Does anyone still think the referendum was a good idea?

[whydidhesaythat]

Just checking.

Going back a bit A4, my apologies. I did quote a line from gone's post, which I took as a general point which needed emphasising. I've seen several instances on this forum (indeed on this thread, I believe) in which somebody blithely flings out what amounts to an accusation of corruption at academic/other experts and then doesn't respond when challenged.

In 20 years' time? Who knows. Watching the campaign, the historical parallel that struck me - especially Gove's exhortion that we lowly people should ignore 'experts' - was Mao's 'let a hundred flowers bloom' project.

If you throw all the cards in the air as we have done, however (Gove's beloved 'creative destruction' philosophy), it is impossible to see how things will turn out.

I hope we will still be a liberal free market democracy, that has not swung too far to the right. I expect we will be uniformly poorer, but we will be more 'equal' in the sense that those at the top will earn less, or else will no longer be based in the uk.

However even if the aim of reduced inequality is a good thing (and IMO it is - spirit level, stiglitz etc), putting a bomb under the existing social order was a terrible way of setting out to achieve it.

Gone,

Let's run with your weather forecast analogy; it is actually a pretty good one. Weather forecasts are very poor beyond a few days. Equally they run various models and assign probabilities to each of them. I would say that, for a barbecue tomorrow, I would totally rely on the expertise of the meteorologist. For one in mid August, I might as well hope for the best; their expertise would add nothing.

In addition there are no human related feedback loops on weather forecasting (except maybe v long term). However human behaviour, affected by economic forecasts, feeds back into the real economy. This makes the problem doubly hard.

However even if the aim of reduced inequality is a good thing (and IMO it is - spirit level, stiglitz etc), putting a bomb under the existing social order was a terrible way of setting out to achieve it.

Tbh I think we'd come so far along the route of ignoring, minimising, dismissing and ultimately wilfully airbrushing out of consciousness great swathes of this country, that the only thing that would bring about change is a metaphorical bomb.

Successive govts & leaders across all parties have brought this about, no party is without blame in all of this.

It's pointless now to dwell on what happened - now is the time to acknowledge why - the neat and mid future is the time to address & rebuild.

20 years from now, I hope that we can look back and say "yes, it was shit actually - no wonder the backlash happened as it did; but look at the good that came from it".

• near, not neat

In addition there are no human related feedback loops on weather forecasting (except maybe v long term). However human behaviour, affected by economic forecasts, feeds back into the real economy. This makes the problem doubly hard

More than 'doubly hard' it amplifies the unpredictability by an order of magnitude
There you have a 'second order chaotic system'

the only thing that would bring about change is a metaphorical bomb

Not this sort of bomb, though. If Brexit was a protest vote it is truly dire and has achieved and will achieve nothing. As a way for the ignored working classes to make their point, Brexit is about as awful as it's possible for a protest vote to be.

There is nothing about this post-Brexit situation that is likely to improve life for the working classes. They've taken a pot shot at Cameron but there are plenty of others willing to take up his approach - in fact I suspect that we are going to get a more extreme form of Cameron as a result of all this.

Weather forecast analogy definitely doesn't stretch that far!!

I hope we will still be a liberal free market democracy, that has not swung too far to the right. I expect we will be uniformly poorer, but we will be more 'equal' in the sense that those at the top will earn less, or else will no longer be based in the uk.

I just hope this protest follows through to the next general election. As if conservatives/ and or UKIP coalition sweep in, inequality will continue to increase as they still cling to the theory of trickle down.

No. Never was. One day we will be setting inquiry commissions to find who started this piss and why.

I doubt there'll be any need for an inquiry. It's already been decided beforehand that it'll be those nasty Remainers at fault. Haven't you noticed?

It is such a fantasy.

There seemed to be no questioning of the Scottish independence referendum. Should Nicola Sturgeon be able to remove Scotland from the union without a referendum if the Scottish Parliament back her?

We know why we had the referendum - because it was not thought that the conservatives would win a majority at the last election and they needed the UKIP vote. It was also not thought that people would actually vote to leave.

Here is why the way in which the ref. was handled was a truly rubbish idea.

So young people did turn out to vote after all.

The widely quoted 36% was not based on real data from this election at all.

"Bruter and Harrison say the lower and wrong estimate was based on information released by Sky Data which relied on data compiled after last year’s general election, which looked at the proportion within each generation who said they always vote."

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high

Haven't read the whole thread. Howver, to aanswer the original questions.

Yes - in that it made people interested and engaged in politics
No - too complicated and too many issues
Yes - democracy in action
No - result has caused a lot family division, racism, etc

No one knows the age, class, occupation or any split of the vote except locatipn. There are NO figures except small opinion polls.

All total guesswork.

All total guesswork.

I'm not a statistician, are you? I think there's a whole thread about statistical analysis and sampling error, but "all guesswork" is not strictly true, is it?

But sure, we can agree that this turnout figure could be inaccurate. As long as we agree that the oft-repeated 36% figure is worse than inaccurate, not even being based on this election. Deal?

Opinion polls are often wrong. The reporting of all these figures as gospel truth (actually that is quite a good comparison) is nonsense. Same as the huge number of searches on ' what is the EU?' Which was actually 1000 people...

The opinion polls are not valid as evidence. Perhaps the yoof did all think that posting on Facebook is voting. Perhaps the old don't give a stuff about others. But I think both those ideas rather unlikely as well as inflammatory.

Great, so we are in agreement that the 36% figure is also complete bollocks, yes?

Yes - of course!

The definition of twatishness

There is nothing about this post-Brexit situation that is likely to improve life for the working classes. They've taken a pot shot at Cameron but there are plenty of others willing to take up his approach - in fact I suspect that we are going to get a more extreme form of Cameron as a result of all this.

Absolutely. I wonder how long this fantasy about the Leave result being a great triumph of the ignored working classes over the political elite will actually persist? I'm incredulous that anyone's still referencing it now, only a few weeks on, as we face the Tories choosing us a new prime minister: either one who supported Remain, or one who opposed capping bankers' bonuses etc etc etc. Yay control. Power to the people.

Presumably, if recession kicks in and we end up with a government even keener to cut benefits than before, the fallacy that this was a victory for anyone (except whichever opportunistic bastards have scrambled to political prominance through the chaos of leadership battles and resignations) will fade, although I doubt many Leave voters will openly admit it was a mistake.

Instead it'll be turned into the passive grumbles of future generations: 'we could've had it all, back when Leave won, but we were scuppered by politicians/big business/the negative outlook of the Remainers'. And any reference to the widely-available negative forecasts of Brexit's impact will be dismissed as the work of the same old patronising clever-clogs elitist ivory-tower-dwellers: 'project fear', since relabelled 'project doom and gloom', finally becomes 'project well-nobody-likes-an-I-told-you-so'.

I thought the 36% was referring as earlier to the number of young people who didnt vote, for which there is no information.

The overall turnout is a real figure . the didnt vote is about 30% overall, I believe.

I thought the 36% was referring as earlier to the number of young people who didnt vote,

No, it came originally from a tweet from Sky data (this is referred to briefly in my link above) with, IIRC, no indication of where that data came from. This number was gleefully seized on by Leavers as evidence of youthful nihilism or summat. Also evidence that "the young" deserved to "lose" the vote. Now it emerged that this figure was some sort of meaningless estimate not actually based on this referendum.

So whilst I agree with you to some extent that all these demographic voting profiles are necessarily inaccurate, being based on small samples, I would give more credibility to this higher turnout figure than the previous one. Not that I imagine any Leave voters would agree.