its why a 2nd referendum would probably still be for leave

Agreed. We need a mandate for an alternative to EU membership, or for retaining it. The whole “membership vs any contradictory set of alternatives” would, once again, likely result in rejection of membership. For what it’s worth, I think a referendum to support a “Norway+Customs” type deal, with farming and fishing excluded, would easily beat EU membership in a referendum. A “cold and distant relationship with EU (including Ireland) and cosying up to the USA” wouldn’t have a cat in hells chance of beating membership… but that’s where we heading for.

I can see benefits of being able to have government invest in industries – I’ve been in favour of that for years, and I think the EU prevents it.

Whilst EU regs for State Aid are more stringent, they don’t go away under WTO and chances are any future trading arrangements with partners are likely to include them – assuming that State Aid will “go away” under Brexit is a flawed assumption.  My own experience with State Aid is that even Government Departments who put it in their contracts don’t understand it and apply the rules inconsistently. On a previous job we took a £1m hit on a Government-funded contract because they gave us the money in one hand and a non-conforming contract in the other and it was only when we sought expert legal advice we had to take the hit.

Brexies racist?  No, not the ones wearing Tommy Robinson tee-shirts at the recent march in London then – just knuckle-dragging inbreds.

Wasn’t a “Norway” style deal rejected on the grounds that we become a “rule taker” ?

Also a Norway deal still leaves us with massive queues at the border for goods. Just like the ones at the Norway border.

Yes, but that won’t be a problem. All Norway’s Car producers seem to cope with it ok, without any issues.

and on state aid what are the top industries the government plans to give significant aid to?

 I think a referendum to support a “Norway+Customs” type deal, with farming and fishing excluded, would easily beat EU membership in a referendum.

Perhaps, but if a referendum has remain and more than one other option on it, the leave vote would be split.

Kimbers wrote,

“its why a 2nd referendum would probably still be for leave”

Even Jamba realised that a 2nd ref would be remain, once some details were actually confirmed- the maths of it are pretty simple, the last referendum let everyone vote for their own fantasy brexit, a 2nd one would only let them vote for the real one.

Though if they ran another referendum today, who knows, since all the fantasy brexits still seem to be alive while we’re no closer to the real one than we were in the year 2000.

That is why a re-run of the “membership vs anything else” referendum is being called for by just about nobody. “Membership vs an alternative plan” is the minimum required… “do you support this alternative deal to our current deal” is what is really required… but I don’t see as possible now… work needed to commence to put the meat on a plan, before seeking a deal, two years ago, before triggering A50… no chance of having anything other than a vague can kicking fudge available to scrutinise before we leave now. We should still have the chance to say “you don’t have a scooby doo what you’re doing… abort!” somehow… I don’t know how though…

I think that after the total shambles of the last couple of years we need a completely different referendum….

Should we disband the Houses of Parliament, do away with this whole ridiculous democracy lark altogether and hand over the logistics of running the country to someone like Amazon?

Yes

No

Debate on this topic was destroyed when those self righteous types who voted Remain didn`t get their own way – they spat their dummies out and instantly declared anyone with a different opinion or view was thick, racist etc.

Another Leave lie.

This was one of TMH’s big assertions, that all the remainers were calling all the leavers thick, despite myself and several others explaining repeatedly that that wasn’t what we were saying at all.

1) The voter demographics show very clearly that the lower someone’s educational standard, the more likely they were to vote Leave.  The more they were concerned about immigration, the more likely they were to vote Leave.  The older they were, the more likely they were to vote Leave.

2) It would be unfair (and wildly inaccurate) to say that all the Leave voters are racists.  However, the racists were certainly more likely to be leavers.

3) The electorate as a whole was ill-equipped to make an informed decision on the referendum vote, be they leave or remain supporters.  The vast majority of people surely had little or no understanding of what they were voting for.  Despite the leavers crowing “we knew what we were voting for,” this is another lie, few people really did and fewer still understood the ramifications of what would happen if we did leave, preferring to jam their fingers in their ears and dismissing any discourse as “project fear” – an ad hom argument in all but name.

“its why a 2nd referendum would probably still be for leave”

Assuming nothing else has changed, that no-one has changed their minds and the referendum is run fairly, another referendumb would surely be in favour of remain.  Two years have passed, some people who voted last time will no longer be alive and others will now be old enough to vote when they weren’t before.  With reference to my ‘demographics’ comments above, this alone would be sufficient to skew the vote in favour of remain.

And that’s not the case, of course.  People will have changed their minds over the last two years, we’re generally a little more informed than we were last time.  And I’ll bet my bike that the number of leave voters who have changed their mind will exponentially outstrip the number of remain voters who regret their decision.  And Leave know this of course, that’s why they’re shit scared of another referendum.

The elephant in the room here of course is, all this assumes a fair vote.  My big fear is that in another referendum Aaron Banks and his cronies will get their chequebooks out again, Putin will fire up his botnet, the gutter press will have a sustained Something Something Foreigners campaign and before you know it we’ll have lost again.  And then we’re properly humped.

The vote should also only be open only to British passport holders no matter where they live.

No foreign funding for either campaign must be allowed.

“I think the people in this country have had enough of referendums”

I’m still waiting for politicians to put the country’s interests first. We have representative democracy for a reason, and the reason being that the population are not sufficiently informed to make decisions. I’m happy with that.

So are we all agreed that the answer to this is to go back to 19th century style suffrage for the educated and/or landowners only 😀 and then enact a program of soft eugenics, to weed out the idiots? We could go as far as giving the oiks voting rights, in exchange for taking part in decades worth of brutal fighting abroad over opium – Starship Troopers style – to thin their ranks out further. Then there will be more money in the pot for defence and health 😀

And I’ll bet my bike that the number of leave voters who have changed their mind will exponentially outstrip the number of remain voters who regret their decision.

I’m not so sure. People can be really quite intransigent in this kind of situation. I’d be concerned that people would vote the same way purely as to do otherwise would be to admit they made a mistake – that they had been taken for a ride.

@raybanwomble: Yes

I’m still waiting for politicians to put the country’s interests first. We have representative democracy for a reason, and the reason being that the population are not sufficiently informed to make decisions. I’m happy with that.

I’ve been saying this since before the referendum.  A referendum has no place in a parliamentary democracy other than as an opinion poll, the electorate votes for representatives not policies.

I’m not so sure. People can be really quite intransigent in this kind of situation. I’d be concerned that people would vote the same way purely as to do otherwise would be to admit they made a mistake – that they had been taken for a ride.

Oh, sure.  The vast majority of people – certainly the ones who are being vocal about it, anyway – won’t have changed their minds, they’ll just become ever more entrenched as their world view is threatened.  Look at this very thread for example.  I was talking purely about the ones who have, there will surely have been a bigger shift towards Remain rather than away from it.  It’s a minority, but I’ve seen a lot more Leaver remorse than Remain (in fact, I’m struggling offhand to think of anyone who voted Leave and subsequently changed their minds, aside from those who believe the “we won, you lost, get over it” mantra).

The vote should also only be open only to British passport holders no matter where they live.

Err, no. The vote should be open to all of those who live in any of the countries/regions/dependencies that would be leaving the EU.

People can be really quite intransigent in this kind of situation. I’d be concerned that people would vote the same way purely as to do otherwise would be to admit they made a mistake – that they had been taken for a ride.

(below nicked from YouGov site, link below)

Do people still want to go ahead with Brexit?

The main question many people ask is whether people still want Brexit or have voters changed their minds? This simple sounding question is actually a little more nuanced than you may think.

On one hand, public opinion has moved a little against Brexit. Our regular tracking question on whether the vote to leave the EU was the right or wrong decision now consistently finds slightly more people think that Brexit was the wrong decision. This small lead has been consistent throughout 2018.

However, just because people think Brexit is the wrong decision, it doesn’t necessarily mean they think it should be reversed. They do not. When we ask what people think the government should do about leaving the EU, just over half (53%) think that it should go ahead with Brexit, mostly on its current course (42%) though 11% would prefer a softer Brexit. A fifth (21%) think that the government should call a fresh referendum instead, while 13% would prefer them just to halt Brexit altogether.

(source https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/06/23/eu-referendum-two-years/)

So (according to that poll) people don’t like the decision, don’t think the government is doing a good job of it but still think it should carry on as is.  Does not compute.

I think there’s a strong probability that a second ref would generate the same result, only stronger. A large proportion of people aren’t really engaged and hardly care but would like to get it over with. They would likely vote leave.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how many times people vote for unicorns, there still aren’t any unicorns!

For many, Brexit is still an easy answer to the complex problems the country faces

The government & press has gone to huge effort to keep peddling that myth, bonkers, but its where we are.

😱

😡

🤬

🤯

I’m one of the percentage who thinks we should take to the streets, overturn our political system, drag boris Johnsons entrails through the gutters then torch everything.

Who’s with me comrades?!!!

Second referendum would be just as divisive, and probably too close to call. Could well galvanise the ‘will of the people’ populists as much as those who have newly realised what a bag of shite Brexit is going to be.

The total implosion of the Tory party, and possibly Labour too, would be interesting to watch, mind you.

don’t think the government is doing a good job of it but still think it should carry on as is. Does not compute.

Because they have a piss poor understanding of what democracy means.

I do see more negative brexit stuff from the right wing press pop up on my FB.

The papers can sway it if they want.

Hopefully a foreign press baron realises he will lose some millions.

So (according to that poll) people don’t like the decision, don’t think the government is doing a good job of it but still think it should carry on as is.  Does not compute.

I expect a large part of it is because the propaganda machine never stopped.  Every day people are being told the decision has been made; that we had a “democratic” vote; that the will of the people must be obeyed; that anyone who dares to speak out against it is deemed to be a traitor; we won you lost get on with it; I could go on.

It’s not hard to see how a lot of people would think that carrying on is the “right” thing to do because something something democracy, even if we’re demonstrably the only country in the history world ever to be attempting to impose economic sanctions on itself.

The will of the people is easily ignored when residents want to stop someone building a block of flats on the site of a house, or fracking or a rail line through your village.

**** this government and **** the stupid idiots who are too thick to realise the are being had over.

I’m not going to say I’m with binners but I have been saying for a long time that it will come to riots before it’s over. We may joke about how the leavers are propped up by their zimmer frames but there’s also a substantial EDL skinhead contingent.

The will of the people is easily ignored

The will of the people is easily ignored when the people you’re referring to are the 16 million that voted to remain.  Screw those guys and their will.

I think the riots will come, but only after we’ve left and even then it’ll take a couple of years. Our economy will tank, but not immediately, borrowing will become extraordinarily expensive & we’ll see general foreclosures on a regular basis. The government coffers (well, the government’s ability to borrow more) will dry up and we’ll enter a period of proper 1930s Germany style austerity. That’s when the riots will occur. Of course the three brexiteers and voldermort’s wife will have long since done one.

Though if Nissan up sticks up here then we might have more localised trouble sooner than that.

Its Norway or bust

https://www.channel4.com/news/by/gary-gibbon/blogs/brexit-white-paper-takes-shape

It baffles me that two years after the referendum, we still haven’t even defined what we “want.”

I still say the most likely outcome is that the UK stays in the single market and the customs union (the Norway option still requires a border, after all).  This will result in having to follow all the rules, not have any say in those rules, but probably only pay 70 – 90% of the current bill.

But hey, blue passports, right?  And none of the EU crest bollocks on the cover!

Anyone see this on C4? https://twitter.com/davemacladd/status/1011636382786314240

Sound is a bit quiet, so somebody kindly posted a transcript on reddit

US Embassy diplomat

“People haven’t yet internalized, the economy is going to tank. I better sit on my cash.

The EU27 says, We’re a club, here are our rules, you tell us how many of the rules you’re prepared to accept and we’ll kind of tell you where in the clubhouse you can go. That is not the British conception of what this is at all. They sort of see it as a negotiation between two equal parties.

But the British government is not interesting in telling people, you know, this thing that 52% of you said that you wanted, here are the range of options – there’s less good and then there’s very, very bad.

They haven’t actually done a lot of, sort of, macroeconomic modelling of this, almost, like, deliberately. Like, ‘We don’t want to know, because leaving is going to be great and its what people voted for so lets not spend government money on analysis, that suggests that maybe people got it wrong'”

Seneca Johnson – Deputy head of economic affairs

“You know, growth is starting to slow down but what we’re probably going to see is a longer term slower slide. Inflation went up from 0.5% to 3%, so it’s quite a significant increase… and that’s not inflation from a growing, bubbly economy.

That’s inflation from an outside shock. So, that’s the worst kind of inflation. That’s going to be a problem.

This coming at the end of a long period of austerity. People are very, very tired of it they’re very frustrated by it. And some of those longer term economic issues are some of the things that fueled brexit. So if brexit ends up not helping them, or not obviously helping people economically, that could have political knock-on effects.”

Embassy diplomat

” But if, I think, the economy sinks, then that’s going to put political pressure on the government. And for the people that voted to leave, they are terrified… because something they’ve been fighting to achieve for almost 40 years. I mean, its a generational struggle. They’ve now won and they’re absolutely terrified that its going to be snatched away from them.”

https://www.ft.com/content/3b583050-d277-11e6-b06b-680c49b4b4c0

Yet, as the economic historian Richard Roberts notes in When Britain Went Bust, his absorbing, lively account: “The years from 1964 to 1967 witnessed essentially a continuous sterling crisis.” From the mid-1940s to mid-1970s, Britain was the heaviest user of IMF resources. The word was that the IMF’s ritzy Washington HQ was paid for by the interest on UK loans. Britain had emerged from world war two with heavy debts and an unsustainable initial exchange rate in the Bretton Woods system. There was also the problem of sterling balances, private overseas holdings of the currency used to finance trade in the sterling area. As holders sold sterling when the exchange rate looked vulnerable, they accelerated declines in the currency.

Now consider the current situation.

I’m getting the increasingly feeling that this is all just deliberate time-wasting now. And all cabinet members now know, despite their posturing, that any final ‘deal’ will be whatever the EU plonks on the table and says…

“There you go. Take it or ****ing leave it!”

Knowing full well that no government can possibly countenance the economic meltdown that a ‘no deal’ crashing out would truly involve, and expect to survive 24 hours

Its all fun and games when it’s all hypothetical, but how long would the country look at news footage of 20 mile queues of HGV’s at every port, as all the Car plants shut down their production lines and the pound goes into freefall?

I’m saying About 20 minutes. Even a posturing ****-wit like Boris Johnson must know that?

Then the Brexiteers will have to account to both remaines and leavers, equally angry, just for different reasons, for their lies.

Do any of them look like they’ve got the stomach for that?

They’ll survive as long as they keep blaming the situation on the EU “being unreasonable” for not giving the UK a free trade deal, no strings attached.

See the trouble is is the government caves and goes for a deal that saves industry but upsets leavers how does that inspire confidence for investors.

i mean in 12 months time they can pull out or try to change the rules. Or will the “deal” need to be time bound so this horror happens every 5 years?

Whatever happens, huge damage will have been done to the economy.

It will be a generation before the Conservatives can claim to be a safe pair of hands again.

If they ever want to have a majority in the HoC, their best bet is probably to push for Scottish independence.

I am not sure any of the current crop on either side can be considered a safe pair of hands… no one seems to have any set policies or end goal

See the trouble is is the government caves and goes for a deal that saves industry but upsets leavers how does that inspire confidence for investors.

Which is why the EU are so insistent on a back stop and not happy about a time limit. What ever the outcome this is going to take decades to fix.

To give some idea, look at northern/welsh steel and coal towns and look at how they haven’t coped with the fall out  of 1980’s. 30years later and many towns are no where near recovered. As for racism, that is also going to take decades to put back in the box.