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 agree with the posters commenting about the working class. I am an outsider. I came to this country 15 years ago. It certainly looks to me like the traditional working class is sneered at and held in contempt while a new, more compliant working class has been imported totally undercutting the traditional working class.

80Kgirl - yes, you are spot on. The middle classes have had a "let them eat cake" attitude for far too long. The middle classes haven't yet cottoned on to the fact that the highly educated and motivated young people from the EU, unable to find jobs at home, are starting to compete with the middle class kids who, despite staying in education for longer, somehow don't have the correct skills.

middle class people can barely afford a middle class lifestyle these days

house prices are so over inflated that people with good well paid jobs have no hope of buying and are forced instead to be bled dry by over leveraged buy to let landlords

Yes, I think Gove did it out of principle

you say principles, I say a more nuanced form of Machiavellianism

It certainly looks to me like the traditional working class is sneered at and held in contempt I agree, as seen time and time again with new Labour as typified by Emily Thornberry with her tweets about white van man and, more recently, Bob Geldof. Very sad.

I'm pleasantly surprised that most people I know are voting out. My friends and acquaintances are largely well-educated professionals, many with higher degrees so, not fitting the brexiter profile as the media would have it.

I apologise if I offended, glass. I'm middle class and have children!

The housing issue is down to poor policies by successive governments. There are too many vacant investment properties in the south and everything is overpriced. Housing is well overdue for a "correction".

not in the slightest Muddled :)
as far as I can tell I am middle class too, although old enough to have bought property pre the most recent boom

re: comments made earlier on about Leave's approach to discussing immigration

Sadly, I do not agree that the Leave campaign have conducted themselves admirably by allegedly discussing immigration in a restraint and thoughtful manner, quite the opposite. There has been talk about nasty Romanians, imperialist Germans, job-stealing Polish people and hordes of criminal Turks gearing up to emigrate to the UK. To top things off, a Leave campaign leaflet I had the misfortune of receiving had a map of potential applicant countries in garish red, with neighbouring countries Syria and Iraq (terrorists!! refugees stealing our jobs and houses and raping our wives!!!!) in bright yellow, just in case someone was unfamiliar with Middle Eastern geography. This is not just scare-mongering, it is bordering on dangerous incitement of racial hatred.

This campaign has brought out the ugly side in people. It has also left a very bitter taste amongst those who have been at the receiving end of all that anti-immigration sentiment (which, by the way, was not really challenged by the remain camp) and it has turned amusement in other EU countries about the way some campaigners made their case into shock about the narrow-minded, isolationist and above all uninformed nature of the discussion.

To be clear, there are legitimate concerns about immigration and social services' ability to cope. But there are better ways to address these than to blame your Bulgarian neighbour.

I am truly scared of what might happen next Thursday.

Sadly, I do not agree that the Leave campaign have conducted themselves admirably by allegedly discussing immigration in a restraint and thoughtful manner, quite the opposite.

I too am very dissatisfied with the way immigration has been discussed as the Remain campaign constantly try to conflate the fact that we cannot stop uncontrolled mass immigration into the Uk from EU countries with the completely different issue of providing refugee to asylum seekers - which is not and never has been an EU issue. But as they have absolutely no solution that will limit immigration while we're in the EU it serves their purposes to pretend we are going to deny people asylum - which we are not.

There has been talk about nasty Romanians, imperialist Germans, job-stealing Polish people and hordes of criminal Turks gearing up to emigrate to the UK.

Link please. I missed that.

To top things off, a Leave campaign leaflet I had the misfortune of receiving had a map of potential applicant countries in garish red, with neighbouring countries Syria and Iraq (terrorists!! refugees stealing our jobs and houses and raping our wives!!!!) in bright yellow, just in case someone was unfamiliar with Middle Eastern geography.

Are these you words - "terrorists and refugees stealing our jobs" Is that how you see people from those countries - it must be because I am pretty sure that the leaflet I have been delivering does not describe the citizens of toise countries in the way you are doing as rapist. That's shameful.

This is not just scare-mongering, it is bordering on dangerous incitement of racial hatred.

I would suggest that your description of these middle eastern citizens as rapists is far more of an incitement to racial hatred than a simple map with the EU accessor countries highlighted in red. You are deliberately trying to conflate the inconvenient truth that when Turkey does join the EU we will have a border with Syria. People need to wake up to that fact.

This campaign has brought out the ugly side in people.

It certainly has when you appear to see middle eastern people as rapists.

It has also left a very bitter taste amongst those who have been at the receiving end of all that anti-immigration sentiment (which, by the way, was not really challenged by the remain camp) and it has turned amusement in other EU countries about the way some campaigners made their case into shock about the narrow-minded, isolationist and above all uninformed nature of the discussion.

You really are exposing your ignorance and bigotry. Leave is about FAIR migration. About offering people from throughout the world to come to live in this countries if they have the skills we need. it's not about banning immigration. It's about a fair system that does not discriminate on the grounds of nationality by favouring EU countries, If you cannot see that then you have not been paying attention.

To be clear, there are legitimate concerns about immigration and social services' ability to cope. But there are better ways to address these than to blame your Bulgarian neighbour.

I'm not. I want a fair immigration policy that welcomes an Indian psychicist, Canadian economist and Australian teacher as equally as their Bulgarian, Spanish or French equivalents. I have a global perspective. Remain wants to limit immigration to the Europeans in the closest countries to us.

What a truly disgusting post.

I am truly scared of what might happen next Thursday.

So am I if remain win

Give it a rest springing. In fact am pretty horrified at that diatribe above while both leave and remain have stopped campaigning.

Springingetc, you are deliberately and viciously distorting my post. But I am sure you know this.

Jesus Christ Springing

I really don't want to argue. Good night all.

Oh give it a rest everyone, it's not the time.

The most surprising thing for me is that invoking article 50 and leaving the EU doesn't necessarily remove us from the European Economic Area...

Also that this hasn't garnered more coverage.

Now you'd probably have to be a constitutional lawyer to argue this properly however my understanding, merely as someone who as read the treaties and followed much tinterweb wrangling, is that there is no explicit mechanism to exit the EEA.

It isn't intrinsically linked to membership of the EU you see, these were separate treaties which article 50 of the EU constitution would repeal ( the other way being to repeal the original legislation from '73 ).

Hence even by leaving the EU we could still be bound by the EEA that was effectively separate, unless we specifically chose to repeal the legislation / renounce the treaty.

Raises some interesting scenarios... All very complicated though!

Also the original question as to whether the original entry into the EEC was lawful under our constitution. The problem here is that under our constitution no parliament can bind it's successors.

In other words parliament cannot pass a law which the next parliament cannot repeal.

A Labour MP called Blackburn challenged the legality of the European Communities Act on the basis that the EU, as it would become, would enact legislation which the next parliament would not be able to repeal.

Now this has quite clearly happened. Lots of times, with increasing frequency.

The judgement itself was interesting as the law lords ( all parties in the case itself have since passed away) stated that they could not be expected to predict the future and rule on something that had yet to come to pass.

Effectively that whether or not an outside power was to be able to over rule parliament, and therefore bind the next parliament, was merely a matter of opinion.

Well Blackburn's opinion has certainly become fact.

Terrible news yesterday. Will the campaign continue today?

Absolutely should continue , Jo was campaigning just as much for democracy. Millions have died fighting for that right, and surely we all unanimously agree, "I may disagree with what you say, but I absolutely defend your right to say it".

I've been surprised by how many have easily believed that if we Brexit, we won't be able to go on holiday to Europe any more

I've also been surprised that the remains believe we can't survive without being in the EU, that indeed, in the short period of time we've been involved in this 'United States of Europe' experiment, we're now, in short, incapable of governing ourselves.

Honestly, I think leaving it until tomorrow isn't hard and won't make a difference to the outcome.

I think taking a short break is a good idea for everyone to reflect on the tone of what they are saying as much as their arguments.

Its shaken up a lot of people. Democracy won't end because take a day to take stock and emotionally recharge.

If it starts up again today, I think it will end up with too much blame in the sheer rawness of it. I'm already witnessing that on FB.

I think the campaign on both sides has focused so much on negativity and scaremongering particularly with the immigration issue. They have whipped up feelings of hatred that I couldn't imagine before now.