Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Tahuti]

Yeah, because a bunch of separate countries are going to have much better worker's rights when they all race to the bottom between each other to attract companies, than a big block which can at least impose some basic rights.

It's not only a matter of leverage; The EU has more leverage than Norway or France, obviously. The EU however has to cater to more diverging interests than Norway or France. Taking this reasoning to the extreme, one might make the case for the dissolution of France and have Paris and all of France's region gain independence.

 

[Arakhor]

1.1 million people have now signed an official petition calling on the Government to impose a 60% minimum barrier for successfully leaving or staying in the EU. Parliament must now set a date and debate the issue.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Well all told, I lost £4,000 in shares from yesterday. Thank you to the bigoted Englishman.

Yes because only a bigot would not care about your fortune shrinking slightly.

 

[Arakhor]

Yes because only a bigot would not care about your fortune shrinking slightly.

Given how much the stock market suffered yesterday, if he 'only' lost £4000, it was hardly a fortune.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

The point still stands. "My shares fell in value" is hardly an argument that's going to tug on the heart strings of the vast majority of people who do not own shares and don't even have £4,000 in savings.

 

[Arakhor]

I don't disagree!

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I do not believe that
but the thing is that the only way to make it reality is to get rid of EU

What ? Young people voted to remain because they are right wing ? The only way to get a Tobn tax is without the EU ?
That just doesn't make any sense. I guess a small country could pass a Tobin tax on it's own, but it would be pretty pointless.
Much of the moderate left is quite pro EU or indifferent, it's mostly the far right or far left that's anti EU. I consider myself a very left-wing guy overall, but I am also very in favor of the EU. Sure, it's not perfect and it often does shady and questionable stuff like negotiating CETA and TTIP, but I have no illusions that many national governments of Europe -the UK and Germany in particular- are worse, and left to their own devices would have already passed something like TTIP. For all it's faults, the EU does a decent job of mitigating the damage that national lobbies can do and preventing a race to the bottom in regulations and labor laws.

 

[Kyriakos]

1.1 million people have now signed an official petition calling on the Government to impose a 60% minimum barrier for successfully leaving or staying in the EU. Parliament must now set a date and debate the issue.

Not surprised. Yet a referendum is binding, while a petition isn't. And the parliament cannot easily vote to overrun a referendum (which it is effectively asked to do).

1 million people are a lot. Yet they still are only 1/60 of Britain's overall population.

(ps, note that your referendum was about staying or leaving the Eu, our own was about declining a deal. Of course the result of our own was also ruinous and turned, but it is not the same legal answer nor its effects; declining the deal meant declining the deal, leaving means leaving).

 

[Flying Pig]

Also, they're only about 4% of the approximately 23 million people who just lost the referendum.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

That just shows the sheer amounts of deliberate misinformation floating around in the campaign. Despite MegaTsunami's comments about he knew the £350m claim was a lie and couldn't see why I was annoyed by it, two main planks secured Brexit - immigration and that claim, which a staggering 40-something percent believed to be true.

In fact, that claim could never have been true, even if all the regional funding was retracted and given to the NHS, because that included the rebate, which of course is now part of all the special arrangements that have just gone up in smoke.

OK, fair enough, perhaps I was wrong in saying his claim would not be taken notice of. To me it was as much a fib as Cameron’s ‘it’s going to cost each of us £4000’.
Perhaps that’s human nature – people tend to believe a claim for cash that is supposedly coming in, but disbelieve it if they say it will cost us.

Well all told, I lost £4,000 in shares from yesterday. Thank you to the bigoted Englishman.

At the close of play yesterday, the FTSE100 was at the same level it was a week ago. And a lot higher than it was back in January and February.
And if you were gambling on a Remain win then you only have yourself to blame.

 

[Traitorfish]

Hahahaha. Sorry, but I think Cornwall can suck it. I'm sure there's a British version of Farm Boy somewhere now talking about how the liberal elite is screwing the rural voters over again, but this time they really didn't seem to have thought it through. Maybe making a more informed decision, at least grasping the immediate consequences of your decision, would have required too much dangerous intellect.

In all fairness, the request to maintain EU funding came from the Liberal Democrat-lead council, which is presumably pro-EU like their party leadership, rather than from the voters. They're not asking to have their cake and eat it- the LibDems didn't want the cake in the first place- so much as they're asking that the victorious Leave faction of the Conservative Party make good on their promises. I mean, if we set aside the cynicism, they were elected to administer the county as best they can, and that's what they're trying to do; that obligation isn't dissolved because a majority of their constituents turn out to be ungrateful morons.

 

[Flying Pig]

In all fairness, the request to maintain EU funding came from the Liberal Democrat-lead council, which is presumably pro-EU like their party leadership, rather than from the voters. They're not asking to have their cake and eat it- the LibDems didn't want the cake in the first place- so much as they're asking that the victorious Leave faction of the Conservative Party make good on their promises. I mean, if we set aside the cynicism, they were elected to administer the county as best they can, and that's what they're trying to do; that obligation isn't dissolved because a majority of their constituents turn out to be ungrateful morons.

I agreed with you until the bolded part. I think this sort of attitude is precisely why the Remain campaign lost. They assumed from the beginning that anyone wanting to leave the EU was stupid, xenophobic or in some way not as competent to make a good decision as their supporters. Small wonder that, even with the facts and the experts so heavily on their side, they failed to convert people.

 

[Traitorfish]

If we're talking about the campaign at large, you've got a point, but we're looking at a county which has just voted to bankrupt itself because Boris Johnson told it to. My description might not be very charitable, but it's not exactly wrong, either.

 

[AdrienIer]

Not surprised. Yet a referendum is binding, while a petition isn't. And the parliament cannot easily vote to overrun a referendum (which it is effectively asked to do).

Actually you're wrong. AFAIK the referendum was only consultative and if Cameron hadn't promised to apply the results whatever they were they could have just disregarded it.

 

[Arakhor]

Not surprised. Yet a referendum is binding, while a petition isn't. And the parliament cannot easily vote to overrun a referendum (which it is effectively asked to do).

Actually, this was only an "advisory" referendum, as there were explicitly no grounds for determining who would 'win' a dead heat. In theory, we could even have a change in government in favour of a party that explicitly campaigns to stay in the EU and have their leader claim that that mandate overturns the Brexit vote.

Perhaps that’s human nature – people tend to believe a claim for cash that is supposedly coming in, but disbelieve it if they say it will cost us.

It's somewhat in conflict with the findings in the video below, but then many of the Leave votes will not have been for economic reasons.


Link to video.

 

[Flying Pig]

Alternatively, we're looking at a country which put sovereignty and migration above GDP. More importantly, we're looking at a country that does not believe that it just voted to bankrupt itself, when it should have been absolutely child's play for the IMF, every major party, Barack Obama and all of Europe to win an economic argument against Boris Johnson on this matter. They didn't pick Boris because they're stupid; they picked him because they're broadly unhappy with how they've been treated by the sort of people who called them uneducated or bigoted for wanting to leave the EU.

Arakhor - yes, theoretically possible, but practically unlikely, I think. Cutting off over 51% of voters, plus those who think that referenda should be respected anyway, is a bit of a bold move!

 

[Arakhor]

Given how many people seemed to be calling the camps 'Fear' and 'Hope', I rather get the impression that some people wanted out regardless of any argument. Then again, Michael Gove claimed that people "were tired of experts", so if they're going to resort to emotional reasons, the argument is already lost.

 

[Traitorfish]

Alternatively, we're looking at a country which put sovereignty and migration above GDP. More importantly, we're looking at a country that does not believe that it just voted to bankrupt itself, when it should have been absolutely child's play for the IMF, every major party, Barack Obama and all of Europe to win an economic argument against Boris Johnson on this matter. They didn't pick Boris because they're stupid; they picked him because they're broadly unhappy with how they've been treated by the sort of people who called them uneducated or bigoted for wanting to leave the EU.

Well, I said "county", as in Cornwall specifically, not "country". I can't say I feel a lot more charitable to the rest of the country either, but I at least agree that there's some complexity to the outcome. But the Cornish don't seem to voted for anything but removing one of the major pillars of their economy without any clear idea of what's going to replace it, and it's hard not to wonder if people like that aren't just a few sticks short of a bundle.

Given how many people seemed to be calling the camps 'Fear' and 'Hope', I rather get the impression that some people wanted out regardless of any argument.

I was honestly never sure which was supposed to be which. Seemed more like "Project Money-Fear" and "Project Foreign People-Fear".

 

[FriendlyFire]

I wish we could have done the analogous last year, but we were in a very different situation (banks closed for a week and an economy ruined by 5 years of austerity)

Every other country had to undergo German style Austerity, just one of the countries happened to one the most corrupt, dysfunctional governments and a culture of tax evasion.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Every other country had to undergo German style Austerity, just one of the countries happened to one the most corrupt, dysfunctional governments and a culture of tax evasion.

I really get tired of saying this, but it seems I have to repeat it again:

Germany did not undergo German style austerity. Germany did stimulus spending. That's why Germany made it through the crisis largely unscathed. Every country that uderwent austerity saw a prolonged recession.