To think most Brexiteers must now regret their vote?

[hoovermanouvre]

If you voted Brexit, do you feel like you have been able to "Take Back Control?" If so, where? Can anyone state one positive change since Brexit - I would genuinely like to hear at least something. Anything?

YANBU - I voted Brexit but now regret it
YABU - I voted Brexit and can see a benefit

The vast majority had no clue whatsoever

They voted for "reasons"

"Reasons" being all over the map and totally contradicting each other.

Have you seen the government we have got in the UK at the moment?

These people have shown that they had absolutely no clue as to what they were voting for.

I knew what I was voting for. And by the way, your arrogant superiority isn't a good look.

But, honestly, these threads have been done to death and I'd say both sides have shared their views comprehensively.

That kind of total democracy where everything went to a referendum would be fucking ugly, fucking quickly

It would. I’m pretty sure I read a dystopian book along those lines

Set pre SM so they probably didn’t imagine it to full extent

I voted Brexit and I Regret it. It could have been handled so much better by us and the EU, but the opportunities haven’t been taken and it’s part of the reason the economy is going to shit.
I think it’s very important for us to admit when we’re wrong, and I also think it’s fine to change your mind of political things.

So yep I was definitely wrong! I also thought Boris would do a good job as PM as I really rated him as London Major. Wrong on that too (I am occasionally right on things! Just not those 2)

BambinaJAS so how would you decide who would be alllowed to vote?
Lots of people know little about politics. Should they not be allowed to vote in a general election?

Mayor not major!

I was a reluctant remainer but seeing how the EU is behaving it was right to leave

Aren't you a peach. I have to congratulate you, every time I think that you can sink no further, you prove me wrong. You should join the Submarine Service.

Pray tell, which "civilised countries" banned referendums? The Swiss have held hundreds at Federal level since 1848, plus thousands more at Cantonal level.

Great! So what do we do? Ban the national franchise? I believe it was Churchill who said that democracy is the worst form of government apart from everything else that has been tried.

I agree, it is really, really important to admit you have taken the wrong road and change track, not just in politics, in life as well. Unfortunately, Brexit was very much about feelings, it is an identity (as is remain) I think this is one reason and Brexit damage is irrelevant and will never change minds. The most obvious example of this is the DUP stance. Their biggest fear in life is a united Ireland, it is completely obvious to everyone that Brexit has done more than anything ever to bring this possibility closer. They DUP are still absolutely 100% lovers of Brexit though, best thing ever for them.

It works in Switzerland. Though constitutional changes require a double majority - that is not only do you need an overall majority of the population, there must also be a majority in every single canton.

You're actually making a pro-Brexit argument, just inadvertantly. If a system of government is too complicated for the average person to understand, democracy is put in danger.

For all its good points (and they're many) the EU is a bit of a Heath Robinson contraption, and it does make lawmaking very remote.

Its fairly obvious obvious most people, leave or remain, hadn't a clue what they were voting for.
Hand on heart did you know ALL about Horizon, state aid rules, erasmus, med and banking agencies, wto tariffs, SM CU, europol, nuclear medicine, CAP/CFP/pilar 1 pilar 2?

I suspect you do know the Swiss have many safe guards in place for referendums, the brexit vote had none, including on who was funding it or the influence of unelected thinktanks on Cameron and May, fgs it wasn't even an election held under EC rules....

I agree.
I think the biggest give away of someone who didn't have a clue what they were voting for is when a person says they 'understood what they voted for' because anyone who says that hasn't even grasped the complexity of the question. It became clear pretty quickly that even the MPs championing this didn't have a clue what it entailed, Dominic Cummings himself said as much.

I am very much a remainer, for a raft of reasons mostly discussed on this thread already. I did think, however, that having the Tory government we had then was the worst possible party to implement leaving and would take advantage of it for themselves and rich folk. I told my parents who were glad to leave that even if I accepted/ agreed we should leave just we shouldn’t do it under the government of the time, who didn’t even have an outline of what would happen let alone a plan. Mainly I just didn’t trust them to maintain rights, standards, share any cash with deserving causes or regions. Maybe it could have been better - unlikely to be seen how it could have been beneficial for decades probably, but at least not scary.
I remain sorry to have left but we have done and next hope is for it to be managed pragmatically going forwards - a hope that gets dashed more each day. Anyway, as seems to happen under this consistently gobsmacking government my worries change and currently are on survival of people and environment in this country. I do think that obviously these are linked to brexit, but they didn’t need to be the result of Brexit, it’s compounded by the worst possible people utilising ‘freedom’ from the EU stuff not to improve anything for the whole, but to play games and gamble with the future of a whole country due to some fantasy ideology.

Well we were all in the same boat then and ‘Why do we even let you people vote?’ doesn’t reflect well on them

That argument is a double-edged sword.

If it's too complicated to have a referendum on, it's also too complicated to be democratic.

I did think, however, that having the Tory government we had then was the worst possible party to implement leaving and would take advantage of it for themselves and rich folk.

Except that Cameron's government was Remain. That's what he himself wanted. The EU has been very good at making Tories very rich. He took a gamble to shut the Brexiteers up, and he lost.

Actually I think (from the outside looking in) that the Tories are in chaos due to Brexit. The party has been taken over by the right-wing version of Momentum. They're motivated by ideologues at least as much as by greed.

But some things obviously are too complex for the public to decide on, that's why we have experts. That's not some sort of insult to the public, we're not experts and shouldn't be expected to be. Brexit is an obvious example.

You’re right and I debated with myself over putting that, as I was actually looking back at Cameron’s government thinking how awesome it must have been then, compared with today, and wasn’t sure I’d have thought that as much, despite not being particularly enamoured of policy. However, I do know I said it, so maybe in the moment it wasn’t as good as it might now seem in comparison!
Interesting to consider whether brexit has caused this current and recent showers’ performances. Maybe as it’s taken over so much for a few years now - bottom line we knew what staying in EU meant and the work it wouldn’t be causing - we had no idea what leaving was going to look like with the huge range of options and no idea how much work there would be to untangle 50 years of integration. It was a terrible thing to just say leave or stay without any parameters or guidance- even leaving out the misinformation debacles.

I would think that people's views now would depend on why they voted as they voted as they did, and also on what they see happening in, say, the next 50 years.

Six years, and really less than that, isn't a reasonable timescale to judge something like leaving (or entering) the EU.

I tend to think the EU is screwed anyway, and it may turn out to be better to be out of it's death throes. But that's a projection obviously, no one can know.

I'm sure that plenty of people vote on plenty of issues without being fully aware of the implications. That doesn't mean that they should be deprived of their right to vote. That would lead us down a very dark path.

Hah! I see what you did there 😉

I accept that we have to rely on experts to, for example, design and build our bridges, maintain them, and decide what safety standards they should be built and maintained under.

How we're governed and how our laws are made is very clearly a different matter. For better or for worse, this is absolutely the business of the public. Would you have denied the Scots a referendum in 2014? Membership of the EU meant a huge and increasing outsourcing of making the UK's laws. If you say this is only a matter for experts you undermine the whole basis for democracy, which is that the public get to choose who gets to make the laws and who administers them.

Also regarding 'experts' I reckon it's been forgotten just how badly the UK was affected by the GFC. It hasn't really recovered. So it's not surprising that the experts, ie, the economists, bankers and regulators have been on probation since, because they let it all happen. Because they got it horrendously wrong and didn't face up to this, their advice got ignored in 2016.