I regret the way I voted.

[lulucappuccino]

After a long day reading Facebook (didn't announce on there that I'd voted out), colleagues talking and family (who do know how I voted) complaining, I really wish I'd voted to remain.

I read a few bullet point articles and felt swayed by the amount of money were were paying to the EU. But I feel as though I'd partly not researched enough and also believed the hype.

Seeing the pound falling and friends worried for their jobs etc, I feel as though I've done something really bad. In fact, I'm sure I have.

Does anyone else regret the way they voted, whichever way that was?

Oh and even more of a disaster that the referendum decision has led to the loss of the only credible leader around at the moment. I despair

The remain campaign was poor.

They lacked a charismatic frontsperson - people 'know' Boris and Farage
They lacked a catchphrase - people liked 'take back control'
They failed to talk about what the EU has ever done for us (I don't blame them because they've been slagging it off for years!)

The Remain campaign was poor, but anyone voting on something this serious on the basis of a campaign not the issues, is too immature to be voting anyway.

They failed to talk about what the EU has ever done for us (I don't blame them because they've been slagging it off for years!)

Yes, it's been far more convenient to let the media blame immigration than to admit that the NHS is underfunded, and that there's no school places because of Gove's experiment, and that there's a shortage of housing because we choose not to build social housing, or even ensure that there is affordable housing being built. Etc.

However, they could have explained that the mythical £350m would be needed to fund scientific research, urban and rural development projects, and all the other things that the EU do. And that we wouldn't be able to afford it, anyway, because of falling tax revenues, as our economy contracts, and international investment recedes.

Loletta literally my whole family, apart from DH, voted Leave, as did 2 of my close friends. I think I need to just say I don't want to discuss the Referendum now, as when I did in the past I was universally patronised- "you know we've always survived in the past, it will be fine, calm down" like I'm some stupid schoolgirl who forgot her history. I responded to one of these messages last night saying that if history teaches us anything, isolationism and economic decline bring out the worst in human behaviour. In future I will smile benignly and say "well I really hope you're right, for all our sakes". If things go really wrong, I might not be able to restrain myself though.

loletta none of my friends or family are admitting they voted leave anyway!!!

I think there has been enough bad feeling on both sides and now we need to pull together.

Although the leave vote has potentially put my family in a VERY difficult position, I also understand why it happened. I live in an economically deprived area where jobs are very hard to come by and wages are low. The most vocal supporters of leave that I know have been EU migrants who have now got British passports and could vote to exit. They've worked hard to build a life here which they now see as being under threat because of continued immigration which is leading to lower wages. Of course, coming from London, I understand that it is a totally different situation there.

I'm convinced a huge amount of support for leave came from the protest voters who didn't believe we'd ever have a majority vote to leave. The media made it sound as though remain had it in the bag. Leave voters didn't believe it was a risk. Silly maybe but cut them some slack.

but anyone voting on something this serious on the basis of a campaign not the issues, is too immature to be voting anyway.

You say that but...this is the system. Those were the votes they needed to win...

throwingpebbles that article you quoted was from jan '15, not now. It might be quoted as an indication of the way he thinks though.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-nhs-might-have-to-be-replaced-by-private-health-insurance-9988904.html

I think the current first-past-the-post system has trained people to think their vote doesn't matter. It isn't really democracy. Proportional representation makes for more volatile (and more responsive?) politics, but at least people know their vote matters.

Suspect that a lot of people had no experience of being able to influence anything political before and never thought they would this time, when every vote -did- count

I know this is a bit of a first world smug middle class MN problem, but yesterday I immediately had to lay off my cleaner and cancel our gardening service, and we may be laying off our nanny as well, depending on whether my DH can actually get any work (he was involved in EU-related activity). I am also cancelling a couple of big projects at work that were about to start because it's clear we won't be able to afford or staff them now. I am not alone in doing these things apparently and I think there are going to be really serious financial repercussions for the very group that voted to Leave.

You say that but...this is the system. Those were the votes they needed to win...

Sure this is the system, and that's why this referendum should never have be brought.

Political campaigns are entirely superficial and they can never actually educate the voters they are appealing to - merely sway them by dubious and often untruthful rhetoric.

Hello,

This is a very interesting thread. In response to OP, zero hours contracts and the other factors I mentioned may have little of nothing to do with the EU, I used this as an example of circumstances many people find themselves living in and which drive them to look for change in he most unlikely quarters.

As I said before, for me, the vote to leave was an emotional vote. Yet it was a vote cast through sheer frustration at the inertia and decline that I have observed over the 43 years that we have been a member of the EEC/EU. I voted to leave because I wanted change and I wanted to end the apathetic acceptance of the demolition of the welfare state; the absolute poverty of our citizens (and yes, I have been down the Food Bank route) and the neglect of our young people (I have two sons about whose future I despair). Being a member of the EU has done nothing to help me or my children. Perhaps not being a member would give the government (whoever that may be) the kick up the backside to do something else. Emotional? - Yes; Badly-thought out? - Perhaps; Do I regret my vote? - No. We have given the EU forty three years and the morale in his country is as impoverished as its industries. We need change and we will not get that unless something radical happens.

No. I don't regret my decision at all.
I found it very hard. I read between the lines of the bullshit from both camps. Awful referendum.
But regret serves little purpose anyway.

That petition is really boiling my piss.

None of those people who are banging on about the undemocratic nature of the referendum would have been doing so had the numbers been reversed. It is blatant hypocrisy. And they seem SO unconcerned about the democracy deficit in the EU.

I find it staggering that people can be so self righteous when they are actually being self interested.

I voted no and did not regret doing so.

"you know we've always survived in the past, it will be fine, calm down" angry like I'm some stupid schoolgirl who forgot her history

We survived in the past because we had a huge empire. We survived in the past - 2 world wars to be precise - because we had allies. Now we have neither.

Why should we just 'survive' when we had beenflourishing?

Sure we have massive problems with immigration, but leaving the EU will make no difference to that.

I voted remain & don't regret it at all. I was stunned by anyone in Cornwall voting leave as the region receives so much money from the EU (sixty million a year for the last ten years). When I pointed out this funding to Brexiteers during the campaigning they just shrugged their shoulders.

Oh well. I do a lot of work for universities -- lot of UK research is EU funded so if the work dries up I'll have to look towards the US & Aus - they'll be able to get about double the number of hours out of me for the same price (I charge in pounds).

The thing that concerns me is the one thing that doesn't come up, at all.
And it's the one thing that has the potential to massively affect the future of our kids etc. but it's seen as a niche issue.
Most of our environmental laws come from the EU. The UK govt isn't that interested in the environment, because in the short term it tends to clash with economics. In the long term, without a healthy environment we're all a bit buggered.
Two examples.
There was an EU moratorium on the use of neonicotinoids, a pesticide that kills bees. Which pollinate our crops. The UK govt partially overturned this ban. I worry that without the EU, the govt will make more of these short sighted decisions. It matters, because at the moment the majority of our food crops are pollinated, for free, by wild pollinators. Lose those, which is happening at the moment, and we will either have a serious food shortage issue, or have to import more, or have to find ways to artificially pollinate. Which could run into billions each year.
Fisheries. I've already heard people saying that now we can set our own quotas. Except that quotas are set based on the number of fish in the sea. You can't catch what isn't there. Many of the EU quotas are too high as it is to prevent the depletion of fish stocks, but raising them higher is hardly going to help them recover. If we are not careful we will end up wiping out certain fish stocks, and evidence from say, the cod off the east coast of Canada, shows that after 20 years of no fishing at all the stocks haven't recovered. If you want a fishing industry in the future you need sustainable quotas now and I think the UK govt will be even less inclined than the EU to do this, because they have their eyes on the next four years in office, not the long term.

I worry (as does David Attenborough, it seems) that from an environmental perspective we are in a bit of shit now, without the reining in that the EU provided, and that will affect your children's futures (and mine) far more than the short term issues of immigration and the economy.

That's because the "democracy deficit" is a figment of the leave campaigns imaginations humphrey . I have studied EU law and politics in great depth (at university and beyond) and this myth really frustrates me.

None of those people who are banging on about the undemocratic nature of the referendum would have been doing so had the numbers been reversed. It is blatant hypocrisy. And they seem SO unconcerned about the democracy deficit in the EU.

It would have been a very close call if had been the other way round, and that's never really democratic. So it would have been more sensible to have a threshold.

OP at first when I read your post I did feel angry with you, but then I remembered that the out was carried by over a million votes, so a heck of a lot of other people would need to change their minds as well.

I feel more angry with my parents who are in their 70s & 80s and I believe voted as they did purely to stimulate interest rates and also due to some ill-defined rhetoric about immigration. They are both educated people and have plenty of time to read all the forecasts and nuances of their decision, but still chose to sell their GS down the river for the sake of a few quid which they can't spend anyway as they have too much money and nothing to spend it on.

I feel angry with the newspapers that took a stance to up circulation, but don't seem to be celebrating much about the victory that they allegedly wanted.

I feel angry with David Cameron and the Tories for forcing this debacle in the first place and for DC and his cronies running a half-hearted campaign which failed to talk much at all about the real changes people would see almost immediately. I also feel angry with them for spending their time tearing themselves apart, rather than focusing on the bigger picture.

I feel angry with the Labour party for not engaging successfully with their core voters and explaining that a vote for Leave is not going to stop zero hours contracts and will make salaries even lower as food and fuel prices go up.

I feel angry with the 29% of the population who couldn't be bothered to vote, either through apathy, or because their pretty little heads couldn't understand the tewwibly complicated arguments, so they thought they'd give it a miss.

So in short, whilst I'm not delighted with your vote, I suspect you'll have plenty of time to regret it yourself in the future without others roasting you.

harher - you care about the welfare state, poverty etc and it never once occurred to you to worry that the leave agenda was being pushed along by extreme right- wingers like Gove and Farage?

What were people expecting, that the pound would get stronger, the EU would say 'please don't go, here's better terms', that Europe fracturing will help rather than lead to risk, poorer economies and weakness.

The leave vote is awful, it's dreadful for Britain not least because Boris as P M will be disastrous.

I honestly think you should be forced to take a quiz about he world/ government etc, nothing too taxing just general stuff that you should know about in the place you live.

Then and only if you pass you are given a vote. You have to earn it, it doesn't come free. I watched on the news last night people in my region (not city thankgod) But up in blackpool all the people who voted out were a bit shocked that they won, cos they didnt expect it at all.

So because Betty up in blackpool whose 78 cannot get a dr's appointment within an hour like the good old days voted out, who probably wont be around much longer to see any of the changes, my sil will now have to apply to go back to france where she has lived and worked for the past 9 years (she came home this year to look after fil who is terminally ill and will now go back to a different place entirely).

My son will no longer have the right to go and work in another country if he just feels like it, he will now have to jump through hoops.

DP and myself have effectively become unemployed due to our jobs only being funded by Eu contributions.

Well done Betty in blackpool. You may get your dr's appt quicker but I can guarantee you'll be paying for it soon when they sell of the NHS.

HarHer, we will most assuredly get change.

Look at the leaders of the Leave campaign, work out how many of them will be in the next Cabinet and research their beliefs and voting records on the NHS, disabled people, workers' rights, benefits, housing tenancy.

Then tell me that the change will be for the good of those people whose lives are already difficult.