I'm fed up with everyone tiptoeing around Brexit having been rubbish

But the issue is that “nothing remarkable happened” is itself a long way from what Brexit was sold as. We were told it would boost growth, unleash trade, cut red tape, reduce immigration and give us major new economic opportunities. Instead, even defenders are now arguing the effects are basically negligible and too complex to measure clearly. That’s quite a retreat from the original promises. And there’s also a difference between economists warning there would likely be economic costs from creating trade barriers with our biggest market, versus politicians actively promising obvious upsides with very little downside. Those are not really equivalent claims.

If Cameron had been a bit smarter, he'd have made it a two-stage process: a vote on the principle of leaving and a second confirmatory one when the terms had been agreed in principle.

They'd probably still be negotiating the terms, and whatever the final agreement was would probably not have satisfied everyone who wanted to leave, so they'd have voted against acceptance.

Quite a lot, going by the map here Brexit voting maps .

I think Brits living in the EU or those with relatives over there are big champions to rejoin and you can see why. But put the question to the British in the UK and tell folk they have to accept the euro, Schengen, contribute billions, help pay off the EU's covid debt, accept freedom of movement, lose independent trade deals, lose sovereignty and hand over control to Brussels and any appetite to rejoin will turn to dust.

It does look fairly flat there too. Perhaps it can be debated at GE and move on from the discussions and blame.

Although if things don’t improve much will people want to get out again. Can’t keep switching.

In a way it gives the game away. You’ve got a hell of a climb to get there from the dark pit you are in now.

Two words for the most complex political decision since 1939. I think people take more care buying shoes

The phrase ‘Sunlit uplands’ was very deliberately chosen by proponents of Leave for its link to Churchill/Finest Hour speech.
it’s looks all the more facetious now.

And again, we’ve had Covid and two significant wars since then. ‘Things haven’t got better’ is a futile exclamation, as if you look over the channel, things are pretty shit in the EU at the moment too!

Turkeys voting for Christmas is not Brexit specific! It’s been around for years to mean people who vote against their own interests- James Callahan used it against MPs who supported no confidence motions against Labour who if there was an election, would certainly lose their seats. It’s just a phrase for political idiocy and an inability to see the consequences of your actions.

More fool him. As I pp, people usually vote for change.

RosieHosie · Today 12:23
The phrase 'sunlit uplands' is annoying. I wish people would stop using it. I don't ever remember it being used in the run up to the referendum.

Yes and ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ is another frequent one.

I wonder how many rampant anti Brexiteers live along the SE and south coast

Unbelievable, isn’t it.

I think he was appeasing the anti eurpope bunch in his party and assuming ,(shame he didn’t leave London and ask around the country) that a large ish majority to staywould result and shut the grumbles up.

Cameron massive fucked up - then fucked off.

I think it should have either not been put to public or made it binding so needing a certain majority. Very least a decent remain campaign should have been run.

Instead it's been years of calling voters stupid and uneducated.

I voted remain by the way.

However I am increasingly worried how many now insist not everyone should be allowed to vote as they are too thick look at brexit rather than they may have different veiws and priorties and we need to make better poltical case so our party get support.

i don’t know anyone who thinks it was a good dea and everyone seems pretty vocal about that! I’m going through the tedious process of getting my kids Irish passports so they have the freedom to work there. It’s an often discussed topic on shows on Radio 4 so not sure why you think people are generally happy with it?

Oh the UK electorate is definitely dumb - 30% think that Reform is the answer and another 20% thinks that the Greens are the answer- so that's roughly half of all voters!

And let's not forget that many voted for Labour on the basis "that they can't do a worse job or a more chaotic job than the Conservatives did".

It gets tippoed round because some voters still think it was a good idea and poltican want to win elections and these days those margins are thin so if they avoid talking about it they may still get those votes.

Apparently some regret it so put it to the electorate as just going over the same things for another decade won’t help. It sounds like the challengers to Starmer will bring it up at GE.

I know you aren’t talking to me, but I bloody wouldn’t.

I firmly believe that if we tried to rejoin now, we’d be punished for leaving. And we’d be made an example of what happens should any other country decide to chance their arm at any point in the future. We’d be signed up to the Euro before tea time and would lose any ability to opt out of anything. If we think things are bad now, we’d be the whipping boy of the EU. It happened. I think we just need to crack on and make the best of it.

Cameron fucked up royally by offering a referendum. I cannot imagine what he was thinking, other than his decision was based on arrogance and a failure to understand just how many people were completely fed up and feeling like the EU was responsible. Any fool could see that it would have zero impact on illegal immigration, that Farage & co didn’t have the power to give millions to the NHS, and that the benefits we’d have after leaving were largely guesswork. The campaign for remain was woefully inadequate and I think our terms for leaving were agreed by a bunch of bumbling idiots who had too much confidence in their abilities to negotiate.

Well they had the Lib Dems in the 2019 election.

Who made no impact whatsoever. That's why all the major parties dropped it from the ticket.

If the major parties view there is enough political capital in it, it will come back.

But the fact it is not coming back tells you something. And even if it does come back, there is no guarantee the party supporting it will fulfill their promise.

Many parties managed to campaign on a Brexit referendum for years but refused to allow that referendum once they were elected. Which ultimately was what led to the success of UKIP.

I think the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour all supported a Brexit referendum at some point during the 90s/00s.

I think it is a side issue for most voters. People will not vote solely on it in a GE.

@GasPanic Remain had the far more complex argument to get across and failed. Fear was incorrect - reality was. Our trade is obviously harmed and was always going to be. We needed to trade with our near neighbours! It was totally obvious. Yet people let their hearts rule their heads and think of Rule Britannia as we slowly die! The electorate have a very low understanding of economics and are very open to being manipulated. Starmer and Johnson worked this out.

Well yes.

When you look at the facts and the facts tell you nothing remarkable happened over the time period then it is hard to come to any fast conclusion about what Brexit has done to the economy because of the complexity of the analysis.

So you won't be surprised to learn that a lot of people aren't convinced by arguments either way. No matter how many TLA are behind them.

We may have been told Brexit will make us richer. We were also told Brexit would make us poorer.

So who was more mis-sold, the voter who voted remain because they wanted to be less dependent on the EU politically but was fearful of the projected economic outcome by Project Fear ?

Or the voter that wanted to remain for political reasons but voted leave because of the promise of large economic benefits ?

There isn't a good claim that either side covered themselves in glory here in my opinion.

Andrea Leadsom and Jacob R-M both used it. It was a common expression to describe how the UK would thrive outside the EU, and used by critics to mock those who thought Brexit was the dawn of a brave new world. TBF, it was, just a more shite world.

https://news.sky.com/video/was-brexit-really-a-catastrophic-mistake-for-the-uk-the-graphs-that-tell-the-story-13545326