The most surprising thing about this referendum campaign?

[fourmummy]

I have hugely enjoyed being on MN during this time, having intelligent debates with well-informed people, but I have also found some things surprising. The most surprising thing for me has been the idea that we'll be pushed back to the Dark Ages by the Tories, and that we therefore need EU to protect us against this. I have also been surprised by people's voting intentions in RL, which I wouldn't have predicted. Have you been surprised by anything?

I'm surprised by BoJo.

I really expected him to make a splash but he's been do underwhelming!

Whereas Gove looks like he's enjoying himself.

Scotland has a credible alternative? Half the population - more than half - would completely disagree there!

RedToothBrush, I think many (myself included) are just generally fucked off with the status quo in everything political.

The whole institution is rotten and is in dire need of a complete sea change.

For me, this starts with leaving the EU, closely followed by the current Tory & Labour Elites imploding.

I'd like for politicians to be actually from the areas they represent, no more parachuting in; politicians to have actually lived & worked rather than making a career out of 'being a politician'; honesty & transparency etc etc.

What surprises me is that remain seems to be the back foot

oops that was red's post

Farage made a brilliant quote yesterday about how things have changed and how surprising that change is. He said it after the Establishment's Sir Bob Geldof had been sent down by them to counter the fishermen and Farage on the flotilla.

Farage rightly said that "it is disgusting to see rich people laughing at poor people" (but that is as it always was) and the quote that really sums up how things have changed is when he said

"There was a time when we protested the Establishment, now they protest us".

You know what, of course its possible my comment is a propaganda technique against free thinkers. But seeing as we are all freethinkers here, I'll let you all ponder that question for yourselves. You might be right or you might be paranoid.

On the other hand, it could simply be that propaganda techniques used in arguments around me, are a bit of a personal bugbear and I simply take great joy in pointing it out when someone tries it.

Ironically, I quite like Michael Gove off the back of all this.

He comes across as honest & principled, I would like to see him leading the Tories I think...

Agree Mango, Gove is excellent, but unfortunately it seems he does not want to be leader. It is a shame because he is one of the few politicians to have any real principles and to not be afraid to defy the Establishment in standing up for them.

I am even starting to like Iain Duncan Smith. He is a real attack dog against the chums in the Establishment and gives them a real roasting at every opportunity. It is like he has taken the gloves off and has been freed from their chains.

how is Farage not part of the establishment Claig???

That is also particularly funny

mango I think the key word is 'comes across as'. i mean that whole kerfuffle about whether his father was ground down by the EU or actually in fact just decided to sell his business at the right moment for him. Also please compare and contrast some of his previous statements with his current statements.

YY Iain Duncan Smith too.

My biggest hope is that whatever the outcome of this referendum we will see huge change in politics.

I can dream...

'how is Farage not part of the establishment Claig??? '

Because the Establishment and every single one of their servants (the Bank of England, the CBI, the EU, the IMF, the craven political class, the expense fiddlers etc etc) all want to stay in the EU.

Only the free thinkers, the rebels aand the people want to leave.

see here mango - Gove is a slick operator.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/09/narrow-nasty-michael-gove-justice-secretary

"All of which raises two larger questions about Gove. The first is how someone whose self-image and public reputation is as an intellectual conservative, a self-described moderniser fascinated by openness, logic and ideas, can have become so wholly converted to a backward-looking, populist campaign that is now almost wholly focused on frightening British voters out of the EU over the issue of immigration.

And that’s without even mentioning the effect that the attacks mounted on colleagues by this once scrupulously loyalist cabinet minister will have on his increasingly divided party. Gove has come a long way from that elegant but restrained initial statement of rejection of government policy at the start of the campaign.

As Gove himself might put it, it is as though he, in US Republican terms a Rand Paul-style doctrinal conservative, has morphed in the space of a few weeks into a Donald Trump-style scaremonger. The campaign on which Gove is now embarked is at odds with much of what he once stood for. The campaign is narrow, nasty, dishonest and driven by polling, while apparently spurning any of the old Govian high-minded argument. It is almost unrecognisable as the work of a man whose occasional willingness to give questioners the run of his mind meant that an hour in his company was always one of the more fascinating experiences in politics.

The strangest aspect of this shift is that Gove has for so long been one of the prime defenders of a liberal, open-door immigration policy in Cameron’s cabinet, even to the extent of arguing at one stage that immigration should be fully marketised, with UK passports for sale on the global market.

Ever since 2010, Gove has consistently argued in government against immigration controls, making alliances with his fellow economic liberal George Osborne – now his bitter EU opponent – against home secretary Theresa May’s attempts to tighten controls. So to hear Gove saying, as he did in an interview with Robert Peston, that a Brexit Britain would reduce migrant numbers to tens of thousands is breathtaking for its audacity – it is a personal volte face – and it’s dishonesty: it isn’t going to happen. It’s more than a U-turn. It’s the U-turn of a man who has got himself trapped in a revolving door.

What can explain it? In part, perhaps, the answer is that Gove is always happier with the big sweep of a policy idea than with the practicalities. That was a charge made against him during his time as education secretary and it is sometimes made against him at the ministry of justice. Like some of his fellow newspaper columnists, he may prefer to be carried away with an idea than to interrogate it too carefully.

But the other thought is that the campaign is proving to be catnip to Gove’s personal ambitions. The rightwing libertarian in him may have embraced the leave campaign as a Lutheran crusade against a bureaucratic leviathan. But the politician in him has the scent of power in his nostrils.

Gove has often been thought of as the kingmaker in the next Tory leadership contest. Now, though, he may have his eyes on the crown itself, whatever the effect on either the Tory party or Britain’s migrants."

jeeze mango and claig for supposed free thinkers you've really swallowed these slick politician's lines..

'My biggest hope is that whatever the outcome of this referendum we will see huge change in politics.'

I think the chanages will be enormous. We are witnessing the complete disintergation and complete disrespect for the Establishment by the people. Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall and the stooges won't be able to put him back together again.

The people have lost trust in the spinners and their multi-millioanaire servants who issue threats and scares to the people.

It is a peaceful revolution, a public dissent, a two fingers up to the lot of the liars.

Nothing will be the same afterwards and Cameron will be teh first to go.

Oh, I know Kitty - I just want the whole status quo to fall spectacularly apart and for something fresh, new & forward thinking to take its place.

It is quite telling though that the Bullingdon Club are woefully underperforming in this campaign - they are horrendous.
Gideon has been shown up repeatedly as a spiteful & incompetent twat, Boris (whilst great at writing columns & blogs) is a bumbling fool when on the spot & Dave is just soulless.

As someone who has not yet completely made up her mind, but who is tending towards out, I can honestly say that I am heartily sick of the propaganda, scaremongering and nastiness from both sides. It is counter productive unless you are already fully committed one way or another, when it simply confirms what you already believe.

What I find particularly surprising, indeed shocking, is how much those who are in charge of the country have laid out so clearly how inadequate they are for the job in hand. They don't appear to have the required intelligence, knowledge, or understanding. Surely, these people should be the very, very best we have?

Mango, I am in agreement with you that the whole system needs an overhaul. Isn't anyone else joining the dots with the recent Sports Direct and BHS scandals? Rich men taking millions out of failing companies whilst staff on barely minimum wages are being propped up by working tax credits paid for by you and I? What madness have we descended into?

RedToothBrush, I think many (myself included) are just generally fucked off with the status quo in everything political.

The whole institution is rotten and is in dire need of a complete sea change.

For me, this starts with leaving the EU, closely followed by the current Tory & Labour Elites imploding.

I'd like for politicians to be actually from the areas they represent, no more parachuting in; politicians to have actually lived & worked rather than making a career out of 'being a politician'; honesty & transparency etc etc.

I think that people on both sides of the fence of the debate actually feel like that though.

I don't think that people are less of a freethinker if they don't see Leaving the EU as the way to achieve that though.

I think that in terms of actually achieving that goal it will require those on both sides of the debate to work together to do that. Instead we are subjected to divide and conquer.

If we do vote to Leave then I think the whole thing is more likely to be marred by more of the same political infighting and propaganda from the same people and won't really change anything. But we could potentially be in a much worst economic and political state.

I'm very keen on the example of Iceland in terms of this. The common misconception about the crisis is there is that they voted against the imperialism of the UK about their debt and they kicked out the politicians and jailed the bankers.

The reality is, that the public vote ended up costing every individual more, the same politicians have been voted in repeatedly and are still denying all knowledge of where the money went (despite the panama papers) and the bankers who were jailed got out early on special legislation that was almost tailor made for them by the same crooked politicians.

There is a very good (and frustrated) journalist by the name of Alda Sigmundsdottir who has written at length many times about what has really happened there and what the rest of the world perceive to have happened there. Its fascinating.

Its why this 'freethinker' has very serious doubts about this strategy to leave, shaking up British politics.

It won't. Because its not addressing the fundamental question of who is going to replace those dickheads in power. The answer to that, is only if some pretty pissed off and fed up people decide to 'take control' by taking on that responsibility and working hard to offer a credible alternative.

One of my personal worry is a split between old and young for and against Brexit in the event Brexit win. Young people NEED to start engaging more in politics. If they end up feeling shut out of that again by a Brexit vote heavily stacked in an older demographic then I fear that we will have another generation lost to politics.

Our local council, is full of people over 70. There are no new young people coming through. There are a whole host of reasons why. This leaves national politics wide open to the political elites of Claig's favourite topic.

Brexit, is highly unlikely to change that.

But there you go. Not a freethinker.

I decided I didn't like the EU long before the referendum. It started when I was a child. My Mum was crying in the stairs crushed by the 16% mortgage interest rates.

"those who are in charge of the country have laid out so clearly how inadequate they are for the job in hand. They don't appear to have the required intelligence, knowledge, or understanding. Surely, these people should be the very, very best we have?"

Absolutely. They haven't even made contigency plans about what to do if we leave. They are useless because they are merely servants, servants of the Establishment, not leaders of anything apart from spin.

To be fair, the free-thinker thing just made me laugh last night & I jumped on the bandwagon as I'm becoming increasingly fed up of the self-titled 'sane, intelligent, educated' remainers on MN who never fail to patronise & sneer at the 'thicko working classes'.

'Define compliant and free thinkers.'

Compliant - Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Nicholas Soames, Sir Humphrey, Cameron, Osborne, Hilary Benn and Umunna

Free thinkers - Gove, Frank Field, Gisela Stuart, PritiPatel and Andrea Leadsom

I meant some remainers btw, not all - there are a very vocal minority.

I concede you are a free thinker Redtoothbrush.