To be sick of this "all old people vote Tory" narrative

[WatchoRulo]

There really is no nuance to any debate when people make ill informed claims of this type.

Anecdotally from my friends and family - the only Tory voters are the younger people.

Factually - it's very obviously the case that not everyone over, say, 60 suddenly starts voting Tory.

Also - like the "old people without degrees all voted for Brexit", these claims are based on a statistical extrapolation, often from a very small sample size and are also based entirely on what people who were asked told the researchers. This "data" is from the very same polling organisations that failed to predict the outcome of the referendum, yet somehow some people have accepted their guesses as immutable truths and "facts".

We have a crap FPTP electoral system which means most people don't get what they vote for.

It's a secret ballot - the only way to know for certain the detailed demographics of who votes for what would be to check who actually voted for whom.

I am really fed up of the narrative that as a boomer (aged 60, still working and paying tax and NI by the way) I have deliberately shat on younger people all my life (why would I - I have a teenage DD).

I have personally never voted Tory and consider it vanishingly unlikely I ever would, and I recognise that I've had some lucky breaks from when I was born, but I haven't deliberately stolen from young people.

In 1975, when I voted for the first time, the Conservatives were far more pro-EEC than Labour, who remained quite divided on the subject until 2016 and Leave won, since when it has been a claim that Labour was in favour of remaining. In fact, many Labour MPs and power-brokers were reluctant to be associated with or affiliate to the Remain campaign, and Corbyn had consistently opposed everything to do with the EEC and EU.

Once again, we have never had a referendum on joining.

FFS read the thread. Why post without checking even for a few seconds?

We had a referendum on staying in. You are being pedantic.

In 1975.

Read the first few chapters of Tim Shipman's book "All Out War" for an interesting account of how reluctant Labour was to be seen to back Remain.

I have never said otherwise? I was accused of jaw dropping ignorance for point out we have never had a referendum to join.

Fact.

Why are so many posters determined to misrepresent the history of our joining and membership of the EU and then sneer at anyone who corrects them? It's weird, why try to make a virtue of ignorance?

The discussion elements here on degrees are toxic and ill informed. It’s a meaningless statistic because a.having a degree doesn’t make one more or less intelligent and b. not so many people studied degrees so that dictates the stats

Joining what?

The EU or the common market.

Also I don’t need to check as I was there when it happened.

Otherwise wtf does the internet say people were voting for

Both. We have never had a referendum on joining either.

Same here. I'm 67 and have voted in every local and general election since I was 18.

My parents were always Labour voters too. Sadly, the same can't be said of my brother, who's 55 and has voted Tory since he was in his early 20s.

MIL is 84, and a lifelong Labour voter.

There was a referendum on whether to stay in the EC, as it then was, in 1975 though.

I voted remain then, too.

I put that on a par with it is all the Boomers fault for everything

Can't change it so let's slag it off. There are some strange people on here. I, for one would never vote for the so called working class party with a 'sir' running it.
More worryingly a party who doesn't know what a woman is.
I don't vote, as all the parties are the same when it comes down to basics. Corrupt and a waste of space.

engtech having to resort to insults ? It would better to put forward an intelligent reason why you feel like that.

Like! for @pasta4metonight's post at 1856.

If two thirds of "old" people vote Tory and two thirds of "young" people vote Labour, then this inevitably means that half the "young" Labour voters have already, or will in the future, change their vote to Tory as they age - it's a mathematical fact.

"If we'd had a referendum on Maastrict, then perhaps that treaty would never have come in to force and we would still be in the EEC, rather than out of the EU."

There is some truth in this, although the UK got important concessions, particularly opting out of the Euro, and I suspect Maastrict would have been approved in a UK referendum. Countries that held referendums approved it apart from Denmark, who approved it in a second referendum after getting the same concessions as the UK.

The next big proposed change was the European Constitution of 2004, which was abandoned after significant rejection in referendums in France and Netherlands. I am certain a UK referendum would have also rejected it.

The next attempt was the Lisbon Treaty of 2007. The Irish were the only country to reject this by referendum, but after obtaining essential guarantees from the EU it was passed in a second referendum. This treaty was signed by Gordon Brown for the UK without new concessions, and I believe this was the real seed of Brexit. I strongly suspect a UK referendum on this treaty would have initially rejected it, forcing some concessions to the UK, and like Ireland, a second referendum would have accepted it. Concessions for the UK which Brown could/should have negotiated were later sought by Cameron but it was too late and the EU told him to go forth and multiply. Now a UK referendum was inevitable and without opt outs/concessions/guarantees on the Lisbon Treaty there was a very good chance the UK would leave.

People seem to forget that in the Brexit referendum, the official position of both the Tory and Labour parties was Remain, although both parties allowed their MPs to campaign for Leave if they wanted.

People are blaming Brexit for all manner of woes, but they seem to ignore that it is Boris Johnson's version of Brexit that is the problem. Other versions could have had the UK remaining in the single market/customs union and so forth. BJ has such a bad record of running anything (except for parties at No.10) that it is a short logical leap to believing a more competent administration could have made a success of Brexit, and maybe still can in the future. After all, only 3 of the G7/G8 countries are in the EU, and only 27 of 195 countries.

Thing is, any Brexit vote couldn't do other than empower the ERG. Cameron gambled against the lunatic fringe in his party and he lost. There are theoretical versions of a better Brexit, but we could never have had them in the political climate that the Leave vote occurred in. There wasn't a more competent administration available because they'd all have been hostage to the newly top dog Eurosceptic wing.

My elderly dps have never voted Tory. They are pretty well off with great pensions.
My boomer siblings with good pensions and mortgages paid off vote Labour and hate the Tories.
We are younger and won't be voting Tory even though we are wealthy, live in a Tory stronghold have several rental properties. This is possibly the worst government ever. Like fuck am I wasting my vote on such privileged, out of touch utterly incompetents. Problem is, who to vote for? Anything seems better atm.
One of my dc has a successful business and thinks the Tories are useless.

It was the vote of English people more than anything else.

Ha ha, in theory yes. Jeremy Corbyn was so obvious a closer leaver it was painful to watch. He went missing during the referendum campaign.
Membership of the SM/CU, although essential IMO was never going to happen with this lot as it means free movement and this is what the Brexiteers were most against. TM also.

lol So Blair was anti EU ? really? Gordon Brown? Miliband?

John Major never had to call a vote of no confidence in his premiership to silence the strong anti EU wing of the Tories? Even Thatcher turned on the EU in later life.

& it was Cameron who was forced to have a referendum because of the strength of the ERG.

Labour overall, campaigned to Remain.

You really do have a very distorted view of history or as i suspect the Cons will, before the next GE, seek to blame Labour for Brexit & you seem to be part of that.