Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 5

[JoeMorgue]

When it comes to an actual election. Sure. If you don't vote you go with the new government. But when it comes to a non binding referendum in my opinion not voting can be equalled to accepting the status quo.
Why should an elected government listen to a 17% minority when it comes to international policy?

I get the broad concept of a "the status quo is the default" you're going with, but to me that doesn't change the base concept.

The question was asked, the majority said yes. I guess I just don't see what "Okay but that was only the majority of people who bothered to vote" changes.

I mean "Didn't say anything doesn't get a say" is sort of self defining isn't it?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

No, the issue here is that you absolutely want to paint all of the Leave camp as people who ignore facts. I'm telling you that this is not the case.

And yet the evidence is right in front of you. And you haven't yet presented a single example of a Brexiteer who doesn't ignore facts.

I'll notice you didn't point out where the explanation I gave was wrong just asserted that it was. I can see why you like the Brexiteer argumentation strategy but that doesn't mean it isn't what it is.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

That's basically what I tried to argue. The Tories in no way had to promise to immediately follow the referendum. After all, that is (afaik) not how a referendum works in the UK.
But they did, and thus they ended up today with a pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

There are so few examples that its hard to say what is and isnt how a referendum works in the UK but I think the general expectation is that it will be acted upon not just taken into consideration.

They simply shouldn't have called the referendum in the first place. The correct way to leave the EU is to elect a party to government that wants to deliver that policy. I think they just got overconfident because they had a run of referenda that went they way they wanted and they started to see them as a way to solve thorny issues.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

On the contrary, if you add the Scottish Leave votes to Remain, you have to also remove them from Leave.

All Leave votes = 17,410,742
All Remain votes = 16,141,241

Scottish Leave votes = 1,018,322

All Leave votes less Scottish Leave votes = 16,392,420
All Remain votes plus Scottish Leave votes = 17,159,563

A few Welsh and NI Remain votes would have also helped, but the mathematical reality is that even the English Leave majority as it was could still have been overturned by the rest of the UK. Personally I think that would have been hilarious, not least because it would have given Farage a coronary.

Indeed. A brain fart this morning. It would only have taken about 90% of Scotland to vote to remain. Likely? The point still holds that it would take an unprecedented majority of non-English to overturn a slim majority in England. And that's without even complicating things by adding in the percentage of people who are English in the rUK.

Your hypothetical is an interesting one. I don't think necessarily that would have been accepted as a mandate for Remain. Certainly the Leave campaign would have played on the fact that England voted to leave and was being thwarted. The opposite... not the case.

 

[Belz...]

And yet the evidence is right in front of you. And you haven't yet presented a single example of a Brexiteer who doesn't ignore facts.

I have, but you probably ignored it because it doesn't lead to the conclusion that Leave voters are idiots.

I'll notice you didn't point out where the explanation I gave was wrong just asserted that it was. I can see why you like the Brexiteer argumentation strategy but that doesn't mean it isn't what it is.

To which assertion are you refering? Without insults this time.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I have, but you probably ignored it because it doesn't lead to the conclusion that Leave voters are idiots..

No you really didn't. Don't be dishonest.

Who is this mysterious example?

 

[Belz...]

No you really didn't. Don't be dishonest.

I'm not dishonest. Ever.

I can see that this pattern of calling people names for disagreeing with you is not limited to Leave voters. Now you're doing it to me, although I've been pretty patient with your emotional outbursts.

Who is this mysterious example?

I was asked for reasonable/defensible arguments, not people.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I was asked for reasonable/defensible arguments, not people.

No, I just said you hadn't provided an example of a Brexiteer who doesn't ignore facts. You said you had provided it. You hadn't.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I see that the new immigration strategy is purportedly going to go along with the ridiculous minimum salary approach to allowing people in and treat EU and non-EU citizens on equal terms.

Unless the NHS is going to start paying nurses 35k a year (and actually that's an underestimate as when things get oversubscribed - i.e. always - the salary requirement goes up and has hit 55k for Non-EU visas in the past)I think there are going to be rather severe issues that won't take 50 years to discover.

 

[Belz...]

No, I just said you hadn't provided an example of a Brexiteer who doesn't ignore facts. You said you had provided it. You hadn't.

Well I misread your post, then. I didn't see "who" the first time around, presumably because the question is so bizarre that my brain ran an auto-correct on it.

Why would you want me to provide a person? I don't get where this is going.

 

[jimbob]

Well I misread your post, then. I didn't see "who" the first time around, presumably because the question is so bizarre that my brain ran an auto-correct on it.

Why would you want me to provide a person? I don't get where this is going.

I'm probably biased but the Brexit voters I know are low-information voters, or they are wilfully ignorant. Two are Young Earth Creationists - which is an achievement in the UK for people born in Britain.

 

[Belz...]

I'm probably biased but the Brexit voters I know are low-information voters, or they are wilfully ignorant. Two are Young Earth Creationists - which is an achievement in the UK for people born in Britain.

Ah, see, if they're willfully ignorant, then I'm comfortable with the stupid label.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Well I misread your post, then. I didn't see "who" the first time around, presumably because the question is so bizarre that my brain ran an auto-correct on it.

Why would you want me to provide a person? I don't get where this is going.

You told me that not all Brexiteers ignore facts. I assumed this was based on something other than simply your imagination and that therefore you would be able to give me an example of one. I mean it's OK if you can't but you seemed very confident in your claim so I wonder what it's based on if you can't think of even one person?

I mean you seem very worried about all these hypothetical people and their poor little feelings and don't want people to call them naughty names or accuse them of dishonesty or of ignoring facts. Do you have any actual examples of actual people? Do you know any Brexiteers? Have you spoken to any? Have you followed their arguments?

I mean do you have ANYTHING to offer?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Ah, see, if they're willfully ignorant, then I'm comfortable with the stupid label.

They are. That's what I have been attempting to tell you for about 5 pages.

I know what's coming now....

 

[jimbob]

Ah, see, if they're willfully ignorant, then I'm comfortable with the stupid label.

The YECs certainly are. I do try to avoid them, and they now work for a different company under the same roof as ours, but I have spoken enough to them to spot that they don't want to listen to the facts.

ETA: This extends to doubting global warming. They have the full package - it's as if a bit of the bible belt transported itself into the middle of the UK

 

[Belz...]

You told me that not all Brexiteers ignore facts.

Because it's exactly like saying that they are all stupid. The statement can't be true simply because such broad statements never are. If you want me to dig up an actual Brexiteer, I'd have to look it up. But since I'm interested in the arguments, meh.

I mean you seem very worried about all these hypothetical people and their poor little feelings

I really don't care about their feelings. I don't know where you get that idea, but I suspect that you're being irrational because of how emotional this topic makes you. You see any disagreement as tacit agreement with the opposition. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I've explained earlier.

I mean do you have ANYTHING to offer?

I already have, but you chose to ignore it.

 

[Michel H]

Some interesting explanations have been given in this recent article: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...lea-from-theresa-may-to-break-brexit-deadlock of The Guardian.

The British government’s complaints that the EU has not explained its reasons for rejecting the economic and customs plan of Chequers has been given short shrift in Brussels. “[May] said the EU had never explained, which is in fact not true,” said one diplomat.

According to Brussels insiders, Barnier gave Raab a detailed briefing of the EU’s objections to the common rulebook, the centrepiece of the Chequers’ economic plan, allowing free movement of goods between the EU and UK.

Barnier’s briefing notes, a three-page paper of “defensive points”, explain the commission’s problems with the common rulebook, across different industries. “The UK proposal would lead to a diversion of trade and investment in the UK’s favour and to the disadvantage of member states’ business,” states the unpublished document.

It outlines how the UK could gain an advantage in some industries, if it only had to follow EU product standards, rather than broader social and environmental protection rules. In the European steel industry, for example, only 1% of the cost of regulation is linked to EU product standards, while 99% comes from EU rules on energy and climate change, according to the document.

Has Theresa May provided an answer to this objection by Barnier? And what would be a reasonable answer? (perhaps an ecotax levied on British steel exported to the EU after Brexit?)

I am getting the impression that May (especially these days, with the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham) cares a lot more about what the British people will think than about what European leaders will think. But she depends on European leaders to get a post-Brexit trade deal by 29 March 2019.

 

[abaddon]

Amusingly, I am meeting the german ambassador on Friday. I wonder what he thinks?

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

A good analogy I heard from a friend of mine is that the UK is behaving like a teenager that is leaving the home and thus no longer wants to pay to rent, electricity, gas or food, but does expect his room to be kept ready for him whenever he wants to use it, and expects to be allowed back in and dine at the table whenever he feels like it for as long as he wants.

 

[Information Analyst]

How do you categorise the flat earthers into sensible and stupid?

I only know one flat-Earther in real life - unfortunately he's my brother - and completely out to lunch. He believes pretty much every conspiracy theory going. Had to de-Facebook him when he came out with the one that claims electricity generating stations aren't actually generating the electricity (don't know the short term for it). Last straw.