Is there any way Brexit can be stopped?

[Electrascoffee]

I think there will be more civil unrest if it goes ahead than if it doesn't.

At this point, what can we do to stop it happening? People are going to die. And all because of the hubris of David Cameron and racism.

Both side ran a crap campaign.

One side consistently broke the law.

This is not equitable. One side behaved illegally. You can't justify breaking the law because someone else was being naughty.

I thought Trump wanted May to make Farage the Ambassador to the US, only to be told that there was no vacancy for the role? Trump then seemed to drop Farage, or at least wasn't quite as chummy.

We are leaving. We are stuck with it.

All the people saying project fear didn't come true how do they know that when Brexit hasn't happened yet?

The referendum came about with the Tories trying to stop the loss of votes to UKIP and decades of in fighting from their different factions in the party.

Stopping the party in fighting has been hugely successful .

People saying the electorate voted for this or that reason is rubbish. No one knows (even more so than usual). Not even arch brexiteers agree on what they want.

Government have announced this morning that there won’t be a further Brexit referendum under any circumstances

Ah, just like the government ruled out a snap election six times between September 2016 and March 2017, when they called a snap election.

The Brexit politicians did less planning for the eventuality of a leave vote than you would do for a school trip. It's sick.
Now they're still scrabbling to avoid being the one who carries the can for what Brexit boils down to, which is one of three options:

1. Leave under WHO rules and suffer huge trade disruption and economic impact, possibly face disaster capitalism scenario where trade deals with the US reduce standards in areas like animal welfare, healthcare
2. Made a deal with the EU that involves following EU rules without having a say in them

I've absolutely lost faith in politicians of any persuasion having enough honour to tell the public about the real choices that we face.

We can't just leave under WTO rules. So far we have published what we -want would like, and about 8 countries so far have said, 'Wait a moment...'. So even these will take some negotiation, and since the Tories can't even manage to agree among themselves, how do they expect to negotiate with others?

PineappleSunrise

Do you really think that calling 1/3 of the electorate thick and racist is a good way to entice them to your side?

So yes the leave campaign was just as fucked up as the remain one was, but if you want to minimise it then go for it.

Do you really think that calling 1/3 of the electorate thick and racist is a good way to entice them to your side?

To be honest, trying to have an intelligent debate didn't work either. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

So yes the leave campaign was just as fucked up as the remain one was, but if you want to minimise it then go for it.

The leave campaign was a lot more "fucked up" than the remain campaign. There is quite literally no sensible comparison to be made between the two.

LoveInTokyo

No debate was even tried.

Both campaigns were "fucked up" so there is your sensible comparison.

I am not aware of Remain telling blatant lies. Like an inflated amount of money being sent to the EU which could be spent on the NHS. Like Turkey imminently about to join the EU, like an EU Army being certain. I don't know whether potential Remain voters were targetted with blatantly dishonest information either. If so, they should of course be reprimanded. I don't know either which other country tried to interfere with the election on the Remain side.

I still can't find anything saying government ruled out second ref this morning. Where is this news? Anyone have a link?

There is no comparison.

Both sides were crap.

Only one side broke the law. I'll repeat they broke election law. End of comparison.

It is quite hard to debate with someone who is basing their entire campaign on lies such as "We send £350m a week to Brussels". How do you debate that when it isn't even true?

Moussemoose

Both sides were crap

that is your comparison right there. Your words not mine.

Actually, the remain side was crap.

The leave side was very good. Dishonest and illegal, but good.

LoveInTokyo

Its not that hard at all if you actually try to

I watched the TV debates.

Leavers like Boris Johnson were pulled up time and time again on their lies and they just squirmed out of it.

But most people didn't watch the debates anyway. A lot of the "debate" played out on social media, and the number of people parroting blatant falsehoods about £350m a week and Turkey being about to join the EU was breathtaking. It did not matter a jot how many times people pointed out that these things were factually incorrect. They simply did not care.

I noticed that on social media a lot of different people were posting the same copy and pasted text containing all kinds of lies. The kind that you can easily debunk if one person says them, but when you see the same thing repeated over and over and over again, you just don't have the time to fight it.

A lot of these people were clearly paid trolls with fake Facebook profiles.

You cannot have a mature and rational debate faced with that.

Only one side was dishonest and illegal.

See deliberately misunderstanding someone,or taking what they said out of context, or leaving out the second sentence to prove your point is annoying and disingenuous but not illegal.

The leave side broke the law. They BROKE THE LAW.

That's what makes it different.

LoveInTokyo

The truth is that nearly 1/3 of the voting population didn't vote.

Neither side tried to engage them, Neither side could be bothered to try and reach those that could have swayed the decision.

Anybody with any sense could see that this was going to be close, yet no safeguards were put in place.

And nobody from the remain side put forward a decent argument until they realised that they were going to lose.

Instead of playing their own game they got drawn in to what the other side wanted them to do, mainly because they thought that they already had it won.

Sadly, we can complain to ourselves as much as we like about the Leave case. However, it won a majority of those who voted (not the electorate but that's how it was shambolically set up).
We are leaving.
God help us.

What is your point?

The leave side lied and broke the law.

In order to have a proper debate, both sides need to play fair. The leave side didn't play fair and they won under false pretences. They have failed and will fail to deliver anything they promised. They should be held accountable for that.

Please do not ask me to respect democracy when this is what your version of democracy looks like.

news.sky.com/story/theresa-may-dismisses-calls-for-second-brexit-referendum-in-wake-of-sky-data-poll-11454299

LoveInTokyo

Please do not ask me to respect democracy when this is what your version of democracy looks like.

And you wonder why there can be no debate. I will leave you to it.

I am serious.

The leave campaign promised all kinds of things which were undeliverable.

It's like they said, "You can vote to keep what you have now, or you can vote to give up what you have now and have what's in this mystery box instead. We can't reveal exactly what's in the mystery box, but we can promise that it is very special and exciting, and way better than what you have now, and it's worth at least £350m a week, probably more in fact."

And the electorate said, "Cool, thanks, we'll have the mystery box please!"

And now the mystery box has been opened up and it actually contains a massive turd, but the leavers are saying, "You voted for the mystery box so you have to give up everything you have and have the contents of the mystery box now. It's what you voted for, so there's no possibility of you changing your mind and keeping what you have. It's the contents of the box or nothing!"

Only, this is actually worse, because they asked 100 people to vote on whether everyone got to keep what they had or swap it for the contents of the mystery box, and 37 people said, "Cool, we'll have the mystery box!", 36 people said, "Err, no, you can't actually tell us what is in the box so we'd rather keep what we already have, thanks!" and 27 people nipped outside to have a fag while the voting was taking place.

But now 100 people are being forced to give up what they have and get a box with a turd in it instead.

That is what this version of "democracy" looks like.

So please tell me why I should respect that.