is messed up.Or have I got this wrong. is it the fact she is a successful woman that presents a problem for you, hence the ridiculous label?

Clearly you've never read the Economist, nor tracked the change in editorial agenda over the years. Never mind.

The graph is based on these polls. I don't think the Economist had anything to do with them. They just used the results. Perhaps you can unearth a SJW in Ipsos mori for us instead, so we can comfortably continue to dismiss the data. Of course, they go back to the 70s, when things like sjw weren't a thing, so that may require a bit of mental gymnastics, but I'm sure you're up to the task.

I don't need to "unearth an SJW at Ipsos Mori", I know the Economist, with it's recent conversion to the "progressive" agenda selected the poll that supported their particular biases. Until 2016 I'd been reading the Economist, often cover to cover for almost 20 years.

[Muizer]

I don't need to "unearth an SJW at Ipsos Mori", I know the Economist, with it's recent conversion to the "progressive" agenda selected the poll that supported their particular biases. Until 2016 I'd been reading the Economist, often cover to cover for almost 20 years.

Aha, perfectly good data becomes invalid once it gets cited by a source you don't like?

[QuintusSertorius]

Aha, perfectly good data becomes invalid once it gets cited by a source you don't like?

No, polling is generally worthless. Do any digging into the methodology, and it almost always comes back to a sample size of ~1600 people, which is tiny and easily manipulated.

[Muizer]

No, polling is generally worthless. Do any digging into the methodology, and it almost always comes back to a sample size of ~1600 people, which is tiny and easily manipulated.

I see so the whole Economist angle was just baseless invective.

As to your point about manipulation, this poll has been held since the mid 70s. I very much doubt this was set up with the intent of making a point about Brexit 40 years on. If there was any manipulation done here, the obvious suspect signal would be the increase of the weight attached to the relationship with Europe, not the previous decades of almost complete indifference. Is that what you're trying to say? That the Ipsos and/or the Economist conspired to manipulate polls to show a vastly increased concern about the relation with Europe?

Finally about sample size, sure if that results in an error margin that makes it hard to reliably predict a swing of a few percent one way or another. That's hardly the case here.

[Elmetiacos]

I rather think the reason for the sudden surge is that in 2015 the Conservatives won the election and people realised there actually was going to be a referendum on EU membership, rather than it being down to any propaganda effort by a cabal of super rich tax dodgers. I don't doubt there may be tax dodgers who supported the Leave campaign, but there is a much more obvious link in this case.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

At this point is it any wonder Guy said that Nigel might save Brexit?

This Brexit thing is beyond anything now.

Just LEAVE!

[Aexodus]

Well it certainly seems like Farage is leading the opinion polls. We were meant to leave in March and now its October and we have European elections? Quite a slap in the face. People who want a brexit, who didn’t get their Brexit, must be mightily frustrated.

[Elmetiacos]

Well it certainly seems like Farage is leading the opinion polls. We were meant to leave in March and now its October and we have European elections? Quite a slap in the face. People who want a brexit, who didn’t get their Brexit, must be mightily frustrated.

The Farage Party has 23% of the vote, and that's a poll immediately following the huge meeja fanfare that Mr. Showbiz always gets. The "Change UK" lot got over twice their current poll rating when they were launched, so I wouldn't hail Caesar just yet. It'll be interesting nevertheless. Batten's idiotic strategy of taking UKIP off to the fringes of streetfighting politics seems to have totally backfired, though.

[mongrel]

I rather think the reason for the sudden surge is that in 2015 the Conservatives won the election and people realised there actually was going to be a referendum on EU membership, rather than it being down to any propaganda effort by a cabal of super rich tax dodgers. I don't doubt there may be tax dodgers who supported the Leave campaign, but there is a much more obvious link in this case.

So basically it's Ca moron's fault.


I see from the Daily Mail that the damage infliced by Brexit on the Tories is almost terminal.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...new-party.html

[mongrel]

For those hoping that May would use the extra time granted to her wisely, I am going to disappoint you.


Jeremy Corbyn accussing the government of “just regurgitating what has already been emphatically rejected three times by parliament” .

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...nues-live-news

[Elmetiacos]

May is now so hated by much of her own party that they are wrangling over whether to change the rules on leadership challenges just to get rid of her early. It almost reminds me of Norway bringing back the death penalty just to shoot Quisling. I cannot see whatever they do now, that a serious split in the Conservative Party can be avoided: either May gets booted out and replaced by a hard Brexiteer, which could trigger more defections to the so-called ChangeUK group by MPs, but would damage any revival by Farage and/or UKIP... or she doesn't and local activists desert to them instead. It's either lose the right or lose the centre.

[NorseThing]

The sticking point is still Labor and Cobryn. They are in a dream world of walking the EU back into the old Common Market days. What Corbyn's terms for backing May on Brexit really mean | Politics ...

Germany wants and has been getting more political integration. PM May needs to honest about this. Either stay and accept some sort of United States of Europe or remain as the sovereign UK. Of course honesty on the political integration would mean looking at all international institutions as the EU is the member and the vote. Not individual pieces of the EU having their own votes. Looking at this may change all parties perspectives. Will the EU accept a single UN vote? A single IMF vote? and so on? Is Europe ready to accept this or do they want to play the Stalin ploy of 'independent' countries voting in the UN? The USA is not without sin here as well:

The USSR initially protested the membership of India and the Philippines, whose independence was then largely theoretical (being basically colonies of the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively, in all but name). A demand by the Soviet Union that all fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics be recognized as member states in the UN was counter-demanded by the United States that all then 48 states be similarly recognized. Ultimately two Soviet Republics (Ukraine and Byelorussia) were admitted as full members of the UN, so between 1945 and 1991, the Soviet Union was represented by three seats in the United Nations.^[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet...United_Nations