To think blaming Brexit for all our current issues is outdated

[Bethatlass]

When Brexit was being voted on in 2016 Obama was president in the US, George Osborne was chancellor, David Cameron was prime minister, most people had never even heard of Wuhan in China. Since then we’ve had a trump presidency, a way in Ukraine, a global pandemic, massive political change etc. To put it into context my own DD was still in primary school when it happened and is now ready to go off to university in a matter of months. I’m not denying that Brexit has caused and contributed to some of the current issues. However, none of us could have possibly known about Ukraine or the pandemic when we were voting on it and none of us could have possibly known the change in politics we would have of those delivering it. FWIW I didn’t vote leave, although I was torn at the time, while I still think I was right to vote remain I don’t blame those who felt differently almost a decade ago. Therefore, Aibu to think that blaming those who voted for Brexit/Brexit itself for all our current issues is outdated.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves to say the Tories wanted Brexit is just wrong, the Labour Party were too pathetic to even have a view, until recently and they have now decided it is the most wonderful idea. Don't blame the Tories, blame the muppets who voted for it.

No need to apologise. It’s just a bit sad for some of us to be blamed for something we didn’t do. My friend’s mum voted Remain and she’d just had her 92nd birthday. He was so proud of her.

Excuse me which Government were in power and decided to hold the referendum? Was it a Labour government 🤔 oh hang on… wasn’t it Cameron desperate to get re-elected and happy to throw the UK under a bus to achieve that? I know exactly who to fucking blame!!

I didn't say that the Tories "wanted" Brexit. Where have you got that from? Obviously, many of them knew that it would be an absolute car crash.

That isn't the point. The Tories gave us Brexit, whether they wanted it or not. Firstly, David Cameron decided to hold a referendum to try to hold the Tory party together. Grossly irresponsible as he knew the risk that he was taking for the country but he threw us all under the bus in order to silence the Tory right wing.

Then May - who voted remain - inexplicably decided that a 52/48 result in the referendum somehow meant that the country had chosen a hard Brexit.

And then there was Boris. Frankly the less said about him, the better.

Then we had Truss, who couldn't even decide if the French were pur enemies or our friends.

And on it goes. I don't dispute that Labour have been weak and ambivalent about Brexit, and I hold them responsible for failing to make the case to stay in the EU and for failing to make the case for an alternative type of Brexit in response to the referendum.

But the fact was, they weren't in power, and it was the Tories who delivered Brexit from start to finish. It was the Tories who decided to hold an unnecessary referendum. The Tory leadership at the time also failed to make the case for staying in the EU after having decided to gamble on a referendum. The Tories decided to implement the hard Brexit that we ended up with. And it's the Tories who have made a right fucking mess of it. There is simply no escaping this.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves

Exactly. Then Cameron resigns the morning after Brexit result and goes into hiding, gutless!

Tories had multiple chances to pull back and re-evaluate. They have to own Brexit.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves the Tories delivered Brexit because that is what the electorate voted for. The PM stepped aside because he did not want Brexit. Boris won the election when he promised to get Brexit done, because that is what the electorate wanted. Don't blame the Tories blame the voters.

@Yorkshirelass04 you cannot blame the Tories, blame lies with the voters.

So they facilitated national self harm, and should be allowed to do that?

@MissyB1 just because they gave voters a choice doesn't mean they are responsible for Brexit. It is the voters who are to blame not the tories.

@Yorkshirelass04 they gave people the choice and the majority voted for self harm.

I think your resorting to semantics. The electorate don't vote for everything a party does, they vote every few years for a select MP.

You can't blame the Tories for the 'oven ready' hard brexit deal?

The Brexit vote has certainly contributed to the worsening of this forum. The dogwhistle tactics and even outright racist views are more prevalent than ever. They feel safe as the Brexit vote was focused around immigration for many people

The Brexit referendum was a Tory policy.
Tory PM David Cameron was completely arrogant and incompetence in how the referendum would work.
Tory PM Boris Johnson lead the Leave Campaign.

Damn right I blame the Tories for this. Its their fault.

Must be doubly frustrating 😞

@TooBigForMyBoots the Tories gave people the choice and the people made their decision. No one forced those millions of people to vote leave, they are responsible for Brexit. Subsequently, the voters again wanted to get Brexit done when they voted for Boris. No one forced them too. Where was the Labour Party in all this? Nowhere, they couldn't decide what to do and now it has been shown to be a disaster they have decided they do want Brexit...

@Luckydip1, because David Cameron hurriedly lauched Brexit as an "Advisory" referendum, certain safeguards were not put in place. Safeguards such as the legitimacy of claims. The Johnson led Leave Campaign took full advantage of this to tell lie after lie. And people voted on those lies.

I also blame the Tory government for the shambolic and chaotic way they handled our Brexit.

You're a fool if you believe that.

Firstly, the electorate only voted for Brexit because the Tories decided to hold a referendum in order to stop their party from falling apart. They did not have to hold a referendum.

Then the Tories formulated the questions on the ballot paper, that reduced a hugely complex issue to a stupid binary choice between leave and remain. They could have phrased the question differently, they could have given the electorate more nuanced options to choose from, but they didn't.

Then they decided that Brexit meant a hard Brexit, including leaving the single market and the currency union. Where on the ballot paper was it outlined that a vote for "leave" meant a vote for the hardest possible Brexit? Did the electorate instruct the Tories to interpret the very close referendum result in this way? No, the Tories chose that interpretation by themselves.

Then Boris promised the electorate an "oven-ready deal". Remember that? So they voted for him to implement it but it turned out to be a lie because the deal wasn't "oven-ready" after all, which is why Rishi Sunak has had to try to renegotiate it.

Yes, the people who voted leave are responsible for the choices that they made, but there is no way in which you can argue that the Tories are not massively culpable.

My elderly parents were out campaigning for Remain all through the referendum campaign. They felt they owed it to future generations.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves your case falls down due to the fact that the Tory PM himself told the electorate not to vote for Brexit. If you want to blame someone, blame Nigel Farage, he played a big part in this, Ultimately though, you have got to blame the millions of mainly racist voters.

@TooBigForMyBoots it is staggering that you blame the Tories, their PM was anti Brexit and told the electorate. The voters decided that the Tory PM was wrong and voted against his wishes. The voters are to blame.

There's only two things I dislike about the Tories: Their face.😆

No, my "case" really doesn't fall down, for the reasons that I have already outlined. I am not going to keep repeating myself because you aren't really engaging with any of my points anyway. You haven't responded to the point that they didn't need to hold a referendum. You haven't responded to the point that the question was poorly phrased. You haven't responded to the fact that the Tories chose to implement a hard Brexit in the absence of any evidence that that was what the electorate wanted. And you haven't responded to the fact that successive Tory governments have completely fucked up the implementation of Brexit.

You can defend the Tories all you like, but as far as I'm concerned, David Cameron is probably the most culpable of all of them because he knew it would be a disaster and he allowed it to happen anyway. Shame on him. Shame on the rest of them. And shame on those who try to defend them.

@Luckydip1 the Labour Party are not pro Brexit- they are however pro getting back into government and if that means maintaining a 'cope with Brexit' strategy to get some red wall seats back and disenfranchise right wing media using it against them- that's what they will do. Do I agree with this strategy - no- but given the fact that a great deal of the population seem unable to join the dots with downturns in standards and the economy and the right wing press dominating and a BBC led by Tory appointees I kind of understand where they are coming from

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves the majority of voters wanted a hard Brexit, they wanted to stop those horrible foreigners taking their jobs (which they now don't want to do themselves), they wanted an independent Britain which made its own rules with its own sovereignty, and not held back by those bureaucratic Europeans. Blame them.