People's Vote

Through the eyes of many leave voters the goal posts have been moved. The government is trying its utmost to please everybody which of course we all know can never happen.
They didn't get their predicted result and now lack the courage to see it through.
Accepting some shit-stained deal just leaves us looking weak and vulnerable.
And for those claiming that a deal was always going to be the case; well I'm sorry but that wasn't clear to me and that certainly isn't what I voted for. All of the lies and threats peddled by both campaigns before the vote were centred around in vs out and nothing in between.

For years anti-EU Tory MP's banged on about leaving the EU and despite never winning the argument within their own party they never gave up and accepted the view of the majority. They made life hell for Conservative Leaders until they got their own way.

Now as they won the referendum they seem to think that everyone else who doesn't agree with them should shut up.

That's not how democracy works.

Those of us who suggest a 2nd vote to determine the type of Brexit (not a re-run of the Leave/Stay vote) get shouted down. Feels very much to me that deep down they know a hard Brexit is not supported by the majority of the country.

If the EU next week say that in the abscence of an agreed deal a short extension to Article 50 will not be allowed and it needs to be a year or more just watch the Brexiteers capitulate and say that they will support Mrs May after all.

Tory MP for Grantham Nick Boles has resigned from the Local Party Association due to the widespread anger from members & constituents who have been urging him to quit the party in an area that voted 60% leave in the 2016 EU Ref.The tipping point came when Boles rebelled on various ammendments (including the Hilary Benn one that took negotiating power away from the Government & into the hands of MP's) earlier in the week & where he has been a vocal advocate for a Norway style deal.Boles' days as Tory MP look numbered but will he be another defector to the TIG group.Could the same proceedings happen to other MP's in heavy Leave or Remain constituencies where MP's rebel against them & their party.

^ For the sake of balance he voted for Mrs Mays deal each time unlike the ERG party within a party members. He has suggested the Norway model because he has seen it as a way through the current mess to prevent a hard brexit which it seems the more disloyal ERG members want irrespective of the damage it will cause. He has not resigned from the Conservative Party and intends to continue taking the Conservative whip in Parliament.

(16-03-2019 11:53 )SecretAgent Wrote:  Those of us who suggest a 2nd vote to determine the type of Brexit (not a re-run of the Leave/Stay vote) get shouted down.

I definitely see the merits in that idea.
If parliament is unable to come to heal and execute Brexit then a second public vote with the options of Theresa Mays deal v No Deal may be the solution.
Particularly if all alternative types of Brexit get voted against in any set of indicative votes in the Commons.

(16-03-2019 06:32 )The Silent Majority Wrote:  Oh gosh. A 'clever' pop at my username. That's never happened before

Thanks "The Noisy Minority" I don't know about clever but it was highly accurate.

The thing is though, if you adopt an arrogant and bombastic user name and user title which hints that you feel that you are on some sort of personal crusade then some people might think you are a bit of a pompous prick.

As for the rest of your prolix drivellings, I couldn't be bothered to read them.

(17-03-2019 02:27 )Dan Volatile Wrote:  As for the rest of your prolix drivellings, I couldn't be bothered to read them.

Yeah, course not. Everybody starts reading a post at the bottom.

The argument rages on. I really thought about it, again. Even for this online poll on a wank channel board I thought about it. And my mind hasn't changed. I went for remain in 2016 and I would do the same again today. So admittedly I'm not a great advert for 'changing one's mind'. But the question I tend to ask every leave voter I know, or at least every leave voter I know who still believes in Brexit is: Is this how you pictured it all going? The answers tend to vary. The most common answer I get is that it should've been easy but the remainers ruined it by not accepting the result.

It is possible that an element of that is true (a very, very small element) but what is certainly true is the Leave campaign never truly owned this process. They never really believed in it (platitudes and soundbites notwithstanding). A common '#bantz' I see online when remainers agitate for reruns of the referendum is the quite accurate observation that when the Conservatives win a general election, Labour don't walk in and take power... but what if the Conservatives refused to take control? What if they do as the Leave campaigners have done? That being, win the day, and then insist the losing side do the work for them? Yeah sure some of them might do it (the opportunity to be Prime Minister being quite a draw), but would their hearts truly be in it?

A more urgent question than that of how we'd vote if asked to again, is where do we go from here? Or more to the point, where are we being driven? Officially we did our bit in 2016. The rest is down to our representatives in parliament. That's another thing I see in the 'We voted to leave, we need to leave' crowd. I'm in a charitable mood so I won't call it ignorance, I'll call it... endearing naivety Have these people never been lied to by a group of politicians before? 'We voted for it! You have to do it!' ... Yeah... good luck with that. Remember Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats in 2010? Voted in (albeit via a deal with the Conservatives to serve in coalition) on a platform of abolishing student fees? Did they do it? Did they fook as like. 'B..b..b...but you have to abolish student fees! You said you would!' ... Haha... yyyeah... they don't... they really don't...

Do we go for no deal? The people I see advocating for this seem to be the 'lets shake things up a bit/watch the world burn' type. They aren't serious people, and the only thing they really love about Brexit is that sensible people are worried about it. 'What? You're taking this seriously! Ha! What a fvcking loser!' They don't care how many factories close, how many jobs disappear, how many people die of starvation or not getting their meds. It's all just hilarious to them. Or it's project fear and what actually happens in the event of no deal is napoleon rises from the grave, climbs Nelson's column and performs fellatio on the tip while whistling Rule Brittania and a bulldog in a spitfire doing a fly past.

Do we extend? Even if it were purely up to us (it isn't), I'm not sure about that one. I don't know what will be achieved in another few months that wasn't achieved in the last 3 years. Unless the red lines move and we come at it from a totally different angle.

Or do we go for the deal (the only deal currently available) assuming May can pull off a miracle and get it through parliament? On the face of it, this would seem the fairest option. With the original referendum being so close at 52-48, it would probably be fair that actually, no one gets what they want. Aka, we 'sort of' leave.

Do we have another referendum? Well... I don't even think we should've had the first one. Almost every single argument for leaving the European Union has been comprehensively laughed out of town, the only argument still standing, is that we voted for it... so we have to do it, right? Possibly yes, but I don't think our representatives in parliament should make decisions that they know will harm us.

Personally whether we stay in the EU or not now isn't the most important thing to me, because the damage is already done. Whatever happens. Brexit as a concept has morphed out of the simple act of leaving a political union and into something that pretty much insults everything I respect. It insults honesty. It insults integrity. It laughs at forward planning. It laughs at compassion. It sneers at magnanimity. It completely despises intelligence. It loves gloating. I've forgot the name of who posted it but someone on here thought we'd all love to know how well that geezer who owns Wetherspoons is doing out of all this. His profits are up, ooh like for like sales ooh! Yeah well fvcking bully for him!

I suppose whatever happens, the best we can hope for is a dose of certainty. And hopefully that will come sooner rather than later.

An interesting thread by Andrew Gwynne MP: https://twitter.com/GwynneMP/status/1107741970141798401

He's posted a sample of emails he's received from constituents of a district that voted 61% Leave.

They reinforce the point that in the absence of any real and consistent definition of what "Leave" meant in 2016, the notion that 17.4 million all voted for the same thing is problematic at best.

Some fellow had a little dig at me a while ago. I'd never seen him before and I can't remember his name - massive_prick or something like that I think.

His basic premise was along the lines of:
"Unlike remain voters I am an intelligent and thoughtful person and after long and hard deliberation on the subject I have rather pompously reached the conclusion that I was right all along and that the other lot are a bunch of liars lacking in compassion, honesty, integrity and all other human virtue.

He rehashes some of the tired old remainer arguments that are used to justify the campaign to reverse the vote, such as:
"They didn't know what they were voting for"
Well actually we did know what we were voting for because the Remain campaign insisted on telling us. They told us not to think for a minute that it was only a protest vote, they said that a vote to leave would actually result in us leaving (and you don't really want that do you dear?).
They said we would also leave the single market, they said we would leave the customs union, they said we would leave the EU full stop.
Yes that's what they told us.

Unfortunately for them, millions of senile old people, thick working class Northerners, gammons etc told them to sod off, we want to leave regardless.
Yes those are some of the things they call us these paragons of compassion, intelligence, magnaminity and so on.

One of the posters claims particularly alarmed me, however. Namely that leaving the EU will result in people dying of starvation.
I have to say that I think that might be a teeny-weeny exaggeration.
Surely the world would not stand by and let that happen. I'm sure the emergency airlifts would keep us going until we reintroduce rationing, dig for victory and start baking Woolton Pies.
Ah hang on a minute, I forgot that the Remain campaigners have said that the aviation system will collapse after Brexit.
Oh well better get down to Waitrose and stock up on the quinoa and curly kale.