E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Depends on how bad things get and how long for. People have short memories, but they know how to hold a grudge. And they know how to abdicate blame.

 

6-8 years iirc... the typical life-span of a government. Blair and Thatcher were outliers. Labour govt's tend not to survive as long as Tory ones.

as shadow points out... the Tories can be the world's biggest bastards but they know that if they wait 5-10 years, 'normality [in their eyes] will be restored' and they'll get re-elected.

 

Yeah, circulation, but not change. 'twas ever thus. But Brexit is a generational thing, with the younger ones in particular experiencing the loss for decades to come, and that may turn out to make a difference.

Perhaps the UK should just go full Hunger Games and be done with it.

 

I agree with theshadow2001, not only will they get voted in again they may not be voted out for many years, that was the whole reason for opening pandora's box in the first place, to prevent the possibility of both their party and the voters from spiting. Added to there only (now) being a single party to vote for if you're slightly right of center is that lots of people will lend their support to them as they're seen as the only once who can deliver Brexit.

Not short enough it seems to remember that our own politicians are responsible for many of the problems in their lives.

 

Well, they had been spoonfed by the Daily Heil and The Excess that the EU was to blame for all their troubles for 40+ years. Another reason they voted Brexit was basically to give Cameron a kicking.

So what happens once the UK is out, and their situation doesn't get better, in fact gets worse? They'll blame the same politicians in charge. They promised, and they can't blame the EU anymore.

The elephant in the room is that negotiations have already finished: they ended in October 2016, when in her Lancaster House speech Theresa May put down her red lines of no ECJ, no Free Movement and no membership fees, and the EU said: "Fine, but the best we can then offer you is a CETA-style agreement". Neither side has budged from that position since. That should have settled matters, no? It certainly would suit the hard Brexiteers just fine.

So why do the Tories keep prevaricating and complaining about EU intransigence? Why the cries of "EU is trying to punish us", "You owe us for WWII" and this whole dance of: "What do you want?" - "No, what do you want?"? Because the UK government knows damn well that even a CETA-style Brexit will be bad. They want to keep passporting of services but the EU won't give it to them, no matter how much the UK cries: "It'll hurt you more than it will hurt us!" and "Don't put ideology before sensible economics like wot we did!" and "You can't cherry pick like wot we want!".

The EU won't ever give the UK any benefits of membership without the accompanying obligations, and neither will the UK flounce off into the WTO in a huff because the EU won't. The UK government will take the FTA that it is offered --and it will be one that benefits the EU more than the UK. Because doing anything else would be economically disastrous for the country, and they would get the blame for it (they already are).

Hence all the distraction and displacement activities of blue passports, BoJo's crazy promises resurrected, Jacob Rees-Mogg being appointed head of the European Research Group, and all other sorts of histrionics. Prepare for the biggest defeat being dressed up as a great victory for the people. Some may buy it; the disenfranchised poor who will still be struggling will wonder who, in the end, got a kicking by who.

And there is a whole younger generation, especially the ones who will go out and vote in the future, who will remember and feel the loss of EU membership for decades to come.

This is not the same politics of the last decades anymore. The rule book was torn up in 2016. Here, and globally.

 

I disagree, if people were blaming the government i suspect we'd be seeing bigger swings towards both remain and holding another referendum, the only reason (IMO) that's not happening is because large portions of the population still believe their problems are caused by the EU and no matter how much of a pigs ear the government makes of things that's not going to change.

I'd also say this is exactly the same politics of the last decades, it's even the same politics as the last 50-60 years when you look at the overarching ideological narratives being pedalled by the two main parties, if anything the decade leading up to the financial crisis in 08 was an outlier as it wasn't atypical.

The disenfranchised poor will do the same as they've done for the last 50-60 years, they'll vote for whatever party the millionaire media moguls tell them to as their to busy trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads to form their own opinions.

 

I think that there is no bigger swing because the first stage of grief is denial. The majority of people already believe that the UK will be economically worse off. They also believe that the UK government is making a pig's ear of it. They just don't yet want to accept the logical conclusion: perhaps we need to abandon the idea of Brexit. Hard to do when you've been whipped up in a nationalist frenzy and promised unicorns and sunny uplands. It's a loss of face, and a loss of dreams. It's admitting that you we're fooled, and therefore foolish.

The parties --and indeed media moguls-- are still applying the old playbook, but I'm not sure that is working anymore. There are new forces at work in social media who understand much better how things work nowadays. That doesn't stop the electorate from being the same old stupids, but they are listening to the beat of a different drum now --even if the ideologies are still the same.

 

I saw this, i assumed the UKs bill for being in the EU was calculated in € then converted to £ and since the pounds value dropped the value would now be 'higher'. If this is the case, I say we trash the pound some more then leave the EU, we could save £1 trillion a week! Huzzah!

 

There's no grief dynamic amongst leavers as they don't perceive leaving the EU as a loss, to them it's a gain, it's only perceive as a loss to remainers.

Sure an argument can be made that social media et al is a disruptive force but being disruptive doesn't necessarily equate to change, either good or bad, it's just another form of media that can be used by TPTB.

Question: Historically what demographic or group have typically been swayed most by propaganda?

 

I think you don't see a large swing because a lot of remainers now think, voting to stay now we have started to leave would also be damaging politically and economically anyway so we may as well continue leaving.

I think if there was another referendum Leave has just as much chance of winning as last time.

 

The grief is for the loss of what they thought they would get by leaving. Already leavers are adjusting their rationale: it was never about the economy anyway, it wasn't even about immigration, it was about sovereignty. And blue passports, apparently.

I'd say the uninformed working class poor. The hard leavers were already committed to leaving whatever the cost, but a larger number of people wanted to give Cameron a kicking for austerity, and were led to believe that the EU is just some sort of wastefully expensive club for the elite establishment that getting out of would bring economic savings and benefits. Now they are realising that there is instead an economic price to pay, and that was very much against their expectations.

I think that is too sophisticated a thought process for most people. I think there are about 25% committed leavers and 25% committed remainers, and about 50% of people who just voted for what felt like a good idea at the time. Now they are starting to realise what "leaving" actually means, and they are having to rationalise their vote after the fact. It's a toss-up between cognitive dissonance reduction and abdicating blame.

 

You seem to be assuming that they a) care about those things, and b) don't still think they're going to get them eventually. They're not adjusting their rationale as there wasn't much of that in the first place, they're simply holding up what they perceive as "good" for the rest of the world to see in an attempt to reassure people.

And that's the thing, the disenfranchised poor aren't suddenly going to reject the propaganda from the rich and powerful, their not going to stop scapegoating minorities or migrants when the voice of those rich and powerful people is amplified so much that it drowns out reason.

 

I perceive a difference between the ideological hard Leavers, who feel that leaving is a good thing in itself whatever the cost, and opportunistic Leavers, who expect some kind of contingent benefits. Both are different from Brexiteers, who pushed to leave for their own personal agendas.*

The ideological Leavers don't care about anything beyond leaving. As you say: No rationale to adjust. The opportunistic Leavers are still holding out hope that somehow they will get their unicorns, or realising that they won't and trying to rationalise that they didn't care about unicorns anyway, and finding ideological reasons (refuge for those who have no rationale left) for their decision.

But the majority never thought much about EU membership until they were asked to decide on it, and voted Leave in a fit of pique without really knowing what that meant or even believing that it would actually make a difference. They have no investment in rationale nor ideology; they just wanted to be noticed, and wanted things to improve for them... somehow. They will be the ones who will really be disappointed, and, as before, will look for someone to kick. And the UK government will be closer to their foot than the EU.

* Although I talk about them as discreet categories, most people will be on a continuum somewhere.

 

I would totally agree with this.

 

@Nexxo , I get what you're saying but i think the group who you say are "opportunistic Leavers" is much smaller than everyone believes, if it wasn't I'd have a hard time accepting that the majority of them haven't twigged how bad this is going to be, what with the way the governments handled things so far, and as such I'd expect there to be a bigger swing in both desire to hold a second referendum and wanting to remain.

I guess what I'm saying is that i find it hard to believe that your opportunistic leaver is still expecting their unicorns based not only on how the negotiations have gone so far but also things like talk of changing the way the NHS is funded, the fall in sterling, refusal to write the ECHR in UK law, talk of cheaper food, cloths and shoes at the expense of British companies, rise in inflation, etc, etc.

 

@Nexxo , what about the ones who just did it for the shiggles?

 

That's because you're a rational human being who can connect the dots and is not in denial. Many other people however... Thing is, people are very resistant to changing their minds. It is easier to rationalise their reasons for doing something stupid, than to admit that they did something just plain stupid.

They're either quietly shitting themselves or rationalising after the fact: "I meant to do that! ('tis just the government ****ing it up as usual...)"

 

As has been pointed out, 'leave' covered a whole host of different outsomes and standpoints... individually, each standpoint is not in the majority... but combined they added up to more than the combined remain standpoints...

'Leave' covered/combined [but limited to]:

Leave at any cost [Farage, Hannan etc] - where even if it was country was on fire, blood in the streets, dogs and cats cohabiting level bad they'd stand front and centre prolcaiming 'don't care, worth it'.

Leave, because racism.

Leave, because I can profit from it [and/or will lose out if we stay] - Disaster capitalists and those likely to get stung by the EU anti tax avoidance rules

Leave because I think the EU is flawed - those with doubts that the EU can be reformed

Leave because I think/thought Cameron is an arse - Cameron wanted to stay, I dislike Cameron, therefore I voted leave.

Leave because I thought Remain would walk it so...


HMG's ineptitude may convince one or more of those brackets to reconsider... but most will either not care or try and desperately justify to themselves the decision they made... Less 'Buyers Remorse' than 'Buyers Rationalisation'

EDIT: Beaten to it by nexxo

 

Seriously people...
Do your employers allow you to relentlessly spam this thread all day (for over a year and counting), who's paying for all these post counts, Brexit must be booming in your line of work to allow the the worlds longest session of "FTD"

Get back to work, get a job or if this is your life then re-evaluate it!

 

What do you care? Enjoy your Brexit.

When you basically tell us to get a life, you forget that Brexit is in fact going to affect our lives quite personally. No matter how you felt about he EU, before the EU referendum your life was basically OK --and if it wasn't, Brexit isn't going to solve that. But after the referendum, many people's lives are going to be adversely affected, because rights that are important to them are going to be taken away.

This is the stupidity of voting Leave: you voted to have rights taken away from you. I mean, who does that?!?

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Farage wants to leave because he wants daddy to notice him, basically. He is the little boy rebelling against his daddy's authority to get his attention, because he couldn't get his approval.

Hannan wants to leave because he fancies himself a maverick liberalist politician. Unfortunately he is a lightweight idiot he has to keep changing his position to keep up with events.

Redwood wants to leave because he stands to financially benefit.

Rees-Mogg wants to leave because he believes that he and his peers should rule by birth right. There's an order to things, and that is them at the top.

Gove wants to leave because it was one of his geeky brainstorms. Unfortunately like most geeks, 50% of his ideas are brilliant and the other 50% are batshit crazy, and he can't tell the difference.

BoJo didn't want to leave at all; it was a clever scheme to charm himself into PM-ship by selling himself as a staunch euroskeptic. Unfortunately the plan backfired, Leave won and now he has to see the bluff through.