England: Mr Bates versus the Establishment

It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.

Nope, none of that, … Just fear & ignorance.

= BreXenophobia.

It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.
Atleast they hold the fate of their own country in their own hands now rather than being held to ransom and propping up ■■■■ insignificant countries who can't run a budget.
It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.

Politics in general. Hopefully it goes well for them. Am I wrong to assume they were strong before joining EU anyway? Not old enough to really know.

It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.
Atleast they hold the fate of their own country in their own hands now rather than being held to ransom and propping up ■■■■ insignificant countries who can't run a budget.

Couldn’t disagree more - in this globalised world, national governments have relatively little control over economic matters. Much better to stay in regional blocs from where you can contribute to decisions that can make a difference. The £8.5b effective annual fee is pretty cost-effective for the benefits of regional cooperation, I would have thought.

I stand to be corrected here (YSBS?), but the regulations that Brits whinged about were mostly trivial rubbish like regulations on bananas and fireman’s poles. Oh, and immigration, of course…

It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.

Politics in general. Hopefully it goes well for them. Am I wrong to assume they were strong before joining EU anyway? Not old enough to really know.

Yes they were. For all people rubbish them. They gave us our system of government, our legal system, common law. They were the only bit of Europe left standing after the Germans swept through in ww11. They were kept out of what was then called “the common market” for years, which was the then EU trading block. They’ve done fine on their own in the past, they will be fine into the future.

I'm simple, some may have worked that out already, can someone give me the run down in like two or three paragraphs

Everyone who voted out is a racist stupid xenophobe that hates loves and everyone who voted to stay is a highly intelligent modern being and is in no way responsible for the way the result of this referendum has brought upon us the apocalypse.

It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.

Politics in general. Hopefully it goes well for them. Am I wrong to assume they were strong before joining EU anyway? Not old enough to really know.

Yes they were. For all people rubbish them. They gave us our system of government, our legal system, common law. They were the only bit of Europe left standing after the Germans swept through in ww11. They were kept out of what was then called “the common market” for years, which was the then EU trading block. They’ve done fine on their own in the past, they will be fine into the future.

They were cactus in the 60s and 70s economically.
I'm simple, some may have worked that out already, can someone give me the run down in like two or three paragraphs

Everyone who voted out is a racist stupid xenophobe that hates loves and everyone who voted to stay is a highly intelligent modern being and is in no way responsible for the way the result of this referendum has brought upon us the apocalypse.

Media. Power trippers. Idiots. Nationalism. Greedy Fat Prix … Clusterfcuk.

I doubt very much if the majority of the folks who voted had any real idea of what their vote meant. This is a win for narrow-minded nationalism and quite akin to shooting oneself in the foot. Both sides of the debate did nothing to help the cause. It was a vitriolic campaign and Cameron's gamble has failed.

On a side note I was listening to a radio interview with British retirees living in Spain. They were all voting “remain” since their free healthcare benefits in Spain could be at risk. When asked how she would have voted were she in England one retiree said that she would definitely have voted “leave” as there are “just too many migrants” in the UK.

Let the irony of that sink in.

The great irony of it all is that the UK aren’t part of the Schengen Zone and aren’t party to certain EU immigration policies, thus having full control of their immigration.

Can’t help this vote was a big FU from Baby Boomers bcz “furrnierz”

LOL

How did they get to a point where there was even a vote?

Because Cameron became beholden to the far right Tories. As someone said, he was all about tactics, no strategy. And he went so far as to say he would implement the outcome of a non-binding referendum. What good has that done him?

It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.

Politics in general. Hopefully it goes well for them. Am I wrong to assume they were strong before joining EU anyway? Not old enough to really know.

Yes they were. For all people rubbish them. They gave us our system of government, our legal system, common law. They were the only bit of Europe left standing after the Germans swept through in ww11. They were kept out of what was then called “the common market” for years, which was the then EU trading block. They’ve done fine on their own in the past, they will be fine into the future.

They were cactus in the 60s and 70s economically.

Mind you, a fair bit of the reason for that is that they sacrificed their entire national economy to fight Hitler when everyone else was surrendering or standing aside as neutrals, had their industry bombed flat by the Luftwaffe and were the only west european combatant that DIDN’T benefit from US aid as part of the Marshall plan to rebuild Europe as a bulwark against the commies, and then (with a couple of relatively minor exceptions) willingly let go the colonial empire that had been the foundation of their wealth for centuries rather than fight brutal colonial wars against oppressed locals in order to hold on to it.

I have a bit of sympathy for the brits that voted out, even though I reckon they very may well have screwed themselves big time. I don’t think this was just a vote against the EU as such, it was a vote against the modern economic/political consensus, where multinationals get away with everything, where big corporations close their factories locally and make stuff in third world sweatshops and then incorporate themselves in tax havens to avoid giving anything back, where highly-paid shysters in investment banks break the economy on a relatively regular basis, walk away multi-millionaires, and then government after government tells the average joe that because of this, times are tough and health and education funding is going to have to be cut again. Where ‘efficiency’ demands that your pay is frozen again (assuming you haven’t been restructured as short-term contractors already), and your employer is not taking on graduates or apprenticeships this year so your 18yo kid had just better learn to serve fries, but the CEO will get a seven figure bonus regardless. Where your kid can’t get a job but the construction companies are still bringing in cheapie foreign labour and agitating to bring in more. It was a vote by those who have lost under the modern economic consensus against those who have won. And frankly the political/economic/journalistic classes only have themselves to blame, since these fault lines have been visible in the UK since at least thatcher in the 80s, and nobody in power on any side of politics has taken them seriously. The same process has been very visible here, and I expect it to accelerate massively over the next 5 years or so as the car manufacturers (basically the last shreds of whatever industrial capacity Australia ever possessed) close down and people realise that those jobs are never coming back and not all of those tens of thousands of 45yo factory floor workers can join the ‘knowledge economy’ and become web designers or tech startup CEOs.

But like I said, I understand it but I don’t necessarily believe it’s smart or productive. It was a vote AGAINST stuff (quite a lot of which will not change EU or no EU) rather than a vote FOR any realistic vision of the future Britain looks like. I suspect very few people who voted Leave really considered the possibility of Scotland wanting out, or what it would do to northern Ireland, or even KNEW about the EU funds that they’d been benefitting from for years. I think I read an article about Cornwall, they receive some massive amount of EU money as an economically disadvantaged area, voted heavily in favour of Leave, and now that it’s been made very clear what they’re going to lose, are suffering serious buyer’s regret. My pom mates on FB are all despairing about this, and several of them have said that post-referendum they’d argued with their Leave-voting parents about it and the parents turned out to know very little about the EU and are now, once their kids stand to lose their jobs, quietly suspecting they might have made a bit of a blue. Far too late, of course, but whatever.

The big lesson, I think, is that in elections passion and emotion beats cold calculation every time.

■■■■ what absolute ■■■■■■■ inbreds the leave leaders are.

Lefties talk too much.

Lol. Not on my facebook feed they don’t.

Lefties talk too much.

you’re right

and trickle down economics works.

It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.
Atleast they hold the fate of their own country in their own hands now rather than being held to ransom and propping up ■■■■ insignificant countries who can't run a budget.

Couldn’t disagree more - in this globalised world, national governments have relatively little control over economic matters. Much better to stay in regional blocs from where you can contribute to decisions that can make a difference. The £8.5b effective annual fee is pretty cost-effective for the benefits of regional cooperation, I would have thought.

I stand to be corrected here (YSBS?), but the regulations that Brits whinged about were mostly trivial rubbish like regulations on bananas and fireman’s poles. Oh, and immigration, of course…

I wouldn’t say that any of them are trivial but generally I would agree that they are geared toward positive improvements for Europe. I think Europe is weakened by the vote which was an unfortunate impact of the vote but I had to weigh up what I perceive as a benefit to the country against a benefit to the region. Fishing quotas is a hot topic but I don’t think that changes whether or not Britain is in or out.

All I can really offer is the concept of that the CAS is operating in a similar way to the EU. It seems straightforward and OK to sign up to until they come up with something that you fundamentally disagree with.

The other concept of course is that the public can vote out someone who does them wrong now.

I found the following video quite convincing. Most of what the guy talks about is backed up by facts which has been a difficult part of the debate to sort out. I’m sure there are good counter-arguments but I couldn’t find them and the televised debates were a bit of a debacle.

Long read but a good one. This is my kind of angry/crazy.

"The easiest course to achieve that goal is simply to demonize those with little power, wealth or possibility as stupid and racist: this is only happening because they are primitive and ignorant and hateful, not because they have any legitimate grievances or because I or my friends or my elite institutions have done anything wrong. "

https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-latest-proof-of-the-insularity-and-failure-of-western-establishment-institutions/

It doesn't require balls, it requires a load of people going along with being promised stuff they ain't necessarily gonna get, whilst losing other valuable things in the process.
Atleast they hold the fate of their own country in their own hands now rather than being held to ransom and propping up ■■■■ insignificant countries who can't run a budget.

Couldn’t disagree more - in this globalised world, national governments have relatively little control over economic matters. Much better to stay in regional blocs from where you can contribute to decisions that can make a difference. The £8.5b effective annual fee is pretty cost-effective for the benefits of regional cooperation, I would have thought.

I stand to be corrected here (YSBS?), but the regulations that Brits whinged about were mostly trivial rubbish like regulations on bananas and fireman’s poles. Oh, and immigration, of course…

I found the following video quite convincing. Most of what the guy talks about is backed up by facts which has been a difficult part of the debate to sort out. I’m sure there are good counter-arguments but I couldn’t find them and the televised debates were a bit of a debacle.

It makes some reasonable points, but of course he picks his ‘facts’ carefully.

Why did he use a percentage (59%) for all UK laws decided by Brussels, but a number (72) for the number of times a law has been imposed on the UK without their consent? Perhaps because there are 75,000 laws in the UK, so 72 is less than 0.1% (and that number 72 is since the '70s I think, so that’s making the unlikely assumption that all these laws still stand).

And he doesn’t say what any of these laws relate to, and assumes all laws are of equal weight. In agriculture, trade and the environment, the EU has a huge amount of sway. But these are areas where cooperation is beneficial to all, so the ability to standardise laws across a bloc of countries helps everyone.

I imagine the EU would have little say in areas like health, education and welfare, which is arguably what many people based a protest vote on (that’s only based on anecdotal evidence and I haven’t tested whether that idea stands up to greater scrutiny, but I’m sure it will come out soon).

There’s a fundamentalist democratic argument that any laws imposed on a country by an outside institution are unacceptable. That’s a noble ideal, to be sure, but I would argue that all democracies are compromised to some degree. I would also argue that the benefits of regional cooperation, and the ability for the UK to influence and contribute to laws that ‘impose’ on other countries, far outweigh that.

Also, he portrays the EC as some form of mysterious, unaccountable, unelected group - and then he just briefly mentions that the European Parliament has to accept or reject their changes. Isn’t that essentially the same thing that happens in any democracy? The unelected civil service drafts laws, and parliament then accepts or rejects them? It might be slightly more centralised in Europe, but that would only be because of the huge numbers of countries making it unwieldy to do anything else.

On a side note, I hate how newspapers in the UK are advocates, not reporters. The last five minutes aren’t facts at all, but speculation, exaggeration, and nationalism. Sounded like ‘Make Britain Great Again’.