Brexit: the referendum

Nessie said:
The areas which have the poorest, least educated, oldest and least amount of immigrants have largely voted to leave.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...un/23/eu-referendum-live-results-and-analysis

They are going to be very confused when they do not get richer, better schools, more hospital care and the immigrants keep coming.
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In spades. For years the EU has been the go-to excuse for all manner of things that people don't like. I wonder what the tabloids will do now they're been robbed of their "looney EU" stories...
 
Giz said:
Hmmm, should we take poor, old peoples votes away? Or just give rich young people more votes? Which would be more democratic?
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Given the clear correlation between voting and age, it does raise the question of whether an older population that isn't going to be around much longer should be allowed to screw it up for the younger population that is.
 
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Information Analyst said:
Given the clear correlation between voting and age, it does raise the question of whether an older population that isn't going to be around much longer should be allowed to screw it up for the younger population that is.
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You can make that argument for any election. Perhaps they should weight the votes? One vote for each year you are under the average life expectancy...

And rich people should have more votes, because they have more to lose too.

And definitely, educated people should have more votes. No universal suffrage if you can't even spell 'emancipation'. The educated have suffraged enough.
 
Giz said:
Hmmm, should we take poor, old peoples votes away? Or just give rich young people more votes? Which would be more democratic?
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Neither, but it illustrates one of the problems facing the Remain camp. The Remain position was pretty well established, the status quo. OTOH the Leave camp could make all kinds of extravagant, sometimes contradictory promises. For poorly educated people and/or people in reduced circumstances it's an alluring message.

The problem comes later if and when those promises aren't delivered. It's already too late to go back to the status quo so by believing the hype and hoping for the best they will have made things worse for themselves.

People like me (50-ish, very comfortably off) aren't going to be too badly affected (as long as my business doesn't go under and even then I probably have enough to retire on) and our cash buffers will allow us to ride out any short term economic turbulence. We can afford it if things get more expensive, heck if worst comes to worst we could even emigrate. My house and flat are owned outright so I'm shielded from interest rate rises and although my investment portfolio may have take a hit somewhere around £100k-£150k in the last 24 hours, by the time I need it, the market should have recovered somewhat.

Those people on the margin will be at best disappointed by the things they were promised not arriving and at worst may suffer signifcantly.
 
Information Analyst said:
Given the clear correlation between voting and age, it does raise the question of whether an older population that isn't going to be around much longer should be allowed to screw it up for the younger population that is.
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I wonder if in the two year minimum it will take to leave the loss of two years worth of older voters/gain of current 16 and 17 year olds would have been enough to change the result..

The 'most selfish generation' have their last hurrah....
 
The Don said:
Neither, but it illustrates one of the problems facing the Remain camp. The Remain position was pretty well established, the status quo. OTOH the Leave camp could make all kinds of extravagant, sometimes contradictory promises. For poorly educated people and/or people in reduced circumstances it's an alluring message.
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This would suggest there is an anti-status-quo bias in referenda, but I believe reality is the opposite (not this time)
 
Francesca R said:
This would suggest there is an anti-status-quo bias in referenda, but I believe reality is the opposite (not this time)
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It depends on how well regarded the status quo is and how easy it is to point out the benefits of the status quo. In the case of the monarchy, a vote to get rid of the queen would run into significant headwinds because she is very well regarded. If we had a very unpopular monarchy (as we had in the mid-17th century) maybe the status quo would work the other way.

For decades we've been fed a diet of how useless Brussels and the EU are. Any good things resulting from EU membership tend to be claimed by domestic politicians whereas bad or unpopular things are blamed directly or indirectly on the EU. It's been convenient for governments of whatever hue to have a convenient whipping boy.

It's very difficult to turn around and sell the public on the benefits of the EU when for decades you've been telling them the opposite. One of the many reasons why Corbyn's Remain campaign was so lacklustre was because we "knew" he was just putting it on after years of being anti-EU (personally I think Corbyn did realise that the best way to protect workers' rights was to Remain).
 
I take it this little bump in the road won't interfere with Brussels' very important goal of forcing "global warming" compliant teapots, vacuum cleaners, hairdryers, etc. on the masses, whether they want them or not. I mean, who cares what they want, anyway?
 
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