AIBU to question if Brexiteers have any facts to back up their arguments?

[FarawayTreeFolk]

All I get from Brexiteers who believe in No Deal is that they think that "It will be alright!" Is they think everything will miraculously work out for the best.

No facts to offer, nothing. Nothing other than a religious style conviction that it will all be alright in the end.

Is that all they've got at their disposal to convince me that No Deal is a good idea?

I do not understand how Stephen Barclay claims the fact Johnson now PM has given a mandate for No Deal. It was a tiny percentage of the country who had any say in his election, how is that a democratic mandate and I thought it was all about democracy? Or is that just when it suits the Conservative party?

It’s pointless asking for facts from a brexiter, because 99% of them simply don’t have any. I think I’ve seen a grand total of about two sensible posts from them in the past few years. Lots of people have posted genuine concerns about the supply of medicine and food, the plummeting pound, the effect on Ireland and businesses, yet the only response they get back is something along the lines of “Brexit is happening, stop whining and get over it!”, or that they have plenty of evidence that brexit will be amazing but remainers are such stinky mean bullies that they’re taking their toys home and won’t be sharing.

The breathtaking arrogance of some people on this thread. Yes, if you want to take my rights away against my will I think you do have to be able to tell me a bloody factual reason why you should be able to. Disgusting attitudes.

@halloumi

You’re anger is displaced towards the wrong people. Rather than being angry at people who exercised their right to vote, be angry at the government who gave the population a vote without sufficient information - just hoping that a lack of information would mean people wouldn’t vote to leave.

Very dangerous of any government.

Direct your anger elsewhere.

I'll direct my anger at absolutely everyone who inflicted this upon us. The information that the government was lying was available, so people need to take some responsibility for not educating themselves on the issue, as does the government for the mess it's created.

constantlyseekinghappiness

I've tried saying that many times over the last 3 years and its never had a positive response.

As Remainers aren't trying to change the Status Quo,

That's the line trotted out again and again, but there is no status quo with the EU. It is changing from veto to QMV; competencies (like taxation) are moving from national to EU; PESCO is the potential birth of an EU military (and some of the chat in Brussels over the last 13 years is where to site the HQ that will be needed); Italy is walking a tightrope with bond spreads; Belgium doesn't have a government post the elections in May (but went 541 days in 2010/11 without one, so some way to go); Greece has neither forgiven, nor forgotten the Troika, and the damage that was inflicted there. AFAIK, there are still capital controls in Greece.

The only way the Commission can keep it all together is by ever close union, economic (so Brussels sets the budgets for everyone), by having EU direct taxation; by having a single foreign and defence policy (they've been moving towards this with the EEAS since 2007 approx).

Some of those who voted Leave don't want ever closer union, it really is that simple. Some (and this is why Trump will bet back in and why Brexit happened) feel left behind, looked down on by urban elites, and that that their lives were shit anyway, so why not vote leave, as nothing would change if they voted to stay.

Comments like those by Lattelove exemplify this. Labelling people
'thick, racist, uneducated gammon' and 'people who never had any potential anyway' says it all. People had a variety of reasons for voting leave, and many hold professional qualifications, are hardly thick or uneducated.

Posters wonder why Leavers won't respond to these threads, well the quotes from lattelove show you why. There can be no reasoned debate when comments like that are used,.

Halloumimuffin

Direct your anger at who you like but we all know what you mean it’s far easier to direct at those we perceive as not being as intelligent or as well educated

Can trick them using long words and political babble but people don’t vote on extensive and complex contracts, arrangement and agreements they vote in what they feel is right - this is the way elections and referendums have always been won

And more people who voted felt it was right to leave the EU

The writing was on the wall to have been blind to that, to have not understood the basics in political voting in all that research and reading so many claim to have done is foolish and rather stupid

constantly I do agree the Remain campaign was woeful.

For whatever reason they could not counter the lies that Leave told. Remember though that many in government at the time supported leaving the EU.

Anything that was said against leaving the EU was shouted down as a project Fear.

BUT everyone knew how important the vote was. Everyone knows that politicians lie.

If Leave voters feel lied too then they should start shouting that from the rooftops.

I don’t see any of that happening. I truly don’t understand why. I would be hopping mad if I had voted Leave based on Lies.

But yes why not blame those who are desperate and poor who have been let down by consecutive governments time and time again

Unfortunately, the desperate and poor will suffer the most. Brexit, especially a hard one, will result in an immediate decline in trade and economic activity along with supply chain disruption. Prices will rise, tax revenues will fall, jobs will be lost and public services will suffer. That is fact. The only debatable point is whether we might eventually recover and how long that recovery might take. Those fortunate people with reasonable levels of savings and disposable income will stand a chance of adjusting and weathering the storm. The desperate and poor, with no disposable income, no savings and often zero-hour contracts will be royally fucked. Should we eventually recover from the post-Brexit downturn, it will be the desperate and poor who reap any economic benefits last and least - it is always thus.

Classic case of turkeys voting for Christmas.

Justaboutdone

I didn't vote leave based on lies, I voted leave because I didn't want the ever closer entangling ties of politics that @Scaryteacher posts about (I have said this many times).

What I am increasingly annoyed about is the ineptitude of those in power that didn't find out what people wanted, put no plan in place or insist that they have a mandate for something which they don't have.

justabout I would be hopping mad if I had voted Leave based on Lies.

Some voted Leave because they had been looking closely at the EU since the UK exited the ERM and didn't like what they were seeing. I voted Leave based on the sleight of hand that the EU pulls again and again...member states having to vote again until the 'right' answer was obtained in votes on adopting Lisbon for example.

If the EU had remained as a loose federation of trading states, then I might have voted to remain. I do not think that we need a supranational organisation that is constantly taking power to itself to rule us, when we are quite capable of doing it ourselves. Why does the EU need a Foreign policy? Why does it need PESCO and a Military Staff, when the majority of EU Member states were NATO allies first? Why does it have a Parliament, if it doesn't want to become a state in it's own right? Why does it attend the G8? The EU is not a state, so should it be there?

2007 from the EU Observer
'The EU is not just any old international organisation, nor is it a superstate, but it might just be an "empire," according to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.' '"Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire," he said.'

9 years before the referendum, and it was there in plain sight...and people still don't want to see where all this is going.

TooTrueToBeGood

And yet those in power have had years to sort this out, many campaigners have put this forward as concerns and have had them brushed under the table by the same experts/academics that keep stating how good things are for the country whilst ignoring that the country is made up of pissed off individuals.

Context is everything and if you look at the context of what has gone on for 40+ years in the country in media and politics you could see this walking towards you.

But if you had maybe listened to what many have said they know they might suffer for a while it might be harder for a while but things might and they hoped would get better

Life hadn’t improved and for many had got harder for years

Of course people took that chance and I don’t blame them

Turkeys voting for Christmas is so fucking demeaning of those that are desperate, really desperate for change still heard it said so often we know the type who love this phrase those who shout from the roof tops about other injustices but yet when it comes to Brexit are unable to show an ounce of empathy

Funny that

I have a lot of sympathy for your position Boneyback As I’ve said Brexit effects our family badly and it’s effect will totally reshape my later years but I have to suck that up. It has been a catastrophic failure of both the Government and main opposition party to let things get to a position where we even have to think insulin supply.

I genuinely don’t understand how Stephen Barclay can say that Johnson being Leader means there is a mandate for NonDeal. It’s just not acceptable.

There is much wrong with the EU and it does need reformed / hard I know and frustrating. But I do think it’s better reformed from within.

I do actually get some of the concerns you have and I can understand why some
Voted Leave and I respect it.

If you feel the economic consequences of No Deal, and the suffering of people in the subsequent years are worth it then fair enough.
It was your choice to make and I respect that.

What I don’t Respect is when people come on here and say that No deal will be fine and we just not and we just have to get on with it.

It’s going to be one hell of a ride.

I have every faith that long term the 4 individual countries will be Ok. I don’t think the UK as we know it will exists.

I just think my children will be parents and maybe grandparents before that happens.

And I don’t like referendums.

It’s one of the things that really frustrates me in the Scottish independence referendum too.

Give me facts, give me a plan, give me the way we are going to do it, give me the risks and benefits. Break it down in a way that individual people can understand and then we have the opportunity to review and make our decision based on that.

Leave campaign should have done that - they didn’t.

My aged DPs are the only people I know who voted for Brexit. They are now both alarmed and angered by the shambles they're witnessing. My DM feels the Leave campaign was very dishonest and they were misled.

Planning seems to have been woefully inadequate since the referendum... the government appears to have wasted 3 years infighting and panicking.

Now we are seeing news reports of No Deal contingency planning, including cash injected into the NHS. These plans all seem designed to mitigate the massive impact of a no deal Brexit.

I have seen no plans whatsoever of how the government would make improvements on what we have now. Rather than improve on the status quo and improve the lives of people in Britain, they appear to be simply going for damage limitation - so they're accepting that things will get worse and they're trying to make a very shit situation that they have created a bit less shit.

And the money they have found for this has been found before we have left the EU. We are still paying into the EU... yet the government have found spare cash to support the NHS when they needed to.

They could have spent this money on the NHS at any time. They could have found more money to support border control, home office, transport infrastructure etc.

They chose not to. The hardships people have faced over the last few years have been due to UK government policy. Now the UK government is spending money they always had, trying to mitigate a situation they created.

Justabout There is much wrong with the EU and it does need reformed / hard I know and frustrating. But I do think it’s better reformed from within.

That has been tried for decades without much success. It is supposedly a rules based organisation, but there are no consequences for those who breach the rules, and whom the Commission likes, so no fines for Germany for having over the limits in the current account; no fines for France or Belgium for not meeting the growth and stability pact metrics. Article 7 (iirc) is being held over Poland and others of the V4 to bring them to heel by Timmermans, but now he has not been elected President, that might all go away.

The rules are whatever the Commission wants them to be at that time it seems to me.

I've heard many people say that they object to the European Union because it is controlled by faceless beaurocrats and therefore unaccountable. I think that this is not true. We elect MEPs and therefore have an input. I think that it feels like a faceless organisation because up until now people have been disinterested in European politics and haven't engaged with the democratic process. I think people have been disinterested because the EU was operating smoothly without any major problems do noone was even giving it a second thought.

faraway The MEPs are there to rubber stamp the legislation introduced by the Commission and written by the faceless bureaucrats that staff the Commission (although the ones I know do have faces!).

The voters had no say on the new President of the Commission, the new President of the Council, the new High Representative nor the new head of the ECB. How is that democratic or accountable?

There is a vast difference between European politics and EU politics, and no, the EU has not been operating smoothly for some time - remember Greece, Catalonia (and tacit EU approval for how that was dealt with), bail ins in Cyprus, gilets jaunes in France (and with EUGENDFOR on standby close to Paris if needed). They orchestrated bloodless coups in both Italy, wehn they removed Berlusconi and installed Monti; and in Greece when they got rid of Papandreou by insisting the terms of the referendum to be held were changed. It was very interesting recently reading what the ECB were doing in the background when Tsiprias was ready to challenge the EU along with Varoufakis.

My concern is No Deal. I have looked on pro brexit sites for facts, and found eg: 'My friend is a big shot businessman who voted leave. He has a business which imports widgets from the US. He says that it it is very easy to import from the US and everybody is making such a fuss'. Everyone then jumps on, saying 'See! Facts! Straight from the horse's mouth. It is easy to import from the US and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. We don't need the EU'.

I have been doing a lot of reading and research about EU and Brexit, and have learnt the following fact which counters this: As a member of the EU, we currently have trade deals with the US, among others. With a no deal situation, we will be out of these trade agreements overnight. Britain will need to renegotiate deals with these other countries, and until then they will not be seamless as they are now.

So hotshot businessman is correct in saying that he is currently able to deal easily with the US. What is being missed is that it will change post no deal brexit.

This is the crux of OPs original question I think. People voted leave for all sorts of valid reasons, but it seems we are more clued up than we were about the finer details re leaving, and so it would be prudent to realise that we do need to leave in an orderly fashion and not just drop out.

@Scaryteacher- we vote for our MEPs, and they then vote on our behalf in Europe, don't they?
I'm not certain of this, but it's the way I understand it anyway.

For some people the principle of independence is more important than potentially taking an economic hit. For such people it is not about having facts to prove what will happen economically.

But it probably will be alright. By and large our way of life isn't going to drastically alter no matter what happens.