to still be cross about the outcome of the EU referendum?

[mynamesnotsam]

I'm still so angry and can't forgive those who voted to leave. After the result there was much talk of how the two sides must put aside their differences but I don't feel there has been any attempt to try to appease the 48.1% of people who voted to stay. I also want to rip the head off any one who says it's the will of the people. They should be legally obligated to say it's the will of 51.9 % of the people who voted. If the vote had gone the other way you can bet that UKIP would still be making a huge fuss about it but remainers are expected to "just get over it"!

I'm not in the least bit offended Laurie

Can you answer a couple of questions?

Do you think people should have prioritised the effects of Brexit on NI over the effects on their own lives and communities?

How much do you know about the effects of EU membership on communities in the east of England? What steps did you take before the referendum to understand people's concerns about these issues from their perspective? How high did the information you gathered on this feature in you decision on how to vote?

Can you explain to me, given that you seem to think it plain that Brexit will have a hugely detrimental effect on peace in NI, why 44% of the people in NI who voted in the referendum voted leave, and 37% of the electorate didn't vote at all?

I'm not angry at individual Leave voters in general apart from the minority that voted purely to get rid of foreigners. I'm incandescent with Cameron for calling the referendum and making absolutely no plans about what would happen if Leave won because he was so arrogant, he never considered the possibility that he might lose. I'm furious that, rather than starting to try and sort out the mess he'd made, he just fucks off. I'm furious with Bojo and Gove for jumping on the bandwagon for their own personal gain.
EU membership is far too complicated to be put to a yes/no vote. I have a politics degree and there are lots of things about it that I don't understand and the only reason I have any real knowledge about the NI issue is because DH is Northern Irish and has educated me about it.
For a referendum to be legally binding, there has to be legislation setting out a minimum majority- usually two thirds- and a minimum turnout. This didn't happen which is why the result wasn't binding although I agree that Cameron gave the impression it was. What if Leave had won by one vote?
And, while I don't generally have an issue with Leave voters, the ones that pop onto these threads and say something along the lines of 'Fucking Remoaners, you lost, get over it, the people have spoken' don't do Leave voters any favours.

I find the posters who don't RTFT and just post some childish "stop moaning and get over it" comment intensely irritating, and unhelpful.

I don't understand the mentality that they can't be bothered to read other people's comments, but other people should be interested in reading theirs.

Brompton, I believe that the people in on east of England are infinitely better within the EU than without, economically, societally, in terms of their human rights, in terms of their global potential.

Now, obviously life is not perfect and and people face difficulties daily. I do not believe these problems are attributable to EU membership and I don't believe they'll be tackled if we leave. Living standards will worsen when we leave and the poor will be affected the most. Now, the people of the East of England may not agree with my analysis of the situation, but many economic authorities do. But the leave campaign didn't do experts, correct?

As for N.I. Leave voters, there is not enough space on this thread to cover the stupidity of the DUP and their fucked up priorities and identities. NI unionists voting to leave is the worst example of turkeys voting for Christmas I've seen in this country, they will suffer hugely from the fall out. They did it because Gove and company convinced them it was the 'British ' thing to do. And that's really just another example of how Brexit managed to mess with Northern Irish sensibilities and will cause chaos in the region.

But the leave campaign didn't do experts, correct?

I like this article from the Spectator about Gove's experts comment.

www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/michael-gove-was-accidentally-right-about-experts/

In the olden days we used to argue about politics and accept that people have different interpretations of the facts and data based on their views. Nowadays it's so much easier because if we disagree with someone and our interpretation of the facts differs to theirs, we can just trot out the old "you don't do facts, do you?" line and that's it. Job done.

Apologies if my last post was unnecessarily snitty Laurie. I just find the "leave voters don't do experts" line incredibly wearing. I am a scientist by background. I read a lot, all sorts of things, I try to keep learning. Since the start of the referendum campaign I have spent hours and hours reading news, polls, analysis and discussing politics to try to understand what is going on in the world. It's complicated, we don't all agree, but I think if you are going to bother debating with someone, you should credit them with as much wish to understand and as much willingness to accept facts (as opposed to theories or predictions presented as facts) as you, unless they have demonstrated that they do not have this.

This article explains what I am trying to say (and I think was Gove was trying to say)

www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/thoughts-on-the-sociology-of-brexit

The attempt to reduce politics to a utilitarian science (most often, to neo-classical economics) eventually backfires, once the science in question then starts to become politicised. ‘Evidence-based policy’ is now far too long in the tooth to be treated entirely credulously, and people tacitly understand that it often involves a lot of ‘policy-based evidence’. When the Remain camp appealed to their ‘facts’, forecasts, and models, they hoped that these would be judged as outside of the fray of politics. More absurdly, they seemed to imagine that the opinions of bodies such as the IMF might be viewed as ‘independent’. Unfortunately, economics has been such a crucial prop for political authority over the past 35 years that it is now anything but outside of the fray of politics

and this one

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/05/project-fear-brexit-predictions-flawed-partisan-new-study-says/

The IMF being partisan did not make them wrong.

I read the business and accountancy press every week - its my job

Only those with their heads in the sand or up Trump's arse can really think that the UK will be economically better off out.

Tariff based trade is an utter PITA
Britain has not had it for so long that people have become gruesomely blase
like the person who thought that inside the EU we could not trade with China
British people are in for one hell of a shock if passport controls kick in around Europe
and once EU clearance no longer apply to Brits.

The UK is full of immigrants because it has had a below replacement birth rate for 30 years
Immigrants have provided the young fit bodies
Without them the old and the ill will come to dominate the UK
and the per capita tax take will have to rise by a lot
or the level of service provision will have to fall through the floor

that is just maths and demographics - its not rocket science

Only those with their heads in the sand or up Trump's arse can really think that the UK will be economically better off out

I don't honestly believe many people have argued that that the UK will be economically better off out of the EU.

However individuals may be better off (as we don't share the UK's wealth out evenly, some people may be better of and some worse off, or people may appear worse off on paper but in fact have a better standard of living , eg if house prices fall) but more importantly, there are other things in life which matter other than wealth.

Which is exactly why experts don't have all the answers. They may be able make predictions based on certain models, but they chose what goes in the model (things which are easy to measure) and what gets left out (which actually might be things people are very concerned about).

I don't honestly believe many people have argued that that the UK will be economically better off out of the EU.
Other than Nigel Farage, David Davis, Liam Fox, Boris Johnson, William Rees-Mogg, Jeremy Corbyn, Aaron Banks, James Dyson, John Bamford, John McDonnell and Donald Trump among others

to hear some posters on here talk about being 'scared' and 'terrified' about what is going to happen, makes it sound like we are living in a war zone, er, we live in britain which is relatively safe last time i checked.
hate the expression but some people really need to get things into perspective, many people would love to live here and try to do so.

to hear some posters on here talk about being 'scared' and 'terrified' about what is going to happen, makes it sound like we are living in a war zone, er, we live in britain which is relatively safe last time i checked.

The level of uncertainty that this country has been thrown into due to Brexit is unprecedented since WW2. Perhaps you would be better served to not be in denial about the slow disaster that is unfolding in this country? Can you help me to get it into perspective by answering questions that have posed here on this board?

I always assume that if a poster says that they are 'scared' or 'terrified' that their life experience is leading them to believe that they have something to be 'scared' or 'terrified' of

Like someone may be 'scared' of losing their household income and 'terrified' that they will lose their house for example

I, like many have been bitterly disappointed by election outcomes several times, yet accept the outcome and plan and hope for the best, as l am grateful l was born into a democratic society. I respect the outcome even if it was not my choice. After all what is the alternative, a communist state? or dictatorship?

It is truly staggering how many vitriolic threads there are containing people who seem to only like democracy if it produces a result they want.

If you are so furious then get out there, go into politics and try and make the changes you want to see, what is stopping you?

There are 16 million people in Britain who voted to remain, and millions more who failed to back Brexit by not voting. They are entitled to express their views. That’s democracy. Get used to it.

It's not a challenge to democracy to challenge a non binding vote, it is democracy that gives us the freedom to challenge the non-binding advisory vote that excluded young people and British citizens who do not live in the UK. I think you misunderstand what democracy means.

If we have to accept the vote as a fait accompli then we would be living a totalitarian regime.

People oddly seem to conflate totalitarianism with democracy - how that happens I will never understand.

Pipsqueak, you're the poster who wrote 'like trump it may work out, or it may not'?

Forgive me if I don't take anything you say seriously after that little nugget.

hi birdy ! take it seriously or not, i can't really care about that, but..while i think.fuck and rufus are correctin saying that people are worried about losing their homes unlike syria and such places where they are likely to lose their homes , their families and their lives.
nobody knows what is going to happen in the future, if we are having this debate in a few years time and it's gone toes up then i will gladly come on here and apologise and say i was wrong to be hoping for a good outcome [ i'm not a negative person].
on the other hand if i'm right and it does work out well, i won't be bothered to read anything on here relating to it because there will still be someone moaning about it.

pip

Nodding along to your post til i rechecked the

unlike Syria and such places comment

Really shitty

am being realistic rufus, that is the reality that there are far worse places to live than britain under brexit. ihate reading the news about war zones and the plight of these people, it angers me, if you think it's shitty i bring up the subject well that's okay with me, won't be engaging anymore on subject so feel free to call me out.

Not shitty that you bring up the subject

Shitty that you dismiss the fears of people because they dont rank as bad enough

Lots of people in this world have dreadfully hard lives, fucking awful lives

They die, they lose their homes, they are raped, imprisoned

I can feel sorry for them and and the people who are having problems in this wonderful country of ours

People kill themselves all over the world over debt fears and fears over losing their homes and livelihoods

I have no idea what "call me out" means ...

Haven't read the thread. Get over yourself. The MAJORITY of people wanted to leave, so we are leaving. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and unfortunately yours was in the minority.

What a fucking shitty thing to say.

This bloody vote will upend our lives, and we had absolutely no say at all, relying on people being a bit smarter than they turned out to be.
Our lives are wrecked because people were chasing after abstracts like 'sovereignty', which no-one seems to understand anyway. And the number of leave voters who seem to believe that it means no more foreigners from anywhere... Being out of the EU won't affect the number of people coming from the Indian subcontinent at all (just as an example). But many people seem to think it will.

I still can't, 7 months in, fathom how the ordinary working people of Stoke, Wales etc think their lives are going to be better out of the EU. We will all be poorer. In a narrower, greyer little country. But they will be the ones least able to ride that out comfortably; the richer will probably be ok, as the richer generally are.

I do hope all the Boomers who voted out have got their future care home funding iron clad.......with the Tories dismantling both the NHS and the care system, and the supply of care workers drying up......I hope to god they are not expecting to be taken care of in any real way by the state, or they've got a horrible surprise coming. I feel sorry for the ones who don't have vastly overinflated houses to sell to pay for it.....