Would you vote to Rejoin the EU if there was another referendum? - Part 2

[EEexpat]

Advantages and disadvantages?

Vote leave was never in a position to promise anything anyway, and neither was Remain.

All they could do was offer up suggestions of what parliament could choose to do for example if we left the EU. Some people may have not understood the meaning of the statement, that it was more an illustration of a) how much we were paying per week and b) what one possibility was we could do with the money if we chose not to pay it to the EU.

If Remain wanted to clarify the position on that statement and felt that doing was to their advantage\that it was misleading it was surely their job to point it out and convince people during the campaign.

All this is an aside of course from the points you make which could be used to argue it was something that actually came true anyway.

This is a technicality of course. But probably no more so than the fact that the referendum was advisory and its results didn't have to be implemented, or the other claims that Britain "would never be part of an EU superstate" if we remained when in fact no government is capable of binding the country in perpetuity under our current system.

All they could do was offer up suggestions of what parliament could choose to do for example if we left the EU. Some people may have not understood the meaning of the statement, that it was more an illustration of a) how much we were paying per week and b) what one possibility was we could do with the money if we chose not to pay it to the EU.

Except the figure was an out an out lie. We never were sending £350m/ week so we never stood to get anything close to that back. I do not think it is right for a political system to allow politicians to lie as big as they want and the cure is for a competing politician to call them out. Politicians should be held to some standard like advertisers and journalists are.

The bus slogan actually said “We send the EU £350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead". There wasn’t a promise of a figure in terms, but I’m happy to take it as one. Even if you do, the fact is that NHS spending continued to increase by at least that figure.

What would be “expected” or “usual” to have been spent is entirely notional. In the 2010s increases in NHS spending were on average 1-1.5% pa., with some years flat.

Covid raised NHS spending by 10%.

Framing the stats as suits you doesn’t prove the bus slogan to be false.

Yes, definitely
Brexit has been an absolute disaster

They are held to standards, by the electorate, the media and their opponents.

The problem with saying "politicians are not allowed to lie" is that you then have to come up with some sort of mechanism for establishing what the truth is, in situations where it might not be at all clear cut.

@AmberTigerEyes

The red bus made the statement:

We send £350 million per week to the EU let's fund the NHS instead.

Nothing about %s, budgets or annual comparisons. Johnson was taken to court over the red bus, but the case was dismissed. Very easy to understand the court's decision as the above wording does not make the statement,

"Every penny that UK sends to the EU will be spent solely on the NHS"

The PP nails it with:

but if you take it as most would have understood it, the NHS did benefit at least to the tune of £350m extra a week.

Regards,

Instead the Conservatives cut the annual NHS increase to well below the average increase we would have had if we had stayed in the EU and fooled your parents and you by calling it a win.

How would have remaining in the EU forced the Conservatives, or any other party, to increase the budget for the NHS?

I’m hugely pro EU and always have been. Leaving was an act of national self harm and in theory I’d support rejoining as there would be numerous clear and tangible benefits. However the thing I’m unsure about is joining the Euro. As I understand it having left if we were to rejoin there would be no cherrypicking, so joining the Euro would be part of the deal.

I disagree. It gave the impression the NHS would get more money if we leave than if we stayed. The annual increases are not notional. They get budgeted in advance in projections that go 5-10yrs out. That promise of extra money being diverted from EU to NHS did not happen at all.

Take for example a hypothetical job. You usually get a pay bump of 3% per year for cost of living. Your boss comes to you and says Denizen if you agree to move to a different office, then I will give you a 2% pay raise. You get to the end of the year and instead of the 3% + 2% =5% you expected, you actually only get a 2% pay bump in total.

You cannot tell me that you would not think you had been short changed?

If we had remained, we would not have spaffed billions up against the wall to do Brexit, then the higher % of programmed budget increases for the NHS would have gone ahead as planned and approved instead of cut to a smaller increase in real terms.

@AmberTigerEyes

Except the figure was an out an out lie. We never were sending £350m/ week so we never stood to get anything close to that back.

But as others have pointed out, the NHS did receive more than £350 million per week. Which was likely what most who saw the red bus thought it meant even though it doesn't actually make that statement.

I do not think it is right for a political system to allow politicians to lie as big as they want and the cure is for a competing politician to call them out. Politicians should be held to some standard like advertisers and journalists are

Does that apply to all parties and politicians, or just the one you may not like? For example,

Should the remain campaign not be held to account for the figures they threw around in the run up to the referendum such as:

500,000 to 800,000 jobs would be lost just by a vote to leave (UK Treasury Report April 2016) which never happened.

UK GDP will have declined by 4% by Q3 2018 (UK Treasury Report April 2016) which never happened.

David Cameron and George Osborne encouraging Obama to suggest UK will be back of the queue for a US trade deal in they left the UK. April 2016. The opposite happened and UK has a better deal with the US than the EU.

George Osborne stating on 15 June 2016, eight days before the referendum that if UK voted to leave there would be a recession and emergency budget that would raise taxes and cut spending. Never happened.

@EEexpat
Johnson was taken to court over the red bus, but the case was dismissed. Very easy to understand the court's decision as the above wording does not make the statement,"Every penny that UK sends to the EU will be spent solely on the NHS"

That was not why the case was dismissed. It was dismissed because there is no law prohibiting politicians from misleading the public. Politicians don’t have to be factual or truthful. The misconduct in public office offence that was dismissed applies to the secret abuse of power. The bus slogan wasn’t a secret.

The UK is world leading at tech innovation and start up, but we have trouble scaling it so it ends up moving overseas, often to the US. These schemes would enable us to keep our talent and businesses in the uk.
Scaleup Europe Fund: A €5 billion initiative managed by EQT Group under the European Innovation Council (EIC) to back late-stage and growth tech scale-ups (Series B to pre-IPO) in AI, quantum, biotech, and clean energy. 1, 2, 3]
European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI): A fund-of-funds launched by the EIB Group and EU member states—expanded into ETCI 2.0—designed to scale growth-stage VC/PE funds and keep tech champions scaling within Europe.

@EEexpat
Predictions can never be facts as they naturally are guesses for the future.

But saying we send £350m per week to the EU was not a prediction, it was a statement of the present, and a false one at that.

I would like to see some law passed that requires all politicians to be factual and truthful.

As an entirely non-party, non-issue-based comment…good luck with that!

OP, what did you want to achieve by starting this thread? You challenge almost every Remain based response. Yet things have got worse.

OP, what did you want to achieve by starting this thread? You challenge almost every Remain based response. Yet things have got much worse for the majority of us.

No doubt you will come back and say I’m wrong, even though deprived areas have lost their ERDF funding and small boats risk the safety of other humans.

See you in the third country passport queues.

The biggest questionable statement by a long way in my opinion during the entire campaign was the claim that Britain will never be part of an EU superstate.

Never is a really strong word. Like impossible.

@AmberTigerEyes

It gave the impression the NHS would get more money if we leave than if we stayed.

NHS did get more money as was inferred, but not promised, by the red bus.

That promise of extra money being diverted from EU to NHS did not happen at all

No such promise was ever made. Also remember, the red bus was paraded in 2016. Whereas the UK did not leave the EU until 31 January 2020.

Not long after leaving, COVID struck the World in March 2020. UK spent about £400 billion on COVID.

When COVID began to subside, Russia invaded the Ukraine and energy costs rose. UK spent about £100 billion on energy subsidies.

Then there were troubles in the Hormuz strait and energy prices rose again.

If we had remained, we would not have spaffed billions up against the wall to do Brexit.

Remaining in the EU would not have prevented COVID, the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused by the EU's expansion eastwards nor the troubles between Iran and US.

Had MPs stood by their vote cast 29 March 2017, UK would have left the EU on 29 March with or without a withdrawal agreement in accordance with Article 50. However, the determination of, Labour, Lib Dems and SNP to thwart Brexit prevented that from happening and the UK went around in circles. How much did that cost?

@AmberTigerEyes

Predictions can never be facts as they naturally are guesses for the future..

Does that apply to leave campaign predictions as well?

I would like to see some law passed that requires all politicians to be factual and truthful.

That would be interesting, but I’m not sure how it would work. Say a political party promises something in its manifesto such as x millions to schools, and then a left field event such as Covid happens and the money promised for schools is swallowed up in that.
Or they promise something which is then made obsolete by new inventions or developments.
If this government hasn’t carried out all its manifesto promises by the next election, and it’s then voted out, would it be possible to sue the Prime Minister?

@StarlightLady

OP, what did you want to achieve by starting this thread? You challenge almost every Remain based response. Yet things have got much worse for the majority of us.

The purpose of the thread was to hear how posters would vote if there was another referendum. Advantages and disadvantages. There have been some interesting comments.

The purpose was not to re-run the same old comments that have appeared since 23 June 2016 such as:

• There should never have been a referendum
• People didn't know what they were voting for
• Leave campaign lied
• Those who voted leave are either, racist, thick,,,,,,

As for,

Yet things have got much worse for the majority of us.

If that's correct, why did the majority note for the Lin Dems in 2019?
WhY did Labour win 412 seats in 2019 on a Manifest not to join the CU or SM?

No doubt you will come back and say I’m wrong, even though deprived areas have lost their ERDF funding and small boats risk the safety of other humans.

The first small boat arriving in the UK was in 2014. Source Oxford Migration Observatory. Increasing boat crossings in the channel is due to several factors:

There are more checks on lorries and ferries since Brexit. So, people moved to small boats instead.

The greater the number of people who enter the EU via borders in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, the greater the number of people who will end up in Calais.

If the EU were capable of controlling their borders in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea there would be fewer boat crossings in the channel.

See you in the third country passport queues.

Another myth. Since January 2020, I have worked in, Netherlands, France and Germany. They have more non-EU passport kiosks than EU. Schiphol for example has four non-EU kiosks for one EU. Similar in Berlin. Charles de Gaulle has around 6 to 8 non-EU kiosks for one EU. Reason is simple. EU is about 5% the World population. So, the non-EU population is the other 95%.

Also, luggage is not loaded onto the carousels by passport, but by class of travel. So, even if the EU passport holder clears passport control more quickly, they will have to wait for their luggage the same time as non-EU. Same applies to queue for, car hire, taxi ranks, trains and buses. There no separate queues

Things look pretty unsettled in France and elsewhere in the EU though.

@38thparallel

Good post.

The referendum was held 23 June 2016. However, UK did not leave the EU until 31 January 2020 with a transition period until 30 December 2020. And didn't the World change in that time and afterwards. Remain seem to forget those facts.

I work in the (aviation) industry. While some airlines label bags “priority”, it is often not possible to offload an aircraft from the hold by class. “Workhorse” “ aircraft such as the A320 just do not have the hold capacity to arrange bags strictly by class. Some airlines are one class anyway.

l often travel for work. I get a hold baggage allowance but l don’t use it because l like to disembark and go straight for a taxi.

Recent experiences have been, Lisbon (with cabin bag, so no carousel), 2 hours (that’s longer than l took at JFK last time and that’s saying something) Brussels Midi (Eurostar) 90 minutes. I used to whizz through these. There are other posts on MN about border delays, they can’t all be wrong.

Good night x

No. We'd have to adopt the Euro and get no subsidy. We have built up trade agreements with other countries and if we were to rejoin many of those would be void because they don't meet exacting requirements of EU. We need to concentrate on improving our relationship whilst sitting outside of block. I hate Brussels overruling our UK courts.