to ask whether Brexit is at all like you imagined it would play out?

[whatyadoing]

Because it's a bit chaotic and mental to my mind!

Daddybegood, I was a lot angrier and swearier in my head.

I still find it extremely difficult to believe we are going through with it. If we do end up with catastrophic No Deal Brexit, I will never forgive the people who voted for it and actioned it.

I'm the same Adequate. My brother voted to leave and because I can barely hide my contempt for him, I just don't bother with him anymore.
Quite sad really but when he decided to hold hands and believe the lies of Farage, IDS, Boris etc instead of his own family including our parents (Irish Eu nationals) and the future opportunities and prosperity of my kids, I just want nothing to do with the twit ...and right now, I don't think I ever will

Daddybegood That’s so sad that you can’t respect a persons democrat vote and different point of view. You must find it difficult to leave the house with all these different opinions floating around! And I say that as a remainer...

It is sad qwerty,.....I have friends who voted leave who I still get on with fine, but there are a group of leave voters who shut down the debate with "you lost get over it" or when presented with alternative viewpoints they just simply dismiss it as " project fear Mark 1 &2"...almost like they have become radicalized. The stench of their intolerance to others e.g. muslims, immigrants etc is easily detectable although they deny it and they talk about "taking back control" or some other right wing soundbite bollocks...and quite frankly I don't want me or my family to be around such a low level of debate

Yeah I don’t mind people who happened to vote leave

I loathe most brexiteers though, really, can’t stand the ignorant shit that comes out their mouths.

‘We won the 2nd ww, by ourselves?’ Wtf?

‘It’s like the milenium bug’ wtf?

Everyone is desperate to trade with us’ wtf?

Or ‘we need a short sharp shock- I need to lose weight’ wtf?

CherryPavlova
Oh all that and much much more of course!

What else can you remember?

Daddybegood I think that group is tiny. Most leavers I know are lovely, intelligent people who voted leave because of sovereignty. I think you’ve been reading too many anti-leave Facebook/Twitter posts....

People aren’t defined by if they voted leave or remain....it amazes me how polarised people views are. Especially on messageboards.

Most leavers I know are lovely, intelligent people who voted leave because of sovereignty

I hear you qwerty but we each have our own experiences and like I said I don't have a problem at all with some leavers but I really do have a problem with others if their viewpoints are offensive, insensitive etc (minority? ...who knows)
When I was young some people had a problem with the Irish generally. My Irish parents (who were very against the IRA themselves) dismissed such people as ignorant as they did with all aspects of racism and intolerance. I share that philosophy I.e. I don't mind the leavers who are not but the ones that are, I will have nothing to do with going forward - they are still entitled to their democratic choices but excuse me if I don't want to read about it in the DM or hear the utter horsesh!t they choose to spout - that is my democratic right

Helmetbymidnight They are, but I don’t agree with them. Leaving the EU scares me and I worry about my finances but I don’t think that people who voted leave are bad or stupid just because I voted differently.

At the end of the day we were all told to give a yes or no answer to an incredibly complex issue. The question was stupid, people answers (ie yes or know) were not.

I live in a predominately leave area - Cornwall. Most leavers i know are racist, little Englanders, some are articulate and have well reasoned argument to leave but now they believe the cost of leaving out weighs any possible benefit.

Personally, i never believed we could leave the EU in just 2 years, especially as the whole reason we had the referendum in the first place was to appease the far right of the Tory party especially as Gove BJ etc had a wish list and not a plan.

T. May has spent the last 2 years negotiating with her party and not the EU and she (together with DC, MG, BJ & DD) has made this once proud independent country (which we were in the EU) a world wide laughing stock.

Most leavers I know are lovely, intelligent people who voted leave because of sovereignty

Lucky you.

Most leavers I know are very angry people who voted to end uncontrolled mass immigration.

I knew it’d be bad but allowed myself a tiny glimmer of optimism when Theresa May succeeded Cameron.

Although I have never voted Tory, she was portrayed as thorough, bordering on control freak during her time at the Home Office and in pursuing the poison chalice of leadership after the referendum, I hoped that she had a plan on how to navigate Brexit with minimal damage. Triggering Article 50 with no impact analysis/planning for no deal “ no deal is better than a bad deal” showed my initial optimism that she would act in the national interest to be misplaced.

Yes pretty much.
I said to an acquaintance just before hand that Cameron would resign if leave won.
I also thought it would take decades to sort out, cost a fortune for no discernible gain. Sent as much to my sis. Pretty much right so far.
And no that doesn't make me happy.

People aren’t defined by if they voted leave or remain....it amazes me how polarised people views are. Especially on messageboards. Yep
I never imagined for a moment that we would vote to leave. I did argue with a Leave voter shortly after the result because I was so angry.
I did anticipate chaos because no one had left the EU before.
Negotiations seem to be farcical and the EU officials have show their true arrogance.

Most leavers I know are lovely, intelligent people who voted leave because of sovereignty

Most leavers I know are racist, proper 'they should all fuck off home' racist. Not all, some are lovely and shocked and embarrassed by what they've unleashed.

As for how it's going. It's going about how I expected it to, Brexit it a shit idea that was never going to go well. I predicted Leave would win, I also predicted Trump would win. I think we'll end up with cliff edge no deal. The EU will suffer from this as well but if I were them I'd be glad to see the back of us.

I know four leavers.

One is very un-PC, with a strong dislike (and misunderstanding) of Health and Safety regulations. He's also optimistic to a fault.

One disliked David Cameron.

One cheerfully admitted to not really knowing anything about the EU.

The other isn't especially bright. I've never discussed Brexit with her as I know we'd argue and possibly fall out. The other day, she was complaining about how unfair it is that no one would give her a mortgage as "obviously" she doesn't declare all
her income to lower her tax bill (she's self-employed).

Immediately after the referendum, I was shocked and upset, but thought we'd stay in the EEA and it wouldn't be too bad. But the UK government's approach just seems to get worse and worse. I still hope they will blink first, because I don't think they have a strong enough hand to bluff their way through.

'almost like they have become radicalized.'

That's exactly what it's like with the hardcore Brexiteers. A cult-like devotion to the idea of Brexit, and any actual facts or evidence that they don't like the sound of gets dismissed as 'Project Fear'. It's actually scary, and I don't know how they can be turned around.

I know (I think) four Leavers:

One dithered about for ages in the polling booth and really wasn't sure but went for Leave in the end. He is now mortified and thinks he must have lost his mind that day

My father in law - dyed in the wool Tory, very much in the Brexit cult

My mother in law - has no actual capacity to think for herself. Voted Leave because FIL did so. Openly admits she didn't know what she was doing ('they didnt' explain it to us housewives' ) and regrets her decision

A good friend who is a Tory voter, Daily Mail reader, 'they need us more than we need them', thinks Boris Johnson is marvellous fun and 'a great British eccentric', but not someone I would describe as in any way racist. Voted leave as 'a protest vote' - one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. I no longer talk to her about anything politics-related and that way we get along just fine

Personally I’ve never understood why they signed the article 50 when they did
Surely It would have been better to at least get a plan of some sort sorted amongst themselves first
Done the infighting and then when they knew what they/we want
Go to the Eu to negotiate

And why isn’t this a cross party/ coalition type of thing
Why is it all left to one political group (that I wouldn’t trust to run a chimps tea party )

If this was a film it would go straight to the bargain bin

I know one Leaver voter. She's a Labour voter who's been a lifelong Eurosceptic who voted against us joining in the first place. (I'm still not quite sure why, but it's not from racism.)

She now complains that Brexit is constantly in the news, to which I tell her it's her own damn fault!

Personally I’ve never understood why they signed the article 50 when they did

Bravado and arrogance.

I imagine that signing A50 when they did was to appease the extreme right wing. The election was then called to put the boot into Labour and get a mandate for an extreme hard Brexit, but it went wrong and the public didn't co-operate. Funny that the 'will of the people' didn't matter in that case.

I think it was also extreme stupidity.

When you look at the kind of things David Davis has been saying all along - how easy it was going to be, you don’t have to be clever, etc, he’ll get great deals - it seems to me he grossly underestimated the issue and grossly overestimated himself. (He epitomises the brexiteer mind/set)

Brexit has been even worse than I ever thought it could be at this stage.

I don’t understand the following:

1. Why there was no super majority clause included in the design of the referendum

1. Why David Cameron fucked off the day after the referendum

1. Why Theresa May triggered article 50 before she had unilaterally defined to her party what brexit was to entail and they had all agreed to it

1. Why she called a general election straight after

1. Why she left David Davis in charge

1. How she can still be banging on about her deal when the EU has already rejected it

1. Why people are still convinced this is the right thing to do. It’s like someone said on Twitter the other day- you load a gun, you point it at your head. You then realise this isn’t such a good option any more. You don’t then pull the trigger because, well- you’ve come this far and you sort of feel you are duty-bound now. You put the thing down and get some help!

I genuinely despair about what happens post 31st March 2019. I don’t think it will be immediate catastrophe- more a multi-generational long slide into economic, social and political decline. Happy days

My issue with Brexit voters is how much damage they have done. It's like trashing someone's house and then saying "oh it's done now get over it."

It's the careless, causal way they say "it will take a long time" - yes a long time when people will be unemployed, scared and in all probability hungry.

The country had enough problems and now this!

And to answer the OP - I thought it would be bad but I expected it to take a long time, 10 years of negotiations etc. This head long rush towards destruction is shocking.