Starmer's resigned

[Sadcafe]

So the admittedly boring but truly decent PM has announced his resignation and the egotistical, pompous Burnham will doubtless become PM. God help the country

I think that is right - they are not even, what I would call, responding to that challenge. Rather, there are knee-jerk reactions a-plenty.

The reality is that Farage can only do what he does because the other parties aren't listening to the electorate and arrogantly either think they're right, or as seems to be the case with Labour, they're deliberately pursuing their own politics of spite and envy just because they can.

I don't know where you are coming from with that. I have seen the Conservatives more affected by the arch-puppetmaster - as I have outlined.

It isn't all we need to know. The world has changed since pre EU days. You can't compare.

Cameron did huge damage needlessly. Heseltine even said just a Labour government would have been preferable to the Conservatives that brought us Brexit because the former would not have been permanent.

Blair didn’t help with his run their noses in diversity strategy. When has that kind of thing ever worked? Of course annoyed people will vote accordingly.

Yes, but again, the voters voted for a referendum. We're supposed to be a democracy. We can't have politicians taking away our democratic choices. Then we'd have a dictatorship!

Yup, same with Brexit with the Remainers not engaging in real sensible debate but branding Brexiteers as thick. Likewise Gordon Brown and his "bigoted woman".

This ends up quite circular in reality. I think I have agreed with you before that a substantial number of voters wanted to give the arrogant Cameron and Osborne a fright. The rest is history ...

Thanks, I didn't know he said that. I mean the thing to consider, for me, is - who ever thought it was a great idea to have a straightforward Yes/No, Win/Lose strategy on such an important issue? There could have a third way, or a certain percentage differentiation set.?

Yep Starmer found out too that just using insult will come back to bite. People get to vote and they can oust Labour leaders after all.

But people are saying it was "too complicated" for the thick voters. So how does having even more voting options help? Surely a third or fourth option just makes it more complicated? Though I do think perhaps a choice of "closer integration" or "completely out" or "back to EEC style trading agreement" would have been clearer to gauge what people really wanted. Trouble is we'd have needed prior EU agreement as to what THEY'D accept before we could offer it to the public, i.e. would THEY have accepted going back to an EEC style trade agreement - from what I remember, didn't Cameron try to get some kind of "winding back" but the EU rejected it? Pretty sure Cameron tried to get something without having to go full on referendum, but my memory may be playing tricks.

Edited: Just googled it, and yes, Cameron did apply to the EU in 2015 for a watered down relationship which they rejected.

iirc it was predicted that it would be 48/52 Remain and the numbers were right but round the other way. Isn't that a bit too simple for such an impact? Cameron had a detrimental impact in many ways - the ways that have been difficult for me resulted from the coalition government, austerity, etc.

Anyway, for the people who keep on about Starmer - they can relax now and enjoy Burnham. This may prove to be another over simplification, imo.

There needn’t have been more than two options but it shouldn’t have been a simple majority. There should have been a threshold of more than 55% or more. Farage himself said before the referendum he wouldn’t accept the result if the vote was as close as it was if it favoured remain. Strangely he changed his mind.

I can understand why you don’t want a failed PM mentioned even though he’s still in.

But don’t worry I’m still glad he’s out.

Wasn't intended as insult because he didn't know microphone was on. We're all caught out sometimes.

Once again, @LaurelWillow, your finger's on the pulse.

So complex? What is the most complex life change you have endured since Brexit, and as a direct consequence of Brexit, which we voted for ten years ago?

Yes, a bit like KS actually, they can"t quantify anything that has happened, but they just know that it is really really bad because they don"t agree with it.

The fact of the matter is that we had a referendum to join the EEC in 1974/5. I remember it. We voted to join a confederation of nations, seven at that time. My family voted for it and a significant factor was the prevailing iron curtain and a strength of feeling that there must never be another world war, when people remembered the horrors of the last one.

That confederate economic community became a much larger federal Europe incorporating a number of nations that were barely viable and turned into a bureaucratic behemoth that was eroding our independence and sovereignty. Had it remained confederate I'd have laid down and died for it. It did not.

However if joining warranted a referendum then so did leaving.

Good points.

And a referendum was also needed when the EEC morphed into the EU, but we didn't get it!

Of course I can't quantify what has happened since Brexit. People far more qualified in that area than me will be doing that for years. My point once again was that many who voted clearly hadn't the first clue about what they didn't know and your posts evidence that beautifully.

But as we still don"t know and allegedly never did, and might never know! What is it exactly that my posts evidence?

Heseltine even said just a Labour government would have been preferable to the Conservatives that brought us Brexit because the former would not have been permanent

Michael Heseltine is an extreme Europhile - a former president of the European Movement UK, he advocated further integration/a federal Europe, the UK joining the Euro... the full works - of course he would say that.