Hereward Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 8 hours ago, mormont said: Well, that 52% of them really disliked, at least. 48% were just fine with it. As Cameron, Hague, May, Corbyn (or so he claims) and yours truly all voted Remain, I think we can safely say this is not true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 31 minutes ago, Hereward said: As Cameron, Hague, May, Corbyn (or so he claims) and yours truly all voted Remain, I think we can safely say this is not true. Can we? OK, then, by the same token can we also say that the 52% sold on Leave weren't all completely unhappy with the EU? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 I'm sure there were some Leave voters who were protest voting, or were just genuinely frustrated by the status quo, or misunderstood the question, and of course there were a very wide range of views on what form of Brexit should take, but it is clear that not everyone who voted Remain was an EU enthusiast. Reluctant Remainers, Eurosceptics who wanted a looser EU of sovereign states, people who thought that leaving was their preference in theory, but not when the economy was already struggling and when still recovering from the Crash was a terrible moment, these are actual groups. This report from 2014 says that the figure for very positive, positive or fairly positive views of the EU puts the total at 30% in the UK, for instance. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb82/eb82_first_en.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo498 Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 9 hours ago, mormont said: Expertise, generally. You know, boring stuff like having read, written and published in an area, having experience, having your insight recognised by leaders in the field, and so on. Usually, experts are recognised as such because they've been proven right about a lot of things in the past (and that their conclusions are based on evidence). Being wrong about one thing does not mean they should be dismissed out of hand from now on. Most of us are wrong sometimes. Experts tend to be quite interested in finding out why they were wrong, by the way. Sometimes the media even invite them to come and talk about that. Unfortunately trusting expertise and self-correction in the face of awkward experiences does not work very well in fields like economics and political theory. Many (and especially the most prominent and publicly influential) economy experts were wrong in that they did not see the 2007/08 crisis coming (I am told that an econ "Nobel" had been handed out for "proofs" that such crises could never happen). And none of these experts lost their tenure or well paid government advisorships or whatever position and many of them are still touting the same wrong stuff that led to their blindness. So not trusting experts is perfectly justified in some of these fields. Which is a big problem because it leads to a general distrust also wrt to the experts who perform better or in fields that are not as biased and politicized as economy or political theory (because how should the layperson tell?) Thus general distrust and phenomena like Anti-vaxxers etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 1 hour ago, Hereward said: I'm sure there were some Leave voters who were protest voting, or were just genuinely frustrated by the status quo, or misunderstood the question, and of course there were a very wide range of views on what form of Brexit should take, but it is clear that not everyone who voted Remain was an EU enthusiast. Sure. In the same way that not every SNP voter is pro-independence, or not every Lib Dem voter is enthused by PR. Voting is like that. My main point is that despite the narrow margin, ever since the referendum the views of 'the British public' have been characterised in ways that suggest a uniformity of opinion that doesn't, in fact, exist. SeanF's comment is an example of that. It does no harm to remind people that in fact, 'the British public' don't have a single point of view on Europe, even now. 1 hour ago, Jo498 said: Unfortunately trusting expertise and self-correction in the face of awkward experiences does not work very well in fields like economics and political theory. Many (and especially the most prominent and publicly influential) economy experts were wrong in that they did not see the 2007/08 crisis coming (I am told that an econ "Nobel" had been handed out for "proofs" that such crises could never happen). And none of these experts lost their tenure or well paid government advisorships or whatever position and many of them are still touting the same wrong stuff that led to their blindness. So not trusting experts is perfectly justified in some of these fields. Which is a big problem because it leads to a general distrust also wrt to the experts who perform better or in fields that are not as biased and politicized as economy or political theory (because how should the layperson tell?) Thus general distrust and phenomena like Anti-vaxxers etc. This is just more collective blaming. 'Experts' are the new 'politicians', it seems: not to be trusted, but collectively responsible for every mistake made by anyone the person speaking cares to stick under the same nebulous umbrella with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 1 minute ago, mormont said: Sure. In the same way that not every SNP voter is pro-independence, or not every Lib Dem voter is enthused by PR. Voting is like that. My main point is that despite the narrow margin, ever since the referendum the views of 'the British public' have been characterised in ways that suggest a uniformity of opinion that doesn't, in fact, exist. SeanF's comment is an example of that. It does no harm to remind people that in fact, 'the British public' don't have a single point of view on Europe, even now. I accept that. But it is equally misleading to claim that the 48% were "just fine with it". I don't think that is remotely true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankytoes Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 13 hours ago, Maester of Valyria said: @mankytoes I understand your point. But the government should not claim that it has a (very slim and based on lies, but we've covered that before) mandate for Brexit and then completely ignore the NHS claim. The choice to join the Euro or not was to choose between picking an uncertain/possibly positive future and a certain, status quo future. We picked status quo, and in hindsight I agree that we were right to do so. However Brexit was the opposite: a choice between an uncertain and extremely risky future, against a status quo/now with enhanced benefits (Cameron's deal) future. The situations are not comparable because we chose the status quo in one and the uncertain future in the other. The economic logic that we 'know to be false' has been refined since the Euro vote, to take into account improved economic theories and the realities of the last few years. However that's not the point: the point is that the theories around the link between free trade and prosperity still stand and remain true (before you mention the people left behind by globalisation: yes that is a major issue but it is mainly a result of domestic policy failings, such as reduced benefit payments and inadequate supply-side policies to retrain and relocate workers). I very much wish you had been correct in all three of those predictions To take those points individually: Any large supranational organisation has inefficiencies. However all organisations strive for increased efficiency, and the EU does too. This is such a small part of what we gain from the EU: I wish that people would understand the bigger picture. Yes, we are a net budget contributor to the EU. However we gain far more than even our gross contribution (which is still less than £350m/week thanks to our rebate), thanks to the benefits of free trade, FDI, passporting, companies setting up here, freedom of movement (yes even that), etc. These benefits lead to reduced prices and increased consumer choice, a large and prosperous export market, cheaper holidays and travel, cheaper and more labour, more jobs (with the multiplier effect that comes with), increased taxation revenue, international influence... The list goes on. The EU has a problem with democracy. Everyone knows and admits that. However reform is possible, and we were ideally placed to get it. Cameron proved that one country was able to get unilaterally benefiting reforms in the face of near-total opposition. The demand for increased democracy in European affairs is growing in many different countries. We could have 'led the charge' against 'EU bureaucracy', but we had to go and throw it all away on June 23. Just to point out: the bolded description includes the likes of Farage, Johnson, Rees-Morgan, Duncan-Smith, Gove, Fox, and many other prominent Brexiteers. I agree, it would be great to see more NHS investment, but it's not likely with a Tory government. Ultimately, I think Tory voters, not Brexit voters, are responsible for health policy. That isn't how it was presented to us though. One prominent buisnessman (I will find his name if you want) in both the pro Euro campaign and the Remain campaign generally said we could lose over a MILLION jobs if we didn't join the Euro- Project Fear wasn't invented for the EU referendum. I don't disagree about rejecting the status quo though, that's one of the main reasons I thought we'd vote remain, British voters tend to be very small "c" conservative. You really have to push us to get us to make a big leap like this. We haven't voted against free trade though. Our economic culture is still very pro free trade. I think when you're wrong it's a good opportunity to educate yourself. I clearly didn't understand any of those voting groups fully. I'm still trying to figure out the Trump one, but I thought this video was as good as anything on the issue- 1. All I can say is that I've never got that impression. The continued existance of the parliament is Strasbourg can't really be defended, such an obvious efficiency improvement they refuse to make. And to be fair, British MEPs pushed on this, but the French would not budge. 2. It isn't like we didn't overwhelmingly trade with Europe before the EU, or that we didn't always have lots of immigration and emigration to the continent. It wasn't that long ago you didn't even need a passport to go to France. 3. My attitude to democracy is that I would rather not be in an anti-democratic union, get the procedures in order and then consider joining, not the other way around. Well yeah, and I don't quote those people much, I haven't said "Farage said this" or "IDS said this", because I don't really feel I oppose Europe for the same reasons as a lot of those people (especially Boris, who I think we all know is just a shameless opportunist). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Which Tyler Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38245646 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankytoes Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 52 minutes ago, Which Tyler said: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38245646 Ah, not good. On the other hand- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-08/mcdonald-s-says-tax-base-will-move-to-u-k-from-luxembourg-iwgc5sbe Money for nothing that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Horse Named Stranger Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 19 hours ago, Maester of Valyria said: Yes. Your point? People voted not for Brexit as a concept but because of the benefits that Brexit would (supposedly) bring: be that reduced immigration (which our economy relies upon), increased democracy (we could and should improve our own system before starting on Europe's) and sovereignty (which was wilfully misdefined and misused during the campaigning), or promises of connecting with the Commonwealth (as if this was the days of the Empire, and besides Theresa May's trip to India showed what the Commonwealth countries think of that). None of these benefits was trumpeted as loudly as the NHS figure, and to claim that that figure didn't influence the vote's result is incredibly disingenousat best and dangerously misleading at worst. I'll be back to answer the rest later: this one's all I had time for. So you say. My point is this. We have a result, which is a "fact" or "real" or whatever you want to call it. On the other hand we have interpretations of the result. I am not saying your interpretation is totaly wrong or something. But to give an interpretation of the reasons for result the same weight as the result itself is a bit disingenious. I mean there are probably several reasons why that many people voted to leave the EU. Was the NHS lie one? Most certainly. But I am quite sure, there were quite a few of the racists (who don't want to be called racists), who are afraid that their white Britain gets replaced by something else. (Which I find somewhat rich, given Britain's equally rich colonial history.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Which Tyler Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 http://www.shortlist.com/news/120-000-leave-voters-died-since-brexit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maester of Valyria Posted December 8, 2016 Author Share Posted December 8, 2016 @mankytoes Quote I agree, it would be great to see more NHS investment, but it's not likely with a Tory government. Ultimately, I think Tory voters, not Brexit voters, are responsible for health policy. Partial agreement: I agree that the Tories haven't done anything to help the NHS, and are in many ways responsible for the crisis it's in at the moment. However Brexit makes it even less likely that they'll be willing to throw some cash at it to keep the people happy. Quote That isn't how it was presented to us though. One prominent buisnessman (I will find his name if you want) in both the pro Euro campaign and the Remain campaign generally said we could lose over a MILLION jobs if we didn't join the Euro- Project Fear wasn't invented for the EU referendum. Is it ever? 'Project Fear' was used massively by both sides: Remain certainly scaremongered, but so did Leave, and arguably to a greater extent: "70 million criminal benefit-scrounging rapist Turks are coming, seal the borders"! Completely ignoring of course that we have a veto over new accessions, and there were many other examples. Quote We haven't voted against free trade though. Our economic culture is still very pro free trade. Haven't we? We may still be open to free trade agreements in the future, but we voted to cut ourselves off from the world's largest single market and all the extremely advantageous agreements we gained from it. Quote I think when you're wrong it's a good opportunity to educate yourself. I clearly didn't understand any of those voting groups fully. I'm still trying to figure out the Trump one, but I thought this video was as good as anything on the issue- That's a good video: I never thought of it that way before. I can never decide if Trump is genuinely as stupid as he appears or is actually playing a double or triple bluff (I can never keep track). Quote All I can say is that I've never got that impression. The continued existance of the parliament is Strasbourg can't really be defended, such an obvious efficiency improvement they refuse to make. And to be fair, British MEPs pushed on this, but the French would not budge. Bigger things that make the news tend to be harder to reform. All I can really say about Strasbourg (admittedly I don't know much about that particular case) is that apart from it being an old and complex building (just like our own legislative building) it doesn't seem to be that massively wasteful. If you have more information I would be very glad to read it. Quote It isn't like we didn't overwhelmingly trade with Europe before the EU, or that we didn't always have lots of immigration and emigration to the continent. It wasn't that long ago you didn't even need a passport to go to France. True, but now it's much easier to trade with them, and we're about to make it incredibly harder. As for immigration: in the current climate is it really going to be the case that Parliament will allow open borders if they're not forced to? Quote My attitude to democracy is that I would rather not be in an anti-democratic union, get the procedures in order and then consider joining, not the other way around. Ok, fair point. However like it or not we are (were, whatever) in the union right now, so we should try and use all of our considerable influence to reform it from the inside. Quote Well yeah, and I don't quote those people much, I haven't said "Farage said this" or "IDS said this", because I don't really feel I oppose Europe for the same reasons as a lot of those people (especially Boris, who I think we all know is just a shameless opportunist). I'm not saying you have: you seem to dislike all of that list, for which I am silently thankful . For the record, you're doing a much better job of promoting Brexit than any of them ever did. ____________________________________________ 5 hours ago, Notone said: So you say. My point is this. We have a result, which is a "fact" or "real" or whatever you want to call it. On the other hand we have interpretations of the result. I am not saying your interpretation is totaly wrong or something. But to give an interpretation of the reasons for result the same weight as the result itself is a bit disingenious. I mean there are probably several reasons why that many people voted to leave the EU. Was the NHS lie one? Most certainly. But I am quite sure, there were quite a few of the racists (who don't want to be called racists), who are afraid that their white Britain gets replaced by something else. (Which I find somewhat rich, given Britain's equally rich colonial history.) I'm not saying that the NHS lie was the only reason people voted Leave, but it was unarguably one of the biggest reasons. As for the racists: sadly they just keep on getting validated this year. And I also see the irony about complaining about immigrants when we colonised 1/4 of the world in the first place! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankytoes Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 1 minute ago, Maester of Valyria said: 'Project Fear' was used massively by both sides: Remain certainly scaremongered, but so did Leave, and arguably to a greater extent: "70 million criminal benefit-scrounging rapist Turks are coming, seal the borders"! Completely ignoring of course that we have a veto over new accessions, and there were many other examples. Haven't we? We may still be open to free trade agreements in the future, but we voted to cut ourselves off from the world's largest single market and all the extremely advantageous agreements we gained from it. That's a good video: I never thought of it that way before. I can never decide if Trump is genuinely as stupid as he appears or is actually playing a double or triple bluff (I can never keep track). Bigger things that make the news tend to be harder to reform. All I can really say about Strasbourg (admittedly I don't know much about that particular case) is that apart from it being an old and complex building (just like our own legislative building) it doesn't seem to be that massively wasteful. If you have more information I would be very glad to read it. Ok, fair point. However like it or not we are (were, whatever) in the union right now, so we should try and use all of our considerable influence to reform it from the inside. I can't argue that, I didn't think a lot of the campaigning was ethical or useful. Though Cameron had to do a quick 180 on Turkey, as he'd previously said how he wanted them in the EU. Not quite, we only voted to leave the political union, I've even heard UKIP supporters saying we should stay in the Economic Community. I'm certain he isn't stupid at all. I think that's the mistake we made. I think he's very intelligent. He's an ultimate politician in many ways, totally dishonest, totally manipulative with his language, very few pesky principles. Which is funny, as a big reason he got elected is that he isn't a "politician". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10565686/The-farce-of-the-EU-travelling-circus.html The EU estimate it costs £93 million a year, which is lower than other estimates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galactus Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 Not quite, we only voted to leave the political union, I've even heard UKIP supporters saying we should stay in the Economic Community. While I'm sure someone said that at some point, people have been saying a lot of stuff, that possibility still exists. It would however, require the continual contribution of funds to the EU budget, the usual arrangements regarding movement of labor, etc. Which decidedly does not jibe with either what your government has said it wants, or what a good chunk of the Leave-group campaigned on. We haven't voted against free trade though. Our economic culture is still very pro free trade. You did. Services and labour are part of trade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maester of Valyria Posted December 9, 2016 Author Share Posted December 9, 2016 17 hours ago, mankytoes said: I can't argue that, I didn't think a lot of the campaigning was ethical or useful. Though Cameron had to do a quick 180 on Turkey, as he'd previously said how he wanted them in the EU. Well yes, I think we're all pretty much agreed on this one. Although I'm guessing you've seen Boris doing yet another u-turn in the European Parliament? The arrogance of that little... 17 hours ago, mankytoes said: Not quite, we only voted to leave the political union, I've even heard UKIP supporters saying we should stay in the Economic Community. Farage et al lied when they said we'd be able to stop free movement and keep single market membership. And now most of the UKIP and other Leave politicians are saying we should sacrifice the latter to gain the former. 18 hours ago, mankytoes said: I'm certain he isn't stupid at all. I think that's the mistake we made. I think he's very intelligent. He's an ultimate politician in many ways, totally dishonest, totally manipulative with his language, very few pesky principles. Which is funny, as a big reason he got elected is that he isn't a "politician". Oh the irony...well, we're stuck with him for the next four years. Although I have never seen a President assassinated in my lifetime, and that is a recurring feature of history, so you never do know... 18 hours ago, mankytoes said: The EU estimate it costs £93 million a year, which is lower than other estimates. Thanks for the article. That is an obvious example of easily eliminated waste. Although I have no wish to defend that sort of tradition, I will point out that the EU is clearly trying to reform itself in this situation, as shown by the MEP votes. However the French government has a veto, which is shared by every other member state over important matters such as this, and which we are giving up by opting for anything less than full membership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 38 minutes ago, Maester of Valyria said: Farage et al lied when they said we'd be able to stop free movement and keep single market membership. Can you point me to where Farage said this? In February, in a debate with Anna Soubry, he made clear he did not want to remain in the single market. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/24/nigel-farage-accused-cover-up-consequences-eu-exit-anna-soubry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galactus Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 5 hours ago, Hereward said: Can you point me to where Farage said this? In February, in a debate with Anna Soubry, he made clear he did not want to remain in the single market. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/24/nigel-farage-accused-cover-up-consequences-eu-exit-anna-soubry To be fair, Farage was one of the few of the Brexit idiots who recognized this. It was the rest of the traitorous Tories who kept saying "We're going to have our cake and eat it too!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maester of Valyria Posted December 10, 2016 Author Share Posted December 10, 2016 23 hours ago, Hereward said: Can you point me to where Farage said this? In February, in a debate with Anna Soubry, he made clear he did not want to remain in the single market. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/24/nigel-farage-accused-cover-up-consequences-eu-exit-anna-soubry As far as I know Farage himself never explicitly stated that we should stay in the single market (proving that he either doesn't understand how interlinked our economies are or that he doesn't care), but he did say several times he wanted to move to a Norwegian-like system, and that he wanted to stay in the EEA. This is to say nothing of all the other pro-Leave politicians who said they wanted to stay in the single market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 10, 2016 Share Posted December 10, 2016 1 hour ago, Maester of Valyria said: As far as I know Farage himself never explicitly stated that we should stay in the single market (proving that he either doesn't understand how interlinked our economies are or that he doesn't care), but he did say several times he wanted to move to a Norwegian-like system, and that he wanted to stay in the EEA. This is to say nothing of all the other pro-Leave politicians who said they wanted to stay in the single market. It didn't come up in soundbites, but I think a lot of Brexiters expressed a preference for a "have your cake and eat it" position where they wanted to remain part of the single market but without freedom of movement, and if that was not possible they'd rather we go for a hard brexit and not be part of the single market at all. Whether they meant that or they said it as a gambling position is less certain, but I think there was a strong feeling from a lot of the Leave camp that membership of the single market was desirable but curtailing freedom of movement was an absolute red line that they would not budge on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaircat Meow Posted December 11, 2016 Share Posted December 11, 2016 Andrew Neill did a very good take down of that video. It is essentially a lie that the Leave side supported remaining in the single market: they did not. Farage, Gove and Johnson all came out and said we should leave both the EU and the SM. It is true they tended not to spell this out in so many words until pushed but their arguments about immigration control and self-government clearly implied leaving the SM as well as the EU. It can be argued that they deceived by suggesting a bespoke or 'Canada style' trade deal would be easy and would replicate most of the SM's benefits but it is hardly unusual for politicians to exaggerate during campaigns. Afaik Daniel Hannan is the only leading leaver who wants to stay in the SM. His position is actually pretty bizarre and if the leave campaign had been based on his ideas they would have lost badly.* *He may not support SM membership now, having trimmed his sails a bit ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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