Do your family, friends, work colleagues, anyone ever discuss Brexit anymore?

[StevieNicksMirage]

My family don't. None of my friends are interested. Nor are my work colleagues.

Was wondering if it ever comes up in anyone else's conversations.

Average incomes, in real terms, would be about a third of the level they are today. Standards of living were much lower. So we can go back to that. But only by being a lot poorer as a country. That was the choice.

My mum said she wants it to go back to like it was after the war. "We had nothing but we were happy"

It was the Conservatives under Edward Heath who took the UK and Northern Ireland into the EEC. It was Harold Wilson who put a referendum to the nation. It was an overwhelming yes - 68 for joining as opposed to 32 against.

Im not engaging...i just pop on when something looks interesting...or really dumb

That's all I do now Rufus

The Leave/Remain voter thing is just a circular argument now - I just occasionally have a browse on the EU forum every now & then.

Some interesting stuff comes up every now & then on the WM thread, but the tantrummy demands or polite requests for explanations why people voted to leave etc are not something I engage with at all now.

Some people I feel I'm being a bit unfair to when I say I won't engage as they've been perfectly nice with their questions, but the same old names demanding the same old explanations & spouting the same old crap have put me off unfortunately.

Some interesting stuff comes up every now & then on the WM thread, but the tantrummy demands or polite requests for explanations why people voted to leave etc are not something I engage with at all now.

Dear god for all our sakes I hope the government haven't taken this stance when it comes to negotiations. Because to leave the EU means you have to negotiate. If you don't present well in these negotiations how are you going to convince other countries you will stand by trade deals?

You can well imagine the trepidation if countries like the US, China and Canada are asked to get into negotiations with the UK post Brexit.

Personally, I'd be thinking, what a shambles!

If you don't present well in these negotiations how are you going to convince other countries you will stand by trade deals?

It'll be awesome because Don't They Know Who We Are?

Exactly FaithHopeCharityDesperation
It's the same people demanding we give them a 65 page thesis on why we voted to leave, & expecting us to explain, in exact detail, what will happen once we have left, & how Brexit will benefit them personally.
That's not normal.
And of course, there's the crazy fanatical PBP who keeps coming back to show us the error of our ways. It's all too scary for me now.

I'm a bit late to the discussion it want to add my two pennies, I discuss Brexit at length as my business is heavily involved with German automakers. I'm just back from Frankfurt having spent the last week with c-suite level execs from said German car companies. Not one of them expressed concern about the loss of the uk market. Not one. They talked about the ball ache of production movement, decisions to limit Uk investment and only maintain production when impossible to move (e.g. Electric mini) and planning supply chain changes to limit dependence on UK activity. The whole thing was regarded as a pain in the arse and a huge restructuring exercise, not a reason to lobby the German government. The only end user markets they were talking about were china and USA.

The big lie in Brexit is that the uk is critically important on a global basis. I think that is true in financial services, but it really isn't in many other ways. My empirical observation is that the rest of EU business is preparing to crack on without us. Sadly, when Britain realises this, it will be too late.

It's the same people demanding we give them a 65 page thesis on why we voted to leave, & expecting us to explain, in exact detail, what will happen once we have left, & how Brexit will benefit them personally.

Wait just a moment!

publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2017-2019/0005/18005.pdf

It's 66 pages long. Enjoy! Or perhaps you might think it's too long to read?

It's all too scary for me now.

Well at least that's some crumb of comfort.

Leavers hopped onto the victim bandwagon extremely quickly after the vote in order to shield themselves from having to make difficult explanations. As the catastrophic consequences were so plainly writ large, they couldn't justify what they had done and as it has become increasingly clear how massively ill-equipped the country is for this it's getting even more difficult for them.

So, when racist hate crimes spiked after the vote and kids were getting told to go home in schools, instead of acknowledging the terrible divide and the motivating factor of racism in some Leave votes, they got all huffy and pretended we were calling all of them racist. They just wanted to shut down discussion. Same with all the comments about 'sneery' Remainers. We keep asking because we have never got an answer. You voted to take rights and privileges away from me and my children, you voted to make my life worse and for the generation after us to suffer. Even the most deluded Leaver isn't denying now the 'short term pain' that will be felt by all. You won't tell us why and most importantly, you give us nothing to hope for in your vision of post-Brexit Britain because you don't have one.

Remainers aren't whining or tantrumming but we are angry about what is being taken from us with nothing in return.

Leavers attempted to ask us to 'pull together'; what they meant was for us to shut up and stop disagreeing with them because then they might realise they were wrong. Oh, and they'd like us to sort out their mess as well.

So yes, OP, we are still talking about it and we will be talking about it for a long time!

A tiny minority of those who voted no in the 1975 (32 years ago - a lot of years ago), decided to forever be a thorn in the side of the government to reclaim sovereignty. They have won. And err, that's it.

Can someone else please clear up the mess? Well no. Simply put, clear up your own mess.

1 am explaining my position on leaving i.e. Greek economic disaster, Spanish high youth unemployment and the fact that the UK was taken into the European Union under a trade agreement. It was originally called the Common Market and again I would reiterate their was no vote on the UK signing over its Sovereign Rights. A poster above says I am taking away the rights and privileges of her family. The very same rights and privileges my family and others fought and died for presumably. They didn't have a future.

expecting us to explain, in exact detail, what will happen once we have left

Isn't that a reasonable question to ask? I'd expect to have at least some vague idea of the consequences of a decision I was making - but I haven't even been able to get that from any Leavers, never mind the specifics. You expect people to support something when they have no idea what the implications will be for them (except the signs they observe around them, like the devaluation of the currency, delayed investment decisions, ill treatment of their friends, relatives and colleagues, and job losses). It's perfectly reasonable to be expected to explain what exactly you were voting for.

Leavers hopped onto the victim bandwagon extremely quickly after the vote in order to shield themselves from having to make difficult explanations

No one has to explain their voting decisions to anyone - it's a private matter. So why you think leave voters have to explain anything to you God only knows!
It's only on-line, where certain people have admitted to voting leave where this interrogation goes on.
It's an Internet thing, this doesn't happen in RL. You could be friends with a leave voter in RL, but because she's kept her voting decision private ( which most people do actually ) you're never going to know.
So you, & your type, take to the Internet to seek out leavers so you can interrogate them.
Get a life.

And originally I came on here to say that the present downturn in the economy was worldwide and shouldn't be blamed on a Brexit that has not happened yet. 2008 anyone? Can't blame that on Brexit can you!

The only real question Remainers have for Leavers on this type of thread is "give examples of how leaving the EU will benefit the UK". And the answers are always:
*Regain our Sovereignty (which we never lost)
*Control our borders (which we could always do, but did badly)
*Trade with the rest of the world (which we do anyway, in many cases under preferential terms through the EU)
I haven't seen any demands for 65 page theses.

The very same rights and privileges my family and others fought and died for presumably.

Oh, we're back to We Won The Wars (apparently, only the families of Leavers suffered the privations of wartime and thus have a valid opinion).

Common Market or EEC Referendum. 1975. Talk sense please.

Still waiting on you to tell me the positives of exiting the EU. To me as a UK citizen. Go on. You can do it.

So Chester, how will our lives be better if we leave the EU? What will we be getting in exchange for the rights, privileges and living standards that will be lost or degraded by Brexit? Sovereignty? What does that mean and how does it compensate for what we lose?

I agree Born, but with the very odd proviso that sovereignty now means allowing the Government to do whatever it likes without consulting Parliament and it's against the will of the people to allow Parliament any say, apparently.

That's a slightly less democratic revival of sovereignty than I was expecting...

And also Chester, are you really trying to claim that the damage to our economy hasn't been caused by te Brexit vote but is a coincidence??

Catching up properly, the sovereignty point confuses me a lot. What sovereignty have we lost to the EU? We have a national parliament who makes our own law (including not joining certain EU treaties), own currency and central bank, own standing armed forces and independent ability to deploy, control of our own borders (we are not in Schengen), our own judicial system, the ability to enter into international agreements outside the EU, etc.

Only ones I can see are free movement of goods and people within the EU, but I am not sure how that impinges on sovereignty.

surfer, if leaving were a good thing you would be able to explain it easily and wouldn't get all riled about being asked! Surely you can see is frustrating to be told that we will all be poorer, all struggle more and all lose rights but no one will tell us why they decided that was a good thing??

Often. My job is political.

All Brexit supporters - myself included - have no regrets. We are also all (almost) multilingual with postgrads and a belief that "good" immigration is brilliant. It's tough now but in the end it'll be worth it.