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Clear evidence that the government is bent upon repudiating the will of the British people.

You can hardly call it the will of the people Leon it was a deeply divisive vote won by by about 2%.

leon1122 wrote: ↑

Mon May 14, 2018 11:49 pm

Clear evidence that the government is bent upon repudiating the will of the British people.

Not really. The argument in favour of EU expansion hasn't changed much from our perspective. The greater the number of Eastern European voices, the lesser the strength of the Western EU desire for ever deeper union.

As for the Brexit vote, 17m voted to leave, 16m voted to remain, and 13m weren't fussed either way. If things haven't changed that's 2 to 1 more or less happy with the status quo. In terms of it being divisive, aside from those few political enthusiasts and social media warriors, I don't think many people are that divided by it in reality.

A 48%/ 52% vote is by any definition divisive. The fact that the conversation since the vote has essentially been 'well fuck the 48% and their opinions' suck it up and support Brexit even though you think it's a bad idea has just made it worse. Not to mention the fact that most of those that argued in favour of Brexit have decided they don't want anything to do with actually enacting it.

Brexit has been undeniably divisive.

Telamor wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 10:12 pm

A 48%/ 52% vote is by any definition divisive. The fact that the conversation since the vote has essentially been 'well fuck the 48% and their opinions' suck it up and support Brexit even though you think it's a bad idea has just made it worse. Not to mention the fact that most of those that argued in favour of Brexit have decided they don't want anything to do with actually enacting it.

Brexit has been undeniably divisive.

A large number of elections are close, but that doesn't make democracy divisive. The difference in opinion of the population wasn't created by the vote. It has always been around. The vote allowed these opinions to be expressed, rather than (as had previously been the case) just assumed that the people are mostly in favour of Europe when it comes down to it.

And frankly if you think that has been the conversation since you simply haven't been paying attention.

That ended a little more abruptly than I was intending

Still, I genuinely can't fathom how you think the remain voters are being ignored. As in the campaign itself they have by far the largest voice in the media. The government is being led by an instinctive remain voter who has ensured half of her cabinet is made up of people from the remain side. Labour MPs are overwhelming pro remain (even if Corbin isn't), as are the Lords who repeatedly vote against the government's Brexit proposals. Remainers are being exceptionally well served considering they lost.

At the end of the day if there was strong public support to Remain then Brexit would be over. The fact of the matter is that there simply isn't

As a Remainer/Remoaner, I wouldn't say that we are being ignored.

What rankles (for me) is the suggestion, continually pushed by Brexiteers, that they won and we lost. There was a vote - publically announced as non-binding and advisory - that came down (very) narrowly in favour of one view.

Of course, that arrogance from the Brexiteers is understandable since the subsequent suggestion that it was the democratically demonstrated will of the people that Brexit should occur is perhaps the single most undemocratic act ever foisted on the British public. The worst of it was that it was perpetrated by the Remain-supporting party leaders. I appreciate that they could not ignore the result. However, every thing that has happened since (and arguably before) - including that ridiculous General Election - has been about trying to retain Conservative Party unity, instead of being what is for the long-term best interests of the UK.

I still maintain, and have since the date of the Referendum, that there will be another vote before Brexit actually occurs. That might only be in Parliament, although it should be another Referendum in my view. However, whatever form it takes, the morally correct approach would be for that to be a free vote rather than one controlled by the Whips Offices.

It won't happen but I can still dream.

Yup. Let's just redo any election results we don't like./s

Of course referendum results are going to be close. If it was going to be a landslide, we wouldn't need a referendum. I'm sure you wouldn't be calling for a redo if the remain side had won by 2%.

The problem I have with the way Brexit is proceeding is that there hasn't been an opportunity for discussion. What should have happened after Cameron stepped down was six months or so for parties to hammer out their strategies for Brexit followed by an election with each party putting forward their holistic approach to Brexit. Whichever party/coalition won should then have triggered or not triggered Article 50. Instead Article 50 was triggered before we had even figured out what Brexit actually meant. Any attempts to discuss alternatives or variations have been shouted down as treasonous to the country or silenced with threats, (I will take the opportunity to remind everyone the Mail attempted to publish the names and addresses of 'traitor' academics that voiced their opposition to Brexit).

To address a few of your points Oct a remainer is in power because all the lead Brexiteers all baulked at the prospect of actually enacting any of their suggested Brexit policies and withdrew from the leadership race. May may have supported remain but is fundamentally a careerist that has now stapled her hopes to being the woman that brought Britain Brexit even if she still doesn't know what that means.

I'm terms of media Oct remain is and always has been outgunned on Brexit. The right wing press were all firmly pro-Brexit and the only Remain papers I can think of were the poor old Indy, the Grauniad, and the Star as far as I remember the rest of the press was Brexit. Let's not forget that Murdoch, the man we literally changed press monopoly laws in favour of, was and always has been anti-europe.

Most of the PLP and PCP are now whipped into general if somewhat ambivalent support for Brexit and Oct if there is one topic on question time, one area that sparks outrage on radio call in shows, or conversation down the pub that'll draw in everyone at the table and a few people from surrounding tables it is Brexit. We're in the middle of the biggest change to British politics, economics, and society in decades of course it's divisive.

@Leon I'm not calling for a redo, at least not yet. What I want is to have an honest national discussion about what Brexit is and how we envision Britain dealing with the fallout.

Telamor wrote: ↑

Wed May 23, 2018 12:01 pm

I'm terms of media Oct remain is and always has been outgunned on Brexit. The right wing press were all firmly pro-Brexit and the only Remain papers I can think of were the poor old Indy, the Grauniad, and the Star as far as I remember the rest of the press was Brexit. Let's not forget that Murdoch, the man we literally changed press monopoly laws in favour of, was and always has been anti-europe.

The Mirror was remain, as was the FT, Times, and Evening Standard. I dare say in terms of readership the leave newspapers had the edge, but let's not pretend that the papers have anything like the influence they used to enjoy. On the airwaves remain were well ahead, with all the satirical shows without fail being fully remain. Social media was also heavily remain, reflecting the demographics of social media users.

Each party has had ample time to develop a strategy. I think your problem is more that you don't like the strategies they've adopted. The Tories are pretty much unified in wanting to implement Brexit, but are split by what kind of Brexit they want or what's even possible. Labour's leadership wants Brexit, but they're quite happy just to let the Tories get on with it and criticise rather than offer their own vision, whilst the rest of the MPs want to stop it. In terms of Tory leaders, it was simply a case of none of the Brexit leaders having sufficient support to win rather than a reluctance to do the job. Gove lacked support because he's always been unpopular with the people, and Boris lacked support because he'd pissed too many people off in the party.

leon1122 wrote: ↑

Wed May 23, 2018 6:13 am

Yup. Let's just redo any election results we don't like./s

Of course referendum results are going to be close. If it was going to be a landslide, we wouldn't need a referendum. I'm sure you wouldn't be calling for a redo if the remain side had won by 2%.

The "leave" side would have. Nigel Farage very publicly pledged to fight for a re-run if there was a narrow "remain" Vote.

UKIP would have, certainly, but it is their reason for existing. Tory eurosceptics would largely have abandoned the referendum idea and gone back to arguing against further integration. I think the chances of a second referendum actually happening in the foreseeable future had remain won would have been pretty much nil

Telamor wrote: ↑

Wed May 23, 2018 12:01 pm

@Leon I'm not calling for a redo, at least not yet. What I want is to have an honest national discussion about what Brexit is and how we envision Britain dealing with the fallout.

The time to "discuss" Brexit was before the referendum, and it was discussed incessantly for many months. The remain camp was constantly spewing forth about all the horrific fallout that would come from Brexit, and it's clear that the British people didn't buy it. Honestly, you sound like the drunk cop in this video (https://youtu.be/D8WZteSmQkk), saying that we need to have a discussion when we already had this discussion before the referendum.

leon1122 wrote: ↑

Wed May 23, 2018 8:51 pm

Telamor wrote: ↑

Wed May 23, 2018 12:01 pm

@Leon I'm not calling for a redo, at least not yet. What I want is to have an honest national discussion about what Brexit is and how we envision Britain dealing with the fallout.

The time to "discuss" Brexit was before the referendum, and it was discussed incessantly for many months. The remain camp was constantly spewing forth about all the horrific fallout that would come from Brexit, and it's clear that the British people didn't buy it. Honestly, you sound like the drunk cop in this video (https://youtu.be/D8WZteSmQkk), saying that we need to have a discussion when we already had this discussion before the referendum.

And the leave camp promised £350m per week extra for the NHS. Where exactly is that money Leon?

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed May 23, 2018 10:30 pm

And the leave camp promised £350m per week extra for the NHS. Where exactly is that money Leon?

That's not true, as you well know. A prominent part of the leave side claimed (wrongly) that £350 was sent to the EU each week and suggested that the NHS could be better funded if it wasn't. A promise was never made to spend an extra £350 pw on the NHS. It was implied that a healthy portion of our EU bill would be better spent on the NHS, but it was neither a promise nor was any specific figure mentioned.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Thu May 24, 2018 10:02 am

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed May 23, 2018 10:30 pm

And the leave camp promised £350m per week extra for the NHS. Where exactly is that money Leon?

That's not true, as you well know. A prominent part of the leave side claimed (wrongly) that £350 was sent to the EU each week and suggested that the NHS could be better funded if it wasn't. A promise was never made to spend an extra £350 pw on the NHS. It was implied that a healthy portion of our EU bill would be better spent on the NHS, but it was neither a promise nor was any specific figure mentioned.

@Leon this is why your suggestion that the time for discussing what Brexit is was during the referendum. As neither side was an actual political neither side could make actual statements about what Brexit would look like or how they would enact it. In theory the debate should have been fought on the ideological issues of being in/out of the EU. In the end it wasn't but such as life. Once the referendum was concluded then the various parties, that could and would enact Brexit, should have put forward their various proposals and Britain could have voted for what kind of Brexit they wanted.

As it stands the Tories were to desperate to keep their grip on power and so triggered Article 50 ASAP. Which shutdown debate and led us to the state we're in now where the Brexit department denies their own reports exist and lie to parliament about their findings and the right wing press tries to invite another Jo Cox style attack on members of the public they dislike.

Accidentally double posted

I think we must be very careful about blaming the media for attacks, or accusing them of incitement to murder. A free press is critical to democracy, and a free press has to be free to express its opinion and paint people in a negative light. Strangely enough, the closest thing I've seen to encouraging an attack has actually come from left leaning arts and targeted figures of the right wing press. The musical "The Assassination of Katie Hopkins" went a bit beyond the pale. The newspapers themselves, whilst often distasteful, I don't think have.

The problem with your proposal, Telamor, is that it demands a general election with Brexit as the sole issue. That was neither possible nor desirable.

There is a pretty clear distinction between someone writing a satirical musical about a public figure and publishing the names and addresses of people you disagree with. I do not endorse calls to violence in the media and providing information to facilitate acts of violence is a whole new level of awful.