24hrs later, It strikes me that ...

Sporky

If anyone else couldn't decide whether to LOL or Wis ianpdq's post there, I lolled it, so if you wis it we'll get the balance.

Though I suspect Piglet's probably a mean drunk.

Chalky

Dominic;1125149" said:

Why not ask 2 Sheep which airline they prefer to travel on ? The very strange dilemma is that the general population were asked to pronounce upon a subject that they simply do not have any understanding of or expertise in the issues that matter. Thinking about it rationally NO professional would advise or counsel on a matter beyond their expertise - You wouldn't expect your doctor to give Legal advice or your Accountant to prescribe medication.  Unfortunately, the voters as a decision making body are then wholly vulnerable cannon fodder to the manipulation of sensationalised statistics from both camps topped off by being led ' ring through nose' by tabloid press sentiment designed to shepherd the masses or inflated scaremongering from the Jeremiahs of the Remain camp -the Chicken -Littles who say the sky is falling.

If Churchill could have commented on this he may well have said " Never have so many ignorants been so misled by so  little information spread by so few sources to so many " Of course,the soft targets that garner public support are over-egged ( Immigration ) and the boring economic Keynsian theory that would go over the heads of so many is not allowed to blur the issues considered tangible to Outraged of Eastbourne (retired ) when he collects his Daily Mail or the non-executive working man . Keep it Simple. I do not have a strong view either way, there will still be bread in the shops tomorrow,the sun will still rise and sometimes change can be challenging and fun .........how many people sit in loveless marriages for 30 years because they are scared of change ?There may well be difficult implications -it certainly will not have any impact on immigration -that is a fact of the modern transitory world but to some who have seen Mrs Smith next door replaced with Mr Ali or their work-mate Phil replaced by Pavel they want to embrace a media opinion that sensationalises this as an expression of objection.They are cannon fodder for the media. Put Simply,the decision was effectively put in the hands of people that hadn't really got a clue,were dis-informed and were not qualified to judge - but that's democracy. Maybe the Sheep do have an Airline preference and maybe one man and his dog can shepherd them to Heathrow but they don't have the knowledge of how to buy the ticket !

Read the history of voting rights in this country and you will see you are saying exactly what the upper classes were saying 200 years ago! Voting must be restricted because the population don't understand!

Truly staggered at the Remainers' attacks on basic democracy.

PolarityMan

It is an interesting idea to test the result for statistical significance which as @Ttony points out would probably show they were inconclusive. However I think that this is somewhat divorced from reality where this was in fact a record turn out and a very clear victory for leave.

Heartfeltdawn

quarky said:

I voted leave, but agree. As much as I hate the fucking smug lefties telling everyone else what is best for them (so last century), I don't think the margin was big enough. It has been a good shake up for politics though, and I hope that if nothing else, it has given those ruling a bloody good kick.

Also, as much as I think leave is the best decision long term, if it is going to result in a long period of violence and hatred from the left, that negates the benefits to some degree. We all want people to be happy I think.

Starting a post with "fucking smug lefties" and then finish it complaining about hatred from the left: interesting. 

Especially when the most prominent leftie during the referendum was Gisela Stuart. Jez, Farron, even Caroline Lucas, pretty much periphery at best. 

Emp_Fab

There is no way on earth that any political leader would ever have the balls to say "I'm disregarding the referendum result".  Ain't gonna happen.  ANY attempt to run another referendum would be seen as undemocratic (ironically !), as an attempt, as several here have already said, to keep polling until the 'right' decision is arrived at.  It's just not going to happen !!  It would be political suicide for anyone who attempted it and if you think the divisions in the country are bad now, imagine how bad it would be if they did rerun the poll ??  No leader or party is altruistic enough to fall on its sword in order to save the country from its own people.

We are leaving the EU.  That's it.  We voted for it (I did too, and I now wish I hadn't).

Nothing is going to stop this.

Ro_S

TTony said:

And after all of that, the voting was marginal.  51.9% plays 48.1%.  Or, if you account for the "I don't knows / cares", 37.5% (out) plays 34.7% (in) plays 27.8% (don't knows).  That's a 2.8%pt margin.

That's hardly a clear-cut mandate for anything.  If you looked at the result in terms of a statistical test of a hypothesis, you'd most likely conclude that the test itself was wrong because the true/false outcome was so close, and because of amount of null responses (ie the 27.8%).  You'd want to improve the test and try it again so that you got a decisive result.  You'd not be allowed to put a new drug on the market that failed 34.7% of the times it was used.  

You'd not launch a new dog food if 34.7% of your marketing focus groups said that they didn't like the colour of the packaging.

Which brings me back to, we were asked the wrong question and the only valid conclusion you can draw from the result is that you can't act on the results.

What a load of irrelevant twaddle.

This was a democratic vote.  Only a majority of votes was required.   

Governments in this country are elected with far far lower voting percentages

Those that did not vote - or did not register to vote - made a choice not to vote.  

The turnout was actually extremely good.

Moreover,  we never had a referendum about joining in the EU in the first place, so we have reversed what there was no democratic mandate to do.   

(The 1970s referendum was only about a European economic single market.  The much later Maastricht Treaty entered us into the EU, a political and economic union, and there was no democratic mandate for that.)

 

  

bodhi

Chalky said:

Truly staggered at the Remainers' attacks on basic democracy.

Maybe more an "attack" on what seems, in hindsight, a deeply flawed democratic exercise.  It should not have happened this way, and no-one saw it coming.  That doesn't mean it has to be accepted.  A second referendum based on actual facts and a healthy dose of reality will still be democratic.

JezWynd

Chalky said:

The attitude of people like @TTony is appalling. Democracy is only acceptable to them when it comes up with the 'right' answer.

I don't think that's what he's arguing for. It's rather that the referendum itself was badly flawed. My opinion is that it should never have happened and that we are going to live with the fallout of Cameron's weakness for a long time.

That said, I voted out and I'm happy to stand by that decision. We got by without being told what to do by bureaucrats in Brussels for hundreds of years; everyone's acting like they've been denied their comfort blanket.

Heartfeltdawn

Chalky said:

The attitude of people like @TTony is appalling. Democracy is only acceptable to them when it comes up with the 'right' answer.

Tony was on the Leave side on May 31st. 

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1092727/#Comment_1092727

I'd establish how he voted before making statements that he's just griping because he didn't get the result he wanted. 

camf

cacophony said:

the eu will go one of two ways because of this. it'll either fragment and eventually dissolve if other countries demand their own referenda, or it'll reform and get stronger. personally i think it'll be the former.

P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }

I think the EU might do much better without England. They've never really fitted in and many in Europe find English attitudes to Europe difficult to relate to.

Aside from notions of independence, Scotland has always been more in tune with Europe, due to historically having a completely different legal system to England, a different educational system and at least in the recent past, a completely different religious system. Scotland even has a completely different approach to monarchy (it's why the monarch isn't Queen of Scotland - constitutionally, she can't be - she's Queen of Scots). All of Scotland's key formative structures, eduction, citizenship and property ownership are based in systems that are rooted in Continental Europe and even predate the Reformation. Despite the unions of 1603 and 1707, the failure to fully integrate these key elements into a pan-UK system have had far more profound differences than most people realise on shaping Scottish culture and attitudes, as pretty clearly evidenced in the referendum. (Partly this was a result of several Jacobite uprisings and a general reluctance to destabilise what was reasonably perceived as being the 'warlike' north.)

Since the Reformation, England has sought to isolate itself from Europe to protect its own religious and cultural integrity but has always been worried about its much more Europhile and unpredictable immediate neighbour. It seems nuts that given the huge changes we've seen in the last seventy years we might be about to find ourselves back in the same position we were entering the eighteenth century.

I really wish Europe the very best and I think this arrangement will work much, much better for the EU. It might even work best for England. However, England's previous way of dealing with its preferred isolated position but relative lack of natural resources in comparison to the size of its population was to use its considerable military force, and in particular its naval strength, to invade and exploit weaker, less advanced and what would now be considered 'third world' countries and thereby extend its trading empire. I sincerely hope that option no longer exists. But currently, I'm not sure what other options England has. We shall see.

So maybe it's best for Scotland if it gets to finally integrate more with Europe, best for the EU to no longer have England undermining it from within and happier, at least in the short term, for England too.

This is just my musings... you'll doubtless think I'm an idiot.

 

tbm

Emp_Fab;1125167" said:

We are leaving the EU.  That's it.  We voted for it (I did too, and I now wish I hadn't).

Nothing is going to stop this.

Why do you wish you hadn't? I've seen loads of folk say this in the past day or so. I'm fascinated by it.

As someone who has voted against some EU treaties in referendums, but who believes in the EU project, I found the use of a second referendum to get the 'right' result MASSIVELY condescending. IMO England and Wales have made a mistake, but that ship has sailed now.

Chalky

bodhi;1125170" said:

Chalky said:

Truly staggered at the Remainers' attacks on basic democracy.





Maybe more an "attack" on what seems, in hindsight, a deeply flawed democratic exercise.  It should not have happened this way, and no-one saw it coming.  That doesn't mean it has to be accepted.  A second referendum based on actual facts and a healthy dose of reality will still be democratic.

You assert "no-one saw it coming", but those who voted Leave did.

The real problem is that "NONE OF THOSE WHO SHOULD HAVE" saw it coming. The politicians and other institutions (the Churches are an example) had dropped to having so little contact with the voting public that they didn't know what the public's views were and what they thought.

quarky

Sporky said:

thomasross20 said:

Wis to @quarky for those smug lefties telling everybody else what is best for them.

Yeah - name-calling and straw-man arguments are the foundation of any well-reasoned argument.

Calling remain voters "smug lefties" is the equivalent of calling leavers racist morons. Which, just to be clear, I am not doing.

You are correct. I was reacting to all the abuse on social media, but there is no excuse regardless of which side of the fence you sit on.

Heartfeltdawn

Chalky said:

You assert "no-one saw it coming", but those who voted Leave did.

The real problem is that "NONE OF THOSE WHO SHOULD HAVE" saw it coming. The politicians and other institutions (the Churches are an example) had dropped to having so little contact with the voting public that they didn't know what the public's views were and what they thought.

Agreed. Like Trump, the pollsters, analysts, media people et al did not see this and they should have done. I didn't think it would be anything other than a Leave win.

The churches do have contact with the voting public. Everyone there at a congregation will be a voter. It's the people who don't go to church that they know nothing about. Media analysts and pollsters will hang around with people in their social bracket. They don't hang around with the working classes or loads of people who didn't go further than GCSE English. 

There is a huge band of voters out there who don't buy daily newspapers, won't watch TV news, never watch Question Time. Social media gets them every time. It's free. It's there on a phone, tablet, what have you. It's no coincidence that Leave had far more online advertising than Remain in my view (Leave was peppering Youtube in the final few days running up to the referendum). Trump's campaign was based around online contact with voters with decent TV coverage and it worked.

 

Heartfeltdawn

quarky said:

You are correct. I was reacting to all the abuse on social media, but there is no excuse regardless of which side of the fence you sit on.

Peace and love. That's what we need. And probably four bottles of gin. 

bodhi

Chalky said:

You assert "no-one saw it coming", but those who voted Leave did.

The real problem is that "NONE OF THOSE WHO SHOULD HAVE" saw it coming. The politicians and other institutions (the Churches are an example) had dropped to having so little contact with the voting public that they didn't know what the public's views were and what they thought.

I'm saying (rightly or wrongly) that I think the Leave voters engaged in a protest vote of sorts without actually believing that they'd win.  And that many of them are now possibly appalled at what they've achieved and what the consequences could well be.

Are the politicians and institutions out of touch?  Absolutely.  I think this whole referendum was a complete cock-up and utterly flawed but that that can only truly be appreciated now that the deed is done.

I'm also saying that we already look like idiots, but I'd rather we try and "fix" the whole thing than stand by a reckless course of action out of foolish pride.

Or - maybe we leave and it all works out smashingly.  I don't know.  What I do know is that this world does not like uncertainty, and that that is exactly what we have on our hands.

Dominic

Chalky said:

Dominic;1125149" said:

Why not ask 2 Sheep which airline they prefer to travel on ? The very strange dilemma is that the general population were asked to pronounce upon a subject that they simply do not have any understanding of or expertise in the issues that matter. Thinking about it rationally NO professional would advise or counsel on a matter beyond their expertise - You wouldn't expect your doctor to give Legal advice or your Accountant to prescribe medication.  Unfortunately, the voters as a decision making body are then wholly vulnerable cannon fodder to the manipulation of sensationalised statistics from both camps topped off by being led ' ring through nose' by tabloid press sentiment designed to shepherd the masses or inflated scaremongering from the Jeremiahs of the Remain camp -the Chicken -Littles who say the sky is falling.

If Churchill could have commented on this he may well have said " Never have so many ignorants been so misled by so  little information spread by so few sources to so many " Of course,the soft targets that garner public support are over-egged ( Immigration ) and the boring economic Keynsian theory that would go over the heads of so many is not allowed to blur the issues considered tangible to Outraged of Eastbourne (retired ) when he collects his Daily Mail or the non-executive working man . Keep it Simple. I do not have a strong view either way, there will still be bread in the shops tomorrow,the sun will still rise and sometimes change can be challenging and fun .........how many people sit in loveless marriages for 30 years because they are scared of change ?There may well be difficult implications -it certainly will not have any impact on immigration -that is a fact of the modern transitory world but to some who have seen Mrs Smith next door replaced with Mr Ali or their work-mate Phil replaced by Pavel they want to embrace a media opinion that sensationalises this as an expression of objection.They are cannon fodder for the media. Put Simply,the decision was effectively put in the hands of people that hadn't really got a clue,were dis-informed and were not qualified to judge - but that's democracy. Maybe the Sheep do have an Airline preference and maybe one man and his dog can shepherd them to Heathrow but they don't have the knowledge of how to buy the ticket !

Read the history of voting rights in this country and you will see you are saying exactly what the upper classes were saying 200 years ago! Voting must be restricted because the population don't understand!

Truly staggered at the Remainers' attacks on basic democracy.

You're totally missing the point old chap - Its not a comment on who has the right to vote at all ,or democracy .......its a point about how little rational information people were given and how the press/media used that to sensationalise opinion ;be it the remainers or the exiters .........irrespective of who won it is a point of fact that a huge volume of voters were influenced by the power of media .

 Personally I don't care ; I am happy to try a change or to accept the Eu status ,I am well educated but I really don't have the first clue about the implications either way and I never found there to be any sound or finite rationale behind any of the proponents throughout the campaigning process .It is a comment upon the information process and manipulation of it ; not who is entitled to process it.

blueskunk

"At least we can control the borders"

HAL9000

quarky said:

I voted leave, but agree. As much as I hate the fucking smug lefties telling everyone else what is best for them (so last century), I don't think the margin was big enough. It has been a good shake up for politics though, and I hope that if nothing else, it has given those ruling a bloody good kick.

Also, as much as I think leave is the best decision long term, if it is going to result in a long period of violence and hatred from the left, that negates the benefits to some degree. We all want people to be happy I think.

^This. The margin wasn't big enough. Cards on the table - I voted remain. However, had the result gone the way I'd have liked but with the same narrow winning margin I would still agree that the margin wasn't big enough. Also, I'm not a fan of David Cameron's politics, but don't believe he should have been expected to resign, and for exactly the same reason - the margin wasn't big enough.

Emp_Fab

tbm said:

Emp_Fab;1125167" said:

We are leaving the EU.  That's it.  We voted for it (I did too, and I now wish I hadn't).

Nothing is going to stop this.

Why do you wish you hadn't? I've seen loads of folk say this in the past day or so. I'm fascinated by it.

I've been flip-flopping between leave and remain all along, the fact that the referendum has now passed hasn't changed my indecision.  I just watched the video of Owen Jones that @fields5069 posted and it's definitely made me rethink.  The trouble was, trying to find any sensible information in the chaos and noise of the run-up to the vote was impossible.  When you have two groups shouting horseshit 24/7 at a load of confused voters then shove them in a polling booth, this is what you get.