5 ms·

Out of genuine curiosity, why do you approve of the prime minister's strategy?

mellosouls 7y ago
To clarify: I'm a Remainer, and not a Tory supporter. However, I remember discussing the issue at referendum time with my Leave voting neighbours who were very much the supposedly angry working class type that have been ridiculed and condescended to repeatedly by the liberal media. They (my friends and neighbours) were adamant that "it doesn't matter what we vote anyway, they will just stop it happening." At the time, I thought they were being paranoid. Now they look prescient and wise. Parliament has had 3 years to honour the vote of the people. Boris Johnson (who I have little like for and am suspicious of his character) is the first leader who has shown the will to make that decision happen. So, though I regret the referendum decision (and that the moral impetus has been taken on by people I don't feel a natural affinity to), I respect it and support his move to enact it without further delay.
- matthewdgreen 7y ago
  Why would you vote in an explicitly non-binding “advisory” referendum and think that this somehow mandated the government to act? Particularly when the win margin was a couple of percent.
  - mellosouls 7y ago
    Whatever the technical niceties of "advisory" there was never any dispute that the referendum would decide the future of Britain within the EU. The whole "advisory", "win margin" etc. phrasing is post-vote weasel words by the losing side (mine). Those are nullification criteria to be established before the vote, not after it doesn't go your way. If Remain had won by a similar small margin, do you think we would have been using those words to acknowledge some moral failure of our victory? Personally, I doubt it.
    - matthewdgreen 7y ago
      It seems weird to initiate something as radical as a total political realignment of your country on the basis of a 2% win margin, particularly when you don't actually have a concrete plan for how you're doing it (and when no majority of the pro-Brexit voters seem to support the actual plans that have been proposed.) The total failure of your politicians to complete this project after several free and democratic parliamentary elections seems to me to be a reflection of that fact, rather than some kind of weasel. >If Remain had won by a similar small margin, do you think we would have been using those words to acknowledge some moral failure of our victory? Not really -- preserving your existing trade relationships doesn't seem like the kind of thing that requires an overwhelming majority.
      - mellosouls 7y ago
        I'm not sure how to respond without repeating myself. Those are nullification criteria to be established before the vote, not after it doesn't go your way. The decision was made, it just needs to be delivered. I agree it has taken far too long to do so.
        matthewdgreen 7y ago
        Nobody established any nullification criteria. They just said “do you want to leave the EU”. Parliament then negotiated an exit deal. The problem seems to be that the many of the same voters who said “yes” are unable to get their representatives to agree on accepting that deal.
  - rtempaccount1 7y ago
    It didn't, and 3 years ago that point was (in my opinion) at least partially understood. However since then it has been treated as an article of the faith by both the major political parties in the United Kingdom that "brexit means brexit" (and a wide variety of other fairly meaningless slogans) Now, reversing course would be seen by a large percentage of the population as a betrayal and would quite likely lead to a hard right victory in the next general election (although the vagaries of FPTP could make outcome rather random) Looking at things like the "britain elects" twitter account which follows various polls, you can see the effect of various outcomes on likely voting https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176103416990437377?s=20 https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176103416990437377... compared to https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176087917149728768?s=20 https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176087917149728768... for example.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    There's the law, the referendum was not binding, and there's politics. It is politically untenable to hold a referendum then to ignore the result.
    - matthewdgreen 7y ago
      And yet multiple elections later you seem unable to deliver the results. Is this because your parliamentary elections are less democratic than your referendum?
      - mellosouls 7y ago
        No, it is because there is a tension between them and enough people acting in poor faith on each side to enable that tension to undermine the people's decision. The results should be delivered.
        matthewdgreen 7y ago
        Who exactly is supposed to deliver them, and what are the results? You keep electing parliaments that negotiate specific deals and then loudly, angrily denounce those same deals. (And I'm not just talking about the Remainers. I'm talking about the ostensibly pro-Brexit party.)
- rtempaccount1 7y ago
  (possibly) interestingly, I'm of a very similar opinion which is why I was curious :) I'd prefer remain at this point, as it's obvious the British political establishment has made a total mess of this process, and will continue to do so. Also as the economic consequences of Brexit become clearer, it's obviously not in the countries interest to do it. However, I have a strong feeling that remaining now will give endless fuel to hard right parties and their stories of how great Britain would be if it could only break free of the EU. They will get a lot of support from people who feel betrayed by "the establishment", and they can continue their narrative without actually having to prove anything. Whilst I can see that there's no such thing as a "clean break" brexit, I think from a political perspective, the consequences of carrying on with this deadlock will be worse in the long term.
  - mellosouls 7y ago
    Yes, I agree with a lot of that - but I think that remaining would potentially lead to significant civil unrest powered by righteous anger that would dwarf what we've already been through.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Leave are largely older. There's not going to be civil unrest from them. The hard right parties aren't going to suddenly go away either if Brexit happens. They're not going to sit back and enjoy Brexit. There would likely be an increase in street attacks on UK-resident Europeans. The economic impact isn't going to be pretty either. Leave arguments aren't based in facts, so they can't be satisfied by changing the facts. The whole thing is really a successful campaign by the rightwing press, not the parties.
- 2wrist 7y ago
  > Leave voting neighbours who were very much the supposedly angry working class type that have been ridiculed and condescended to repeatedly by the liberal media. I can understand this but, burrowing in to it, we have a class of people who are struggling for opportunity, work and dignity in an environment which is openly hostile to people in poverty. The bit that hurts my head is that people want to leave the EU as they think the government will then step in and give them the opportunities, work and dignity which they have crave. When it was the governments (of the last 40 years) which have put them in this position.. Here in the North East we have investment from the EU, do you honestly think that the tories are going to jump in and replace that investment? If you say that they have said that they will invest x amount then that it merely a drop in the ocean for regions like this. IMHO.
  - rtempaccount1 7y ago
    For me brexit has, for many people, been a case of them voting against their own best interests, due to believing what they're being told by politicians. The Leave camp, during the campaign, were very strong on the idea that leaving would have economic benefits, not penalties. When combined with the UK press use of the EU as a scapegoat for many unpopular decisions over the last 40 years, it's not surprising to see the outcome we did. Reality will only sink in, once we've left and the outcome becomes apparent. I really wish that weren't the case and that people would look at the people pushing brexit to see they are not likely to act in the interests of the majority of the population, but I don't think that's what's happened. EDIT: to provide one example look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum#/media/File:United_Kingdom_EU_referendum_2016_area_results.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kin... The North east of England voted Leave in almost every area...
    - 2wrist 7y ago
      I agree. I am from that yellow bit and people were stunned the day after. The whole thing is crazy. Society feels fundamentally broken.
  - mellosouls 7y ago

To clarify: I'm a Remainer, and not a Tory supporter. However, I remember discussing the issue at referendum time with my Leave voting neighbours who were very much the supposedly angry working class type that have been ridiculed and condescended to repeatedly by the liberal media. They (my friends and neighbours) were adamant that "it doesn't matter what we vote anyway, they will just stop it happening." At the time, I thought they were being paranoid. Now they look prescient and wise. Parliament has had 3 years to honour the vote of the people. Boris Johnson (who I have little like for and am suspicious of his character) is the first leader who has shown the will to make that decision happen. So, though I regret the referendum decision (and that the moral impetus has been taken on by people I don't feel a natural affinity to), I respect it and support his move to enact it without further delay.

matthewdgreen 7y ago
Why would you vote in an explicitly non-binding “advisory” referendum and think that this somehow mandated the government to act? Particularly when the win margin was a couple of percent.
- mellosouls 7y ago
  Whatever the technical niceties of "advisory" there was never any dispute that the referendum would decide the future of Britain within the EU. The whole "advisory", "win margin" etc. phrasing is post-vote weasel words by the losing side (mine). Those are nullification criteria to be established before the vote, not after it doesn't go your way. If Remain had won by a similar small margin, do you think we would have been using those words to acknowledge some moral failure of our victory? Personally, I doubt it.
  - matthewdgreen 7y ago
    It seems weird to initiate something as radical as a total political realignment of your country on the basis of a 2% win margin, particularly when you don't actually have a concrete plan for how you're doing it (and when no majority of the pro-Brexit voters seem to support the actual plans that have been proposed.) The total failure of your politicians to complete this project after several free and democratic parliamentary elections seems to me to be a reflection of that fact, rather than some kind of weasel. >If Remain had won by a similar small margin, do you think we would have been using those words to acknowledge some moral failure of our victory? Not really -- preserving your existing trade relationships doesn't seem like the kind of thing that requires an overwhelming majority.
    - mellosouls 7y ago
      I'm not sure how to respond without repeating myself. Those are nullification criteria to be established before the vote, not after it doesn't go your way. The decision was made, it just needs to be delivered. I agree it has taken far too long to do so.
      - matthewdgreen 7y ago
        Nobody established any nullification criteria. They just said “do you want to leave the EU”. Parliament then negotiated an exit deal. The problem seems to be that the many of the same voters who said “yes” are unable to get their representatives to agree on accepting that deal.
- rtempaccount1 7y ago
  It didn't, and 3 years ago that point was (in my opinion) at least partially understood. However since then it has been treated as an article of the faith by both the major political parties in the United Kingdom that "brexit means brexit" (and a wide variety of other fairly meaningless slogans) Now, reversing course would be seen by a large percentage of the population as a betrayal and would quite likely lead to a hard right victory in the next general election (although the vagaries of FPTP could make outcome rather random) Looking at things like the "britain elects" twitter account which follows various polls, you can see the effect of various outcomes on likely voting https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176103416990437377?s=20 https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176103416990437377... compared to https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176087917149728768?s=20 https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176087917149728768... for example.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  There's the law, the referendum was not binding, and there's politics. It is politically untenable to hold a referendum then to ignore the result.
  - matthewdgreen 7y ago
    And yet multiple elections later you seem unable to deliver the results. Is this because your parliamentary elections are less democratic than your referendum?
    - mellosouls 7y ago
      No, it is because there is a tension between them and enough people acting in poor faith on each side to enable that tension to undermine the people's decision. The results should be delivered.
      - matthewdgreen 7y ago
        Who exactly is supposed to deliver them, and what are the results? You keep electing parliaments that negotiate specific deals and then loudly, angrily denounce those same deals. (And I'm not just talking about the Remainers. I'm talking about the ostensibly pro-Brexit party.)
rtempaccount1 7y ago
(possibly) interestingly, I'm of a very similar opinion which is why I was curious :) I'd prefer remain at this point, as it's obvious the British political establishment has made a total mess of this process, and will continue to do so. Also as the economic consequences of Brexit become clearer, it's obviously not in the countries interest to do it. However, I have a strong feeling that remaining now will give endless fuel to hard right parties and their stories of how great Britain would be if it could only break free of the EU. They will get a lot of support from people who feel betrayed by "the establishment", and they can continue their narrative without actually having to prove anything. Whilst I can see that there's no such thing as a "clean break" brexit, I think from a political perspective, the consequences of carrying on with this deadlock will be worse in the long term.
- mellosouls 7y ago
  Yes, I agree with a lot of that - but I think that remaining would potentially lead to significant civil unrest powered by righteous anger that would dwarf what we've already been through.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Leave are largely older. There's not going to be civil unrest from them. The hard right parties aren't going to suddenly go away either if Brexit happens. They're not going to sit back and enjoy Brexit. There would likely be an increase in street attacks on UK-resident Europeans. The economic impact isn't going to be pretty either. Leave arguments aren't based in facts, so they can't be satisfied by changing the facts. The whole thing is really a successful campaign by the rightwing press, not the parties.
2wrist 7y ago
> Leave voting neighbours who were very much the supposedly angry working class type that have been ridiculed and condescended to repeatedly by the liberal media. I can understand this but, burrowing in to it, we have a class of people who are struggling for opportunity, work and dignity in an environment which is openly hostile to people in poverty. The bit that hurts my head is that people want to leave the EU as they think the government will then step in and give them the opportunities, work and dignity which they have crave. When it was the governments (of the last 40 years) which have put them in this position.. Here in the North East we have investment from the EU, do you honestly think that the tories are going to jump in and replace that investment? If you say that they have said that they will invest x amount then that it merely a drop in the ocean for regions like this. IMHO.
- rtempaccount1 7y ago
  For me brexit has, for many people, been a case of them voting against their own best interests, due to believing what they're being told by politicians. The Leave camp, during the campaign, were very strong on the idea that leaving would have economic benefits, not penalties. When combined with the UK press use of the EU as a scapegoat for many unpopular decisions over the last 40 years, it's not surprising to see the outcome we did. Reality will only sink in, once we've left and the outcome becomes apparent. I really wish that weren't the case and that people would look at the people pushing brexit to see they are not likely to act in the interests of the majority of the population, but I don't think that's what's happened. EDIT: to provide one example look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum#/media/File:United_Kingdom_EU_referendum_2016_area_results.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kin... The North east of England voted Leave in almost every area...
  - 2wrist 7y ago
    I agree. I am from that yellow bit and people were stunned the day after. The whole thing is crazy. Society feels fundamentally broken.
- mellosouls 7y ago