The Brexit Arms

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Welcome to The Brexit Arms!
Looking forwards, not backward!

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I don’t know how the narrative changed to ‘It was always going to be difficult’. I don’t remember Bojo or Gove saying that. They gave the impression it would be a piece of piss.

These are classic:

Gove: "The day after we vote to leave we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want."

Davis: "(By September 2018) we can negotiate a free trade area massively larger than the EU."

Fox: "We're going to replicate the 40 EU FTAs before we leave the EU."

Rank experts at ruthlessly duping the gullible and the disadvantaged.

I can't even call them demagogues because I usually associate demagoguery with full awareness and understanding of what they are doing.

This lot literally had no clue ... and may not even understand what they are saying now.

While I would love that to be the case, I think they are very well educated elite who have been using populism to cynically exploit disadvantaged people's gullibility in order to progress their own political careers. The people's and the country's long term prospects clearly do not matter to those short-term survival focused chancers. You could see the levels of integrity in plain sight just after the referendum - the spivs were infighting and backstabbing each other like rabid animals.

exploit disadvantaged people's gullibility

Are all 'disadvantaged' people gullible?

What is your definition of 'disadvantaged' in this context?

No point being shy about this, the Leave vote was particularly high in areas of economic disadvantage. Conning people who have a disadvantaged economic situation is pretty shameful. Telling them, yep it's a big step but it's going to be a piece of cake. Disgusting behaviour.

Being economically disadvantaged does not equal gullible though.

I suppose that a particularly anti-Brexit hardcore remainer may start from the position that all Leave voters were conned and are gullible - but that's a pretty blanket generalisation tbh & doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

It's a pretty lazy piece of thinking really, born of underlying prejudice & assumptions.

It doesn't mean you are more gullible. What it means is that you may be desperate enough open to non- standard solutions like ... tearing up the consensus on being in the EU. To paraphrase Donald Trump: what have you got to lose?

I happen to live in one such area and I am telling you what Leave voters said to me. I didn't read it in the Guardian.

It may also mean you are less able to assess what is BS from what is real.

These leave voters were apparently less well educated. I guess that correlates with income.

It's not about being smart, however; it's about being trained to judge what makes sense from what doesn't.

@gussyfinknottle: Thanks, a great example of astonishing susceptibility to carefully engineered soundbites.
"What have you got to lose?" does it sound like a marketing slogan to you? It should, because it is - created by experts. Hook, line and sinker. Actually, you've got to lose a lot and in quite a few cases the loss is already being realised purely on account of impending Brexit:

• The NHS: there ain't no NHS in trumpland!
• Benefits including state pension
• Your home if you live in a council flat and the authority ran out of money
• Purchasing power of your current wages due to the collapse of the pound
• Take home wages if the government needs to raise more tax to plug the ever growing budget holes
• Your local state school or its quality due to cuts
• Security due to police cuts
• National security due to military cuts
• Any jobs that directly or indirectly depend on trade with Europe

Etc.

I suppose I'm just not comfortable with the underlying implications evident in much of the discourse surrounding the characteristics of Leave voters.

@FaithHopeCharityDesperation

Which ones? I believe they were:

They were older

They were less educated

They tended to be white

They tended to be male

I know a couple of University educated Leave voters with optimism and realism at the heart of their decision. But most of the people I know who voted Leave are educated to GCSE level or equivalent (if that) without much money and living in an economically deprived area. They were also full of optimism about their decision too. Which is waning now they are realising how much bullshit they were fed. Plenty don't want to believe more pessimistic views now either.

I know a couple of University educated Leave voters with optimism and realism at the heart of their decision.

I have heard some very cogent, well reasoned and thought out arguments for Leave. Any honest Remainer would say the same. And there was - and still is - a lot of truth in them. Ultimately the disagreement comes from how best to address them. For myself, it was to be in the EU having an effect. For others it's to be outside whatever that means.).

The problem with the asinine referendum is that their careful reasoning went up in smoke, as they voted with racists and fascists. I don't care how patronising, condescending or arrogant it may sound, but people should look to one side and the other when they cast their votes.

*Not all Leave voters. But some. Enough.

I don't care how patronising, condescending or arrogant it may sound, but people should look to one side and the other when they cast their votes.

Weird argument - there were a number of lefty types on the Remain side whom I despised far more than anyone on the Leave side. But I still voted Remain!

Olivia, the underlying assumptions I meant were that their vote was not as worthy as others.

That their supposed 'gullibleness', life expectancy, education level or socioeconomic status means their views, opinions & vote are of less importance or worth.

As for the 'look at who you voted alongside' trope, well that is just stunted thinking.
There were people of dubious merit & character on both sides of the Eu vote.
Using the way you voted as a type of virtue signal is nothing more than sneering superiority.

Couldn't agree more Faith. This sort of sneering, my vote was better than yours stuff always comes up in the end on these threads.

Of course Leave votes were worth the same as Remain votes. That's how referenda work. There were plenty of decent optimistic people who voted Leave. And plenty of racist idiots. They came out of the woodwork and made a lot of noise (and smell).
The Leave campaign appealed to both.

Yes, that's right.

I don't understand why it would be objectionable to state that less educated folk are less able to think critically because they are not trained to do so.

A bricklayer and barrister may well be equally intelligent but one is not as exposed to policy and law and trade etc as the other. Moreover one is trained to think and argue critically, the other not.

It's not insulting or sneering to say this. It's just fact.

The two university educated Leave voters I know are skilled at critical thinking. They made, in my view, the wrong choice. I think the same about the other Leave voters I know who do not have the same level of formal education.
I don't see how voting Remain and continuing, as I do, to believe it was the right choice makes me a patronising cow.
Sounds like a bit of self-doubt on a Leavers part for keeping up this idea that all remainers are snobs or whatever.
I lost the vote. I'm not changing my mind any time soon that made the right choice. Call me a snob if that makes you feel better about the shitshow we are starring in.

I don't understand why it would be objectionable to state that less educated folk are less able to think critically because they are not trained to do so.

I was just as able to apply critical thinking before I did a degree as I was after.
In fact, as a mature student I was far more able than my younger contemporaries.

A lack of higher education is quite usual in the older demographic.

No one called you a cow or a snob though - just pointed out that your reasoning was stunted & lazy.

Yes Faith, experience matters.

But so do environment and training.