To wonder why MNers are so obsessed with Brexit now?

[LoveInTokyo]

I used to post on MN before the referendum and I saw very little discussion about Brexit in AIBU (although I think a lot of threads started in AIBU were moved to the EU Referendum topic).

In the EU Referendum topic traffic was fairly slow and there were just a few posters battling it out time and time again. A few posters on the leave side were, in my view, 99% likely to be paid trolls, who all disappeared immediately after the referendum.

Since the referendum the subject really seems to have picked up steam and there seem to be loads of people getting really worked up about how Brexit is a disaster and the country is going to the dogs.

AIBU to wonder where all these people were before, and why they weren’t all shouting from the rooftops when there was still a chance to change the result?

.....because as it becomes closer the remainers are starting to believe it will actually happen. There was a lull after the frantic ‘can’t believe it posts’ and now they’ll gather momentum as it draws closer. No leavers start Brexit posts, there’s no need.

CadyHeron You are right - and it seems that quite a lot of people think that stamping their feet and declaring the intellectual superiority of their arguments will make it all go away.

There is also such a polarised view of leaver voters - when in realty, it can't be true that 17 million people all voted as they did for the same precise set of reasons and alleged ignorance.

Still stunned at how thick the British public are...

Still stunned at how thick the British public are... and there it is again :)

Quite frank, and apparently it’s the leavers who throw insults around .

Yip and by saying it does not make me a bad person

Of course not, it makes you very lovely indeed.

Step - do you consider yourself part of the British public? I do, because I am.

I'm fed up with trying to "understand" Brexit voters. There is no logic to it, the sovereignty argument is the most intellectual they can come up with and that holds little water. The undercurrent of xenophobia, the harm they've done to this country, the fact the UK may not even survive has had me really look at those people around me. My estimation of Brexit voters is frankly similar to those who voted NSDAP.

In that case I think we’ve got off quite lightly with being called “thick” then . Just don’t teach your child to name call people names on the basis it doesn’t make them a ‘bad person’. Might not go down well in certain places.

Still stunned at how thick the British public are... and there it is again

Yup! Point proved methinks.

Wow! Godwin's on page 4 - not bad.

Because its quite apparent the whole thing is a shitshow and those in charge have no idea what theyre doing?

The UK is like that annoying boyfriend. Even though you did most of the work during the relationship, he brought in decent money and thought that gave him the right to be a dick. Now he's dumped you but still wants to use you for a shoulder to cry on and a shag. When you tell him to fuck off and that you're going to look after your own needs he's all like, "wahhhhhh, you're mean, didn't you love me?" And any of your friends that don't really want to hang out with him are getting passive aggressive texts.

UK, you didn't care about EU's feelings during the relationship, WTF should she care about yours now?

Godwin's as the analogy is valid, a xenophobic mass movement voting to destroy their country. The hat fits... Peston quoted Bettel ""They were in with a load of opt-outs. Now they are out, and want a load of opt-ins.” The whole thing is expensive self defeating and embarrassing.

I'm surprised people thought remain would win. As soon as David C announced an in-out referendum I thought that was a stupid thing to do because people would vote to leave.

My DH thought that the status quo would win.

I think a lot of people did vote for silly reasons (including someone I know who voted leave to annoy his brother - I suspect just as many people voted remain for similar daft reasons). But I think there were people voting for reasons that I don't agree with, but I can see that they came from a sensible, well thought-through place. For example, a friend of my mother's (ironically, not British, but from an EU country who has lived here for a very long time) said she thought being in the EU was holding us back and we'd have more freedom to negotiate our own trade deals and work more globally if we were on our own. As said, I don't agree, but I don't think she voted Leave because she was racist or stupid.

Anyway I am hoping that there will some sort of fudge. For example, that we do leave the EU but stay in the customs union and in some way the single market (I hope that some sort of accommodation can be reached regarding freedom of movement). I know May has said not a million times but she said a million times that we'd not have an election too.

I also hope that the referendum has been a sharp lesson in what happens if you shut people down (eg people said they were concerned about immigration and got told they were being racist even though it's not unreasonable to have concerns about eg having to build thousands of new houses because of an expanding population and not having the infrastructure). People need to be able to express their views.

Godwin's as the analogy is valid, a xenophobic mass movement voting to destroy their country.

A lot of people who voted Leave will be nasty racists, but you'd have to be pretty thick yourself (your word) to think that it's an entire xenophobic movement.

UK, you didn't care about EU's feelings during the relationship, WTF should she care about yours now

I wish people would stop referring to the UK as a homogenous whole. Nearly half the voting population voted to stay in the EU and we are not responsible for the idiocies of the government.

I also hope that the referendum has been a sharp lesson in what happens if you shut people down (eg people said they were concerned about immigration and got told they were being racist even though it's not unreasonable to have concerns about eg having to build thousands of new houses because of an expanding population and not having the infrastructure). People need to be able to express their views.

Exactly.

That quote reminds me...

I would repeat my request for any leave voter who thinks the EU has treated the UK badly (either in Cameron’s negotiations or since the referendum) to explain what they think the EU should have offered us.

We already had the full benefits of membership but opt outs from the euro, Schengen and some justice and home affairs matters, as well as a substantial rebate.

We already had a better deal than any other country.

What more were they supposed to do?

You can’t let one country opt out of free movement and retain all the benefits of membership. Free movement goes to the very heart of the single market and how it works. Letting one country limit EU immigration would fatally undermine the structural integrity of the EU.

So apart from that - which was simply not possible - what do you think they could realistically have offered us to get us to stay?

It is a big thing now as most remainers protest demanding we reverse a democratic vote. But then again most leavers would do if we lost I think the issue is that remained focused on the richer communities while the economic strugglers felt ignored

It's interesting, I know a couple of Remainers who would now vote leave as the way the EU have been treating us since has opened their eyes! I don't know any Leavers who would change their stance. Again, because of the way the EU is behaving. This is the case for me. rightly or wrongly

CadyHeron - It was an is a movement firmly rooted in xenophobia. Remember the Turkey threats? The UKIP anti migrant poster? The whole movement does that to me, makes my bowels churn. No and not all leavers a racist, but I can pretty much say that all racists will have voted leave.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/nigel-farage-defends-ukip-breaking-point-poster-queue-of-migrants

What specifically do you think is unfair about the way the EU has treated us?

Both leave and remain (but mainly remain) campaigns were horribly negative - forever going on about the bad points of the other side. I got fed up of the whole thing very early on.

A campaign telling everybody how great our membership of the EU was and how it benefited everybody would have been much better.

To date the only direct ways that Brexit have impacted us as a family are negative. Everything's more expensive, and going abroad is a lot more expensive. I have yet to see any positive ways in which Brexit will impact us directly.