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!!

And Trump of course, another great arbiter of the moral high ground

"There are lots of benefits in being a fully independent nation. To pretend there are none is a bit perverse."

Please outline two. With particular reference to post Brexit Britain.......

Tiggy Do you think those arguments are what delivered the Brexit vote? Of course there were some logical arguments but do you really think that they delivered the vote, as opposed to emotion, and the way in which both politicians and the popular press directed those emotions against the EU in general and immigration in particular? Instead of the logical targets, successive governments right back to Maggie....

I feel there is loads of panic at the moment because the government haven't been able to let us know exactly what is going to happen.

Corcory I fully agree with you on that one.
I would also add that one of the reasons why we don't know what exactely is going to happen is because NONE of the Leave campaigners have ever mentioned what WILL happen (or what they HOPE will happen) once we've voted for Brexit.
See BJ 'Oh how we are going to do that is the government problem, not mine' type of answer ....
So in effect, the country has voted for a blank page with just one line - OUT of the EU....

So I would really like to know, what is THE PLAN for the Leave voters?
So far I have heard no immigration but those who are here can stay but also no immigration and please can we send them all back (Apart from the Doctors and nurses that we really really need of course )
I've heard about an Australian type of immigration but also being at the same great place than Switzerland or Norway that have a lot of immigrants in their countries (and have a to accept EU immigration).
I've heard about already having trading deals with other countries and keeping our trading deals with the EU but at the same not wanting to be within the EU free trade because it wuld impose free movement too.

In effect, there are so many different pov from ther Leave side, and most of them aren't compatible with each other.
So yes, we now have half the country left hanging, being very worried and even more worried because they are told nothing and have no idea whre the country id heading. And the other half that doesn't know either but seem to think it will all be better anyway regardless of what the government decides to do.
If I was a leave voter who had made that decision because I wanted to be fully out of the EU, I personally would be very worried that TM would strike a Swiss type of agreemnet for example.

But somehow, in all this, we are all supposed to just accept whatever is going to happen and trust our politicians. The ones who lied during the lections, the ones who hump ship when ask how they were going to do manage Brexit... I have to say I'm not confident. How can you be?

My question was a little unfair, because those in Government don't know which option they want, apart from backing a slogan of Brexit means Brexit.

I am slightly bemused by the fact that no one is in any rush to trigger Article 50.

I always think that surely the SS and ISIS know they are the baddies when they are dressed in black? By the same token if the only world leader endorsing your actions is Putin and you have Marine Le Pen clapping too does that not make you a bit uneasy about the moral ground you are walking on?

As you have brought ISIS in as an analogy, then it is prudent to point this out:

When ISIS carry out their barbaric acts, all but a small minority of people do not extrapolate that all or even most Muslims support them.

Just because some unsavoury & abhorrent people are using Brexit as a platform for their horrible, nasty ideologies, all or even most Leave voters do not by extension support or agree with them.

does that not make you a bit uneasy about the moral ground you are walking on?

Perhaps you should look to the moral high ground that you are walking on first, before condemning people that did nothing other than vote a different way to you?

I always think that surely the SS and ISIS know they are the baddies when they are dressed in black? By the same token if the only world leader endorsing your actions is Putin and you have Marine Le Pen clapping too does that not make you a bit uneasy about the moral ground you are walking on?

Yes. I've said this all along - look who's standing on the side you're standing up with. Just the simple fact that Farage, BNP, Trump, Putin, ISIS are siding with the Leave side (and the last two are far from wanting the best for European countries - in or out of the EU!) These people are baddies. I would hate to do anything that makes Marine Le Pen happy - and yet my country has just done just that. She even had the cheek to change her FB to the union jack ffs.

A poster upthread thought a very right wing government couldn't make things any worse - oh dear. It is all too easy to take things for granted from a position of a relatively stable economy, and a stable government (especially when they are tempered for 5yrs by a liberal coalition). But things can get an awful lot worse - the right wing governments don't tend to go in for stuff like welfare, healthcare, social housing, employment rights or equality.

Tiggy you are right about people voting leave because they have to loose.
Or peole voting against rather for (which is true in most elections anyway).

However, I'm still aghash at the idea that you can vote for something wo knowing what you are voting FOR

I also have a BIG issue with people votig Leave and then saying they had no issue with immigration and no there are not xenophobic/anti immigrants or whatever.
For me it's very much like peolpe who voted Conservative at the last election when DC was going on about reducing benefits, tighteneing the bidget etc... and were vthen surprised to see their benefits cut. If you voted for DC on the grounds of having a better balanced budget then you also voted for a drastic reduction of benefits.
In the same way, if you voted Leave because you are against the undemocratic system of the EU, then you also voted to strongly restrict immigration and for a propaganda saying that migrants = bad.

Peregrina that's because no one has any idea of what is going to happen. They are all going to make it up as they go along. There is no 'vision' for what the future of the UK will be.
There is no vision from the TM, no vision from any of the Leave supporters. Just a big shout saying 'I dont want THIS' but nothing about 'I want THAT instead'.
And now we have a non elected PM who is going to try and make the best out of it, or what she thinks is the best out of Brexit.
That and trying to juggle a fine balance with tying to keep the Conservative voters happy (remembering that some of them did vote Remain and not Leave).

Mango My point was specifically aimed at Larry mentioning the abolition of slavery as a parallel to this decision. I am sorry but whatever you say about this vote it cannot claim to inhabit that sort of moral high ground. Note I am not the one claiming any moral high ground. There were no moral absolutes in this, the EU wasn't right or wrong, just like everything else there were shades of grey. Life is like that generally until you come up against absolutes like slavery, genocide etc. However as I say an awful lot of world leaders thought that the UK should stay in the UK and just a few said it should not. It is a decision widely regarded around the world as irrational.

I am sorry but whatever you say about this vote it cannot claim to inhabit that sort of moral high ground.

I never once claimed it did.

I was merely pointing out that there is no link between people voting to leave the EU & Putin or Le Pen.

People like those 2 jump on any passing bandwagon that they can use to further their aims.

I am pretty certain that few (if any at all) leave voters though "ooh, Le Pen says it's a good idea - well, if it's good enough for her it's good enough for me!".

The lazy rhetoric of "Leavers! Look who you've allied yourselves with!" is tedious at best.

Tedious, because it is true.

Guys - here is the list of our top 15 export markets in 2015. Source: Bloomberg.

MangoMoon, does it not give you the tiniest pause for thought that while our allies around the world reacted with shock and disbelief on 24th June, the only congratulatory messages came from Trump, Le Pen and ISIS?

Tiggy I am in London too and I think you underestimate that emotion played a big part in the remain vote here too, and I am also a northerner and spent a lot of time there before the vote, as well as spending April overseas, so I can contrast what I heard and experienced.

Speaking to remain voters here since, they were, as I was, shocked at how upset they felt the morning of the vote, physically upset or very angry in the case of the Under 25s. Discussing it I think it was an issue of identity. Many of us have at least travelled overseas, if not worked or lived there, and of course we live in a city where living with other cultures is not generally a problem, in general there is plenty to go round. Obviously there is deprivation and friction, we have had riots but I don't know anyone who thinks London is full. We felt European, and part of a wider world and overnight we were not. Logically I voted out of a understanding the whole world is now functioning within geopolitical blocks but also about feeling part of one, for all it's imperfections.

In the north the feeling was entirely different. Towns and cities where the industries that attracted high levels of immigration are largely gone, and I was hearing the we are full argument again and again, and a harking back to the 70s when it is perceived life was better. I was encountering a voiced resentment of both immigrants and London I had not heard before, even in rural areas where immigration is not actually an issue. Where it is they are not in any case in the main EU immigrants but the vicious comments about Polish people came out of nowhere. Except it wasn't nowhere it was clearly the Sun and Daily Hate. "you can't get doctors appointments" "have you not been able to get a doctors appointment" "well no, but there are towns where you can't" "Which towns?" "in Lincolnshire" "But the Eastern Europeans there are there to do the jobs there are not enough local people to do" "Well they used to come for the season but now they stay" "But if they pay taxes surely it is for the government to make sure there are enough resources " "But we can't afford it" . And time and time again, "it is alright for you there in London" . I might add I was also visiting old aged Britain, They voted to get back to a 70s I don't recognise......

Overseas from Asia to Australia everyone was bewildered as to why we were having a vote in the first place, the EU is perceived as a good thing doing a good job of representing Europe as a force for good. Since every country I visited was part of some sort of regional alliance they could not see why you would not be joined with your neighbours to exert more influence economically and politically. Time and time again I heard it put down to a colonial sense of entitlement.

larrygrylls

Since you brought up 'abolition of slavery'... do you think Remainers should just shut up because 52% decided to leave?

Pretty sure the first time the abolition of slavery was brought up, the majority would have been against it.

And yet, the small minority then fought and fought (literally), until they became larger and eventually became the majority.

Similarly, as Remainers will fight for what we believe is right.

Similarly, as Remainers will fight for what we believe is right

What is it you actually want? a 2nd referendum?

Mango But there is a link between the strength of the intellectual arguments for remaining or leaving and the beliefs of the people who support them. If the arguments for Leave were so strong, strong enough to lead the world's fifth, already now sixth, largest economy out of the alliance that sustained it for over 40 years, why couldn't more overseas leaders and politicians see it. Why was it only the likes of Putin and Le Pen. Even the Chinese leaders, who use Nationalism as their tool of choice for mobilising their people, were saying that the logical thing to do both for ourselves and for the world, economically and politically was to remain a part of a stronger Europe.

Snow,

'Since you brought up 'abolition of slavery'... do you think Remainers should just shut up because 52% decided to leave?'

Absolutely not. I think democracy is all about the right to campaign for something you believe in. I think remainers should keep on campaigning, as long as they keep it legal.

MangoMoon, does it not give you the tiniest pause for thought that while our allies around the world reacted with shock and disbelief on 24th June, the only congratulatory messages came from Trump, Le Pen and ISIS?

Nope.
Not one tiniest pause at all.

Why would it?
I couldn't give a rats ass what those people say or think.

The world reacted with shock & disbelief because the polls, media coverage & rhetoric from our esteemed leaders etc leading up to the 23rd June pointed towards a vote for the status quo.
Pretty much everyone went to bed on Thursday expecting to wake up to a remain vote because we'd been led to believe that that was the most likely outcome.

Have you noticed that 'the world' has moved on from their shock & disbelief now?

Mango - please can you tell me 1 thing that will be better for Britain post Brexit?

surferjet No I don't think we can have another referendum now because all the same factors that corrupted this process are still in place. Self seeking politicians, a too powerful press following the agenda of it's proprietors and now if anything even more division and resentment in the country. I think now we have to lobby and criticise and make our voices heard so that the process of rebuilding this country and achieving a pragmatic compromise with the EU can progress to a point in 2020 when we will actually know what we are voting for. That will also give time for a centre left party representing the views of many of the remain camp to emerge as I feel sure it will if Labour follows Corbyn further left (another group going back to the 70s) .

Surferjet

Preferably the government would show us a detailed plan on what is achievable for Brexit, so that we can actually vote on something tangible. That's what the EU referendum should have been about!!! Continuation of the known OR a change with a known outcome... not a leap into the darkness.

If you don't want a second referendum, maybe the Tories can put Brexit on their manifesto and then call a general election... considering that Brexit was pretty much concocted by the Tories. Other parties can be Remain (e.g. LibDems and possibly Labour). That general election can stand in for a referendum.

If we just hit "Article 50" without doing any of the above, I hope that 20 years down the line, when most Leave voters will have shriveled to old age, the youngsters can decide whether they want to rejoin.

And when I say, "the Tories can put Brexit on their manifesto"... I mean in a seriously detailed manner.

Not just "Brexit" - which is what BoJo and Gove did.