To continue to wonder who is happy with where Brexit is heading

[Bearbehind]

Whilst I'm sure Leavers will undoubtedly think AIBU the last thread filled up so here's another 1000 opportunities to discuss what you think about where Brexit is heading.

Well autumn, I did preface it by saying it was my experience of leave voters......

carol
Does it ring a bell if you yourself observe that a huge majority of our big scientists are there? The main reason is that UK, NOT being the continent that the USA is, has far less oppurtunities for the extremely fast paced world of science even if you don't leave EU. The usefulness of living in a big union of countries who have a free movement of scientists among them is a big big disadvantage and probably the only way we could compete with the likes of US and Asia. Eveey passing year is making science collaborative in nature. There is no more of that one man "Eureka" show anymore. Thousands of people work to make one drug may be. So instead of breaking away, we should have become even more inclusive. We are going precisely in the opposite direction putting in danger all the hundreds of years of worth of hard work done in our great universities. There is a reason this Nobel laureate is saying you need a plan B if you are a young UK scientist right now.

What fascinates me is that there is no plan. The Brexiters have no clue what they're doing. None.

I've seen a couple of people mentioning STEM industries.
I work for a global engineering company. Brexit has fucked engineering's future.
Sure, the weak pound is temporarily improving our exports, but simultaneously our costs are now rising due to increased cost of materials.
But our biggest problem is in R&D. 75% of our R&D projects are funded either wholly, or partially, by EU.
The division I work in is currently a world leader in our technology, but it looks like that's all going to go down the pan now.

Oh no! I wrote "disadvantages" indeed of "advantages"!

Yes, nobody can predict where we will be in 10 years time, referendum or not.

However...

Markets dislike uncertainty, so why would people vote to create uncertainty?

Markets also dislike a dip in confidence; again, this is what Brexit has created.

All experts including Bank of England, IMF, WTO etc etc stated Brexit would be a bad thing; again, why would people vote against expert opinion.

I am yet to see a convincing argument beyond 'ah, just wait and see'.

I'm still utterly baffled that such a slim majority vote result has been accepted as the outcome.

Me too, when the number of eligible voters who voted to leave was therefore far from a majority. More than that, I've never understood why a referendum that was clearly signposted as advisory suddenly became seen as binding. Looking seriously at the viability of Brexit was always going to be expensive and time consuming, so sure, have a referendum to see if there's any appetite for exploring it. If the remain vote had won at that point, then no need to spend years and billions getting any further into it. But surely all that happened instead was that the referendum indicated a keenness on the idea of Brexiting. It can't have been anything more specific than that, because there were no specifics on the table. To me, that is what should be happening now - an open process looking at the specifics of how Brexit might happen, how viable it really is, and what benefits or damage might ensue. Armed with that information, we should then have a further referendum on whether we really want to go ahead once we have some facts. Am I wrong? Thank god some MPs are finally saying this instead of the vapid 'the people have spoken' refrain.

And no, not happy at all, in case you hadn't guessed.

Cardibach Now (or at least after A50), on the other hand, we will have no say at all in what happens right next door. In reality we had no say about what happened within the EZ anyway, and with QMV happening, we would have had less say anyway.

The EU was not going to reform in any meaningful way, so time to go.

its going pretty well, conspiracy theorists aside, thumbs up. bright new future.

If MN isn't representative of the UK maybe we should club together and get our own island. We could join the EU and be welcoming to immigrants. Sounds like a good plan.

Regarding Theresa May admitting in that leaked tape that Brexit will be "definitely" damaging to business, I read a comment on this Guardian article. Something like "looks like a lot of our government had a change of heart right around the time of the vote to suit their careers".
Brought Boris Johnson to my mind. He had to make sure Brexit means Brexit and means good (business) deals for Uk while at the same time he can't resist the urge to stop the work on third runway at Heathrow by lying in front of the bulldozers. Must be fun to be Borish Johnson.

donot I'm with you. We'll have the experts, the scientists, the humanitarians, the banks, etc. It'll be great!

its going pretty well, conspiracy theorists aside, thumbs up. bright new future.
Look. Everyone is entitled to vote how they want. No-one is required to defend their vote, but to say it's going pretty well is just fucking stupid. What, exactly, has 'gone well' since 24th June? The only possible exception is some exports and a few wealthy people lining their pockets by taking advantage of a tanking pound. Measured against the many things that have gone wrong since 24th June, and we must include social issues (racism, fractures in families/communities, etc) in the equation as much as the economy, I am struggling to see what is going well.
And once again (surprise!) no facts or figures or argument provided to back up the assertion that it's 'going well'.

Mrslupo - add to that the very real problem that thousands of British citizens abroad were not allowed to vote despite the result changing their lives! Democracy my arse!

Two fingers. Some things have gone well since brexit, especially for people with money, surprise surprise. Individuals wealth if invested has increased by more than 10% since Brexit on average so for that bunch it's been a positive so far! Some of them have overseas properties too which have increased in Sterling terms by more than 15%! Doesn't help anyone else mind!

The real side effects and pain won't be felt yet, it will be a slow ripple effect like it was in 2008-10 post banking crisis. I can see higher inflation, increasing unemployment, house repossessions increasing, speculators making money on someone else's misery and the rich getting richer.

Nothing changes there!

A bigger concern for me currently is the American election and the future relationship between Russia and the US. Syria has the potential to become a real flashpoint area and this concerns me long term. It doesn't take much to spark conflict.

its going pretty well, conspiracy theorists aside, thumbs up. bright new future

Genius . Who needs experts eh when we have this level of reasoned debate? Are you actually on a wind up mission or are you really that misguided?What am I missing? My life is feeling very insecure as an emigrant in a EU country and also a hell of a lot poorer thanks to sterling so please do specify the good news.

Whilst normally I defend everyone's right to vote I'm beginning to suspect we may need to question people wearing tin foil hats

I'm appalled I think it is a complete clusterfuck. I'm going to end up in an independent Scotland, and it is the English Brexiteers fault.

a referendum that was clearly signposted as advisory suddenly became seen as binding.
Utter rubbish. David Cameron said it would be binding, he said he would trigger a50 the day after. He couldn't have been more direct!

Not remotely happy here.

When through a lengthy denial phase where I thought the situation would kind of turn out alright. I don't know anyone who talks about Brexit in RL. Just too contentious.

What continues to frustrate me the most is Leavers like brexit who post utterly shite reasons saying 'you'll pick holes in them anyway' then don't even attempt to defend them.

The reasons given were either incorrect, unproven or only half the story yet we then get called Remoaners because we don't suddenly see the light when this nonsense is peddled and we don't accept this crap without question.

Why is it, 4 months on, I haven't seen a single argument that provides a balanced view on why they believe leaving is best for the country.

The most I've ever heard is 'I want a/b/c' but, even if a/b/c can be articulated when pushed (which in the case of changing EU laws etc it rarely can) it never ever takes into consideration that in order to get that x/y/z will happen and the repercussion of that are far more detrimental that any benefit of a/b/c.

'Bright new future'?

Don't you base your opinions on any facts or expert opinion at all? Stunned at the sweeping baseless comments of brexit supporters. You're so convinced we have this utopia ahead but you don't say how or why.... it's just a deluded generalisation.

Valentine,

The big collaborative European science projects are not run under eu auspices and include scientists from Israel and morocco inter alia. Well qualified scientists have and always will have global freedom of movement.

At the moment we pay a vast amount into the EC and get some of that back in science grants. The same money can be paid directly into science.

A lot of people make the mistake that the EC has a magic money pool that the use to fund all sorts of great projects. They take in contributions and they give back. Ultimately nation states, charities and even individuals can choose to fund science. The idea that it is the eu way or no way is ridiculous. There are advantages and disadvantages of being part of a block.

I'm still utterly baffled that such a slim majority vote result has been accepted as the outcome. I truly don't understand this. For something that has such massive potentially catastrophic ramifications why is a 2% difference allowed to call it?

I guess a tiny majority is still a majority. What I don't understand is why such a tiny majority is being interpreted as a mandate for a super ridiculous 'hard brexit'. 48% of those who voted didn't want to leave at all. The 52% who did vote for brexit were not a homogenous mass and there's absolutely no reason to assume that they all want kamikaze style brexit.

Indeed I have no idea why such a close and ambiguous result hasn't produced a proper national consultation to determine what the referendum result actually means.