Pro-Leavers - please help

[CeciledeVolanges]

Good morning.
I am following a lot of conversations and events about the referendum and there are a lot of assertions about "what the referendum was about" and "why people voted" and "what people want."
I just wanted to ask, neutrally, if you believe that we should leave the EU what good things do you want to happen or believe will happen when we do?
I can't account for anyone else, but I have seen some really nasty referendum threads and I often get upset about it myself, so I want to say I will not attack or even argue with anyone, I'm just interested to hear the wishes and opinions of people who want positively to leave. It is such an emotive issue - not least to me - and maybe there are some views we haven't heard yet.
Thanks if you do answer! And thanks for reading.

Frackin Just as well that British businesses do not regard the future business environment to be entirely unpredictable apart from identifying the possibilities. Indeed arising from their success consultancy on developing and implementing business strategies is one of the service industries that does do well in international markets, especially the fastest growing economies. The science, higher education and technology sectors have been fairly vocal about the drivers of their success and the probable outcomes of various scenarios, the financial services industry for reasons of commercial confidentiality a little less so but nethertheless detailed plans with figures attached will be being developed for every scenario.

So tell me, given your faith in the unpredictability of markets do you therefore believe TM should ignore all assessments of the economic impact of different outcomes of Brexit by those who work in our industry sectors and plough on regardless with politics and enlisting the popular vote as her priority regardless of economic consequences?

But because if we want to move forward, we ALL need to understand each other and the reasons for the vote

I agree scared. The trouble is the discussion about reasons is one sided.

For example surferjets only contribution to this thread has been telling small and I to fuck off. She hasn't actually contributed to the discussion.

whatwouldrondo is spot on- in no other section of MN or indeed IRL are discussions shut down like they are on here by Leavers and this is the biggest thing to happen in most of our lives.

Ron, I'd say she will have to balance many, many inputs. Economics is only one of those. Some assessments will be able to be made with more certainty than others.

Yes Bear if we're out of the EU we can enforce a minimum unit price in alcohol ( or anything else) that the Government decides to.

And yet again you feel the need to sneer at the reasons. I say again that this wasn't my one single reason for leaving the EU. My decision was based on many things, some of which I've seen in my job as a civil servant.

You asked for an example and I've given you one. There are many others that I can't put on a public Internet forum. Not sure why that's a difficult concept.

For many people there was no good reason for leaving the EU. And that's fine. It's your view and you're entitled to hold it.

But it is odd to constantly ask for reasons from those who voted leave, only to dismiss them when you get them.

Op - thanks for the thread. This one has been a really interesting read.

I suspect you don't know why you voted to leave and are now fishing for retorts when challenged on it.

You and a load of fellow leavers made the wrong decision. Just utterly reckless and you know it. But important to keep talking about 'taking back control' and 'independence' when we all know it means 'fewer immigrants please'. At least now you're being more honest about it.

But not your fault. Nobody (particularly leave voters) was qualified to vote on this in the first place.

I'm feeing more bitter than ever as the impact of the referendum has meant joblessness in my family.

HTH

I am surprised that those who voted Leave because they wanted more money for the NHS, are not more angry about what they have been told today. Even those who knew that the £350 million a week was an unlikely figure. But to be effectively told by Theresa May 'Get stuffed.' Well, is that what you voted for?

anneelliott I wouldn't 'sneer' at your reasons if I felt they worth worthy of the disastrous situation we are currently in.

I don't believe you can't post abstract examples of the many other reasons you refer to..

It is absolutely not fine to have no good reason for leaving the EU but to have decided to put the country in this position just for the sake of it.

Frackin I would be interested in what you regard as the greater certainties?

Ron, as I am not privy to govt strategy not party to negotiations, no, I can't, but I would describe them as being areas where a deal has been struck, or a new arrangement made where the terms are known, or where the actual third party stance is declared; I expect that eventually the balance will tip in favour of known over unknown and at that point we will have our negotiation stance.

Frackin My point did not concern the negotiating strategy. No business would approach change without a plan. Before the strategy is set they will evaluate every strategic option according to the risks and opportunities, which will have been quantified according to probability to determine what strategy is likely to lead to the best outcome. Indeed those forecasts will then form the basis for measurable targets for those who implement the strategy, to hold them accountable. Strategic planning for major organisations is complex and sophisticated, and can and does predict with a fair degree of certainty the outcome for businesses, and where there is uncertainty there will be contingency plans to account for different outcomes.

Indeed just last week a document emerged that was prepared before the referendum but that the Treasury under Phil Hammond sticks by that forecasts the downside risk of a hard Brexit at an impact of £66m on treasury receipts www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/11/revealed-hard-brexit-will-cost-britain-66billion-per-year/. That is just the treasury receipts, the impact on GDP and on average earnings of that scenario would be much much greater.

My point is you cannot write off these forecasts and ignore them in any debate about what the countries negotiating strategy should be. Approaching change from the point of view that all is uncertain but the future is a happy land so we should chase unicorns abstract concepts like taking back control without any consideration of the likely impact, indeed to ostracise anyone who dares to point out that there is a quantifiable likely impact, is in fact to risk walking over the cliff. (Obviously should that happen then it will be the fault of the people who said the cliff was there in the first place )

By all means argue the toss about the methodology of any forecasts and the factors taken into account, indeed I would love to see some evidence of opportunities that Brexit will open up that can be defined sufficiently to quantify the benefits. Smallfox and Topsy have valiantly debated that for months on other threads and the red thread provides extensive information that highlights the complexity of planning this change but you cannot ostracise posters who raise these issues on the basis there is total uncertainty because that is simply not the case.

I expect that eventually the balance will tip in favour of known over unknown and at that point we will have our negotiation stance.

Eventually, yes. But this could be a long time. Wasn't Davis or Fox promising trade deals by 9th September? We assume he meant 2016, we didn't realise it meant 2026.

I don't disagree with much of that Ron, and agree that the posters add much to the debate, but my difficulty is with the terms of engagement. Certain posters have a position they wish to defend, and are able to defend; they feel sufficiently informed to challenge others opinions. This is also fine. But some posters may have arrived at a different - perhaps less researched position, but it is their right to hold that position. They can be challenged but they should not have to defend it. It is the relentless calling out of posters, the aggressive denigration of their views that I am speaking up about. I have seen very personal attacking statements directed at Surfer and other posters. Views are personal, subjective, informed by personal experience, as well as specialist knowledge. We are not all experts. When I read these threads I often muse if we're discussing faith, would certain posters respond in the way they do, calling others fools because they cannot provide the hard evidence on which their belief system is based.

Actually Ron, I do disagree with the impartiality of the leaked treasury report which has Osborne's fingerprints all over it, but no doubt it will be scrutinised.

I think we have to accept that many people (both remainers and leavers) didn't know the nitty gritty of what they were voting for. In essence the leavers' reasons seem noble : stop interference from a large non-British institution in our affairs, control our borders look beyond the EU for our trade relationships. In a rational person's mind they stack up and don't seem stupid or racist. However, when you go beyond the headlines and find out that actually some of the issues are not caused by the EU but by failures of our own government was missed in the campaigns. So the constant desire to understand reasons and dismiss them doesn't help.

However, what was also missing was a clear understanding of the consequences because discussion was closed down as 'project fear'. We now have some effects of the Brexit vote - more will come. Leavers can admit that they didn't realise the cost of their vote, or they can blame those effects on other factors: greedy opportunistic corporates, incompetent Bank of England, remainers talking down the economy. In a heated atmosphere where they feel berated for their lack of understanding of their reasons they stick closely to their reasons even if they can be dismantled, and are unwilling to admit that they didn't see all this coming.

So we are now at the point where the consequences of the vote are becoming clearer - unleashing of xenophobia, economic disruption, reputation damage to the UK, job losses. As a country we need to think whether those 'noble' reasons are still strong enough to continue down a path where the consequences are so severe. But that can only happen if we can draw a line on what has already happened, and focus on where we go next.

Front door. While we may be beginning to approach a point where the consequences of the vote begin to emerge, we are still not anywhere near the point where we can say that the consequences ARE severe, as that point in time is still way ahead and negotiations are yet to start. But I agree that we all need to move on from 'how we got here' to 'where we are now and where we are heading'.

Fracking I can assure you surfer has returned in kind and quite honestly surfers complete refusal to ever say anything of substance over the last post referendum months suggests they see that as defining their identity in opposition to those who actually want to have an evidenced debate, it has reminded me of an adolescent who opts for monosyllables in adult company, apart from lashing out occasionally in order to try to assert their superiority. It has all been binary and as many chips on shoulders evident as well as a stubborn refusal to engage that borders on the goading, as there was the stench of superiority. I see little evidence of faith or principles coming into it. Over on the other thread nobody is challenging Topsy's faith that somehow the British bulldog spirit will respond to post Brexit damage and deliver opportunity because they are honest that it is a matter of faith, but are also prepared to concede some of the validity of the arguments of others about the consequences of Brexit.

I will be honest that my response is emotional as well as rational because it is impacting my family directly already, of course your feelings run high if on a daily basis you are experiencing the human consequences , the feelings of young people for whom the opportunities they have worked so hard to equip themselves to exploit have been closed down and who feel betrayed and that their identities have been undermined.

For that reason I think that your point on whether people would respond on a thread which focuses on faith in the same way is a false comparison, if a thread is about faith then it is implicit in the debate. These threads are not about faith, they are about a political issue that will have fundamental impacts on the nation and on individuals. A better comparison would be the education threads because there is the same emotional investment underlying the principles. Feelings on there do run high, sometimes it gets personal and as Mumsnet says you should be careful to keep those sorts of comments in perspective and rise above them. However in the circumstances I don't think asking people to defend a point of view that has such far reaching consequences with more than blind faith, or especially a stubborn vapidity, is beyond all acceptable norms.

Just a point Anne, you do realise that membership of the WTO would come with constraints like the inability to put a minimum price on alcohol?

I don't think that asking for reasons is bad or derailing a thread, surferjet behaving like a spoilt toddler is fucking funny btw, still unable to put a reasoned argument for anything is laughable.

Fracking, the impartiality of the treasury report is shown by the fact that it very close to anaysis that comes from other independent organisations.

Ron, fair enough, I will get off my high horse and leave each to their own. Surfer likely knows she shouldn't have flounced - as she's been missing since - come back please - but her frustration was apparent.
And small, I really wish I could think in black and white. I would quote 'lies, damn lies and statistics' if I though I could get it correct. Not saying it is lies btw but very open to interpretation, as any prediction is, particularly when comparable evidence is thin on the ground. Empirical almost rhymes with historical.

"comparable evidence is thin on the ground."

There is comparable evidence from NEISR, from the LSE, from the BOE, even from the guy that David Davis has hired to advise him on the economics side of brexit.

Sorry it isn't black and white thinking to look at the expert analysis and make a decision based on it. Especially when you look at the analysis which makes the basis of the brexit camp opinion, where the "better deal" ideas can't even contemplate us not continuing having access to the EU single market, not one of their analysis contemplates the impact of any restrictions on UK firms and consumers.

On surfer? Well this is her form, she arrives to castigate me and hurl abuse (deeply ironic) and make accusations of derailing. On that note, derailing is an accusation made by those who can't reasonably justify their stance and just seek to have others validate their opinions. The reason you don't like people challenging is because it makes you uncomfortable that you can't have that validation. Good.

This is a democracy and if your going to be open about your voting preferences I'm legitimately allowed to hold you accountable for the impact of your actions and to ask you to justify it.

Ron&Small& red if you are here: What do you think of the Allister Heath article for the Telegraph yesterday in TM and the car industry? (Don't know how to link but can be read online)

small is right about surfers posting style on these threads. She doesn't join in with the conversation other than to make veiled threats about 'hoping MNHQ are keeping their eye on' those of us she doesn't like.

The reason she doesn't like us is we ask for her opinion and she isn't capable of articulating it. That doesn't make us the villains. This is a very specific section of MN dedicated to talking about Brexit- if you aren't actually going to contribute to threads other than to tell people to fuck off 'our' thread when she hasn't actually added anything to it, it does make you wonder why she's hanging around.

Everyone has different posting styles and, the fact this is such a divisive and emotive subject is always going to mean feelings run high but it should be possible to discuss the subject in a civil manner.

For me the problem comes from the constant stone walling of discussion by posters who, when asked about a particular point, make some excuse why they can't or won't say any more.

We might not be progressing very quickly with Brexit but there are developments most days and these are worthy of discussion.

I would say that I look at expert analysis and form an opinion on that particular piece but then park it so that it can be held up against other analysis that may emerge. There has to come a point when you collate, summarise, extrude and rely on it, but I don't feel we are there yet.

Read it.

He doesn't really say anything, apart from the fact that we could use money levied on imported cars to support our car industry. He fails to state that if we were WTO members we would have to agree with the WTO about levels of state aid and so therefore this might not be possible.

The reality check for his article needs to be not just the tariffs that would be on goods but outside the customs union the non tariff barriers on origin, movement of goods into each country etc would present significant adminstrative cost increases for manufacturers here. BMW, Nissan, Honda, Toyota and Vauxhall all export the majority of their product that they make here, but have other bases in the EU. Essentially these admin costs combined with tariffs present significant barriers to trade that are easily overcome by relocation. I think that is the writing on the wall for UK mass car production.

Bear, I do agree with the sentiment expressed. I'm worried about blaming someone for having the temerity to come on a thread when they can't articulate themselves properly; it is an emotive subject and there are frustrations on both sides but I'd hope that we are not creating a 'wrong sort of tie' arena. Anyway, I shouldn't speak for others and I am going to stop now.