To feel really positive about leaving the EU

[kitty1976]

I know there has been lots of fear stories but in a few weeks since the vote we have managed to get a new PM who seems more than capable and we are now in control of our destiny without being ruled by an unelected and unaccountable EU. The EU has for a long time been a basket case and has condemned much of the youth of Southern Europe to decades of unemployment, it's a relief to be out. Do remember we are now free to negotiate our own trade deals with the rest of the world and most countries are not in the EU and seem to do well. There have been so many fear stories which have been peddled by self interest. I wonder in 5 years time how many remainers will be asking to rejoin the EU!!

Whatwould - You were condescending when you perceived me as being stereotypical. As for not being a massive European state ,well what would you call it?

I perceived you as entertaining stereotypes about universities in Eastern Europe, not being one.

And I do think that travel enlightens you and broadens and opens minds, just as taking the trouble to learn about the lives of those who are autistic or have mental health problems or dementia or any other challenge in life. I now count as a close friend Amberlight who is autistic and who I met on the Tamoxigang thread on here who has educated me immeasurably about the nature of autism and disabused me of a lot of the stereotypical perceptions, as well as the horrendous attitudes she encounters everyday, including on here.

I haven't read other posts after me but only to reply to larry:
So you agree majority academics wanted to Remain. And then go on and repeat the rhetoric (not even an attempt at reasoning for why so many intelligent minds could be opposing BREXIT ?) that Remain is the status quo. This is what is so disappointing. I can't understand how are you actually able to connect the two points in your mind without any solid reasoning.

Whatwould - But in what way does it enlighten you ? So I know a bit about Hinduism having been to a few Hindu weddings and a naming ceremony , I do not know the real term, it was actually called a 'Christening ' but I suspect that was just the term that the parents used for my benefit. Yes, it was all very interesting but I do not think it has truly 'enlightened ' me. The Hindu wedding ceremonies were much lengthier than English ones are and the bride and groom sat in the middle and had lengthy talks with the faith man ( sorry I have forgotten the name ) , but other than that it was just the same , a celebration party for two people coming together and the 'Christening' was the same as any English naming ceremony I have been to - the little girl slept through most of it !
Maybe if I went to Tibet and lived with the Brahaminst ? monks for a year I may see the true enlightenment. By the way my father preferred the Buddhist way of live and tried to follow it in his own way ie Kindness to all creatures all his life.
As for severe autism NO ONE can tell me ANYTHING about this condition that I do not already know , My beloved 25 year old nephew has this terrible disability and I would not be far from the truth if I said that as a family we have been to hell back. Funnily enough whenever I brought him back from a trip out and there have been very many , many , I have always said , "it would be fine if it were not for other people's attitudes. But having said that there have been some wonderful people out there . Very sadly I can no longer look after my nephew now , he is very big and can be very violent and just too much to handle .

Whatwould - sorry to go on at you. You misunderstood slightly or maybe I wasn't clear enough . I wasn't maligning Eastern European universities at all. I was just saying that I suspect more UK students would choose a university in the likes of France, Holland or Germany . Maybe I am wrong .

Good grief, the temper tantrum foot stamping is still going on on this thread!

Remainers...for all your alleged liberal elitism, tolerance and academic superiority, over half the nation disagreed with you. Get over it. No loop holes. No 2nd referendum. No knuckle dragging racist bunch of OAPs have ruined your childrens opportunities at the Sorbonne. Over half a nation disagreed with you. Far more old people voted remain than young people. (They stayed home sharing selfies on social media not giving a toss about the EU) The UK is one of the most tolerant inter-racial nations on the planet. Over half the nation voted leave. Get over it.

Want tips on how to deal with toddlers who dont get their way? Well plenty of threads on MN for that.

Aww, you're sounding a bit tantrummy yourself there Chris. Are you overtired?

Get over it, nah sorry. I can't, not because I think I am better than you but because I think the decision was wrong. Living in a democracy means that I can continue to argue.

Valentine,

Aside from your condescension, what does your last post add? Why should I connect two unconnected ideas just to please you?

If staying in the EU was a problem with only a single obviously correct solution, ALL intelligent people would agree on it. Even if a small proportion disagree, and they do, it demonstrates that the problem does not have a single unique solution and there is room for disagreement.

I am always unconvinced as to whether the City adds as much to the economy as they claim. The cost of 2008 is always ignored, as it is assumed to be a one off event, rather than an inevitable consequence of how the institutions are run.

In addition 'financial services' are always lumped together so that the hedge fund located in Mayfair is agglomerated with the small domestic loan company in Leeds.

The big financial institutions pay no corporation tax due to carried forward losses and tax planning. Which leaves income tax. This is indeed a large contribution but would mostly remain. Many City functions will remain in UK regardless of passporting and many employees would stay in London and move to different institutions, still paying tax.

Ok I haven't been on this for a bit. But re my expert point that people found so patronising - I am Remain and don't think I should have been voting either - I don't style myself an expert in this matter but I refer to them. This is why we have a well established parliamentary democracy and no traditions of referendums. our representatives and the researchers whose work they use are better placed to make these decisions on such a complex matter. Sure as hell i'm elitist if that's what you want to call it. I suspect we all have areas of work or knowledge in which we are genuinely expert and know full well how deep and nuanced our understanding in that area is compared someone without that experience. Yet on a matter like this, why have such confidence In ourselves - especially given the woeful nature of our mainstream media

I'm feeling much more optimistic since Theresa May put the comedy MP Boris in charge of sorting everything out for us. The country has gone mad, I'm hoping the rest of the world takes pity on us.

I think we need to understand the limitations of 'expertise'. Experts are very good at solving well parameterised problems, especially when they know what they are optimising.

However, in multivariate problems, with different people optimising different outcomes (economics, lifestyle, independence etc), this really is a matter for the individual to vote on. In the same way, you might ask your oncologist for treatment options, but it is not for him to decide whether you prioritise quality or length of life.

Aside from the above, as I keep saying, economic expertise at macro forecasting event risk has been shown to be non existent.

But I don't feel any weight at all has been given to expertise. There was no oncologist giving a clear view based on evidence for people to weigh up against their own priorities. There was a van alleging that a load of money would go to the NHS if we left Europe and a bloke saying 'we shouldn't have said that' as soon as the votes came in.

Just because something is complex (=multivariate, hard to predict exactly) doesn't mean that experts can't help decide what to do. Experts also understand process... at least they have better understanding of relationships and dependencies than lay people. Which is why they try to explain what to expect after going down specific pathways or sets of actions. The role of the expert is to warn about consequences.

A patient choosing death sooner rather than ongoing poor quality of life due to unpleasant treatment is a bad analogy, because the patient's choice only effects a few people (selves & close contacts). One patient isn't supposed to choose for all the other patients, too. :(

I am always unconvinced as to whether the City adds as much to the economy as they claim. The cost of 2008 is always ignored, as it is assumed to be a one off event, rather than an inevitable consequence of how the institutions are run.

Yes.

I'm a pretty vocal Remainer, but still slightly depressed at the extent to which many of my fellow Remainers want the status quo, and the City's privileges over the rest of the economy, to be maintained at all costs.

Crazy,

But equally we had Osborne with his 'emergency budget' the day after we voted leave etc.

This has been debated for years. We are not sheep having to accept whatever we are told. Some of both camp did a lot of research and came to their view, some voted on emotion and some voted on nothing except how they felt when they entered the voting booth. All elections are like that.

Of course you can talk about the demographics of the leavers vs remainers but that is getting very close to saying that only the successful middle classes should be allowed to vote; a place very few of us really want to go.

Equally there was a lot of talk about the validity of referenda in a parliamentary democracy. I was quite young in the 1975 vote to remain in the ECSC, but I don't recall that discussion taking place then. I also don't recall that discussion on the Scottish independence vote. If the Scottish parliament had decided, Scotland would have seceded. It seems referenda are the way ahead when they give a certain section of society the result they want, but unconstitutional when they do not.

'The role of the expert is to warn about consequences.'

And also the limitations of their expertise! Something medics ALWAYS do and economists almost NEVER do. Yes, they produce their probabilities, but tend to base all their assumptions on rational choice making (completely disproved by behavioural economics) and a normal distribution, when the real distribution is highly kurtotic.

some voted on emotion and some voted on nothing except how they felt when they entered the voting booth. All elections are like that.

That maybe so, larry but the referendum was not an election! That's what went wrong. Too many people didn't think about the far-reaching consequences of their decision. Many voted tactically, as they might in an election, to "send a message" to the government. The referendum was not about the UK government or whether or not people liked the prime minister, it was about the UK's future for the next several decades!

Chris Who is actually doing the stereotyping and footstamping?

Larry The 2008 banking crisis was a worldwide event, it's origins / flash point was in the US, with a root cause of underegulation which allowed unrestrained risky behaviour. The EU orchestrated a sensible response both in the immediate aftermath and beyond and now banking activity is much more tightly regulated. In fact there were not a few leave voters in the city amongst what you might stereotype as the Cowboys who want to go back to the Wild West. They believe that free of the EU passport they can make London a financial centre that can trade on less regulation, that is the view David Davies as well as Boris espouses for instance. More risk, less regulation, what could ossibly go wrong.

As to not being convinced financial services matter. Obviously no passport means companies will move part of their operations to the EU with all that means in terms of the London economy but we get that doesn't matter and we lose a chunk of our balance of payments surplus (which the financial advisor in Leeds is pretty much irrelevent too though he channels money to the bigger players who are) so we have to try and pursuade overseas money into the UK somehow to pay for that. It will take time to find all these magical markets for the UK exports generated by manufacturing industry, and then to expand it so that it is in surplus not deficit as it is now. That is if we can do so at all in the face of the rapidly growing manufacturing based BRIC economies. Far longer than the two years when true Brexit will have kicked in.

Then of course we are currently seeing money being pumped into shoring up the economy and potential stimulus packages not seen on a scale since the banking crisis. And it will all be done on increased borrowing, and whatever you think of austerity, increasingly it was all in vain.....

It seems referenda are the way ahead when they give a certain section of society the result they want, but unconstitutional when they do not.

As an Irish person plagued by the inflexibility of our 1937 constitution, I think they are a very blunt tool and a poor one for dealing with EU matters.

My dislike of plebiscites is not based on them going my way, but their potential to influct a tyranny of the majority.

Which we are certainly seeing here.

UK citizens without Irish (or other EU) ancestry are having rights they had from birth potentially stripped from them by plebiscite.

Many of them did not even fet to vote on the matter themselves due to being too young.

That is an extraordinary situation. And it is far from democratic.

True doinitfine. But many remain voters also voted in recent general elections for the available (more) left-wing party (not that I'm saying Labour is great - but where was the house?) precisely because they didn't believe in supporting the City above all else - the red on the voting map looked a lot like the Remain vote on the map. So I assume that there's a cross section of views

DoinItFine

That's because the City has become the UK's niche / strength. In another thread even one very ardent Leave voter said that the UK's specialty is financial and legal services.

If you take that away from the UK, you need to find another industry to replace it fast. Given that small IT startups are already contemplating moves to Betlin et al., that might prove a problem.

Haven't read anything except the opening post.

Yes you are bu

Furthermore you are ignorant and deluded.

You are talking in terms of what has happened in under a month, and the dust being settled in 5 years.

The whole system is in deep shock.

You have not even begun to see the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of what is to come.

The dust will not settle in your lifetime.

To be talking in terms of a few weeks / half a decade, again shows that people voted in total blindness and with absolutely no idea of what they were voting for.

I can only hope and pray that when evidence such as this OP mounts up and mounts up, it will become totally undeniable that the referendum was not a democratic decision in any sense, it was just a temper tantrum by a bunch of toddlers, it will be overturned by parliament, as it should be.

Its equivalent of going round all the nursery schools in a city and asking all the two year olds to vote on how council tax should be used coordinate the regional sewage system.

They won't have a clue what you are talking about, and holding the city to their "democratic" decision will result in normal life grinding to a halt and the population living knee deep in shit.

Totally insane

Caught up with the thread overnight to find that several pages of generally thoughtful, albeit robust, debate between both sides has been angrily summarised by Chris as "temper tantrum foot stamping" and "just get over it". If I were larry or some of the other leavers who have been contributing to the discussion, I'd be kind of insulted .