If we do have another referendum, I’d not expect the outcome to be a massive swing to remain or leave, it could perhaps be a few points to one side or the other, it’s too close to call. And I think we’d still have a very divided society afterwards… Even as a keen remainer I’m not sure I want a 2nd referendum right now…

Very much this. A lot of people feel they told the “establishment” what they wanted and the “establishment” dragged its feet. Then for the establishment to come back and ask the question again is going to really piss them off. “We told you once” will be a simple powerful message to mobilize people behind.

Plus if we have another referendum we have to address the big criticism of the last one which is that it wasn’t specific about what ‘leaving the EU’ meant. The only version of “leave” the UK can unilaterally offer is “no deal”. I’m really not sure it’s wise to commit ourselves to no deal on the basis of a referendum! May’s deal isn’t remotely credible, that can’t be the leave option.

David Cameron held a referendum because he knew would easily win it. How did that work out?

Second ref is a red herring. Parliament has to withdraw Art 50. From that starting point any existing or future party is free to campaign on a Brexit ticket and (if they win) pull us out. That’s how representative democracy works. Yes the papers will howl but they’ll howl about a second referendum as well.

Since no party will pull us out and take the blame and 90pc of MPs are opposed to no deal a long, long extension seems the only plausible outcome.

She comes from a working class family both halves of which grew up on council estates. All seemingly reasonably comfortably off. My wife and her sister first in the extended family to stay on for 6th form and get degrees followed later by a couple of cousins. The brexit/remain divide is exactly along education lines and over the last couple of days its got very spicy.

a similar situation as to myself except my folks were remain but i think thats because i casually explained to my father that:

“you married the daughter of an immigrant, your daughter is an immigrant in another country married to an immigrant, your son’s partner is an immigrant”

thing is my late grandma is Irish and came here after the war, my sister married a kiwi of Norwegian descent. i don’t think they realised you dont need dark skin and funny accent to be an immigrant or benefit from being able to move to other countries.
(my partner is Polish and been here 20 years/educated to masters level so far from being seen as ‘one of them assylum seekers/migrants’)

thankfully i only have one ignorant distant cousin on face-ache which i keep as a reference point of bigoted middle England.

don’t envy your situation though, i wouldn’t spend any time with them.

Brexit/Trump/populism has simply uncovered racism and allowed it to be more open again. It was still bad in 70’s but then seemed to get a lot better by the 1990s and 2000s but in reality it was still there but people held it in. So I suppose the good thing is that you can now clearly see the racism although the sad thing is how people haven’t progressed past it.

I did my first bit of ‘unfollowing’ the other night because I was sick of seeing pro-leave poison coming up on my feed. Apart from the inaccuracies and the bile and anger, the grammar was really painful and I could not bear it any longer.

As far as family goes, i think the only person that voted leave was my mother mainly because she was sick and tired of doctors that could not speak English and that she wanted to make some sort of future for my niece and nephew. That the doctors in question (Indian I think) would not be impacted by Brexit really has not registered with her and that, come a no deal Brexit, my niece and nephew are pretty screwed for work in Europe, or that I live and work in Europe and it could screw me over, does not seem to register with her. Oh yes, blue passports. I kid you not. Another reason, that and getting passport stamps like when she was a child. I think there are also elements of being told what to do by the Germans and her father turning in his grave about that.

The last argument we had about it made me think that she was glad No Deal was likely because it would make me move back. She hates the idea of my getting Swedish citizenship, I think because she sees it as disloyalty.

Many people (why do they have to be intelligent?) are being reasonable and trying not to alienate people, (among remainers see James O’Brien’s speech the other day, or follow Femi on twitter) but no matter how reasonable you are some people will still take it the wrong way, and assume bad faith.

My MIL (an immigrant in her 70s relying solely on UK pension and social services to live and the NHS to stay alive) has to be reminded at least a few times a year that her views immigration would send her back to where she came from, where no health insurance means death.

Her considered view is that if you don’t agree with her, and provide evidence which does not fit with her existing views, then its a personal insult and “like saying she can’t have an opinion”.

I love her dearly, but even after telling her that a significant part of both my and her daughters jobs depends on European funding, she said that “I’d still vote Leave because I don’t know what Europe does for us anyway”.

I suggested that that if that was the case, maybe she should find out, or not vote, but apparently that was very harsh.

Some people are too used to being agreed with. They don’t listen to argument, and they don’t appear to hear anything that they don’t already agree with.

Not sure what argument I’m making here, unless it is to pray for a benevolent dictatorship to protect us from idiots, or an Iain M Banks style AI to come and look after us all.

One or two members of my family voted leave. It’s not an issue at all because I’m sure they had perfectly valid reasons and we’re all capable of having a rational discussion regarding the pros and cons. They did not want the current mess we’re in.

The intolerance described in this thread is not due to Brexit itself. Our local facebook groups are full of people bemoaning the death of democracy and yet they are the first the shout anyone down who dares to speak in support of the EU. It’s borderline fascism. For whatever reason, there is a lot of anger out there and I personally find it quite worrying.

Maybe that’s just it; people are just going round emoting about it rather than making a calculation.

I don’t doubt that’s the case. I’ve commented in the past about this on the Big Thread. Remain was a campaign to the head, Leave a campaign to the heart. Which was probably instrumental in why we lost. A lot of people simply don’t like the idea of the EU, so actual evidence, facts and figures are an absolute irrelevance to them. We can refute memes full of lies until the cows come home and we’re pissing into the wind because ultimately they simply don’t care, they still don’t like it.

I think it’s a primary root cause of all this democracy / sovereignty / bureaucrats / taking control horseshit we see in every other pro-leave post. These concepts sound really important, it’s neither here nor there what any of it means or whether if fact we do or don’t have any of them already. Case in point:

She also states quite openly that “there was no point in winning the war if we’re just going to let the Germans tell us what to day anyway”

The Germans – a single EU member state remember, albeit the largest – don’t tell us what to do. We have 73 MEPs in the EU, only Germany (96) and France (74) have more. That’s like a tenth of all MEPs. In a sense it’s the other way around – we tell the EU what to do.

You could spend time explaining this to her, but I’ll wager it’s equally fruitless. She’ll either not believe you or quietly change subject because at the end of the day her real argument is a dislike / resentment of the EU which has little basis in reality, she simply doesn’t like the idea of it and that’s not going to be changed by a Powerpoint presentation.

James O’Brien is just a Remain Shock Jock, if he is an example of listening Remainer then it is hardly a surprise there is division.

James O’Brien is just a Remain Shock Jock, if he is an example of listening Remainer then it is hardly a surprise there is division.

He’s been spot on. Domonic Raab doesn’t like him, so that’s good with me.

I just saw this on Leave Means Leave faceache page and this shows how many people think….

I think you are in denial, It is well reported a 657 seat train was fully paid for travelling from Bristol, 100 coaches paid for from Devon, paid for from donations received like the £1 million donation given by Julian Dunkerton the founder of Superdry, multiple celebrities paying for the full cost of coaches travelling from all parts of the country. My granson at uni gave me a flyer advertising a free day out in London as long as they went on the march. Wonder who was paying for that.

Some Brexiteers (and I’m sure there are Remainers too) are utterly paranoid and will believe anything they are told or they see on SM. You cannot get them to listen or even think about what they are saying.

I don’t talk Brexit with any Brexiteer friends or family.

James O’Brien is just a Remain Shock Jock, if he is an example of listening Remainer then it is hardly a surprise there is division.

I actually got one leaver friend of mine to change her mind after going James O’Brien on her and just using evidence to undermine every single point she made. She actually realised that reading only the Torygraph and shit on Facebook probably means your information was wrong, even managed to get her to stop listening to vaccine denialists as well and get a very basic layman’s understanding of the scientific method.

She now reads the FT, The Times and the Guardian and has a subscription to New Scientist (she loves nature and the outdoors so managed to convince her why she would find this interesting).

Some people, who you are close friends to, sometimes just need a bollocking for being idiots to shock them into sense. I think you can only really do this with people who actually respect your opinion though, you’ll offend people who aren’t that close to you. They have be reasonably intelligent as well otherwise they’re often just a lost cause – not educated necessarily, just bright enough not to totally believe their own bullshit.

A lot of people simply don’t like the idea of the EU, so actual evidence, facts and figures are an absolute irrelevance to them.

Spot on. The EU is/was a convenient bogeyman, the root of all evil, and without the EU, everything will be unicorns, rainbows and magic money trees of happiness.

Spot on. The EU is/was a convenient bogeyman, the root of all evil, and without the EU, everything will be unicorns, rainbows and magic money trees of happiness.

Yes the biggest game of blame somebody else could be entering the final phases, next up blame them for screwing the exit and then who???

and then who?

I would guess those muslims

Yep, blame the MPs for getting Brexit wrong, then blame the EU for not playing nicely with us any more, then probably some other places for, er, being there, then probably those remainers, they definitely look like they could be definitely be blamed for something being wrong.

then probably those remainers, they definitely look like they could be definitely be blamed for something being wrong.

Not getting behind them and supporting them. Because obviously that would’ve made all the difference.

This is no different from a Brexit echo chamber. Just with a different chant.

You are all shouting the same things, “Stupid Racists” being the main one and agreeing with each other. Then patting each other on the back and telling yourselves how clever you all are.

Pity all this great intellect couldn’t get their shit together to prevent this mess. Especially when the “other side” are so stupid.

Makes you think.

Makes you think.

Not something you could be accused of before writing that lot.

I come from a very poor background, have a limited education and voted remain. I seem to have done this wrong though according to some. No idea what any of my family voted, but I’d hazard a guess at leave. I already have a terrible relationship with them so I might ask just to see how much worse I can make it.

This is no different from a Brexit echo chamber

Really? Like, really?

The family members I mentioned above are leavers on “sovereignty” grounds. The main issue with this is that they spent time living in spain using EU freedom of movement and reciprocal healthcare arrangements. Ironing?

You are all shouting the same things, “Stupid Racists” being the main one and agreeing with each other. Then patting each other on the back and telling yourselves how clever you all are.

It’s as if he didn’t even read any of it….

Pity all this great intellect couldn’t get their shit together to prevent this mess. Especially when the “other side” are so stupid.

So which bit of this did you not read?

Remain was a campaign to the head, Leave a campaign to the heart. Which was probably instrumental in why we lost. A lot of people simply don’t like the idea of the EU, so actual evidence, facts and figures are an absolute irrelevance to them. We can refute memes full of lies until the cows come home and we’re pissing into the wind because ultimately they simply don’t care, they still don’t like it.

Must be flipping awful having working class relatives from council estates.

Part of the Brexit issue is that as an organisation the EU is distant to most people and is a well paid gravy train for those capable of hopping on. The only reason more isn’t being made of Farage’s MEP pension of £73k p.a. is that they are all getting it. The Kinnocks probably even more.

UK politicians have paid heavily for sins of the past on expenses and pay, yet the EU is tone deaf to this. You vote directly for for MP or councillors but MEP s are chosen in some arcane system which makes it impossible to get rid of Dan Hannan, Farage etc

The great aspects of EU membership are lost to people who see a “unsteady” Juncker and wonder who put that Muppet in charge of anything, and when did I vote for him, wonder why the EU wants its own army when NATO seems to be fine and frankly don’t fancy a closer political union with countries with rather dubious leaders like Hungary and corruption issues like Romania and some are far more openly racist than UK if football is anything to go by

Finally a small but important part of British doesn’t look to Europe it looks to the Commonwealth and wonders why any EU citizen can just walk in without question but their families have to jump through considerable hoops to get relatives into UK.

Getting underneath these issues and many more and resolving them is a long game and both the EU and remain camps underestimated their impact as they see all the benefits and wonder why anyone could be so thick as not to be of the same view.

As for the media, the BBC upsets everyone, Sky is mainly sport, and if more people paid for left wing newspapers then they sell more, they are in print, yet people chose differently. Facebook ads aren’t that successful, if they were all other advertising would have essentially disappeared by now

Personally I think May is probably locked into deal or revoke and general election. No deal will be a (yet another) cock up if it happens. The Conservative party has a massive issue in Who could replace her as all the household names are toxic in one way or another and they are desperate to keep Corbyn out of power (remember he wanted to trigger A50 straight away after the referendum)

Careful there big_n_daft, that sort of common sense doesn’t go down well in these EU threads, best shout racist at someone or just point out that without a degree or Masters any other opinion is void. You get extra points for linking to a Guardian article.
I should add that in the spirit of the OP I have a mix of Leave and Remainers in my family, not really noticed anything on social media that would bother me and you can always unfollow, I would like to think if my Mum started posting any Tommy Robinson stuff I would have a good enough relationship with her to ask her to stop or at least not direct any of it towards me, likewise any other family member or even friend.
Of course since most of my family are what we could term working class (such terrible uneducated ioks) Leave is slightly ahead of the Remain, maybe 60/40.

Lol at big n daft and Stewart. First up if you don’t understand the system used to elect mep’s just look it up. For contrast how easy is it to remove a Rees mogg from a safe tory seat or one of the Lords?

It’s always good to pick and choose your points though….

Getting underneath these issues and many more and resolving them is a long game and both the EU and remain camps underestimated their impact as they see all the benefits and wonder why anyone could be so thick as not to be of the same view.

But most of those negatives you mention have no bearing on a typical UK person whereas a lot of the benefits do. So any objective person looking at the benefits and negatives would always see the benefits outweigh the negatives. Take the objectivity away, add a bit of racism etc,. and you get the result we got.
It is not about how intelligent somebody is, it is about a person doing some basic fact checking and understanding of the current EU setup and then objectively looking at it. This is why those that have done that see themselves in a better position than those that haven’t and then unfortunately see them as stupid.

First up if you don’t understand the system used to elect mep’s just look it up

More importantly the system of voting isnt selected by the EU but by the relevant government. NI uses a different system than the rest of the UK. Normal blame the EU for the UK political decisions.

I am curious how many of the brexiteers were really going “dont like the way Hungary might be going so lets vote out”.

Very much this. A lot of people feel they told the “establishment” what they wanted and the “establishment” dragged its feet. Then for the establishment to come back and ask the question again is going to really piss them off. “We told you once” will be a simple powerful message to mobilize people behind.

Not it won’t – they will simply wallow in apathy and not bother to show up. 5.5+ million for the revoke article 50, millions for the anti-brexit march vs a handful of protesters and James Goddard who turn up for pro-brexit demonstrations. The Brexit vote was simply a protest vote, it’s only a shouty vocal minority who actual care about the EU.

Not it won’t – they will simply wallow in apathy and not bother to show up.

David Cameron held a referendum because he knew he would easily win it. How did that work out?

The Brexit vote was simply a protest vote,

To a large degree I’m sure it was. …and those people won’t exactly be love with the establishment over the last two years. Plus how are those people going to react if the establishment ignores what they said last time and holds a second vote. They’re going to give the establishment yet another kick in the nuts.

There’s only one way out of this. Parliament has to end Brexit. From that starting point any party can campaign on a Brexit ticket and if they win *they* can implement Brexit. That’s how representative democracy works. Anyone can promise a unicorn [1] as long as they are willing to take responsibility for delivering it and win a majority to do so.

Yes, the papers etc will bleat, but they’ll bleat about a second referendum too and a second referendum has the significant drawbacks I stated above.

[1] If you want to put it like that.

Take the objectivity away, add a bit of racism etc,. and you get the result we got.

Yeah, gobochul was clearly taking nonsense wasn’t he? Maybe you lot need to read back over the thread and learn to exercise that objectivity. I can see exactly where he got that notion from.

Likewise, I’m not sure big’n’daft is as daft as the name suggests.

Yeah, gobochul was clearly taking nonsense wasn’t he? Maybe you lot need to read back over the thread and learn to exercise that objectivity. I can see exactly where he got that notion from.

Likewise, I’m not sure big’n’daft is as daft as the name suggests.

+1.

If you can’t understand the other guy’s argument you can’t hope to win him round, and once the name calling starts there’s zero hope of anyone changing their mind.

Likewise, I’m not sure big’n’daft is as daft as the name suggests.

No he delivered a perfect Brexit lead troll posting there, was perfect really picked out facts, offered no comparison to make then more or less resonable and then chucked some emotion at it.

Look at it from a factual point of view and get branded an expert/elite/condescending

There is a formula to all this

vote,

To a large degree I’m sure it was. …and those people won’t exactly be love with the establishment over the last two years. Plus how are those people going to react if the establishment ignores what they said last time and holds a second vote. They’re going to give the establishment yet another kick in the nuts

I’ve met a lot of Brexiteers who have said that if it gets cancelled they will simply never vote again as they don’t see the point.

This is bad, how?

In all seriousness, I mostly agree with you but I just don’t see a Brexiteer apocalypse occuring if we revoke. It’d probably be a 50/50 tossup again, with a slight edge to remain – but remain doesn’t have anything to lose and everything to gain from a second ref.

It’d probably be a 50/50 tossup again … remain doesn’t have anything to lose and everything to gain from a second ref.

Eh? 90pc of parliament are against no deal. The deal has failed to pass over and over. So the only options left with any hope of success are revoke, kick into the long grass or referendum.

You accept the referendum is a 50/50 toss up so the only option that involves a chance of leaving any time soon is your preferred option?

Says it all.

There were/are a *lot* of people who saw/see the EU as a Neo-Liberal club for rich nations. They spent a lot of time a few years back claiming that TTIP would be the death knell for the NHS. Those same people are seemingly pro-EU now. I wonder how many of them really are pro-EU, and how many of them are using false flag tactics to discredit the Remain argument.

Part of the Brexit issue is that as an organisation the EU is distant to most people and is a well paid gravy train for those capable of hopping on. The only reason more isn’t being made of Farage’s MEP pension of £73k p.a. is that they are all getting it. The Kinnocks probably even more.

UK politicians have paid heavily for sins of the past on expenses and pay, yet the EU is tone deaf to this. You vote directly for for MP or councillors but MEP s are chosen in some arcane system which makes it impossible to get rid of Dan Hannan, Farage etc

The great aspects of EU membership are lost to people who see a “unsteady” Juncker and wonder who put that Muppet in charge of anything, and when did I vote for him, wonder why the EU wants its own army when NATO seems to be fine and frankly don’t fancy a closer political union with countries with rather dubious leaders like Hungary and corruption issues like Romania and some are far more openly racist than UK if football is anything to go by

Finally a small but important part of British doesn’t look to Europe it looks to the Commonwealth and wonders why any EU citizen can just walk in without question but their families have to jump through considerable hoops to get relatives into UK.

Getting underneath these issues and many more and resolving them is a long game and both the EU and remain camps underestimated their impact as they see all the benefits and wonder why anyone could be so thick as not to be of the same view.

As for the media, the BBC upsets everyone, Sky is mainly sport, and if more people paid for left wing newspapers then they sell more, they are in print, yet people chose differently. Facebook ads aren’t that successful, if they were all other advertising would have essentially disappeared by now

Personally I think May is probably locked into deal or revoke and general election. No deal will be a (yet another) cock up if it happens. The Conservative party has a massive issue in Who could replace her as all the household names are toxic in one way or another and they are desperate to keep Corbyn out of power (remember he wanted to trigger A50 straight away after the referendum)

No idea what side of the argument B&D is on, but this is insightful (based on family members and folk I know thru surfing), this is precisely the sort of thing that got their goat enough to vote.

It’s simply not fair to be calling all leavers racists. I much prefer “people with legitimate concerns.”

It’s simply not fair to be calling all leavers racists. I much prefer “people with legitimate concerns.”

They don’t have to be legitimate concerns:

For example you and I might welcome being in the EU because it means you and I can get workaholic tradesmen who don’t charge much to work on our properties (and rental properties if we have them).

Tradesmen might think that less competition would be a good thing.

I’d agree with that you that’s not a legitimate concern because as you hint the free market is always better and should not be obstructed. But legitimate or not, I bet a lot of tradesmen voted leave simply to reduce competition. (Even if they thought it would have a very limited effect on reducing competition and even if they thought it would also reduce the overall market for tradesmen.)

We can debate if that’s a good example or not, but people don’t have to vote for legitimate free market reasons, people can vote for protectionism if they want. That’s why we have tariffs on Wine to protect our win producers from imports. You an I might not regard that as legitimate (and it means we have to pay a bit of tax on New World wine) but wine producers will vote for it every time!

It would be easier to have a discussion about all this if anyone came up with a coherent argument for what will be better if we’re outside the EU.

But noone has, its all “sovereignty” from people who don’t know what the word means, and “free to trade on WTO rules” from people who clearly don’t know the definition of “unelected bureaucracy”.

Darren Grimes (leave con artist and annoying little shit) is on twitter this morning from switzerland describing the ease of crossing the border from the EU, and how therefore the Irish Border isn’t really an issue and people are having to tell him about Schengen.

It’d be easier to have a grown up argument about Europe if we could find a grown up who thought it was a good idea and had a coherent argument.