Cos if people want something badly enuff they will make the fkin effort to get to the polling booth
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
- Thread starter Silva
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They didn't have to get it, they already had it. The problem appears to have been that a lot of people thought there was very little chance of the country kicking itself in the balls for absolutely no good reason. Those people are now sadder and wiser as a result, and they will make sure the payback is appropriate when the time comes.
that's not the point. If a country truly values democracy than it makes sure to facilitate it in every way possible and would make sure that the system chosen is as fair and as democratic as possible. That doesn't seem to be the case in the UK. Voting is done at weekdays which puts the working class in clear disadvantage and the current system makes sure that votes in certain regions aren't worth the paper its printed upon. In 2015 nearly 4m people voted for UKIP yet they ended up with just 1 seat in parliament. What type of message does that gives you?
That even a broken system works out ok sometimes?
Im not a fan of UKIP but its unfair for them to end up with just 1 seat after garnering nearly 4m votes. It certainly doesn't serve democracy right. Same thing about voting in weekdays especially in a country were people work long hours, the weather is unpredictable and were trains suffer from huge delays. Time and time again the message given to the public is not to bother voting because their opinion isn't really wanted and most of the time its clearly worthless.
Such message was pretty evident when Farage came out, few hours Brexit won, saying that the 350m a week to the NHS idea was clearly a lie. Don't take me wrong, politicians lie everywhere and lying occurred on both sides of the Brexit referendum campaign. However they won't go on the tv, few hours they actually won, stating that they lied their way to victory. That's clearly disrespecting the voter's intelligence. In lesser countries those politicians would be lynched.
I think this is a big reason and the media does not touch upon this ever. A lot of people look at opinion polls and get complacent.
More fool them, who bets their house on a 2 horse race? lets not forget the 20% or so 18-25's that voted to leave
It was fair for everyone, everyone had exactly the same hours to get to vote. Should they have been open all night so some lazy slackers dossing at uni could get there on time?
Do you consider the working class who have other more important priorities like going to work or pick up children from child care as lazy dozers then? As opposed to what exactly? To pensioners who can afford spending their days reading the daily mail, picking up pensions the 'lazy dozers' pay for and they will probably never get and vote?
I repeat, what's keeping the country from voting on weekends? What's wrong with doing that? Is it undemocratic? If not, then what's wrong in accomodating the majority of 'lazy dozers' who actually work for a living during the weekday? After all, they are ones sustaining the economy which also provide for pensions and a free NHS.
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All the points you raised are the lies the Brexiters believe, we're still trying to find the real reason why so many people made such a ridiculously stupid decision, conclusion - they wanted their own economy to tank - enemies of the people
yeah also whats wrong with requesting a postal vote... its not exactly difficult... i always get one as I work away a lot so don't know if Ill be close to my local area on voting day - its hardly difficult for people who work shifts etc to do the same
Meh, postal votes are problematic if you're an undecided. They're fine to have obviously, but there seems no reason why you can't have them alongside moving voting day to the weekend as well.
I think the big issues with turnout though is FPTP.
It certainly does not help - safe (or perceived safe seats etc)
I would much prefer PR but I think here are other fundamental changes needed as well
i would like to think in the coming years in addition to voting in person and postal votes a secture online method could be developed as well
Personally I have been in favour for a while of moving to the Australian system where voting is mandatory (fine if you dont) but with the addition that they add a none of the above box as well... when none of the above starts getting more votes than winning candidates hopefully it will see parties truly start to engage with people.
A lot of people voted the way that they did because for them personally the economy tanked and tanked big a long time ago.
If that was the case, how does making things even worse for themselves improve their life?
I work in some of the most impoverished communities in the East Midlands. Believe it or not a lot of people here think it can't get any worse. They might be right, they might be wrong, but you would be probably be appalled at the way some people live their lives here.
50% of people are below average intelligence. Why would it be hard to believe that 20% are really dumb?
But it's the poorest in the community who are going to be hit the most by this. Those that promoted this farce like Farage, Gove and Johnson aren't going to be affected by it, and the Tory leavers using the EU as an excuse to deflect the blame from themselves aren't going to be affected either. They've played with people's lives for their own political benefit and convinced the turkeys to vote for Xmas.
In my opinion, Brexit won for a lot of reasons.
The elderly missed the time when the UK was a global power. So any chance of turning back the time was worth it. Let’s face it, Brexit represented a low risk gamble for them. These people has a pension, they probably own their own houses and even if NHS is indeed privatised that won’t hurt them one bit. Both parties will take care of them either because they possess a social soul (labour) or because they form the very backbone of the Tory’s voters.
Others genuinely believed that the UK could have the cake and eat it. Why wouldn’t it be the case? The EU had always surrendered to the UK demands so why would they not do the same about Brexit? These people got used seeing Nigel Farage’s bravados in the European parliament and they misinterpreted the other MEP’s awkward silence to some sort of submissive behaviour from their part (in reality they pitied the fool). Surely the EU would bend over backwards to the UK. It’s the UK we’re talking about not some third rated country. It turned out that its not the case. As the US knows very well, the EU is a very tough negotiator to work with from the outside.
Finally there were many who genuinely hated the establishment and saw it as a way to show them the middle finger. I can’t blame them completely. When we start driving outside London I was literally shocked how poorer the rest of the UK is as opposed to London. It seemed to be a completely different nation. There again, while I do admit that the EU have many many weaknesses, not taking care of its poor is not one of them.
Perhaps yes. What I'm positing is that when you are living on nothing, and have never had anything, and your folks lived on nothing and never had anything, that is an economy that for them has already tanked. It's hard for for those of us who do ok to realise that for many people things don't seem as if they could actually get any worse. No prospects, no hopes, no aspirations, real poverty, substance & alcohol abuse, mental and physical ill health etc It's a cliche but it's genuinely seriously grim in these old industrial areas. There are communities here where unemployment goes back over several generations now ( I use the term "communities" lightly - most semblance of community has broken down). Rightly or wrongly a lot of people in these areas voted to leave simply because it was seen as an alternative to a system perceived as having abandoned them and there is a strong argument that it has. They were offered a vision, possibly a blatantly false one, where they would be better off and they voted for it. The fact that they might have been lied to doesn't make them necessarily stupid - just desperate enough to vote for something that might improve their lot.
I don't disagree with what you say but it comes down to what has irritated me all along, people have voted through misunderstanding, misinformation, ignorance, stupidity or whatever you want to call it.
If people voted whilst being at least moderately well informed, Brexit would never have happened.
Having said that even if the referendum was held again tomorrow, there's a strong possibility that the same result could occur because until harsh reality hits them full on, it won't sink in and that could take up to a few years for that to happen.
Being of the older generation and a traditional Tory voter, I would never have at any point considered voting to leave if I'd still lived in the UK.
The reality is that the divide is stark. The deindustrialization was brutal and rapid and the fallout remains.
The Brexit campaign started in the worse way possible ie as a power grab by the Tory Party to keep Ukip at bay (which then generated into a catfight between the old Tory order and the new one). During the campaign both camps lied bitterly and they embellished/catastrophised so much that it went beyond any decency or shred of credibility. The old order looked stupid when they sided with the EU especially after spending years blaming it of everything. The new order on the other hand is looking stupid now. They promised everything under the sun (350m to the NHS, unrestricted access to the single market without the need for the UK taxpayer to pay anything for such service etc) is looking stupid now.
I got some experience in politics + I could still rely on MEPs/Ministers in my own country who were quite versed in EU politics. Having said that even I got confused at times.
If you ask me politicians at both the leaver and remainer camps should be hanged, drawn and quartered for their big disservice towards the UK public. Such childish behaviour still exist now with ministers (both leavers and remainers) leaking information and people on both camps feeding information to the public without even consulting with the EU(whose at the other side of the negotiation team) whether such promises could be kept. This great nation deserves better than that.
There's only you believes in the empire/global power thing devilish. You make a lot of sense in general but you've totally misunderstood the British on that one. I understand how your background might make it an important thing for you personally, but believe me for the average Brit it's all ancient history.
You've missed out the major reason why older people voted Leave, and that's immigration. Forget for a minute whether their opinion on that is morally or economically right, wrong, racist or xenophobic, we've done all that, the vote's over, I'm talking about the result. The obvious question is why should an opinion on immigration take precedence over everything else for the old, and the answer is that their opinions on immigration have been ignored by all parties for forty years and more, then finally they had a vote that allowed them to demonstrate how they felt. Ironically they had the vote because, true to form, Cameron ignored them right to the end, and was too arrogant to understand the can of worms he was opening.
Anyone who doesn't realise how important immigration was in the Brexit referendum doesn't really understand what happened, and I suspect they'll struggle to understand the negotiations to come too.
Of course they're wrong, things can always be worse.
I don't think that's at all true. Brits are used to Britain having an oversized role and influence in the world, which isn't surprising as we still have it today. It's one of the few logical explanations for why Brits tend to be so fecking arrogant about international politics. Most other nationalities don't act in the same way, including rich European countries. The closest are probably the French, who of course just happen to have their own permanent seat on the Security Council, their own nukes and former empire etc etc.
Well maybe I'm being subjective as well then, so point taken. All I can say is I don't think anyone I know had their vote influenced by that bollocks, they seemed to be influence by sovereignty (I know, again I'm not justifying it), political independence, finance and immigration. I'm not sure that many people actually think about permanent seats on the Security Council, or even know what they are to be honest.
I think you're misunderstanding the Maltese mentality about colonialism. We're a small country and we learnt from day 1 that if we wanted our economy to work then we couldn't afford having a chip on our shoulder towards anybody. We made deals with Germany who bombed the crap out of us and we even kept strong ties with the mad dog even though he sent a battleship against us at one time. When the Brits gave us the george cross instead of the financial backup needed to rebuilt our country we simply said thanks and went on placed it on our flag. There's a local saying which say that Malta had never refused any grain. It served us well through time and maybe it was why we prospered while other former colonies went tits up.
I won't delve deep into my career but I assure you that I had good contact with the British prior and after coming to the UK. I agree with you that the younger generation cant give a crap about the British empire. Some know less about their own country's history then I do which is sad tbh. There again, the old generation do care about the UK standing in a global world. God knows how many expats felt insulted that the locals don't treat them as they use to. When you go deep into the issue, most of the time, its down to the fact that the locals treat them the way they treat everybody (including others). That awe of being British is diminishing as less and less people remember the British empire. I find that the elderly generation don't like that.
We are in full agreement that immigration had played an enormous part in Brexit. While most of it is down to xenophobia or at least lack of knowledge of how things are in reality, I also think that such flawed mentality is not exlusive to the British either. That can of worm is alive and kicking in every single country I worked/lived in including Malta. Part of it is fully justified and the EU should make amends. For example I do believe that freedom of movement need to be tweaked to avoid crime hopping (ex pickpockets). There again I also think that politicians have the right and the duty not to feed that particular monster as it might one day strike back..
Finally I cant help noticing a certain selfish attitude if not distaste by the elderly generations towards the younger generation, which honestly I don't understand. There seems to be a sense of 'we know better' attitude by the elderly generation which is certainly not justified by any of their actions. The UK they left behind give far less chances to the younger generation. The younger generation has a bleaker future ahead of them then they did (tuition fees, pension age that will probably go up to 70, a privatised NHS, a poorer UK with a huge deficit etc). Maybe there's a reason to it. I find myself surrounded by too many elderly people who are abandoned by their children and left on their own device. Some do make a brave face to it all but its a sad and lonely end of life.
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I don't think they spend any time at all thinking about specifics like the Security Council seat, I think as a nation we've just all grown up used to being a country that is involved in most major decisions, who is a part of the top table (or near it at least) and who is economically right up amongst the richest. It really does effect how people see the world.
In Britain there's always this subconscious expectation that our wants and needs should be an important part of how other countries act. People really seem to struggle with the idea that another country would do something thats good for them and damages us, even when we're the ones that put them in that situation.
Come now, there's a quote from Socrates on here somewhere and it's spot on. You'll feel exactly the same about the young when you're old yourself - and ain't that patronising?
Unfortunately Britain lost the ability to plan for the future some time ago, in fact Thatcher made the whole the whole idea of central planning a dirty concept, as all we needed was market forces, and society didn't even exist.
To be fair to the generations even older than me, they did introduce pensions, the NHS, the welfare state and the expansion of education, it was my lot, the baby boomers, that cocked it. I'm not sure succeeding generations have done much to un-cock so far, but we live in hope.
Come now, there's a quote from Socrates on here somewhere and it's spot on. You'll feel exactly the same about the young when you're old yourself - and ain't that patronising?
Unfortunately Britain lost the ability to plan for the future some time ago, in fact Thatcher made the whole the whole idea of central planning a dirty concept, as all we needed was market forces, and society didn't even exist.
To be fair to the generations even older than me, they did introduce pensions, the NHS, the welfare state and the expansion of education, it was my lot, the baby boomers, that cocked it. I'm not sure succeeding generations have done much to un-cock so far, but we live in hope.
Well I am not a spring chicken myself and I don't think Im any better to the younger generation. Actually I do find my generation to be far worse than that of my grandparents although its better than that of my parents (the spoiled baby boomers).
Your are suggesting, not for the first time, that all thickets voted Brexit
New low. If you cant find 5 minutes between 7am and 10pm you don't deserve a vote
Do you actually care answering the entire posts or are you just trolling?
Pauls not getting the point that when you literally have nothing you have nothing to lose, I get it.
You cant pluck a bald chicken
Stanley Road obviously being massively disingenuous and twisting every which way not to answer the simple question of why votes shouldn't be held on a Saturday. Yeah, youth sucks, is lazy and can't be arsed, granted. Also, why shouldn't votes be held on a Saturday?
Only if you can really convince me why 15 hours isn't enuff time
Cos to try and imply that outcomes would be different if people voted at the weekend is fantasy
Righto, lets grant outcomes would have been the same, but a Saturday clearly makes it more convenient for folk to vote. Are you maybe arguing that inconvenience is a virtue in this instance since it places a cost on voting and only those that care enough should get to voice their opinion?
Why do Americans vote on tuesday.
Avoiding market days and religious days were the obvious reason original reason
Avoiding market days and religious days were the obvious reason original reason