What's the political climate like in the UK right now?

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I said when the vote was proposed that it shouldn't happen. Your average person has enough to deal with in their own life without having to try and understand the complexities of losing Euratom or the knock on effect to the treasuries bottom line if financial passporting is effected. The UK has parliamentary democracy for a reason.

But here we are. We should know in around 2 months what our options are and then have another 5 months to choose and implement whatever we go for.

.....unless there is another twist to come!

That's what it's for. To restore parliamentary democracy. So that we are ourselves.

Not really. I'm not saying people shouldn't be allowed to vote, I'm saying it should never have been called in the first place. Should the public be allowed to vote on whether we should invade a nation or launch nuclear missiles? No, they shouldn't, because they're the public and let's be honest here, the public can be pretty thick especially when they believe they understand something better than actual parliamentary members or respected economic figures. Even I didn't know how to vote so I entirely abstained. I was swayed by leave but later decided that it would've been a ridiculous idea that opposed most evidence.

Let's not forget, also, that the campaigns to leave were constructed upon outright lies. Pretty much all arguments to leave seem to have dissolved into paste and now we're stuck with a complex hot mess being dealt with by an inept government.

A second vote would be safe. Even if it's not to absolutely nullify the result, and simply give us a window into how things may have changed (which they seem to have, quite largely).

What you want is an ill, sclerotic system where the MPs call an election when they can be bothered, the public lamely vote through their respective parties as a funeral service and then are told to piss off the rest of the time. I don't want that. I want the Government to reflect the liberal attitudes of Britain as much as possible.



This is something different. They shouldn't be able to necessarily vote on it, but they should be able to apply considerable public pressure either way. The main point is that we won't be invading countries much. Britain will be a different place.



How dare you say that about friends, family, community members, countrymen? You ought to be ashamed of yourself for comments like that.



It's a bollocks argument. Just because we don't have the minutiae of the facts and figures to hand doesn't mean we don't understand the basic premise. The basic premise of the EU vote was simple. And I'm glad that Britain listened to its essence, its core, its soul. It's a very personal thing. We are a legitmate, self-governing country and we're going nowhere. We will be free to be ourselves again. The Swiss stayed out. Britain will be a trailblazer. It's Britain, they will say.



You mean you were blindsided by fearmongering and paranoia from the Remain side.

Anyway, it was done on 24 June 2016. No point reheating old arguments.



This may have been a viable proposition in the months before the vote. It's not now. We have self-belief. Now take your doom and gloom and tell The New European, there's a good chap.

The Govt's own white paper following the vote:

'Parliament remained sovereign throughout our membership to the EU, despite people not always feeling like that'

While I don't like Theresa May, I think that the job she's trying to do is impossible.

The EU was never going to make it easy for us to leave. If you're a jailer and somebody tries to escape you shoot them. If the UK secession is seen as a success other countries [e.g. Netherlands, Italy] will do the same and the EU gravy train will derail.

I think we have to accept that the next few years will be difficult. The situation is similar to that of 1940. Then, there was a Peace Movement which said that, if we didn't talk to the Third Reich, tens of thousands of people would be killed, our industry and housing would be badly damaged, and our economy would be ruined. Every one of their dire predictions came true, but would anyone now argue that we were wrong in continuing to fight?

If membership of the EU is so essential to the running of society, how does Switzerland manage? For instance, Project Fear says that there will be huge queues at our borders, but thousands of vehicles move seamlessly every days in and out of Switzerland. How does that happen?

I think 'moving seamlessly' could be heavily disputed. It is a potential replication of the the EU-Swiss border that has been specifically pointed out as being problematic for UK companies that operate on a 'just in time' basis.

Switzerland is an EFTA member. It is in the EU single market, the Schengen Zone and also significantly decided to align it's regulations to that of the EU for food and goods. This means that in many ways their border is very similar to an internal EU border. But Switzerland is outside of the VAT zone and Customs Union though which means for each lorry passing through customs declarations are necessary along with multiple forms and stamps which results in delays.

The Conservatives have already ruled out a Swiss model anyway.

Agree that it is impossible job but only because of the campaign messages, the statements and the red lines that have been pushed by The Conservatives over the past 2-3 years. It was very much possible to leave the EU but they have painted themselves into a corner and now have no real choice but to to end up upsetting a significant portion of the country no matter what the conclusion.

Of course the EU was not going to make it easy for us. why would they? I don't go along with the 'punishment' line that many anti EU people do when they just want to continue demonising them but see it as a simple in the club or out the club scenario. The EU work for the benefit of it's members therefore if we are leaving then they will not do anything that benefits us and not them. EU countries are also our business rivals. if, say, we gave the EU a significant role in choosing which laws and regulations the UK were to follow post Brexit and they see that not allowing us some would cause problems for the UK business while at the same time the EU could bring in their own which countered it and made them a more attractive base, then they will do it, anyone would, it's just good business sense. But that was obvious to everyone before we each voted.

That's really what the anti-EU movement was all about. The Government reflects the people as best it can, rather than being far removed from each other. It reflects public opinion, from the very top. The places where we live will largely be self-regulating.

The problem for you is that you've given up on democracy. If you're not a politically interested party, it makes sense to be in favour of democracy. I might not always get what I want, and some things annoy me, but that's life. There's nothing to worry about, everything will be alright. Britain will reflect itself now.



It's a supranational body. I am distrustful of supranational bodies like the EU; discussion and co-operation should be between governments. As I was saying the other day, it's all Internet, Internet, Internet - fast, fast, fast. It's not sandwiches and Watneys. In the 1970s they thought the EEC was a good deal. Think of what Ted Heath said about his role in it all.



But that's what democracy is for. The public makes its voice known. It does it via the Internet. It never stops talking. There's always a conversation happening, and the public mood gets picked up. It's all Internet. We have a democracy, and you'll see..



Yet you're borrowing a paraphrased Winston Churchill quote, who was hardly an ardent Labourite.



We were in it and decided that it wasn't for us. I listened to the debate and from a fairly early age realised what was happening. I miss the bonhomie of the pubs that Labour cruelly took away from us. I hope that society and Government redresses this and, once we're out, society will want a fresh debate.



Turning the Britain hate up. It's very sad. Old-style socialists weren't like this.



The House of Lords are valuable members of society. They have been and done things. They know their stuff.



It's more long-term than short-term.

Last edited by Tequila on 21 Aug 2018, 4:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

The job May is trying to do isn't impossible but it is a difficult one. I don't envy her for having to do the dirty work but at the same time, if she can't handle it she should step down. It seems her entire position is to feed her own ego, country be damned.

The EU isn't an essential part to the UK, it's not a component we need. However, it's something we now have and there's little we can do to stop that without it being disastrous. It's kind of like those symbiotic parasites in the sea; they feed off gunk that gets stuck to whales and the like, and the whales are essentially cleaned in return. They're what you might call "good" parasites, and that's sort of how I view the EU; I don't necessarily like them, but they're beneficial to us and we're beneficial to them in return. Why abandon that? What would the net gain actually be? Our environment and global trade is at risk. That's concerning on its own. Let's not even begin to give the xenophobic crowd the oxygen.

The anti-EU movement was only ever about xenophobia and racism. People don't like foreigners, they don't like working with foreigners, they don't like the idea of foreigners living in distant parts of their country, and they certainly don't want those foreigners to be Turkish.

Most Brexit voters are open about this. Ask them whether they're worried about immigration and they'll say yes. The leaders of Vote Leave exploited this mercilessly; they promoted the lie that Turkey is about to join the EU, and even suggested that Syria and Iraq would. It was a thoroughly racist movement which most Brits are ashamed of. Fortunately, in ten years time it will confined to the dustbin of history when we take back control of the country and rejoin the EU

I agree, to an extent. I don't think it's fair to label all anti-EU types xenophobic or racist, but control of the border was at the very forefront of the issues for many. This is excluding the fact that, following the vote, xenophobic and racist hate crimes inflated dramatically.

It doesn't surprise me much that they'd be capable of it. Not all are the types that vehemently read the Daily Mail and religiously downvote any even slightly dissenting opinions on those tabloid sites, but most likely got their facts from places like that and you can often tell what kinds of people they are.

The slur that everybody who voted for freedom is a xenophobic racist bigot is one of the more unpleasant aspects of the Brexit debate. It's advocates seem to be under the impression that if it's repeated often enough it becomes true.

It doesn't. I, for instance, have worked happily in the NHS alongside foreigners for more than thirty years. I very much resent the accusation of prejudice.

Being worried about uncontrolled immigration is not the same as being racist.

There are social support services in the UK. Housing, social security, the NHS etc. These things are not free. They have to be paid for out of taxation.

Suppose I was crippled by arthritis and was on the waiting list for a joint replacement which would immeasurably improve my quality of life. Then, a week before my op, I'm told that my place in the queue has been given to someone whose clinical need is greater and who arrived in the country yesterday. If I am unhappy about this am I being racist? If so, how, since I don't know the ethnicity of the person involved?

There are undoubtedly some racists among Leavers. Any large group of people, be they Leavers, Everton supporters or real ale drinkers, is going to contain some idiots. That doesn't invalidate the group as a whole.

I think people had varying reasons to vote but it's difficult not to think immigration was the main reason as it was simply the main topic of debate for months. It dominated the campaigning, it was the driving message behind Farage and his ilk and the big slogans and posters (turkey joining, Farage's line of immigrants etc) were based around it as they knew a certain kind of person has a natural fear of things that are different to them.

Probably my main bugbear around the whole campaign was the pretence that the UK's current immigration system is EU FOM. Farage in particular pushed it over and over and journalists were often just happy to let it go without challenge.