If you think leaving the EU was a bad idea, what are you doing about it?

[Woj]

Change doesn't just happen, it's made...

@Smeuse

It was all about immigration after all. Not about a plan.

So, David Cameron called a referendum without a plan because it was about immigration?

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/austria-is-the-most-anti-immigration-country-in-the-world-survey/2893984

Key points are:

While only 12% of respondents worldwide ranked reducing migration among the top three issues their government should focus more on, in Europe the figure was 19%.

The highest scores of all 53 countries analyzed were in Austria (34%), Germany (31%), the Netherlands (30%), France (28%) and Sweden (27%).

UK is not listed at all.

You, like many Brexiteers, now live in an EU country.

I obtained a Bulgarian ILR in 2003. Six years before Article 50 was passed by the EU and four years before Bulgaria became an EU member.

Between 2016 and 2023, 123,000 UK citizens obtained EU passports. That’s 0.17% of UK population. Hardly massive.

@HappiestSleeping

Farage became an MP for the first time on 4 July 2024. So, how can he be accountable for what happened in the UK before that date?

UK law is made by elected MPs. Not by anyone else.

Farage became an MP for the first time on 4 July 2024.

Because he had campaigned for Brexit long before that. You don't have to be an MP to influence the electorate and stir up dissent. To be obtuse enough to think otherwise only undermines any other potentially credible points you make.

@HappiestSleeping

Watch the BBC documentary, Brexit - A very British civil war. It records that Gove and Johnson did not want Farage to be part of the leave campaign. Remember it was Gove and Johnson who went around in the red bus, not Farage.

Farage stepped down from UKIP leadership after the referendum in 2016 as implementation of the result was down to government which he was not part of.

Then watch BBC episode broadcast 9 May 2019 in Northampton. Farage confirmed that he formed the Brexit party because UK should have left the EU on 29 March 2019 with or without a withdrawal agreement, but had not.

I saw that documentary. Surely you don't believe that there would have even been a referendum without Farage? He has been campaigning to leave since the late 90s.

He stepped down as the leader of UKIP as he had achieved his objective of disruption. He knew there was no good outcome and ran away, just like Cameron did.

So many Brexiteers with handy excuses why they enjoy living in the EU or have Irish passports.

@Smeuse

So many Brexiteers with handy excuses why they enjoy living in the EU or have Irish passports

Between 2016 and 2023, approximately 123,000 applications for EU passports were made by UK citizens. Even if it assumed that each application was made by someone who voted leave (which is impossible to know), it’s 0.7% of 17.4 million.

@HappiestSleeping

Cameron stated in 2013 that there would be a referendum on EU membership if he won the next general election in 2015. Had he not won, do think the referendum would still have gone ahead? I don’t remember Labour saying there would be a referendum if they won in 2015.

There were actually two groups of leave campaign. Vote Leave formed by Dominic Cummings and Mathew Elliot. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove headed the public campaign.

The other group was formed by Arron Banks and backed by Nigel Farage.

The electoral commission decided that Vote Leave was lead campaign for leave.

I guess that many people remember the red bus which Johnson and Gove went around the UK, but how many remember the colour of the bus used by Farage?

He knew there was no good outcome and ran away, just like Cameron did.

If that’s correct, why did he reappear in 2019 with the Brexit Party?

Cameron stated in 2013 that there would be a referendum on EU membership if he won the next general election in 2015. Had he not won, do think the referendum would still have gone ahead? I don’t remember Labour saying there would be a referendum if they won in 2015.

I think if there had been no Farage sowing dissent, Cameron would never have believed that he needed to make such a statement, nor to ever have had a referendum.

If that’s correct, why did he reappear in 2019 with the Brexit Party?

I think he saw an opportunity for more dissent, more fun and games and if all accounts are true, he began to form the view that he could possibly have a shot at PM (thus entirely self serving).

If Cameron’s decision to have a referendum was based on party management as opposed to country management, is that not self serving as opposed to country serving?

Cameron chose to commit to a vote, not because the country’s population was clamouring for one but because a significant minority of his own MPs, many of them frustrated by the constraints of coalition, were demanding that he do so – some because they feared that UKIP would cost them their seat (or the seats of too many of their colleagues) at the next election, some because they wanted out of the European Union and were more than happy to leverage that fear to their advantage.

Extract from:

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/why-david-cameron-called-the-2016-referendum/

Totally. He promised one in order to get elected. He's just as bad as Farage. I think his decision was based on Cameron management and not party or country management.

But why choose to live in an EU country, the concept you hate so much, when you have a whole world outside the EU to choose from?

How do you square enjoying the benefits of eing in the EU when you voted leave?

One must be careful about asking the correct question. The referendum was about whether the UK should remain in the EU. A person is quite entitled to think not, while living in a country that they think should remain in the EU.

I see why you ask, but a better question might be to ask whether the individual believes that the country they live in should remain part of the EU, and if so why, or if not why not? Or maybe even ask whether the individual believes the EU should exist at all? And maybe why it matters whether the UK stays in or leaves on the basis of not even living there? And indeed when they moved, which may have been long after the referendum.

The answers to those questions could be quite enlightening.

I agree, these questions are interesting and the answers could be enlightening, so thank you.

As someone who voted leave in 2016 and would be very likely to vote to keep Britain outside the EU if the question were put again in future, my answers are:

...believes the country they live in should remain part of the EU, and if so why, or if not why not? - I live in the UK which is now outside the EU and I am happy that it is. I don't want to see the UK return to EU membership because membership involves cost and I'd prefer my tax £s spent in the UK not elsewhere. I also very much disliked that I couldn't effectively vote to remove the EU's leaders, nor could Britain make her own trade agreements or adequately control her own borders while an EU member state.

whether the individual believes the EU should exist at all?

As someone who lives in a country which is no longer a member I'm cautious to opine on this. However, from my first principles national self-determination is very important to me, If a nation's people wish to collaborate with neighbouring nations under the flag of the EU they should absolutely be able to, Equally, if a nations people decide either to stop such collaboration and leave, or to decline to join (perhaps as a new nation) then those sentiments should be given effect as well.

I found the EU much, much harder to stomach than it's organisational forebear, the EC, because of the increased range of competencies and it being larger, less coherent IMO and consequently with a reduced role for Britain.

Basiically my view is, if the people's of the nations that make up the EU wish it to exist and wish their country to be a member state within it, then it should exist and they should be members.

As no other EU country is thinking of leaving, I think you have your answer.

You also seem.to miss that the UK received a lot of EU funding and had a big influence on how the EU was run. We never not had sovereignty or lost control of our borders.

Oh God,not this shit again! Having some of your own taxpayer's money returned to you with EU strings attached is not "a lot of EU funding", it's being given some of your own money back, with conditions on how it is spent.

Under free movement EU citizens could move freely to the UK and there was nothing the UK government could do to stop them. You might have liked that, you might have viewed it as a positive outcome. I did not like it then, and I certainly don't want to go back to it in future. If a country cannot control it's own borders it is not sovereign, that's it. There are other arguments around this but that one will do for now.

When we had a higher level of influence I was happier. Post-2004 we lost a lot of that, sadly.

Why do people on these threads insist on telling me what I must think about an insititution I've thought about an awful lot in reaching the conclusions I have?

For some reason you've chosen to suggest I "have an answer" to a question I didn't ask.

membership because membership involves cost

This is true, but the net benefit to the UK was positive in terms of trade and GDP.

I also very much disliked that I couldn't effectively vote to remove the EU's leaders,

You could, via the selection of effective MEPs. I confess that I did not realise the importance of paying more attention to selecting better MEPs.

adequately control her own borders while an EU member state.

This is an interesting one as there was much more the UK could have done under EU rules than it elected to. It always makes me wonder why nobody understands this or applied pressure to their MP to exercise the full extent of what was possible without the need to leave.

I found the EU much, much harder to stomach than it's organisational forebear, the EC, because of the increased range of competencies and it being larger, less coherent IMO and consequently with a reduced role for Britain

I don't disagree with this, however the way to effect change within the club is generally not to leave it. Since our MEPs voted for most, if not all, the points raised as being detrimental, it goes back to the earlier point of having effective MEPs. Or at least, ones who turn up.

Under free movement EU citizens could move freely to the UK and there was nothing the UK government could do to stop them

This isn't strictly true though. There were many levers available to reduce immigration that the UK government chose not to pull. And we already had one of the lowest rates of acceptance. Something that had changed for the worse since leaving.

I think most of those levers were essentially dependent on the UK having citizen ID for everyone. While that might be culturally famliar and palatable in other parts of Europe it isn't in the UK. We don't to "show me your papers" here and IMO its a very important part of being a free society that we don't.

I know people disagree on this and I can certainly see arguements from the other POV but mandating citizen ID for everyone is still wrong, IMO.

What we've done since leaving is entirely our own fault and it is pretty scandalous.

@Smeuse

But why choose to live in an EU country, the concept you hate so much, when you have a whole world outside the EU to choose from?

I obtained a Bulgarian ILR in 2003. That’s:

4 years before Bulgaria became and EU member
6 years before Article 50 was passed
13 years before the referendum
14 years before 498 MPs voted to leave the EU
17 years before the UK left the EU

As for:

No other country is thinking of leaving the EU, the answer is:

None of the 27 EU members has had a referendum on membership. A question which has not been asked can’t be answered.

Immigration pops up regularly on these threads. So, let’s begin with measured facts.

In terms of immigration UK ranks 5th behind,

1st Gemany
2nd France
3rd Spain
4th Italy

Have crossing from Calais to UK increased since 2020? The answer is yes, but why needs to be explained. Which is actually very easy.

In 2020, immigrants into the EU was about 2 million. Today, it’s over 4 million.

So, as more immigrants enter the EU, the greater the number that will arrive in Calais and cross the channel. Is the UK responsible for EU failure to control their borders? No is the answer.

Zero immigrants entering the EU

equals zero immigrants arriving in Calais.

Zero immigrants in Calais equals zero boat crossings.

I think most of those levers were essentially dependent on the UK having citizen ID for everyone.

Not at all. Although a citizen ID has benefits, we already had a sufficient one to do what was required in the form of a passport.

Personally, I am ambivalent about an ID card, most people who object to them use some form of social media, so already have a profile. Really, it becomes like most arguments, who has the data, what do they use it for, and do we trust them to keep it safe. I am not sure I trust the government to keep it safe, but they already have the data, just not all on the same system. It would be hugely unlikely that a single system would be created either, more an abstraction layer that could query the relevant department.

Definitely agree that everything that has happened has been our own fault. Both the government for not managing it properly, and the electorate for voting for it in the first place. It was entirely foreseeable.

@HappiestSleeping

What could an ID card do that can’t already be done by drivers license or passport? Both have photo.

Both the government for not managing it properly, and the electorate for voting for it in the first place.

The EU offered unilateral revoke in 2018, but parliament did not have a vote.

In 2019, prior to the general election the Liberal Democrat’s stated that Brexit would not happen if they won. Likewise, Labour stated they would have another referendum which included the option to remain.

So, both the government and the electorate were given the opportunity to change their minds, but didn’t.

Telegraph wants back in

@SerendipityJane

If the EU can’t defend themselves, that’s their problem, not the UK’s.

@EEexpat why do you think no other country has had a referendum?

Even the Reform like government in the Netherlands decided against it after seeing the mess the UK has made of Brexit.

@LouiseCollins28 EU countries all have control of their borders, we have seen examples during Covid and more recent the situation in Ceuta. Also MEP Farage not turning up for meetings was his choice.As was his colleague taking bribes from Russia.