Question for Leave voters who've changed their minds about Brexit.

[Kendodd]

Before I start, I know, hardly any have, even that eel bloke still supports Brexit. But for the tiny percentage who have -

Why did you change your mind?
Are you angry at all with the people who sold you Brexit?

I know lots of Leave voters are very angry about how its turning out, but they all seem to be angry with the EU for not doing what brexiteer politicians said the EU would do. Even the DUP still supports Brexit.

I continue to believe that power and decision making is best off being as close to the stakeholders as possible and able to act in the interests of those stakeholders.
Ah Subsidiarity
The absolute antithesis of how the Tories run the UK

Here is what a leave voting and quite ardent leaver said to me in a msg exchange last week.
"There have been one or two encouraging business stories too. As you say the bad news far outweighs the good at the moment. If it does not get resolved in the next few months, I would agree that we have been sold a dud"

A Padstow fisherman said they all went to sea with their brexitier flags in 2016, now they wouldn't wipe their arses with them.

Of course I include boris. It's not remained or Tory.

Our political class and system needs massive change.

I’m not sure any poll now accurately reflects what people would have voted 5 years ago if they had that time again, seeing as for the last 5 years people have been ridiculed and slated for voting Brexit, whatever their reasoning.

Remainers have been totally ignored for the better part of 5 years. Remain voting Tory MPs in the last Parliament lost the whip, which is an indication of what Brexiters thought.

Even so, Boris Johnson won his mandate in the December 2019 election to Get Brexit Done. He didn't give any details as to how, but enough people endorsed him, including fishermen in Padstow, seeing that Cornwall is wholly represented by Tories. So now, they have to put up with it. By all means blame Johnson for being a lousy negotiator - he might have done a better job if he hadn't constantly threatened to walk out of talks.

I doubt whether anyone bullied the fisherman of Padstow or the William Farrell who owns a horse breeding stud. They will have been surrounded by like minded people for 4 and a half years, and only now woken up to find out that the Government was not negotiating on their behalf.

Take the fisheries Minister who was too busy organising a nativity trail to read the legislation she was due to vote on, and then subsequently did sterling work finding out that forms need to be stamped and what colour ink they need to be filled in with. These are all details which should have been sorted out a year ago. But I daresay to do so, might have made some people wake up to what was coming down the line.

but how can any deal give access to eu markets and vice versa to uk ones, with no non tariff barriers? (given the red lines were no SM and no CU)

to me, any deal, walkouts or no, would result in the same non tariff barriers.

With regard vaccines (separate issue to the question) the EU have fucked up terribly

@Kendodd

No! It's not a separate issue, it's a demonstration of why many voted leave. Lumbering, slow, bureaucratic, inefficient and bloody wastefully expensive systems, that let down their own citizens.

I did waver, as my only gripe with the EU is it's overarching desire to create a political bloc and its wasteful bureaucracy, but achieving a deal, no mass shortages in shops and the vaccine fiasco, has strengthened my belief we did the right thing.

I think for most Leave voters Brexit wasn't about economics, it didn't matter how much it cost. Maybe that's one reason why so few people have changed their minds. I know many Leave supporting industries are now in serious trouble, I bet the individuals affected would still vote leave though. I notice even on this thread most people are blaming the deal and not Brexit itself. The most striking thing for me is the DUP stance. They are still absolutely committed to Brexit even though Brexit is the single biggest driver towards a united Ireland in 100 years. I heard somebody on the radio this morning saying he though the unionists thought Brexit would put a border between NI and the Republic (the DUP campaigned hard against the GFA) and despite everything they say, this is what they wanted. This was always my feeling as well. Anyway, the DUP lost that bet and find themselves (for now) with a border between NI and GB. I really, really fear a return to violence there. Leave voters knew this might well be a consequence though.
Mind changers are such an exception to the rule (both ways) I do quite admire their free thinking. The old adage, 'when the facts change, I change my mind' for the record, that's not me, I voted remain and would still vote remain (rejoin even) so I'm still welded to a political opinion. I would really like to think that if Brexit had turned out wonderfully, business booming because of it, peace in NI (can't see how that would be possible though), and all our rights retained, I would change my opinion.

I sometimes wonder if the people who voted Conservative wish they hadn't because of the disastrous handling of Covid, the decimation of the NHS, the lack of social housing and the massive increase in childhood poverty ... but I wouldn't start thread after thread asking that question because that's not a way to elicit real engagement and it's a question that automatically positions yourself as morally superior.
I despair that so many people seem incapable of reflection, communication and genuine engagement - and that's to you OP. Your approach is part of the problem in how divisive politics has become. Perhaps it's time for you to stand down and reflect. Feeding division and stoking resentment are not positive steps on a personal level or a nationwide one. Maybe have a long hard think about what you are doing now rather than what people voted years ago. Reading some philosophers and political theorists might help too.

Your approach is part of the problem in how divisive politics has become.
Perhaps.
I have said repeatedly about people on both sides of the debate being welded to their vote though (and including myself in that). It's this that interested me and what it was that unglued people.

I very much doubt if even one Leaver voted on the issue of vaccine roll outs. It just happens to be the one thing that Johnson's government has managed to do well, and that in large part is because it's been left to the NHS to organise, instead of Serco or Capita and the like.

There is this constant assumption of what people who voted to leave the EU must think or be or want.

No actual listening if what people say doesn't fit the narrative.

This is part of why the result came as such a shock to people. Any real discussion was silenced because apparently obviously only racists and bigots and thick and/or old people would vote to leave.

Therefore people were pretty quiet about their intention to leave having been tarred as the above. And now it's assumed that we must all be idiots who voted on the basis of what some twat put on the side of a bus and goading about how the leave campaigns promises haven't come true - that assumes, again, that we voted based on bullshit in the media rather than our own political beliefs about centralised v local power, protectionist trading rackets, levels of bureaucracy, etc.

People really had varied reasons for voting as they did and no they didn't fall along a neat right/left divide either as is often assumed.

@Kendodd
Anyway, the DUP lost that bet and find themselves (for now) with a border between NI and GB. I really, really fear a return to violence there. Leave voters knew this might well be a consequence though.
I was a leave voter and haven't changed my mind but I'm deeply ashamed to admit that I didn't give any thought to what the consequences of Brexit might be for NI. No excuses

I very much doubt if even one Leaver voted on the issue of vaccine roll outs.
Many voted on the issue of EU incompetence, nimbler government, closer accountability. Vaccine supply is a clear result of nimbler governance. There will be many more advantages of nimbler governance over time.

We haven't seen much nimble government over the last month with respect to importing and exporting. Funny that - they have only had since 2016 to prepare for it.

Nor have we seen much accountability so far. F*ck business, Johnson said, and that is what his Government have done.

In a Country with so many people in it. Can I ask why it would be of any interest or reassurance to you if you found a few people on Mumsnet who said what you want to hear?
You want to hear that there’s people sitting at home full of regret 😂
It’s crazy that you are so bitter that you need this validation to make your day better.

@Toptotoeunicolour
I wonder if that's one fundamental difference between you and me?
I prefer the principle of countries acting in unity rather than competing against each other. I think acting in unity much better tackles the big issues of the day, climate change, tax avoidance etc, I think competing countries allows multinationals to pit them against each other and results in a race to the bottom. Even on vaccines, I don't dispute the EU fucked up hugely but if each country had acted separately we would have had winning and losing countries plus very likely huge price increase. We're seeing the difficulties the developing world are having securing vaccine because they're poor and acting (largely) on their own.

As an aside, the biggest Brexit issue for me was NI, (always was) the peace was always fragile but it was a peace and it held for 20 years, I think without Brexit it would have held at least 20 more. I'm terribly pessimistic about the future there and one thing that make me really angry is that I don't think Boris Johnson will give a single shit if/when there's blood on the streets there again. He met a group of NI business owners before the last election and lied in their faces.

Do we need validation? I don't eat shellfish, nor do I ride horses, at all, never mind to a professional standard. But should we not be interested in those people who have been betrayed by Boris Johnson and his chums?

You want to hear that there’s people sitting at home full of regret
But there aren't, that's the point, almost nobody, on either side, has changed their minds.

We already have winners and losers in the global vaccine stakes. This country has managed to get millions vaccinated. Private Eye gave an example of an African country where they had vaccinate 25 people - and no, I am not missing off a number of zeros there. Yet it has to be a global initiative if we are to beat this.

But should we not be interested in those people who have been betrayed by Boris Johnson and his chums?

But they don't feel they have been betrayed, they're happy about Brexit. I don't think its about being personally betrayed anyway. I really would love to speak to someone who'd changed their mind, in either way really, and why they unglued and so few other have. I've admitted myself that I haven't.

Yet it has to be a global initiative if we are to beat this.

Completely agree. Nobody's safe until everybody's safe.

Why do you keep pretending the EU is about global harmony and all countries working together. It's not. It's a huge trading block against the rest of the world and able to bully it's way in trade deals etc. It's worse than nationalism in a sense because no nation can hoard as much power and advantage over others as a block as big as the EU can.

It's also shown total disregard for the global crisis of covid by refusing to invest decently in vaccine development.

This idea that it's some kind of charitable holding hands around the world movement is ridiculous. They refused to even pay their fair share for vaccine development yet expected preferential treatment when the vaccines paid off. That is not a side issue - it's the perfect illustration of so much that people are saying.

Countries working together is the opposite of creating a massive block that protects itself and it's more powerful members with privileges that are denied non member states.