To wonder if there are any Leave voters who actually are having second thoughts about Brexit

[Bearbehind]

Following Tony Blairs call for Remainers to convince Leavers to change their mind I'm wondering if there are actually any Leavers who are worried and might prefer us not to be going in the direction we are heading.

From what I've seen Leavers are more determined than ever and really don't seem in the slightest bit concerned about any negative repercussions so they're not going to be swayed.

Who is Blair aiming his comments at?

I don't really think that people thought all that much about the EU. Until the Referendum I can barely remember having a conversation with anyone about it.

The only ones who were? The Corbynistas perhaps, because it was all a Capitalist plot. The Tory Eurosceptics and UKIP, because it was increasingly moving towards bringing in workers rights and promoting environmental issues, which would eat into their profits.

But the average person? No. After all, any thread about the Referendum gets moved fairly sharpish, which shows that even the majority of MNers aren't all that interested.

Realistically, something that divides the country almost (but not quite) in half is always going to result in a certain amount of bad feeling, but I do think that a compromise exists.

I hope so but that's not what's happening, what I see is lots of very vocal leavers saying it's got to be a hard Brexit. I doubt all 52% of people who voted leave wanted a hard Brexit.

Having read through most of these comments, I'm yet to see any Leave voter articulate why they chose to vote Leave and for their rationale to stand up to any scrutiny. It's the same wherever you turn.

Quite simply and being as polite as possible, aside from the racists and idiots, the rest of the 17.4m were ill informed.. and worse still, they have the mentality of football fanatics when discussing the referendum and are proven wrong i.e. they resort to the old "we won, you lost, get over it.."

It's a sad state of affairs, but hardly surprising given the Rule Britannia attitude of the older generation and the atrocious standard of education throughout the country.

What on earth is wrong with collaborating on a number of issues with your closest neighbours and harmonising rules in relation to them? Surely it's common sense.. and when the overwhelming majority of decisions made by the EU are either instigated or agreed by the UK, it's clearly working for us.

As far as freedom of movement goes, we are outside Schengen and already have the right to send anyone who comes here and is unable to find gainful employment back to where they came from. Why have we never done this? I guess we should ask that disgraceful incompetent who ran the Home Office for six years and is now the PM.

I guess we should ask that disgraceful incompetent who ran the Home Office for six years and is now the PM.

Yes, please. But apparently, she is doing a good job! I can't see it myself, but obviously being a 'loser' who voted Remain, I don't count.

And the Leave campaign always said that a vote to leave wasn't a vote to leave the Single Market but now it seems that it was.

voted Leave. definitely not changed my mind. If we'd remained and there was a Gexit or Frexit, would we still want to be in? Doubt it.

Rocco your post sums it all up for me. Nothing else to say really.

voted Leave. definitely not changed my mind. If we'd remained and there was a Gexit or Frexit, would we still want to be in? Doubt it.

speaks volumes that leavers are pinning their hopes on other countries leaving the EU to justify their stance.

Rocco, in fact, we have. But this thread did not ask 'why did you decide to leave the EU'?

You and I know there are countless threads where people who are more articulate than I explain exactly why they voted as they did.

Your post just doesn't acknowledge them - which is a recurring problem.

You and I know there are countless threads where people who are more articulate than I explain exactly why they voted as they did.

I have seen tons of posts where people have explained exactly why they voted as they did. I tend to agree with Rocco that very few of their arguments, if any, actually stand up to scrutiny.

But inevitably, I think that. I voted to remain precisely because I didn't think the arguments to leave were strong ones. Time will tell who was right and who was wrong. Unfortunately, by that time, it will be too late to turn the clock back.

Completely agree brokenbiscuit

Unfortunately there are far too many people who are more than happy to march headlong into goodness knows what for reasons that don't stand up to scrutiny.

Rocco don't be so insulting. I found the same on the news when some remain supporters were being interviewed, they could not articulate why they voted remain. I don't want this country being controlled by Europe, eroding it's it's values, and culture to make it part of the hormogeny that is Europe. I will also mention the European court of criminal rights!

Those are my reasons, most may not agree, but they are just as valid.

The rationales for voting Leave, on this thread and any other, do not stand up to any scrutiny. That is the point: they're factually incorrect.

But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and accept that I may have missed all of the clear, salient and factually correct posts that sum up why 17.4m people voted to Leave the EU.. so, enlighten me!

(Feel free to copy and paste from another source if you're not confident enough to put it into your own words.)

aeroflotgirl can you give us 1 single example of how this country was controlled by Europe?

It's an oft repeated phrase that makes your decision sound very honourable but I've never seen an example given.

Whether their views hold up to your scrutiny is neither here nor there: the views hold up to their own scrutiny, and like it or loathe it, they have the same vote as you do.

The divide between the political class and everyone else grew silently. Painting swathes of the population as fools happily walking towards a terrible end only you can see as you sagely nod isn't going to steer them around, suddenly, towards your way of thinking.

Should add, an example that we'd want to change.

So what Rocco, those were the reasons I voted leave, and I would vote leave again!

But does that really matter? If for arguments sake we say 'well, okay then - Remainers are right and Leavers are wrong.'

Is a simple, doom laden, 'you are wrong. Your arguments are wrong' good enough for anybody?

I don't think they are. But even if we suppose that they were, the problem I have with it is that it assumed a lofty and condescending attitude with it - of, run along dear, of course we are better off in the EU. I do think Cameron genuinely believed that was all it would take, that what was actually a high speed train hurtling towards 'leave' was more of a trundling bus with only a few passengers that would be easy to cheerily point to another direction.

He was wrong.

Of course it matters creampinkrose

If leavers voted for aspirations which aren't going to transpire by leaving the EU then what is the point?

Exactly: there is still the assumption we listened to the side of a bus, so we'll listen to Blair.

It just isn't correct. As I've said, I do honestly think Leave didn't have to do a thing in the runup to the referendum. I think the result would have been the same anyway, I really do. Of course, I've absolutely no way of proving this beyond a 'feeling' :) but I just don't think anyone was skipping along loving Europe and thinking how great it was that if they wanted to they could retire in Spain, then saw a bus and thought 'no, actually, sod that!' I think the sense of eurosceptisism started with the wave of immigration in the mid 2000s, gained momentum in the recession, really accelerated with Brown's "bigot" comment and then finally emerged as the vote it did in 2016. It was a long, long process and there is no way anybody hanging in the balance was influenced by the bus.

The divide between the political class and everyone else grew silently. Painting swathes of the population as fools happily walking towards a terrible end only you can see as you sagely nod isn't going to steer them around, suddenly, towards your way of thinking.

I'm not trying to steer anyone around to my way of thinking. It's too late for that, as the damage is already done.

And fwiw, I haven't called anyone a fool - that was your word. But yes, I think many of the leave voters were misguided and ill-informed. And if we believe what the pollsters tell us, they were also, on average, less educated.

Tbh, I don't care if the leave voters think I'm right or wrong. I care about the future of this country and the lives of the people in it.

It gives me very little comfort to know that I'll be able to say "I told you so" when things start to go horribly wrong. That won't change anything.

Aeroflot girl, yours are exactly the arguments which don't stand up to scrutiny. You do not understand them yourself. What does the European court of human rights have to do with EU membership?

Tony Blair is a fuck wit who led us into an illegal war so I take no notice him

Teresa May also voted for the Iraq war and she is now taking you into Brexit