Brexit Day
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- & met with rocco forte a licky boom boom down active rich but you said you’d use butter charge of the light brigade eden annihilating idle richie eden smashing mr teas face he'll be tired by sunrise john's audit long john eden love me dog love me wife luka is a genius not the brexit i voted for petty and spiteful sex arse tycoon testicle growth the day john eden went full ukip the key to your stupidity tomato shortage pizza you brexit you buy it
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
There is something to this, I think, but it's a seductively easy answer and certainly far from the full story. For one thing, how did some of us break out of this mental prison and come to hold opposing views? I don't think it can be put down to sheer Nietzscheian force of will. And it's not just "some of us", either - most people are anti-Brexit, if opinion polling can be trusted (and this is consistent now for more than two years) and a majority voted against the incumbent government in the last election.
john eden
male pale and stale
I went for pizza (Italian! Metropolitan!) with my family yesterday. My Dad was wearing a union jack tie.
It will probably surprise nobody here that he is a lifelong Tory. But the only thing he has ever actively campaigned for is Brexit. He mentioned that he had been at Westminster on Friday as he saw it as a historic moment.
It's impossible to know how representative either he (someone with a PhD, in his seventies) or Stacey/Tracey are - of people who went to the celebrations, or referendum voters. But funnily enough only Stacey/Tracey made it onto the BBC.
Most people are not very politically articulate, especially when they've had a few beers and have a microphone pushed in front of them.
It takes most of us longer than the 30 second soundbite to make sense of what we're getting at. In fact even Jess Phillips had a problem with this at the Labour leadership hustings and that's her job.
But this feeds so easily into the culture war that it passes without comment.
It will probably surprise nobody here that he is a lifelong Tory. But the only thing he has ever actively campaigned for is Brexit. He mentioned that he had been at Westminster on Friday as he saw it as a historic moment.
It's impossible to know how representative either he (someone with a PhD, in his seventies) or Stacey/Tracey are - of people who went to the celebrations, or referendum voters. But funnily enough only Stacey/Tracey made it onto the BBC.
Most people are not very politically articulate, especially when they've had a few beers and have a microphone pushed in front of them.
It takes most of us longer than the 30 second soundbite to make sense of what we're getting at. In fact even Jess Phillips had a problem with this at the Labour leadership hustings and that's her job.
But this feeds so easily into the culture war that it passes without comment.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
I just walked past a girl who said “I’m 18 now, I know what brexit is what more is there to know”
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
But who can ever truly say that they know Brexit? For Brexit is the darkness in men's hearts.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The Brexit that can be named is not the true Brexit. Naming is the mother of ten thousand things.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I'd say Stacey and Tracey are much more representative than your dad. Attitudes to Brexit correlate very strongly with education level - I think something like 75% of people with a degree voted Remain while 80% of people with no qualifications voted Leave. Of course neither of those numbers is 100% so yes, you're still going to find PhD's who voted Leave and presumably also dinner ladies who voted Remain.
Out of interest, did you your dad ever go into the specifics of why supports Brexit?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Because I get that that is, really, the wrong question, and that Brexit was always about emotions and narrative, rather than facts and reasons. But you can't exclude the importance of facts, or of statements presented as facts, because these are what fuel the emotions. The notions that the UK sends £350M a week to the EU (and, implicitly, gets little or nothing in return), that Turkey is about to join the EU, that "freedom of movement" means we have no control over our own borders, and that we could easily and quickly make trade deals much more advantageous to us than those we have as an EU member were used by the various Leave campaigns over and over again, and people believed them. All of them are demonstrably untrue, of course. And these have all fuelled the animosity of people towards the EU.
And sure, not everyone is articulate or used to explaining why they feel a certain way to strangers with a camera and microphone. That's a wholly separate issue from thinking something that's objectively untrue, like the UK having laws forced on it by Germany.
If I'm in the minority that I think it's quite bad that we've made this momentous decision that will affect nearly all of us in negative ways - and that's without even considering the deluge of racism that it's unleashed - on the basis of flat-out lies, then so be it. But I think that's very strange and sad and it doesn't fill me with hope for the future. What happens when the real economic harm starts to hit, after the transition period, the EU won't be a viable target for blame and a lot of people will have forgotten about Brexit anyway, and there will be a need for a enemy to be identified? We really are already quite far down a potentially very dark path.
And sure, not everyone is articulate or used to explaining why they feel a certain way to strangers with a camera and microphone. That's a wholly separate issue from thinking something that's objectively untrue, like the UK having laws forced on it by Germany.
If I'm in the minority that I think it's quite bad that we've made this momentous decision that will affect nearly all of us in negative ways - and that's without even considering the deluge of racism that it's unleashed - on the basis of flat-out lies, then so be it. But I think that's very strange and sad and it doesn't fill me with hope for the future. What happens when the real economic harm starts to hit, after the transition period, the EU won't be a viable target for blame and a lot of people will have forgotten about Brexit anyway, and there will be a need for a enemy to be identified? We really are already quite far down a potentially very dark path.
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craner
Beast of Burden
I think the point that John was getting at is that there were lots of people, even before the Referendum campaign with all of The Lies, who did have legitimate reasons and arguments for exiting the EU. And in response you still basically say, "OK, Eden, apart from your Dad, most of them are Tracy and Stacey, duped by lies because they were too thick and/or racist to avoid doing otherwise. I'm sure your Dad is a lovely guy and all that, but he's accidentally triggered race war economic Armageddon."
john eden
male pale and stale
Exactly this.
His reasons for voting Leave essentially boil down to sovreignty/democracy. Also I think a widely shared view that the EU is an inefficient self-perpetuating bureaucracy.
john eden
male pale and stale
The capacity to blame the EU will be there longer than you think.
But the answer to this is the same answer that has to be given every time there is a financial crisis.
The problem needs to be articulated in terms of the system, and those administer it.
Efforts need to be made to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected.
Another world is possible.
luka
Well-known member
I started a thread about this for this reason but it didn't get off the ground.
IdleRich
IdleRich
It's become very common for supercilious leavers to undermine the arguments of leavers by taking the piss out of their spelling - but it's pretty cold when it's your own father.
The problem I have with that is that those things are very nice concepts but what do they actually mean in this case? And nine times out of ten, when you get people to elaborate on them you get answers much like in the video above which reveal that although people claim they subscribe to those great ideals they don't really understand how they apply here. I mean it's pretty undeniable that for the next year when the UK obeys EU law but has no input into making it, sovereignty is decreased. After that, well, it's debatable but certainly influence will be decreased and it's questionable if a minor increase in autonomy within a smaller sphere actually counts as an increase in sovereignty. If there even is an increase in autonomy. I could make the same argument with democracy of the EU relative to this parliament-poroguing, Russia-report suppressing Conservative government and the previous paralyzed parliament.
My reasons for voting Remain essentially boil down to sovereignty/democracy - so where does that leave us?
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IdleRich
IdleRich
Or another way of saying it... your Dad and those girls could be both be described as voting for Leave in the service of those concepts. Now I'm guessing that your dad has a more sophisticated analysis than them but the soundbite with those headline ideals groups them both together and that can't be good.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
Bloody hell rich!