Brexit

[PerkyLady]

Hello.
Maybe some of you will consider this a fresh topic, but I'm interested in it nevertheless.
Did you vote for or against Brexit?
And what were your reasons?
Stay well.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack

That you don’t agree with, or like, the answers doesn’t mean the question was not answered.

Remain supporters have long said that the 2016 referendum was advisory and not binding in law. That so, MPs were not obliged to vote to leave the EU in March 2017 as evidenced by fact that 113 MPs voted not to trigger Article 50.

So, the answer to your question, would it have been okay for MPs to ignore the referendum, the answer is:

Yes, in accordance with:

UK law
The 2015 EU referendum act.

I voted to remain as leaving was always going to be an expensive disaster. I assume this prick voted to leave and now lives in France. These UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform types are pure charlatans.
BBC News - Former Brexit Party MEP denies taking payment from pro-Russian campaign - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn09x11yr7ro?app-referrer=deep-link

This. Me too.

I hear there was no Brexit black hole.

It seems to me that people voted for a manifesto that may have never been planned to be granted. A wonderful memory recall ability isn't all it's cracked up to be when it comes to overall intelligence, it seems.

I was reading Stephen Swinfords tweet on the fake black hole that may be market manipulation fraud, earlier and just looked now for a news article to link and linked this one, as it includes her Uncle. I had to laugh at the 'stupid oik' paper, as others called them.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/37466066/rachel-reeves-uncle-budget/

@ThePolarEspresso

It’s now coming out that the OBR advised the chancellor that there was no fiscal black hole. So, the tax raises were to increase spending on benefits. Hence, Kemi Badenoch’s comment that the Labour Party is actually the Welfare Party.

I voted remain.
Reason - I'm not an arrogant idiot who thinks I know better than experts on this stuff. The vast majority of experts said brexit was a terrible idea, they have been proved right.

How many massive brexit cheerleaders have been shown to be working for Russia so far?

@Kendodd

You, like many other posters, forget that Brexit came about due to an act of Parliament in accordance with UK law. The Gina Miller case established that the government did not have the authority to leave the EU on the outcome of the 2016 referendum.

UK joined the EEC on 1 January 1973 without a referendum beforehand.

Also, as has been stated previously, the electorate was given the opportunity to cancel Brexit in the 2019 general election, but they declined. So, I guess they weren’t convinced that experts were correct.

Based on their past and current record, I too am not convinced “experts” are capable of forecasting the future with accuracy. For example, Brexit was meant to increase unemployment by 500,000 to 800,000. The NBER estimated that Brexit has reduced unemployment by 3% to 4%.

However, the opposite happened. As per the ONS measured data, unemployment declined from 2015 to Q4 2024.

what is bizarre is that many of the people who voted for Brexit would do the same again today.

@1457bloom

what is bizarre is that many of the people who voted for Brexit would do the same again today.

Well, the outcome of the last three general elections does not suggest that the majority are in favour of the UK rejoining the EU. Starmer keeps talking about Brexit reset, but no mention of making an application to rejoin.

And have EU passports.

That’s the piece that really hacks me off. They gave themselves an escape hatch before they set fire to the place.

As per fullfact, there is no available data or evidence to demonstrate how many MPs have both a UK and EU passport.

Here’s a fact, You have almost double the number of posts on this thread compared to the next most prolific poster. Maybe think about this place as a conversation. Rather than a soapbox.

I voted to leave because I thought a reduction in immigration from Eastern Europe would mean that more low paid jobs would go to British people and that low salaries would therefore rise (because there wouldn’t be so many immigrants willing to work for low salaries).
It didn’t work out like that though.

I think the problem is that we couldn’t re-join and expect all the exemptions, special considerations etc that we had before we left.
eg switching to € instead of £ would probably be a condition for joining.

Overall, I find it curious that anyone would seriously consider joining the EU. Subjecting yourself to the legal framework of a technocratic organisation in a foreign country, run by people you can’t vote out, putting them in charge of your financial, technology, telecoms sectors, environmental policy and many others besides, would be an odd decision to say the least. Unless, that is, that EU membership has such astounding benefits that it makes it all worthwhile. But we were members for 47 years and we know it doesn’t.

How about comparing the cost of rejoining with the cost of not rejoining?

I voted to remain as part of Europe. I loved being part of Europe and everything feels so much worse since we left. The referendum is on David Cameron, he made the decision to go ahead with it and then ran away when it didnt go the way he wanted. I didn’t particularly like David Cameron but he would have been a better pair of hands to guide the UK through Brexit than what we got. He should have seen through what he started.

@PollsCantBeTrusted

If the UK was to rejoin the EU, it would be drawn further into the Russia/Ukraine conflict. A war which was caused by the EU expansion eastwards.

A Russian victory may result in millions of Ukrainian people flooding into the EU and eventually ending up in Calais hoping to catch a boat to the UK. To ensure a Ukrainian victory, it’s estimated to cost the EU between 500 to 800 billion euros. Source:

https://kyivindependent.com/russian-victory-far-costlier-for-europe-than-ukrainian-victory-study-finds/

Part of that cost would fall on the UK if it were to rejoin the EU.

Russia has no quarrel with the UK, but has not forgotten Germany’s attempt to invade in WW2.

He pleaded with the electorate to vote remain, it’s not his fault they ignored him.

But he was unpopular at the time. So many people said they voted Brexit "to give him a bloody nose", and then admitted they didn't think they would actually win the vote.

I won't say what I think of them...

Against. Did not see one benefit from leaving, and a lot of negatives. I saw so many fearful about their residency here or English who lived on the continent. The xenophobia at the time was disgusting. People who were born here told ‘now you have to go’. We are having to apply for Irish passports so we can move to Spain for a year.

@1457bloom
I think the referendum result shows that many people are too dumb to vote. I wonder if in future voting should be restricted to those who have a university degree?

Would that be voting in elections - local and general - or just referendums?
Also, UK universities expanded a lot under Blair in late 1990s. Would people born before say 1980, and therefore less likely to have gone to university, also be excluded?

What utter bollocks. "Russia has no quarrel with UK" is a lie.
They have intervened in our elections, bribed that Welsh Brexit traitor and killed a woman with poison.
You are a treacherous Putin apologist.

I voted Remain because

1. I wanted to retain my freedom of movement within the EU, and EU citizens' freedom to move to the UK in return
2. I thought it was blindingly obvious leaving would be to the enormous detriment of the UK economy, and since Tory governments invariably destroy any economy handed to them, their reassurances about making good any industry-specific shortfall were entirely unconvincing.
3. Brexit was being driven almost exclusively by individuals with history of being nothing but self-serving, venal, lying charlatans, so I figured the logic of opposing and obstructing it in any way possible was entirely sound
4. Every single overt racist and xenophobe was wholeheartedly cheerleading Brexit, so the same logic from point 3. also applies here.

The only saving grace in the time since is the people in point 4. are now having kittens at the fact all the Eastern European languages have been replaced by people with brown and black skin speaking Asian and African ones. Own it.

A war which was caused by the EU expansion eastwards.

Interesting phrasing for 'unprovoked Russian aggression'.