To tell you why I voted to leave

[readingreadingreading]

I'm not brave enough to say this IRL and that is part of the problem.

I refuse to believe that I, or 52% of the British population are either thick or racist. I also think that such a pessimistic view of our population is leading to more divisions.

I have wanted to leave the EU since the Maastricht treaty was signed (I even sent off for a copy of it). I always said I'd campaign to leave as soon as I got the chance. I didn't campaign as it would have meant aligning with groups such as Farage which I do think are racist. But I still chose to vote leave.

I think the EU are getting too big and have always been too bureaucratic. The countries aligned to it are too varied for a common purpose to be right for everyone.

I don't know if we have an immigration problem or not. If we do we need to be able to restrict the number of nationals of other European countries moving here. If we don't we should be a lot more welcoming to people from other parts of the world, people who really need asylum. The current situation has desperate people turned away at borders and highly skilled workers having to jump through hoops for a job where they are wanted and needed.

No of course I didn't believe there would be extra money for the NHS. However I think currently we give money to the EU and we get money back whereas giving the same money directly to British needs would be a better use of it. Not to mention the savings from all the extra MPs.

I'm old enough to remember life before the EU. We managed to travel to Europe, live and work in different countries, eat food and not go to war. I'm reasonably sure we can continue to do so without them.

I don't think the EU can last much longer and I thought (wrongly) that coming out now in an orderly fashion would be better that having it all crash down around us. I'm nervous of new laws being enacted that we have no veto on and drifting into closer integration.

I hate to watch the current mess and no, this isn't what I voted for. But if we can't get out there shouldn't have been a vote and I don't think everything can be blamed on the leavers.

The thick and racist thing is so old and tired. My parents voted Leave and they're academics, not thick or racist.

52% of the UK's population didn't vote to leave the EU. The population is about 65 million, 17.4 million is not 52%. I do understand that leave got the majority of votes in the 2016 referendum, so we are where we are.
Out of interest , how do you see the UK leaving the EU, would you be happy with no deal and the negotiations taking place after that event or with some sort of plan/agreement in place prior to departure ?

I respect your position, but I also can't really understand how it wasn't obvious to you that you were voting for a nightmare.

I appreciate this post
Can I ask another question
As a leave voter, what would you now like to happen?

your slim majority is the problem but it was a majority. It’s not our fault that 12million people didn’t bother to vote. If you had won by that margin, you would have accepted it.

And I agree with a pp that a fair few other countries are watching this and putting together their own leave plans.

We will be the first but we won’t be the last.

I voted remain but I did dither about it. I’m not in favour of unchecked immigration. I’m not bothered about losing our Britishness or Jonny Foreigner getting the best job or any of that sort of crap, but I worry about our country getting overcrowded, building on green belt, not being able to grow enough food for our population, that sort of thing.

The EU is a great institution, in terms of setting laws and standards that by and large benefit us all. It’s a bit of a gravy train though, it seems to waste a fair bit of money.

Well put OP.
I voted Remain, but your reasons tally with members of my family who voted Leave.

I voted Remain, because although I agree with some of your reasons, I am risk averse and would rather stay with a known status that, though it has some problems, is basically working, than take the risk of a big unknown step with some big issues that weren't clear at the time of voting.

In some ways this whole mess shows how well our democracy works. We have had 3 years of confusion, but broadly peaceful protests. No riots or mass violence. The MPs can't agree (rather like the population) and nothing has been forced through (yet).

In an ideal world I would withdraw notice to leave, work on a technical solution to the Irish border issue, when that is sorted put a full deal including that solution to the vote, or remain. But that isn't really feasible.

Perdigal I read your post behind hands.

Cringing! You voted on the back of a campaign.. Rather than delving into.. What's wrong with the eu, what is big government, how does it impact our lives, who is junker, quotes, who is guy de v.

How have the eu reacted to crisis in the eu?
What's happening to eu countries?

Does the eu put people first, or eu project first?

But... You were spoon fed on a campaign... Arghh

I hate to watch the current mess and no, this isn't what I voted for. But if we can't get out there shouldn't have been a vote and I don't think everything can be blamed on the leavers

Wrong, everything can be blamed on the leavers. EVERYTHING. And if it isn't what you voted for, what did you exactly vote for?
We are in Europe with opt outs and you wanted to be out with opt ins? or just out?
I very much blame leavers for the mess we are in at the moment. You jumped in to bed with the likes of Farage and Johnson. And whilst you say you are not racist, I'm prepared to bet that all racists voted leave even if all leavers aren't racists.
Anyway, the grown ups seem to be in charge at the moment, long may it continue.

I also remember a time when it was possible and easy to live and work on the continent! Many family members did and lived there.

YABU

Very similar to my reasons OP. Which I posted (under a different name) in the Brexit topic in MN before the referendum.

I have also wanted to leave since Maastricht. We should never have joined an ‘EU’ without a referendum. 2006 was well, well overdue.

My other reason was the only reason given to vote ‘remain’ was that leaving would be difficult and have some economic consequences. I have never heard any arguments to convince me why being in the EU was a good thing and I’ve been waiting 27 years.

TerrorYakSores
I voted remain, but one thing this whole mess has opened my eyes to is how very difficult it is for a country - likely any country, to extricate itself from the EU once firmly entrenched. And that's a worry.

You could have left with your dignity intact if your politicians hadn't all acted like arrogant arses. Cake and eat it, cherry picking, keep all the advantages, easiest deal ever blah blah blah. Your tabloids constantly insulting the EU negotiators, looking down your noses at them. Red lines drawn everywhere that the EU was expected to accept and work around. Refusal to give an inch on anything that would have helped a deal be struck.

There was an interesting program on R4 yesterday blaming a brawl in a bar in Westminster for the country voting leave. Worth a listen.

I agree op, and additionally I voted leave because:

• I am concerned that the EU now is just too large, and growing still, and no one nation can be heard at all anymore, except for Germany and France of course.

• To trade globally, and to offer the same immigration procedure to everyone around the world guided by the industries that require labour, rather than the EU only and uncontrolled as it is currently. Something along the lines of the Australian points system would work well here. Commonwealth countries especially should be rewarded for their loyalty.

• Our country will be able to maintain a fully accountable, transparent government, rather than the regulations and rules coming from the EU commission. I would like to see power sharing across the country and not all based in London. I would like to see more direct democracy.

I adore Europe, and have lived there for decades, and additionally we have a house overseas. I want Europe to stay made up of individual nations, with their wonderful cultures, differences and variations. The idea of all this being lost to a super state troubles me deeply. Each nation and identity slowly be eroded away.

A friendly trading bloc I support whole heartedly, a political superstate that the EU commission has now become chills me to the bone.

The EU will never be able to compete fully with the US or China, and is not even able to protect its own borders or countries in any meaningful way. It can never work, and is doomed to failure in my view, that the Euro of course.

I fully respect all of those that voted remain, I would love to know in a polite way, what positive reasons they had for doing so? What are the positive reasons to remain?

I think if anyone's to blame, it's the political and social movement that has fucked over and demonised the working classes. The Brexit vote was at least part a reaction to that. It was an uninformed reaction, but what do you expect if you deliberately decimate healthcare and education and set out to break social bonds.

The number of avowed lefties who will openly sneer at 'chavs' and point out that brexit voters were from the 'lower' social classes, whilst claiming allegiance to a party that was created to better the lives of those classes, really goes through me

OP, I think I'm coming from a similar place.

For those saying "what's too bureaucratic about the EU?", I actually worked on a Whitehall team drafting single market legislation. I have sat in EU working group meetings where we've "gone round the table" and every single member state - all 12 of them as it was back then - said (of some proposed piece of bureaucracy) "this is an insane proposal, it won't work." Only to have the commission chair say "but that's what we're going to do."

My experience in microcosm, at a worm's eye view, seems to have mirrored that of Tony Benn's at a much higher level - that the commission's institutions had taken on a life and direction of their own, over and above the wishes of the EU parliament and Council of Ministers.

The Commission fails Tony Benn's famous democracy questions: "Do you have power? Who gave it to you? To whom are you answerable? How do we get rid of you?"

As for the future of the EU - I think it will limp on for a surprisingly long time, but certainly the Eurozone now has a central economic instability buillt into it. Since 2016 I've deliberately been trying to step outside my Guardian reading bubble and read as wide a range of sources as possible, and I find it striking that a Marxist-leaning economist, Yanis Varoufakis, and the Telegraph's economics editor, come up with very similar accounts of the instability of the Eurozone economy, albeit from diametrically opposed political positions: that the strength of the Euro, the austerity measures placed on the southern economies and the debt repayments lead to capital flight from the south and overly strong economies in the north, with an artificially strong Euro. The EU managed to survive the 2008 crisis, but it's unclear that they have the resources to survive the next one.

Do I want a hard Brexit? No. I'd hoped Parliament would actually do its job and produce a sensible compromise deal. Whose fault is it? Well, both the ERG and the die-hard Remainers. As the Telegraph's parliamentary sketch writer (a Remainer - about half the Torygraph's staffers are Remainers) put it after the indicative votes "Yesterday Parliament voted down 6 possible routes for leaving the EU, and simultaneously voted down staying in the EU. I don't know what 66 million of us did wrong in a previous life to deserve this, but it must have been pretty bad."

I don't think the EU can last much longer.

I voted ‘Remain’, but I agree with you on this point. France will likely opt to leave next, followed by The Netherlands.

We keep hearing this year after year and yet... honestly it doesn't look like the idea of Brexit is catching. The UK isn't really selling it that well...

Because roughly a 1/3rd of the voting population couldn't be bothered

Or knew we didn't really have a say and had better things to do that day. Glad I did now.

Juells But the EU haven't helped either. All the 'divorce bill' stuff having to be settled in advance of any other negotiations - there was no need for that. If people had set their mind to the Irish border from the very start the rest of it could have come later.

I am absolutely gobsmacked at those who apparently are shocked and surprised that our politicians are completely ballsing this up.

What from the last 5-10 has given you the impression that our politicians aren’t A bunch of out of touch twats more concerned with increasing the size of their hedge funds and consolidating power; than the interests of the people they claim to represent?

I can understand your views, I think, even if I don't agree with them.

Unfortunately, many of the most vocal leavers are, indeed, racists and/or seem not very intelligent- which is a pity because it makes debating impossible.

More immigrants come from outside the EU than from within it. There has never been anything stopping the government controlling this, the largest, source of immigration.

You should have put a vote button on.

YADBU