An open letter to leavers

[LoveInTokyo]

Dear Leavers

I’m sorry that David Cameron offered us a referendum and promised to respect the outcome, whatever it was.

Unfortunately, he was fucking with you.

He promised that referendum when he didn’t think he stood a cat’s chance in hell of getting a majority, and never thought he’d actually have to deliver on it. When he got his surprise majority, he made a big show of going to Brussels and pretending to negotiate with the EU to get us a “better deal”. Unfortunately, he already knew perfectly well that the UK already had a better deal than any other country in the EU, and that they were not going to bend over backwards to get us to stay. So he made a big show of negotiating and then tried to pretend that he had done something meaningful. He then went through the motions of holding a referendum, half-heartedly campaigning to remain. He did absolutely no contingency planning, partly because he never believed that leave would actually win, and partly because he already knew that he had no intention of staying to deal with the fallout if they did. That’s why he resigned the day after the referendum and waltzed off, whistling a merry tune.

He played a high risk game of poker with our money, and lost.

I understand that many of you feel defensive about your decision and dislike being labelled “thick” by angry remainers. As a remainer myself, I feel saddened and frustrated that none of you seem able to articulate any benefits that will actually come out of Brexit. But at this stage, I would quite happily accept that there will be no benefits, and settle for damage limitation. Unfortunately none of you seem able to explain how we limit the damage either.

We cannot leave the single market and customs union without there being a hard border in Ireland, which will put people’s lives at risk. We cannot leave the single market and customs union without severely damaging most sectors of the economy, which would cause untold hardship for millions of people living in the UK. I realise that remaining in the single market and customs union would make leaving the EU pointless, but it is the only way to limit the damage.

The government has made almost no progress towards getting a workable deal in place, and time is running out. We don’t have the infrastructure in place to ensure that supply chains of essential food and medicine will not be disrupted after Brexit day. We don’t have a plan to ensure that planes will still be able to take off and land, or that satnav will still work. We do not have any trade deals lined up. We simply do not have time to do any of these things.

Dear leavers, you do not have solutions to any of these problems, and more importantly, neither do Theresa May, Boris Johnson, David Davis, Liam Fox, Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrea Leadsom, Daniel Hannan, Jeremy Corbyn, Kate Hoey or any of the people who claim to think Brexit is the right choice for the UK.

A no-deal Brexit is unthinkable. It is not an option.

I realise that many of you will feel betrayed if we do not get the kind of Brexit you want. But to be honest, you’re going to feel betrayed even if you do get the kind of Brexit you want, because it will be unimaginably shit. This is not "project fear", it is "project reality".

The government has a duty to act in the best interests of the country as a whole. It’s not good enough to lay the blame at David Cameron’s door and say he held the referendum so we have to respect the vote. David Cameron has been out of office for two years. It is now plainer than ever that leaving the EU is a terrible idea, and there is still time to put the brakes on and not go through with it. If the government goes through with this when they could put a stop to it, they cannot continue to blame David Cameron and claim that their hands were tied. They are not.

It is time for Theresa May to do the decent thing and say, “I’m sorry, I know it’s what the people voted for, but it simply can’t be done without causing a totally unacceptable amount of harm to the country. And I have a duty of care towards everyone, not just the 51.8% who voted leave.”

Some of the remainers spout bollocks. Only one leaver I have read on these Brexit forums does not. Apart from that, it's bollocks all the way down

the Excise Movement Control System (EMCS), to monitor the movement [of goods in EU] No reason this process cannot be extended

... unless there's no deal. That's the source of hysteria. Any deal is all or nothing. No deal = No transition, no EMCS, nada. That 3-blokes-in-a-pub video that is circulating explains all the insurance that would Not Exist under No Deal and make exports & imports impossible. All the paperwork that can't be filled in under No Deal. Why a border would appear in NI, etc.

Except Blind Brexit, which is basically the ultimate kick can down the road solution to No Deal.

£5.3 bn of goods traded over NIrish land border + unknown services ££, doesn't seem like "very little" trade to me. Anyway, the security of the whole island (and that really means, whole UK!) is dependent on free flow of goods, services, ppl (never mind the political obligations to ensure that).

Somewhere, 3-blokes-in-pub video??, explains legal paradoxes of leaving SM, effectively made illegal due to GFA & Great Repeal Act.

That is how and when deals are done. The meaningful vote is nonsense, you just cant have one why making a deal, it was always a remoaner failed attempt to stop Brexit.

That is not how this deal needs to be done.

We needed to have the basic structure of it agreed about 6 months before Brexit day to make sure the withdrawal agreement can be approved by the European Parliament (this is in the wording of Article 50 itself if you care to look at it), and also for parliament to have a meaningful vote on it, which is what Theresa May promised parliament in order to get them to agree to vote in favour of triggering Article 50.

This is not an ordinary deal and these are not ordinary negotiations.

But don’t worry, I wouldn’t expect anyone who uses words like “remoaner” to engage in any kind of critical thinking.

Oh and for the last time, Carol, nothing you are talking about suggests that there is a hard border in Ireland. There isn’t!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4AF-3Rd44 3 men in a pub video, haven’t watched it...

I doubt you could get anything more English than that video.
3 white middle class men sitting in a pub. Very cosmopolitan

Laughing out loud. 😂

.. but Churchill was in favour of the EU - totally true, but not for the UK. He saw a united Europe, the British Empire and the US as the great trading nations against Russia and China.

Perfectly true, but the flaw in his argument is the bit I have highlighted. He was a young man when the Victorian British Empire was at its height. By the time he died in 1965 most of it had already been dissolved, but by this time he was a shadow of the man he had been (to be polite) and may not have realised this. I don't think he was totally gaga by the time of Suez so he should have been able to read the writing on the wall.

Surfer so because they’re white and middle class, you’re going to ignore everything they’re saying but you’re happy to go along with the likes of BJ, JRM, Farage and Redwood? Because none of them are middle class
Actually JRM probably fits the bill for being upper class.

The HMRC plan for a no deal brexit involves waving the trucks through if there is a log jam.... so nothing at all to be concerned about.

I just think they represent the typical remainer. Middle class, pompous, London, lefty.
How about ‘3 men in the dole queue in Cardiff’ ? Let’s hear from them.

Surferjet who cares if they're white middle class?? They're in the video because they have all travelled extensively both within and outside of the EU, by road! Not only that but they know a thing or two about trade which is a little bit important after brexit . I have no issue listening to 3 blokes in a dole queue in Cardiff provided they have a similar background in trade... do not always make it about class. As a foreign born resident, I do not give a damn about 'class ' however I care very much about the country I chose to raise a family.

Trying to start a class war then, surfer? Doesn't matter what someone knows, only whether they're part of your tribe...

Between your comments yesterday about online shopping and today's comments on class, I'm starting to realise that you genuinely want the UK to retreat from the modern world while everyone else gets on with things.

So who makes up the Road Haulier's Association? What "class" are they?

The RHA believes that it is time for UK and EU politicians and officials to grow up and start to realise that the current progress (or lack of) on Brexit arrangements is a sad embarrassment for all those involved.

The current political gaming is unacceptable. The UK and the EU is facing a serious emergency. Brexit should not be a political game that is played out in support of petty political principals – the people of the UK and the EU have their lives and livelihoods on the line.

Their statement paper goes on to call out a number of actions the government needs to take and explains why "no deal" is untenable to the people who carry the goods that make up modern supply chains.

www.rha.uk.net/getmedia/c98d0219-fcf7-434e-b9cd-51f2ff0c316c/180730-Brexit-pull-your-finger-out-final.pdf.aspx

No, I just have no time for hypocrisy - don’t moan about Brexit causing job losses when the real reason millions of jobs are going is because of online shopping.
What are you doing about that problem?

Surfer, I am an IT consultant. My job is about keeping UK businesses globally competitive. I have no doubt you regard me as an Enemy of the People in your push for a Brexit Year Zero. Do you read a lot of Pol Pot?

The reason my kids won’t get a job is fuck all to do with Brexit - it’s because of technology. Banks closing down, shops going, & not just little high st shops but major retailers. All the places young people would have worked at just a few years ago have gone. What has that to do with Brexit?
& why aren’t you worried about that?

So you really are hoping that the UK can turn away from modernity. You know, technology is neutral - it's the political applications of it that are positive or negative.

Right now in my field there is a lot of conversation happening around automation and AI, and a lot of frustration that politicians are too busy putting all their energy into Brexit (badly) instead of thinking about how to educate a British workforce to be employable in the future of fewer and fewer rote/unskilled jobs. (Outside fruit picking, of course.)

Apparently, blaming tech and immigrants is what The People want more than they actually want jobs.

And, to answer your last point - I AM worried about it. Which is why I'm so pissed off at Brexit. Brexit is doing fuck all for future British employment opportunities (quite the opposite - it's pointing towards mass unemployment and a reduced tax base for education, health, etc), but the people pushing for it still think it's going to be a silver bullet that's going to stop people from using online shopping.

surfer The population of London is approximately 8 million. Even if every single Londoner had voted Remain, which they didn’t, that still leaves 8 million Remain votes so there are millions of people who voted Remain who don’t live in London.
You really need to stop this lazy stereotyping- it doesn’t help your case.

Exactly.
In the future they’ll be fewer & fewer jobs for the unskilled, the traditional jobs they would have entered just won’t be there, you’re getting situations where 200 people are going for 1 Tesco job. So if it’s that bad already god knows what the future holds.
They’ll be fewer & fewer jobs here, so stop FOM & give the what jobs we do have to the people of the U.K.

Ooh I love it when comfortably off southerner surfer jet who admits she doesn’t care about the economic consequences of Brexit comes over all concerned about working people.

Soooo funny.

No, fewer and fewer UNSKILLED jobs.

There will be more skilled jobs. Like the one I have. (I am from a working class background, surfer.)

Why are your children not looking for skills? My dad has a trade, and has always been pretty down on people who don't go looking for skills. (Note, these don't have to come from universities.)

Skills = money = job security. Why are you against that?

Is surfer comfortably off? She's making out her kids are destined to be unemployed because nasty immigrants keep taking the non-skilled jobs that she says are the only ones they're qualified for.

Let's just overlook the data that shows that the vast majority of immigrants in the UK are SKILLED workers and are net givers to the public purse, not takers, due to the balance of tax and NI they take vs the public services they use. (Clue: it's because they're working age, and the highest cost of public money is, entirely understandably, the pensions and healthcare required by the elderly.)

surferjet's attempts to make out that it's a class war are a bit pathetic, when the leaders of the leave campaigns were Privately educated Farage and Johnson and not just 'a little private school' of the sort that Theresa May once attended, but Eton and Dulwich College.