Brexited | the worst threads live the longest

Do you think there will be a Deal or No Deal?


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People listened but didn't care, they actually made several claims on that topic such as the UK being sovereign and therefore able to do what they want with their border and they also accused the EU of threatening the UK with the irish border issue in order to damage Brexit.

Either that or they just didn't understand which would not surprise me at all.
 
Either that or they just didn't understand which would not surprise me at all.

I'm sure many people don't and never understood but they also didn't try to understand and from what I have seen many refused any explanation attempts.
 
People listened but didn't care, they actually made several claims on that topic such as the UK being sovereign and therefore able to do what they want with their border and they also accused the EU of threatening the UK with the irish border issue in order to damage Brexit.

Sadly whenever Blair says anything, many people will just shout 'war criminal' (I joined in protests against the Iraq invasion as a 12 year old at the time, don't like the guy as a result but will listen when he is making valid points) without paying any attention to what he is actually saying.

But it's true that many of those who did listen just thought it was either another dose of project fear by the remain side and EU, or thought that it simply wasn't a significant issue.

The DUP campaigning to leave, and then a few months later writing a letter to May who'd just become PM setting out their majors concerns about the effects of Brexit on Northern Ireland, was also farcical. They have to shoulder plenty of blame for the mess as well.

And the Northern Ireland secretary at the time of the referendum, Theresa Villiers, doing her best to avoid all questions relating to how it would be impacted by Brexit while campaigning to leave, also stood out.
 
I'm sure many people don't and never understood but they also didn't try to understand and from what I have seen many refused any explanation attempts.

Yes indeed. To those of us who have obviously made an attempt to understand the vagaries, it is not that difficult.
But so many would not make the effort and just have to accept the outcome on face value.
 
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/12/is-brexit-working-four-key-tests


Is Brexit working? Four key tests
The UK’s economic performance and record on trade, migration and justice since leaving the EU will determine whether Brexit is a success


This article depresses me. It's fairly neutral and it's written by a professor of economics.
The only impression it leaves, which is an ongoing feeling, is that so many people in the UK have little idea what has been voted for and the consequences thereof. I presume as it's less than eighteen months since the UK left properly the realisation will eventually dawn on them over time.

Feels like the penny is finally dropping with an increasing number of people. After the bizarre silence over Brexit its once again heavily featuring in the news and with a negative slant even by formerly rabid brexiteer outlets.
 
Feels like the penny is finally dropping with an increasing number of people. After the bizarre silence over Brexit its once again heavily featuring in the news and with a negative slant even by formerly rabid brexiteer outlets.

Yes, people do seem to be more aware that it was a really bad idea.

However, even this professor doesn't really mention the new changes and laws being introduced over the next five years ,ends of grace periods etc. And still suggests that maybe it may turn out alright if they get more trade deals and that the increased immigration issue may not be so negative.

Which leads me to believe he doesn't understand either and he should.

When the penny really does finally drop, then what happens?
 
I wonder if over time, there will be a gradual increase in the number of people who voted to leave in 2016 but start to pretend that they didn't.

Currently a default answer when Brexiteers struggle to name tangible benefits of leaving, other than naming things that were perfectly possible when we were EU members, is something like 'freedom is priceless'. They are then unable to explain how we have more freedom now compared to before, especially as we have lost freedom of movement.

There were plenty of myths and untruths from the Lexit side as well. I remember when it was banded about and almost taken as gospel that Corbyn's and McDonnell's economic policies were incompatible with the EU. Labour's 2017 manifesto was audited in detail, and it was clear that EU law was no barrier to any of the 26 economic pledges in it.
 
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/12/is-brexit-working-four-key-tests


Is Brexit working? Four key tests
The UK’s economic performance and record on trade, migration and justice since leaving the EU will determine whether Brexit is a success


This article depresses me. It's fairly neutral and it's written by a professor of economics.
The only impression it leaves, which is an ongoing feeling, is that so many people in the UK have little idea what has been voted for and the consequences thereof. I presume as it's less than eighteen months since the UK left properly the realisation will eventually dawn on them over time.

I will have to look at it again but regarding exports and trade, years ago I believe that I made the point about the UKs stats being skewed by being a hub for the EU and people underestimating the fact that some of their exports weren't actually english exports similarly France being a hub many of the import and export statistic are merely down to France being a transit destination. That's the beauty of the EUCU, it made continental logistic easier by using convenient hubs but many politicians around Europe use them to make a point about their own country individual importance that isn't based on reality.

So to me the export data aren't puzzling, they make sense when you consider that the UK were part of a bigger region and often used as a port of entry or exit for the EU not just the UK, the same applies to Greece and Pireas.
 
Strangely enough, this year I've found that more people seem to be revealing that they did vote Brexit. Other people have been told that many members of their families voted Brexit that they were unaware of.

Myself, I've three school friends I've kept in touch with and I've known them for over fifty years - until this year we had never ever discussed politics and I made some casual remark about how stupid Brexit is and found out by chance that two of them admitted to voting Brexit. These are not stupid people and I get the impression that they were not into politics but just dragged along by the brexit hysteria and now don't really know why they voted for Brexit, there was a vague reference to refugees - I said you can't be serious.
 
I will have to look at it again but regarding exports and trade, years ago I believe that I made the point about the UKs stats being skewed by being a hub for the EU and people underestimating the fact that some of their exports weren't actually english exports similarly France being a hub many of the import and export statistic are merely down to France being a transit destination. That's the beauty of the EUCU, it made continental logistic easier by using convenient hubs but many politicians around Europe use them to make a point about their own country individual importance that isn't based on reality.

So to me the export data aren't puzzling, they make sense when you consider that the UK were part of a bigger region and often used as a port of entry or exit for the EU not just the UK, the same applies to Greece and Pireas.

Yes I believe I remember you saying so. The importance of the EUCU is completely lost on most Brexiters. No matter how many trade deals the UK conclude (I don't think there will be many) it will never make up to close to what the EUCU meant.
 
Strangely enough, this year I've found that more people seem to be revealing that they did vote Brexit. Other people have been told that many members of their families voted Brexit that they were unaware of.

Myself, I've three school friends I've kept in touch with and I've known them for over fifty years - until this year we had never ever discussed politics and I made some casual remark about how stupid Brexit is and found out by chance that two of them admitted to voting Brexit. These are not stupid people and I get the impression that they were not into politics but just dragged along by the brexit hysteria and now don't really know why they voted for Brexit, there was a vague reference to refugees - I said you can't be serious.

That is far from unusual. And you are right about Brexit hysteria.
Disliking the EU for no apparent reason was very normal. It became the thing to do so to speak.
Just like voting for Boris. Although I would say that of the people I knew who admitted to voting Tory, more did it because of Corbyn. Herd mentality has a lot to answer for. Because so few people want to think for themselves, preferring to go with the flow and hope it will be ok.
 
Feels like the penny is finally dropping with an increasing number of people. After the bizarre silence over Brexit its once again heavily featuring in the news and with a negative slant even by formerly rabid brexiteer outlets.

The problem is that since Brexit, there has been so many other things happening that take away the negative focus of no longer being in the EU from peoples perception.
And the reality is that many of them will flatly refuse to acknowledge their massive error of judgement.
 
That is far from unusual. And you are right about Brexit hysteria.
Disliking the EU for no apparent reason was very normal. It became the thing to do so to speak.
Just like voting for Boris. Although I would say that of the people I knew who admitted to voting Tory, more did it because of Corbyn. Herd mentality has a lot to answer for. Because so few people want to think for themselves, preferring to go with the flow and hope it will be ok.

But with Boris, even if most people knew he was a compulsive liar, long before he became PM and had uniquely his interests at heart, not the UK , not Brexit, nothing. At least , in theory, he can be got rid of. How can you reverse Brexit? It was a life changing decision that was taken far too lightly.
 
But with Boris, even if most people knew he was a compulsive liar, long before he became PM and had uniquely his interests at heart, not the UK , not Brexit, nothing. At least , in theory, he can be got rid of. How can you reverse Brexit? It was a life changing decision that was taken far too lightly.

Oh that is far too difficult for them to even give a second thought to. Just put a tick in the box and everything will be all right.
Now onto much more important things. What takeaway should we order?
 
Strangely enough, this year I've found that more people seem to be revealing that they did vote Brexit. Other people have been told that many members of their families voted Brexit that they were unaware of.

Myself, I've three school friends I've kept in touch with and I've known them for over fifty years - until this year we had never ever discussed politics and I made some casual remark about how stupid Brexit is and found out by chance that two of them admitted to voting Brexit. These are not stupid people and I get the impression that they were not into politics but just dragged along by the brexit hysteria and now don't really know why they voted for Brexit, there was a vague reference to refugees - I said you can't be serious.

The most surprising experience I've had with this was a very close family friend from Pakistan who works as a consultant surgeon in Birmingham and he voted Leave, and the reason he cited was immigration.
 
The most surprising experience I've had with this was a very close family friend from Pakistan who works as a consultant surgeon in Birmingham and he voted Leave, and the reason he cited was immigration.

Maybe he's now moaning about the shortage of staff in hospitals.

The best ones are the Brits who emigrated to EU countries, voted Leave and then had to return to the UK themselves.
 
Maybe he's now moaning about the shortage of staff in hospitals.

The best ones are the Brits who emigrated to EU countries, voted Leave and then had to return to the UK themselves.

I'm not sure and he's near retirement age now anyway. I was stunned when he said he voted Leave (for the obvious reasons) but it was my mistake to have assumed someone would vote a certain way because of their background.

And I have to be honest...when he explained why and described his typical weekly clinic, I was much more understanding of why so many people in England voted to Leave.
 
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Don't get me started on Andrew Neil but...the Brexit deal that was Boris's 'oven ready' lie, is now all of a sudden a 'Remainer's Brexit' - FFS!
 
Danny Dyer was certainly correct about Cameron. It was always clear that he was a politician who only thought about the 'here and now', including during election / referendum campaigns, without ever thinking about what would happen next.

We saw that during his ridiculous speech immediately following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, during the 2015 general election campaign, when he (orchestrated by Lynton Crosby) inflamed huge divisions within the country and countered the surge of the SNP by stirring up English nationalism, during the 2016 EU referendum when he banned civil servants from preparing for a potential leave outcome etc.

I like to refrain from saying 'I told you so' where possible, but as someone who was mocked for voting for Labour in 2015, I point out that the country would have been in far better shape had Ed Miliband been PM after that election instead of Cameron, with no Brexit and no Brexit paralysis (where important domestic issues were completely sidelined for quite a long stretch of time) for starters.
 
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Genuinely a bit emotional about that verdict. Been following the story since the beginning and following Carole on Twitter and have seen the effect it’s had on her mental health so on a personal level it’s brilliant news for her but it has far wider implications for journalism in the UK. Had she lost it would have been a huge huge step backwards. I don’t think people realise how damaging it potentially could have been. We’re talking the equivalent impact as Citizens United in the US.
 
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0012/220012.pdf

Although you knew they'd do it, the UK manages to get even more moronic than before. Reaching yet more new lows.

Airhead Truss has published the NI Protocol Bill. The legal advice is even more hilarious.

Any ounce of remaining trust in the UK evaporating fast. If this ever becomes law the UK is in big sh!t.
 
Danny Dyer was certainly correct about Cameron. It was always clear that he was a politician who only thought about the 'here and now', including during election / referendum campaigns, without ever thinking about what would happen next.

We saw that during his ridiculous speech immediately following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, during the 2015 general election campaign, when he (orchestrated by Lynton Crosby) inflamed huge divisions within the country and countered the surge of the SNP by stirring up English nationalism, during the 2016 EU referendum when he banned civil servants from preparing for a potential leave outcome etc.

I like to refrain from saying 'I told you so' where possible, but as someone who was mocked for voting for Labour in 2015, I point out that the country would have been in far better shape had Ed Miliband been PM after that election instead of Cameron, with no Brexit and no Brexit paralysis (where important domestic issues were completely sidelined for quite a long stretch of time) for starters.

I think that would describe most of the Tory party. The majority of them never seem to have any real goals beyond getting into and staying in power.
 
I think that would describe most of the Tory party. The majority of them never seem to have any real goals beyond getting into and staying in power.

Yes that's true. For the likes of Cameron, Johnson etc., politics has been a game, with them wanting to get the top job, and once there not caring about the impact of their decisions on peoples' day to day lives.

I've had debates with people about how much blame Cameron deserves. I personally think that even beyond the decision to promise / hold the referendum in the first place, he deserves even more blame that he has received. He arrogantly thought that he was a political genius and unbeatable n elections / campaigns after the 2015 GE win (as confirmed by numerous other people), his government's excessive austerity programme was a major reason why many people voted to leave, his campaigning style was terrible and overly negative, his previous ridiculous and undeliverable pledges to cut net migration drastically were a huge open goal for the leave campaign, his and his party's disgusting and vicious 2015 GE campaign had already inflamed big divisions in the country, he had spent 6 years as PM repeatedly criticising the EU and even blaming it for the effects of his own government's excessive austerity, he didn't do anywhere near enough to counter lies from his Tory colleagues on the Vote Leave side for party political reasons etc. I've always thought that enough people to swing the outcome voted leave, mainly to give Cameron (or him and Osborne) a kicking.

It was like he was a Vote Leave 'plant', with the aim of destroying the Remain campaign from within.
 
Yes that's true. For the likes of Cameron, Johnson etc., politics has been a game, with them wanting to get the top job, and once there not caring about the impact of their decisions on peoples' day to day lives.

I've had debates with people about how much blame Cameron deserves. I personally think that even beyond the decision to promise / hold the referendum in the first place, he deserves even more blame that he has received. He arrogantly thought that he was a political genius and unbeatable n elections / campaigns after the 2015 GE win (as confirmed by numerous other people), his government's excessive austerity programme was a major reason why many people voted to leave, his campaigning style was terrible and overly negative, his previous ridiculous and undeliverable pledges to cut net migration drastically were a huge open goal for the leave campaign, his and his party's disgusting and vicious 2015 GE campaign had already inflamed big divisions in the country, he had spent 6 years as PM repeatedly criticising the EU and even blaming it for the effects of his own government's excessive austerity, he didn't do anywhere near enough to counter lies from his Tory colleagues on the Vote Leave side for party political reasons etc. I've always thought that enough people to swing the outcome voted leave, mainly to give Cameron (or him and Osborne) a kicking.

It was like he was a Vote Leave 'plant', with the aim of destroying the Remain campaign from within.
I also remember his shtick of cycling to parliament every day and claiming he would run the greenest government we'd ever seen. Then he made Owen Patterson environment Secretary, practically banned on-shore wind farms, backed fracking, removed zero-carbon targets for new housing, scrapped energy efficiency schemes, and increased tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry. These tory leaders know exactly what to say to get into power, then do whatever they like once they are in power, all while doing everything possible to retain it.

I think Dyer was too kind to call him a twat.
 


What an imbecile. This is the issue with ideological purity, you eventually end up eating alive those who are 'less pure'. Even Johnson has betrayed brexit here apparently.

It's a real shame (on top of all the other reasons) that Covid and the war have come along in this way because it's going to give them a real cover to hide behind with regards to the economic damage.

Of course you can point to our trajectory compared to other similar countries but they'll still be able to hide behind it and still have a certain number of people who will believe it without question.

If those events had come just a few years earlier too, I feel like a lot of people would probably have seen brexit as an unwelcome distraction.

This is always going to be the case though. The 'EU question' was never going to be answered definitively as some idiots seemed to think with Brexit. Anymore than Mexico can ever answer the USA question or Australia the China one.

How close we are to the EU, our policies with regards to trade, defence, borders, migration, energy, everything, are always going to have to be a point of discussion. This was a reality that the Brexiteers never really wanted to think about.
 
Is there anyone in the 'caf left who supports Brexit? I stopped visiting this thread a few months back because, finally, the view that it was stupid seemed unanimous.

I assume nothing has changed.

Not sure the caf was ever a good place to get people who voted for brexit.

Think I can probably remember about 5 actual (serious) posters who either said they'd voted for it or would have done if they were back in the UK. Some have left, some are still here but rarely post in here anymore (I assume because they usually get a bit of a pile on when they do, which I must admit I'm also complicit in).

It's not really the right demographics.

Now the Spurs forum I used to post on (and left in large part in the end due to the disagreements over Brexit, as well as politics in general) very little remorse or feeling that it was the wrong thing. The demographics there on that particular board were quite different to here though.
 
I also remember his shtick of cycling to parliament every day and claiming he would run the greenest government we'd ever seen. Then he made Owen Patterson environment Secretary, practically banned on-shore wind farms, backed fracking, removed zero-carbon targets for new housing, scrapped energy efficiency schemes, and increased tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry. These tory leaders know exactly what to say to get into power, then do whatever they like once they are in power, all while doing everything possible to retain it.

I think Dyer was too kind to call him a twat.

Agreed. I seem to recall that the Tories were still openly nasty while in opposition from 1997-2005, including fighting angry right wing campaigns in 2001 and 2005 and focusing heavily on immigration during the 2005 GE. So after becoming party leader in 2005, Cameron pretended that they were a shiny, new, tolerant centrist party, to convince enough people into thinking that they had changed while in opposition. Then after gaining power in 2010, he and the party certainly reverted back to type.

The achievement that he was most proud of during his time as PM, legalising same sex marriage, was driven by a Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, and was far more of a Lib Dem achievement than a Tory one. While it wasn't in the Lib Dems' 2010 GE manifesto, I believe that supporting it became official party policy at their conference later that year. Plus of course more Tory MPs voted against it than in favour of it, and the Tory in-fighting over the issue was so deep that Cameron even wondered whether it was 'worth it'.

Also just before or interlinked with the EU referendum campaign, Cameron actively joined in with Zac Goldsmith's disgusting and Islamophobic 2016 London mayoral campaign against Sadiq Khan. That was a year after his 2015 GE campaign when he and his party drummed up English nationalism and anti-Scottish sentiments (in fact he did that from the morning after the 2014 Indy Ref). So while I agree that much of the rhetoric from the Leave campaign in 2016 was disgraceful, Cameron himself wasn't really in a position to criticise it given his own behaviour. He was used to the right-wing media fully supporting him during elections / campaigns (even if they criticised him between them), so he clearly struggled to cope with them opposing him in 2016.

Basically front and centre of the Remain campaign in 2016, was an English nationalist, Islamophobic, Eurosceptic.
 
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Not sure the caf was ever a good place to get people who voted for brexit.

Think I can probably remember about 5 actual (serious) posters who either said they'd voted for it or would have done if they were back in the UK. Some have left, some are still here but rarely post in here anymore (I assume because they usually get a bit of a pile on when they do, which I must admit I'm also complicit in).

It's not really the right demographics.

Now the Spurs forum I used to post on (and left in large part in the end due to the disagreements over Brexit, as well as politics in general) very little remorse or feeling that it was the wrong thing. The demographics there on that particular board were quite different to here though.

You mean because they talked nonsense and people were happy to tell them.;)