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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


reds8n wondered why UKIP MPs weren't in The Commons, but the answer to that is simple. Your average UKIP supporter naively believed that the referendum result would be respected, hence there was no need for UKIP.

That's because we have a FPTP system not PR. If we had PR then UKIP would have MPs. Although I despise their politics (even more so than the Tories which is saying something) I do believe that if a proportion of the populace votes for them then they should get that proportion of MPs. In that way it becomes more apparent just how much on an each one is.

75% of MPs back the EU. 52% of voters want out. Never has there been such a disconnect between the people and those who govern.

That depends on how you play the figures. About 30-40% of MPs are anti-EU, that is equivalent to the general populace. What we don't know what the 30% that didn't vote think. They could quite possibly be, we are OK with the status quo, thought it wouldn't change and generally pro-EU. In that case then yes parliament is representative of the populace. I can't say this because the 30% didn't vote, but in the same way nor can you say there is a disconnect between the MPs and the populace....

It's been clear to me for a long time that MPs don't like us, nor do they trust us. They surrendered this country's sovereignty to Brussels for decades, the people won it back last year, but what thanks did we get?

No they didn't, even the pro-Wrexit governments White paper on the issue said it wasn't true.

You want thanks? For costing the younger population, such as my niece and nephew of the additional possibilities that we would have by being in the EU, for some ideological nonsense. Sorry you aren't getting any thanks, ever...


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 Mr. Burning wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Except for the fact that people still remember the university fees pledge, among others, broken by the Lib-Dems.

It isn't just about making the promises, it is also about people believing you'll keep them.

To be fair we also had Corbyn and his 'something something uni fees something' in order to try and sway the electorate.

Difference is Corbyn hasn't had to put it into practice yet. LDs had to the opportunity to, given it was one of their major promises but surrendered too much for a position of power. There's a big difference.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Except for the fact that people still remember the university fees pledge, among others, broken by the Lib-Dems.

It isn't just about making the promises, it is also about people believing you'll keep them.

Because people are still incapable of understanding the difference between being the governing party and being the junior party in a coalition government. Many people are still angry at the Lib Dem’s just for joining with the Tory’s, and is nothing more than party tribalism.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


It is a valid argument, and history backs me up on this. The UK general election of 1918 became a single issue election when Ireland overwhelmingly voted for Sinn Féin MPs.

Labour won a stonking landslide in 1945 on the creation of a welfare state.

We have a 2 party state. Labour or Tories. A vote for lib dem (who are still tainted from the tory coalition ) would have been wasted in most seats. There was no viable anti-brexit option except the snow in Scotland who still did well.

Most votes seem to haven been for anyone but tory or anyone but labour for whatever reasons.

And this may stun you; despite brexit being the defining issue of modern politics, people can vote in general elections for whatever reason you want.


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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


It's been clear to me for a long time that MPs don't like us, nor do they trust us. They surrendered this country's sovereignty to Brussels for decades, the people won it back last year, but what thanks did we get?

Zero...

It's been clear to most of us for a long time that most MPs don't understand or like the electorate.

What thanks do you want? What have you done to benefit us?

All you've done is set us back economically and given extra power to people you don't trust to make decisions. Why should we thank you for screwing us over?

On sovereignty; we traded some for closer integration and gave some more of it away last year. You've got a cheek to claim we have more sovereignty since you seem to be dead against parliament getting any sovereignty that may impact you getting your own way. You should be thanking the remainers for ensuring you're getting the sovereignty you think you asked for instead of the dictatorship you voted for.

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I think it is incredible that you refuse responsibility for any bad side effects but want thanks for what you claim are the good bits?


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 Future War Cultist wrote:
Brexit hasn’t happened yet.

The fallout has though and it's hit all the obvious criteria for being a failure. How much of a failure will become apparent if/when we start closing on trading deals that aren't eu clones.

Ketara wrote:It's simple. The opinion and will of the 'British people' isn't some kind of homogenous singular hive mind. There are thoughts and opinions of every different shade. To make a generalised statement about the 'opinion and will of the British people', it has to be generally applicable; that is to say, an opinion held by the considerable majority of the British people. Which it very clearly isn't, given that just over a third of the population voted for it. You can say, 'Aha, but the non-voters don't count', but even then, the result only shows that barely over half hold that 'will and opinion'.

I'll tell you what, why don't we have a giant vote that the whole voting age population of the country is allowed to participate in? That way people that want to leave can express that desire, people that want to remain can express that desire, and people that don't care enough either way because it's not important enougn to them can just not vote and as such abrogate the decision to whoever wins? As such we can determine what me might call "the will of the people" on this single issue. Do they want in, out, or do they not care enough to cast a vote?

Oh wait... no. No, we did that already, and Leave won. I can absolutely say that non-voters don't count, because they were given a chance to express a desire either way and they opted not to do that. They deferred the matter to the decision of others. That is their "vote" if you want to put it that way.

With a margin so narrow

The margin exceeded a million votes. That's more people than live in the entirety of Nottinghamshire or the City of Birmingham. More people voted Leave over Remain than the total number of people who voted for the SNP in the 2017 general election. This was not a narrow margin.

Herzlos wrote:It was a stretch to claim a 51.9% majority on a vague question provided the will of the people on referendum day, beyond that it needs sorted out.

There was nothing vague about the question. Do you want to remain in the EU or leave the EU?

but on such a statically irrelevant majority there's every chance the will is now to stay.

A million people + is not statistically irrelevant by any stretch of the imagination. Inconvenient for the remain side? Absolutely. But not statistically irrelevant.

I get the impression those shouting about the will of the people are those that want to leave with the least scrutiny, who'd be demanding another referendum if they lost, just like they are outraged with parliamentary sovereignty when it disagrees with them. Citing "will of the people" just stinks of having no better reason to leave. But it's been done to death on here.

Or, and here's a bonkers idea that I'd just like to throw out there, maybe we were promised a vote on the issue, had the vote, and the majority of the people that voted opted to Leave. Thus, as promised, we'd like to see that happen, as it was what the majority voted for. Parliament doesn't have much credibility these days, not that it really had any before, but if it were to attempt to over turn the result of the referendum then it might as well be closed because its last shred of any kind of dignity or semblance of democratic mandate would have just evaporated.

Steve steveson wrote:“Will of the people” just seems to have become the default position of many (but not all) Brexit supporters when they have run out of arguments, which seems pretty quick nowadays. Just shout “it was the will of he people” in their face and accuse anyone who disagrees of being a traitor.

I've been arguing back and forth with remain supporters for a couple of days now. I go to work, I come home, eventually make it on to here and try to answer as many points as possible to as many different people as possible. I try and put forth evidence and context, while not doing all the donkey work for others (you have to put in some for yourselves). And yet all I can see is people calling leave voters trolls for bringing up legitimate issues, or just hand waving everything they say and moving on, or shifting the goalposts endlessly. And you think Brexit supporters have run out of arguments? Indeed you've not addressed any arguments with your point, you've just hand waved away all the work of leave minded commentators to present our side of the story and - with no sense of irony - claimed we've run out of arguments. Is it any wonder you have a difficult time finding people to debate against from the Leave side? Honestly the effort is really not seeming worth it.

Herzlos wrote:Winning an advisory referendum doesn't automatically equate to the "will of the people" and it's dishonest to claim so.

Everybody quite clearly understood before the referendum that whichever side won was going to get their way. EVERYBODY knew that if Leave won, that was going to be implemented. What's dishonest is to now turn around and go "ah well, it was all just a game and a joke, and we didn't really mean it, and the side that won didn't really win it because we've arbitrarily decided now that they didn't win it by enough votes, even though you totally know if remain had won they would have tried to kill the debate for another three decades minimum".

Herzlos wrote:No disagreement there, but with something so inconclusive

See above for comments about million +, Birmingham/Nottinghamshire/SNP comparison.

In pure numbers, any form of Brexit will upset more of the voters than no Brexit.

Why? Brexit won the vote. We can surmise that those that didn't vote by definition didn't care about the result, otherwise they would have just gone to a nearby polling station and taken a few minutes to put an X in a box. You can even vote by post today, so anyone that was that bothered but is perhaps a little busy on a day to day basis could have just ordered one of those.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Yet the referendum was solely advisory.

See above for comments about EVERYBODY knowing full well that a leave victory would result in us leaving the EU.

Whirlwind wrote:If you read any of my previous comments (which I doubt) you will see that myself and a lot of others have pointed out that relative growth is far more important than whether we are in a defined recession or not. If the global economy is growing then it is highly unlikely that we will go into recession simply because we'll get dragged along with it. Whilst we have a growing world and local population it is less likely to have a recession because there are more people that need goods. Conversely after 2050 when population is expected to start decreasing then recession becomes more likely. However recession and and growth are too arbitrary to really identify how well an economy is doing. Relative growth is much more important.

Take for example there were only two countries each that on day one of this hypothetical scenario had a £100 (basically a 50:50 split in global economic strength). Country 1 (e.g. the UK) has a growth on average of 1% over 25 years. Country 2 (e.g the EU has a growth of 2% over 25 years). After those 25 years Country 1 has a economic value of £128 and country 2 £164. Now lets suppose on day one that £100 bought 1000 bushels of wheat. If we assume inflation of 1.25% that means in year 25, £136 buys the same number of bushels of wheat. So for country 1 no can only buy 941 bushels of wheat whereas country 2 can buy 1205 bushels of wheat. Country 1's economy has contracted, country 2's economy has expanded. Country 2's economy is now 28% bigger than Country 1's economy. Country 1's economy has contracted, but it has *never* gone into recession yet it can afford less and is weaker.

This is why recession/growth are simply too basic to make a judgement but you can still have a relatively contracting economy even without a recession. This is exactly what we are seeing at the moment. Other developed nations are all growing faster than us apart from 1/2, the EU is double our growth rate; we can afford less because of inflation. Our economy is shrinking *relatively*.

Forgive my language, but this is complete and utter horse

For a start, inflation does not just rumble along statically at a single rate for decades as you make out. Generally as a country grows very rich its currency (barring market fluctuations like Brexit or active tampering, sorry "monetary policy", like China) appreciates in value as it accumulates wealth. Hence why our currency has been so high over such a prolonged period (our currency is typically over valued due to market actviity and its reputation for being quite safe, especially the constant flight of people away from other instruments to UK government bonds as a safe haven, as was demonstrated in the early 90s by George Soros et al). I get that your hypothetical is supposed to be just a hypothetical and not some kind of complex economic model, but the problem with your hypothetical is that it was like trying to explain a mission to Mars by slapping two pieces of toast together repeatedly... and without understanding which direction Mars is in.

I give you fair warning now that if you want to delve into the minuate of economics then by all means, but you'll be entering a dragons den of sorts. Right now this is me being kind about your apparent level of understanding of economics. Suffice to say that it doesn't work the way you seem to think it does, or more likely, want it to. You don't get to turn around and just say "ah well, I know the economy is growing still, but really we're in recession". That's not how it works.

Governments like to use recession/growth because it makes them look good because recession is much less likely than growth. But it is an arbitrary rather pointless method of analysing overall growth.

No, they use it because it's a quantifiable way of measuring whether domestic economic output is expanding or contracting. It's not perfect, it's a very broad measure, but it has a decent amount of utility. You also understand that whether governments like it or not is irrelevant, because the press/markets etc could use a completely different measure if they wanted and there's nothing the government could do about it. Yet they don't, they use GDP as well, because it has broad utility as an economic indicator.

The only real solution, as I've said before is to have a referendum on the issue every five years so each successive government knows whether we should be in or not and work on that basis. That way you really do get the 'will of the people' and it will continue until one side or another has such a large majority that it is pointless to continue. Only those that want 'their own way' prefer to use one referendum as the basis of a long term decision and never providing that choice to the public again because that becomes the "will of me" which is the route to a dictatorship (and eventually fascism if they try and implement something regardless of cost).

You mean like how the EU keeps sending people back to the polls repeatedly until it gets the result it wants, at which point it mysteriously stops asking them, or if it doesn't look like it's going to get the answer it wants, it just bypasses the electorate anyway? A referendum every five years would cause chaos and be completely unworkable, not least because the EU would never agree to it and you know that full well, which allows you to throw it out there as if it were a serious suggestion. Or a strawman as it might otherwise be referred to. I also love that we've already started to wander off towards you callling leave voters fascists now because they insist on the terrible and authoritarian measure of having the result of a democratic vote be implemented, instead of the vote being repeated endlessly until you get the answer you're looking for.

Tell you what, let's do a bargain. We'll have a second referendum... in 2057, 41 years from now. Or in other words, the amount of time that elapsed between the referendum that took Britain into the then European Community and the one held last year to get us out. Fair?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:It’s also a danger to democracy when one side sells a pack of lies they had neither the means nor intention of delivering, then do their best to head to the hills as soon as the result was known....

You may not have realised it, but you basically just described Cameron and Osbourne.

It’s a danger to democracy when the gutter media that supported those lies try to brand anyone not doing exactly as they demand ‘traitors’ and ‘saboteurs’.

Odd that I would have to defend a horrendous toilet paper rag like the Mail, but in fairness they're branding them traitors and saboteurs because they're trying to overturn a vote, the result of which everyone agreed would be respected

It’s a danger to democracy when the Government is beholden to a small group of fringe lunatics, and are trying to pull us out of the Single Market when both sides said that wouldn’t happen.

There was no question we would leave the single market, as this was necessary to revoke the four freedoms. What Farage and some others were suggesting was that we might seek something like the same deal that Norway has.

]It’s a danger to democracy when the main issue people have, that of immigration, was always in our power to control, and due to skills shortages also a national necessity. But has become a kick ball for the hard right to weave an ‘us and them’ narrative that simply isn’t based in truth.

Except that being a member of the EU specifically prohibts a nation from preventing the free movement of EU citizens to seek work.

It’s a danger to democracy when ‘the will of the people’ is touted as if it’s some kind of magic phrase to silence any and all dissent, regardless of where it’s coming from.

It's not a magic phrase. It is a figure of speech which encapsulates the idea that a question was put to the entire nation to vote on, and one side won said vote.

It’s a danger to democracy to pretend that the electorate never, ever changes its mind and so shouldn’t be consulted ever again, and especially not from a more informed stand point.

See above. Or rather, see you in 2057.

Kilkrazy wrote:Brexit isn't the will of the people. That's just the slightly fascist sounding phrase that the Daily [Hate] Mail and other hardcode Hard Brexiteers use when they feel there is a danger to their icy skeletal grip control slipping a bit.

There was a very large national vote on the issue, a democratic vote that was rigourously debated before hand for a prolonged period, on top of years of arguing about the issue before that. The vote returned a result. You're now trying to ignore the result by any means possible. Yet it's the Leave side that are "facist sounding" by your measure?

*Edited to solve quote mishap*

I don’t think you understand basic statistics.

Herzlos wrote:
The fallout has though and it's hit all the obvious criteria for being a failure. How much of a failure will become apparent if/when we start closing on trading deals that aren't eu clones.

A growing economy, export order books rising to record levels, manufacturer confidence at a 30 year high (how long have people been bleating endlessly about a need to rebalance the economy away from services towards manufacturing?) and inflation closer to the annual target rate set for the Bank of England back in the 2000s (and which remains the target rate for monetary policy even today) than it has been since the financial crisis? Employment at record levels. Joblessness at record low levels. Yeah, hitting all those obvious criteria for being a failure....


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 Steve steveson wrote:
I don’t think you understand basic statistics.

I understand perfectly well. It doesn't suit you to talk about a million plus more people voting one way than another being significant, despite this being the equivalent to the entire population of our second largest city. Your argument works much better in passing when you say "ah well, there was only a few percent in it, see. A minor edge".

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Been dealing with such things for years, not interested in hearing people trying to fudge the argument by manipulating the presentation of numbers. I've already sat through a fellow leaver being dismissed simply as a troll because he said something people didn't like, you're not pulling the whole "not statistically significant" routine here. Next argument please.

I'll say this to Herzlos, whirlwind, and any other Remain supporter on dakka.

What is one of the golden rules of British politics we all learn at a young age?

Parliament CANNOT bind future Parliaments with any law that is passes. It's why we had a referendum in the 1970s. It's why we had one in 2016.

So when people say that a General Election is not a referendum, then I say, with all due respect, that it is horsegak! Concentrated horsegak!

Any individual, any party, can run on 1 issue, or a million issues, if they so choose.

As we are so often reminded, Britain is a Parliamentry democracy. We have no written constitution. Referendums, in effect, go against our constitutional principles.

Remain MPs could have killed Brexit stone dead, and suffered the consequnces at the next election, if they had chosen this path. They did not.

Just because political parties have clouded the waters with the whip system, and reduced politics to the day to day management of bread and butter issues, does not mean that a grand, single issue can't define any General Election.

Enoch Powell, of all people, said in the 1970s after his side lost the EEC referendum, that Britain's EEC membership would undergo a referendum every 5 years. Tony Benn said the same.

That is the essence of Parliamentry Sovereignty.

So again and again I repeat: Parliament freely voted for a referendum. Parliament freely voted for Article 50. Parliament freely voted for 35/36 Brexit amendments.

And in all likelyhood, Parliament will freely vote for the agreement struck between the EU and UK this year. Will I like it? Who knows.

So where is this dictatorship we hear so much about?

bouncingboredom wrote:

I'll tell you what, why don't we have a giant vote that the whole voting age population of the country is allowed to participate in? That way people that want to leave can express that desire, people that want to remain can express that desire, and people that don't care enough either way because it's not important enougn to them can just not vote and as such abrogate the decision to whoever wins? As such we can determine what me might call "the will of the people" on this single issue. Do they want in, out, or do they not care enough to cast a vote?

Guv, you used a terribly generalised turn of phrase to describe the thoughts of a country of almost seventy million people. Just accept it and move on. Devising ever more twisted and torturous logic* to try and justify it is simply draining whatever credibility you manage to accumulate.

* And it is, this sort of logic would mean that a referendum won by one person in one vote twenty years ago would still be the 'Will of the British People' (whatever the hell that means). Timescales and percentages beyond 'who won a vote' do mean something in assessing the views and thoughts of a large body of people, however much you seem determined to argue otherwise.

The margin exceeded a million votes.

And your point is? Whether something is large or small is entirely relative to what is being measured. Your post has a much greater majority of words than one involving nothing but a meme post, and a much smaller number than the complete works of Shakespeare.

In this specific case, the number involved (the number by which Brexit was voted for) is approximately just under 2% of the voters. And is therefore 'a narrow margin'. And therefore, cannot in any reasonable way be considered to represent the views of a substantial majority of the British people, and therefore, their 'will and opinion'.


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bouncingboredom wrote:

There was nothing vague about the question. Do you want to remain in the EU or leave the EU?

It is is fair, I think, to say that there are several modes of 'staying' within or 'leaving' the EU, and that the vote as worded really did not give any form of specification or detail. For example, depending upon who you ask, the Nordic model could be regarded as either 'leaving' the EU (we wouldn't be part of the main part of it) or 'staying' (we'd still be involved to a heavy degree). Likewise for the Common market, or the Swiss model, etc. What counts as leaving or staying beyond the two extremes (Hard Brexit and maintaining the status quo) is really rather questionable and varies entirely depending upon the person you ask.

By the same measure however, how one could account for this within a single vote is questionable. You'd really have to have done one or two subsequent votes which broke it down further to be able to say with certainty that you were doing what was wanted. This is still possible, and some people are promoting it as a way of trying to 'remain' within the EU (although paradoxically, the same people would in actuality likely still view it as 'Leaving').

There is some strength to the assertion that the precise type of relationship with the EU is being dictated/railroaded by the British Government with no further input sought, even from Parliament. At the same time however, there is also a strong case to be made that that is their job to decide the fine detail once the broad outline has been defined by the referendum, and that we don't seek these sorts of general population control over other foreign policy matters of the day.

You don't get to turn around and just say "ah well, I know the economy is growing still, but really we're in recession". That's not how it works.

I would broadly agree with the above statement, but with several caveats.

You mean like how the EU keeps sending people back to the polls repeatedly until it gets the result it wants, at which point it mysteriously stops asking them, or if it doesn't look like it's going to get the answer it wants, it just bypasses the electorate anyway?

This is somewhat unfair and unjust to the EU. It's not so much that they 'bypass' the people or keep asking the same question, as it is that they tend to retailor their proposals when rejected until their proposals become palatable enough to pass a vote.

It is noticeable however, that there is never a vote raised within the EU as to whether or not to to close a department previously opened, substantially reduce a budget, or surrender powers acquired. Once the EU gets their mitts on something, it stays theirs. They've yet to reach the stage of administrative maturity that they are willing to say 'This is done better by a body not under the control of or responsible to us'.

bouncingboredom wrote:

Ketara wrote:It's simple. The opinion and will of the 'British people' isn't some kind of homogenous singular hive mind. There are thoughts and opinions of every different shade. To make a generalised statement about the 'opinion and will of the British people', it has to be generally applicable; that is to say, an opinion held by the considerable majority of the British people. Which it very clearly isn't, given that just over a third of the population voted for it. You can say, 'Aha, but the non-voters don't count', but even then, the result only shows that barely over half hold that 'will and opinion'.

I'll tell you what, why don't we have a giant vote that the whole voting age population of the country is allowed to participate in? That way people that want to leave can express that desire, people that want to remain can express that desire, and people that don't care enough either way because it's not important enougn to them can just not vote and as such abrogate the decision to whoever wins? As such we can determine what me might call "the will of the people" on this single issue. Do they want in, out, or do they not care enough to cast a vote?

Oh wait... no. No, we did that already, and Leave won. I can absolutely say that non-voters don't count, because they were given a chance to express a desire either way and they opted not to do that. They deferred the matter to the decision of others. That is their "vote" if you want to put it that way.

I asked once, and you didn't respond, so I ask again: define what constitutes "leaving the EU" in an unambiguous manner and without any mutually exclusive interpretations being possible and we'll talk.

bouncingboredom wrote:

Whirlwind wrote:

This is why recession/growth are simply too basic to make a judgement but you can still have a relatively contracting economy even without a recession. This is exactly what we are seeing at the moment. Other developed nations are all growing faster than us apart from 1/2, the EU is double our growth rate; we can afford less because of inflation. Our economy is shrinking *relatively*.

Forgive my language, but this is complete and utter horse

Ah...the argument of the I haven't got any better argument. You've rather missed the point. Inflation generally was in the example to show that despite growth in the figures you can still be worse off. That's what's happening right now. It not a recession per se but it is still a negative growth relatively. Absolute figures are poor because they don't give a good comparison to actuality. You can be in a recession and still be getting more if the deflation is greater than the negative growth. No it doesn't stay static over time but if a country's growth is consistently lower than another country's growth then you are consistently getting weaker relatively. It's not really that hard of a concept? If your recession is better than others then you are growing relatively to the rest of the world. It gets worse over time as the growth compounds.

Right now this is me being kind about your apparent level of understanding of economics.

Given the soundness of the rest of your arguments I can't say I'm too worried

No, they use it because it's a quantifiable way of measuring whether domestic economic output is expanding or contracting. It's not perfect, it's a very broad measure, but it has a decent amount of utility.

.

I think they use just a few more indicators than this somehow. Otherwise the Office of national statistics would be a very quiet place.

You mean like how the EU keeps sending people back to the polls repeatedly until it gets the result it wants, at which point it mysteriously stops asking them, or if it doesn't look like it's going to get the answer it wants, it just bypasses the electorate anyway?

The EU has never ran a referendum...it has never forced a referendum on people, never asked them to repeat a vote. Individual countries may have done but that's not the EU. I'm not even sure the EU can force a referendum on any country?

A referendum every five years would cause chaos and be completely unworkable, not least because the EU would never agree to it and you know that full well, which allows you to throw it out there as if it were a serious suggestion. Or a strawman as it might otherwise be referred to.

Anything is possible if you put you mind to it. You could set up a framework now as to what out and in the EU would mean. Have that agreed and then you would vote on that each time. You don't know the EU wouldn't agree to it.

Tell you what, let's do a bargain. We'll have a second referendum... in 2057, 41 years from now. Or in other words, the amount of time that elapsed between the referendum that took Britain into the then European Community and the one held last year to get us out. Fair?

No because that means two generations are skipped without ever having a say. I could push it to 10 years but beyond that you are affecting people's lives and they don't get a say on that influence. 16 year olds today would have to spend their whole working life without the option of changing it. Because we did something in the past a certain way is not a sound reason to do it in the same way in the future.

Odd that I would have to defend a horrendous toilet paper rag like the Mail, but in fairness they're branding them traitors and saboteurs because they're trying to overturn a vote, the result of which everyone agreed would be respected

Now you see you are now advocating fascism. Promoting violence against people that are elected representatives and have different views is not the basis for democracy or freedom of speech. Just rolling over and accepting everything one person wants is the basis of a dictatorship, once you start using language that implies violence or physical restraint that is fascism .

Ketara wrote:Guv, you used a terribly generalised turn of phrase to describe the thoughts of a country of almost seventy million people. Just accept it and move on. Devising ever more twisted and torturous logic* to try and justify it is simply draining whatever credibility you manage to accumulate.

A number of government documents have stated "The referendum enabled the will of the UK people to be expressed" or words of a similar vein but including the phrase "will of the people". I really cannot understand why it has become such a touchy phrase here on dakka, given that it seems the rest of the country is quite aware of the concept that a national referendum was held, in which all citizens of a legal age were permitted to vote (the people), in order to establish their opinion on whether the UK should remain in the EU or leave the EU (the will of). Outisde of dakka and certain remain leaning sites/twiiters, there is absolutely no dispute as to what this phrase means. It is not an archaic term, nor is it a new fangeld piece of management speak. It is a fairly plain, frankly fairly dull phrase that has had a common meaning for a very long time and is generally well understood, especially in this context.

If people are angry because the Daily Mail once used the phrase then fair enough, be angry at the Daily Mail or whomever. But people simply cannot pretend that the result of the referendum was anything other than the declared "will of the people".

And your point is? .... In this specific case, the number involved (the number by which Brexit was voted for) is approximately just under 2% of the voters.

My point is that people are dismissing the result by trying to pretend that it was a photo finish of some kind, that Leave won the race simply because the hairs on its chin were a little bit longer than those of remain. That's not the case. (and FYI, the winning margin represented 3.7% of the total votes cast, including spoiled papers).

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I asked once, and you didn't respond, so I ask again: define what constitutes "leaving the EU" in an unambiguous manner and without any mutually exclusive interpretations being possible and we'll talk.

Sorry, didn't see it. "Leaving the EU" was (and is) defined as the activation of article 50, which after a period of two years will remove Britain from the European Union in its entirety. The two year period permits the parties to negotiate a potential trade deal which would replace their current trading terms.

Do we have to point out how "the EU forced countries to redo referenda!" is a blatant lie a third time? Not a mistake at this point, a flat-out lie.

 Whirlwind wrote:
Ah...the argument of the I haven't got any better argument.

No, it was a slightly less polite and restrained way of saying that virtually everything in your post related to economics was completely and utterly wrong. To put it in other terms, based on that, you probably don't know a thing about economics. Not in the slightest.

Inflation generally was in the example to show that despite growth in the figures you can still be worse off.

But you made no account of how inflation works as a driving force for spending, which is precisely why the government has set the Bank of England a target of 2% inflation per annum, which is generally understood to be the minimum required to keep people spending and to keep the economy healthily ticking along.

That's what's happening right now. It not a recession per se but it is still a negative growth relatively.

It's not a recession at all, never mind per se. And no, it isn't negative growth. I get that you don't like the idea of Brexit, I don't know if you dislike the current government or not, but you don't get to just turn around and start redefining how the economy works to suit your argument. It works the way it works and that's that.

You can be in a recession and still be getting more if the deflation is greater than the negative growth.

Here's part of the proof that you don't understand economics in the slightest, because you're unable to see how deflation would be causing the negative growth and even more bizzarely you seem to think that a combination of recession coupled with deflation would be a good thing. I'll give you a hint; it's not. It's a very, very bad thing.

No it doesn't stay static over time but if a country's growth is consistently lower than another country's growth then you are consistently getting weaker relatively.

Except you haven't accounted for purchasing power parity, if you even know what that means, and you haven't considered the issues of growth vs absolute size (which helps explain why small countries accelerate rapidly while larger economies tick over more slowly), investment levels, debt ratios, asset holding etc.

If your recession is better than others then you are growing relatively to the rest of the world. It gets worse over time as the growth compounds.

I'm guessing you meant recession isn't as bad as others, in which case you're not growing at all. You're shrinking less rapidly than some (at least in theory) who are in recession as well, but you're not growing by any stretch of the imagination. You're still shrinking.

Given the soundness of the rest of your arguments I can't say I'm too worried

Juding by the soundness of yours, you should be

bouncingboredom wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I asked once, and you didn't respond, so I ask again: define what constitutes "leaving the EU" in an unambiguous manner and without any mutually exclusive interpretations being possible and we'll talk.

Sorry, didn't see it. "Leaving the EU" was (and is) defined as the activation of article 50, which after a period of two years will remove Britain from the European Union in its entirety. The two year period permits the parties to negotiate a potential trade deal which would replace their current trading terms.

That's not what the referendum said though, is it? The question was worded as such, and I quote:

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

with the two options being

Remain a member of the European Union
Leave the European Union

You'll note that nowhere is Article 50 mentioned, making that your interpretation of the question being asked. The interpretation is a reasonable one, but it also not the only reasonable interpretation. Thus, you know that there is a mandate to begin investigating how to remove Britain from the EU, but no sort of mandate for anything specific whatsoever.

To use a silly example, let's assume we have four people: Bob, Billy, Janet, and Sarah. Every year the four go on a vacation to the wonderful town of Slough. One year, though, Billy and Sarah suggest that the quartet go on vacation to somewhere more fun, like anywhere else on the planet. Janet would rather keep vacationing in Slough, but Bob agrees to consider someplace else.

This is not a carte-blanche for Billy and Sarah to charter a flight to Abu Dhabi based on the fact that Bob was open for going somewhere other than Slough. Similarly, the umbrella of "Brexit" covers everyone from "leave the EU but stay in the common market and other similar organizations" to "OUT OF THE EU! RULE BRITANNIA!". Britain voting to leave the EU in an advisory referendum without any sort of definition of what exactly leaving entails simply means the government should try to put such a plan to the electorate for further consideration, not that they should have free reign to make up whatever they feel like.

Ideally I'd like to see the British government negotiate the terms of withdrawal from the EU and then put that to a binding referendum once the specifics are known, or alternatively just call a binding referendum on whether the UK should leave and revert to WTO rules or not. Neither side can make an informed choice when the specifics aren't known. There's a mandate for the UK withdrawing from the EU, so the British government should pursue that goal, but once the specifics are known the British public, not Parliament, should get a final say in a binding referendum.

bouncingboredom wrote:

A number of government documents have stated "The referendum enabled the will of the UK people to be expressed" or words of a similar vein but including the phrase "will of the people".

Just because it's in a government document doesn't make it a valid point. This us the same government using terms like "brexit is brexit" and "red white and blue brexit". It's an attempt at avoiding any kind of valid argument.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I asked once, and you didn't respond, so I ask again: define what constitutes "leaving the EU" in an unambiguous manner and without any mutually exclusive interpretations being possible and we'll talk.

Sorry, didn't see it. "Leaving the EU" was (and is) defined as the activation of article 50, which after a period of two years will remove Britain from the European Union in its entirety. The two year period permits the parties to negotiate a potential trade deal which would replace their current trading terms.

But what does that mean? WTO? Canada?
What about the customs union and single market? The 4 freedoms?

The balot could have easily contained additional questions but I don't think anyone had done any basic research since noone thought the population would be stupid enough to vote leave.

Just time before heading off to work for;.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:That's not what the referendum said though, is it?

Yes it was. It said "Leave". Triggering article 50 is how you leave. This was made clear to everyone before the referendum. The sheer level of rules lawyering at this point would rival even the most childish of gaming groups.

Herzlos wrote:Just because it's in a government document doesn't make it a valid point. This us the same government using terms like "brexit is brexit" and "red white and blue brexit". It's an attempt at avoiding any kind of valid argument.

Honestly, the rest of the country doesn't seem to be struggling with this term. Everyone else seems to have the savvy to put the term into its correct context. It appears Dakka is one of the few places where such a simple, plaing meaning term would consume several pages worth of back and forth and as such I intend to cease discussing the phrase or its meaning (but not necessarily using it).

And unless there is some sort of meaningful argument to be had about a topic, cease with this thread probably. At this point we're down to people trying to argue alternate meanings for things that everyone else in the country seems to understand pretty clearly. It's gone beyond ridiculous now.

Details like wording and rules are kinda important when dealing with the future of 60 million people, though.

bouncingboredom wrote:

No, it was a slightly less polite and restrained way of saying that virtually everything in your post related to economics was completely and utterly wrong. To put it in other terms, based on that, you probably don't know a thing about economics. Not in the slightest.

That's still not a rational argument. You are just saying I don't understand when the reality is you have no idea whether this is the case or not. It's just point scoring (or badly trying to) whilst not actually contributing anything to the debate because you've ran out of arguments.

But you made no account of how inflation works as a driving force for spending, which is precisely why the government has set the Bank of England a target of 2% inflation per annum, which is generally understood to be the minimum required to keep people spending and to keep the economy healthily ticking along.

It's not a recession at all, never mind per se. And no, it isn't negative growth. I get that you don't like the idea of Brexit, I don't know if you dislike the current government or not, but you don't get to just turn around and start redefining how the economy works to suit your argument. It works the way it works and that's that.

Here's part of the proof that you don't understand economics in the slightest, because you're unable to see how deflation would be causing the negative growth and even more bizzarely you seem to think that a combination of recession coupled with deflation would be a good thing. I'll give you a hint; it's not. It's a very, very bad thing.

Except you haven't accounted for purchasing power parity, if you even know what that means, and you haven't considered the issues of growth vs absolute size (which helps explain why small countries accelerate rapidly while larger economies tick over more slowly), investment levels, debt ratios, asset holding etc.

I'm guessing you meant recession isn't as bad as others, in which case you're not growing at all. You're shrinking less rapidly than some (at least in theory) who are in recession as well, but you're not growing by any stretch of the imagination. You're still shrinking.

The problem is you still aren't grasping the concept very well. You are looking at everything in absolute terms. If the figure is positive that means growth, if the figure is negative that means contraction. This is correct from an absolute perspective by country. However it fails to recognise that we live in a global market and their is only a fixed amount of 'pie' at any one time. The share of that market is in principle more important than any absolute local growth figure as it implies the overall purchasing power relative to the overall pie. Yes some circumstances aren't to be preferred at a local level (deflation and recession) however if the rest of the world (especially developed nations) is doing worse than you then as a country relatively you are getting a larger share of that pie. We can have growth but if other countries/groups (like the EU) are growing at double the rate (as is the case) then we our global position is weakening because the share of that limited pie is substantially decreasing. This growth compounds over time so that double can become a much larger figure over time than the difference would suggest. This can doubly impact if you have a higher inflation relatively to that growth, because as a country we can afford less whilst others can afford more at a simplistic level. This is the situation that we find ourselves at the moment. Yes it doesn't consider the detail of economic models and that some countries have more potential to grow faster, but then that's not really what is being compared to but rather the UK in or out of the EU. So to come full circle your initial challenge was that all Remainers were claiming a immediate recession, which is demonstrably incorrect (you are just pushing that view to try and make a point) whereas many have pointed out that what is more important is our growth relatively and that over time will make the UK smaller, more isolated and less influential which means we will more at the mercy of the world, rather than trying to drive it in a certain direction (effectively the little England view).

You seriously think the EU would allow the UK to having rolling votes on membership every 5 years? That in 2021 say the UK could vote in and they'd be allowed in, then in 2026 they vote out and leave again and so on and so forth? Do you seriously think the people of the UK would want this?

That's for the UK populace to decide, not you or me. That's why it's called a democratic process.

bouncingboredom wrote:

A number of government documents have stated "The referendum enabled the will of the UK people to be expressed" or words of a similar vein but including the phrase "will of the people". I really cannot understand why it has become such a touchy phrase here on dakka,

Whether you personally agree with the colloquial and logical meaning of the phrase you're choosing to use is entirely up to you, as is whether you choose to mean something else by it or whatever media you've chosen to consume makes of it. That's really not the point under discussion here.

If you use a phrase that indicates the substantial holding of an opinion by the population of a country, and both statistics or the literal breaking down of the sentence into component form demonstrably make that statement untrue (which they do), people are going say 'Hang on a minute, that's not true'. Rules lawyering has nothing to do with it. If you want to persuade people, you need to use language in a precise and accurate fashion. Otherwise they'll just dismiss you, both people who might agree and/or disagree with you.

My point is that people are dismissing the result by trying to pretend that it was a photo finish of some kind, that Leave won the race simply because the hairs on its chin were a little bit longer than those of remain. That's not the case. (and FYI, the winning margin represented 3.7% of the total votes cast, including spoiled papers).

Guv, if I did a vote of a trillion people, and the result was decided by a billion votes, it was a photo finish. If it was decided by a dozen billion, it was a narrow margin. The numbers who voted are irrelevant. A win by a few percent of the total number of votes cast is a narrow margin of victory. It's basic comparison by relativity.

Your problem here is outlined in your post. You see the pointing of this out as 'people trying to dismiss the result', and so reject the idea of a narrow victory for Leave. It's a political narrative where you're trying to deny statistically accurate statements because you believe that they give weight to your political opposition. Whilst you're not alone in doing it (most people with a firm interest in politics will do it from time to time), it just leads to partisan politics and the American style of politics where two sides can't agree that the sky is blue.

Sorry, didn't see it. "Leaving the EU" was (and is) defined as the activation of article 50, which after a period of two years will remove Britain from the European Union in its entirety. The two year period permits the parties to negotiate a potential trade deal which would replace their current trading terms.

So would doing a Nordic style deal involve leaving or staying with the EU? I mean, it would involve Article 50 and meet your criteria, but we'd still be involved to a heavy degree.

bouncingboredom wrote:
Honestly, the rest of the country doesn't seem to be struggling with [what 'leave' means]. Everyone else seems to have the savvy to put the term into its correct context. It appears Dakka is one of the few places where such a simple, plaing meaning term would consume several pages worth of back and forth and as such I intend to cease discussing the phrase or its meaning (but not necessarily using it).

This a joke? Arguing over what leave means, and what it should mean, has consumed our entire media almost wall-to-wall for a year, never mind the coverage prior to ahs during the campaigning.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

.

So could somebody please please please, pretty please,

tell me where this Fascist hijacking of our government and our MPs came from?

What possible reason have you given people over the course of this thread to bother doing that for the umpteenth time?

bouncingboredom wrote:

Sorry, didn't see it. "Leaving the EU" was (and is) defined as the activation of article 50, which after a period of two years will remove Britain from the European Union in its entirety. The two year period permits the parties to negotiate a potential trade deal which would replace their current trading terms.

But it's silly to claim that such an binary vote represents really "will of the people"(especially as it's what 37% of Brits actually showing that will). How many leave voters actually wanted hard brexit and how many voted when lied britain would still remain in single market and keep banking bonuseses? How many of those would have voted leave if they hadn't been lied and would have known UK will be out of single market and lose the banking benefits thus resulting in lots of bankig industry leaving UK? (it has already started and will increase once it's done deal)

For true "will of the people" people should have actually been asked EXACTLY what they want. There was tons of different scenarios but only 2 were chosen. And thanks to that UK people narrowly voted themselves to wreck UK. Good job! Well on the flip side that's good for EU.

People keep banging on about the lies of the leave campaign, but the remain campaign had a fair bit of scaremongering and nonsense itself, and some dubious tactics such as the government spending more than the allowed campaign budgets on a leaflet sent to every house in the UK, which was allowed because it was apparently the ‘government’s postion’ By obviously was pro-remain.

I would agree that the leave campaign overall was the poorer conducted, but his backing remain did not cover themselves in glory either. Generally the quality of debate was appalling in the mainstream media and televised debates, which is where the majority would have accessed it. Stock phrases on both sides, sweeping statements and hyperbole, little real debate or reason. It was dreadful, smacked of dishonesty and embarrassing to watch at times. Shortly after we had the general election and it was worse, we just had May saying ‘strong and stsble’ All the time like some kind of repetive brainwashing. The frequency with which I waned the throw stuff at the TV these last couple of years has been at its worst.

The issue is, even if the remain side were to actually try and debate in good faith it wouldn't have worked due to the populist nature of the Leave campaign.

When your opposition just throws out everything that it thinks sounds good, at a machine gun rate of fire, without worrying about whether or not it is factually accurate or possible to achieve, you cannot keep up with debunking everything. It is the exact same tactic which Trump uses. You throw out a hundred false statements in a press conference/debate/article, knowing that it will take a week or more to gather the evidence to disprove them. By the time that happens, you've moved on and made new incorrect statements which then need to be disproved. People forget about the previous lies when you tell them something new which they like the sound of, if they even hear about the evidence against your position due to only taking in media from certain papers/websites which won't post the debunking against their own arguments.

When the debunkers finally catch up with you, you instead switch to discredit them rather than try to defend your positions ("Tired of experts"/"Project fear"/"Fake news"). By that point you've solidified a core of rabid followers due to you promising each of them their own personal moon, sun and stars and they've bought in enough that to accept that they've been scammed would be a huge kick in their ego, so it is easier for them to just go along with it and actually believe that it is the other side which is making stuff up to ruin their wondrous brexit/president rather than pointing out serious issues.

I mean I could have done better remain arguments than the government, and I don't even like the EU.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
.

When the debunkers finally catch up with you, you instead switch to discredit them rather than try to defend your positions ("Tired of experts"/"Project fear"/"Fake news"). By that point you've solidified a core of rabid followers due to you promising each of them their own personal moon, sun and stars and they've bought in enough that to accept that they've been scammed would be a huge kick in their ego, so it is easier for them to just go along with it and actually believe that it is the other side which is making stuff up to ruin their wondrous brexit/president rather than pointing out serious issues.

'Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside'

The Brexit tiger is eating anyone who gets close, simply because it was built on a foundation of mutually exclusive promises.

 welshhoppo wrote:
I mean I could have done better remain arguments than the government, and I don't even like the EU.

The Leave campaign was criminally dishonest.

The Remain campaign was criminally incompetent and arrogant.

sad really.

From a bookcase, I randomly select the biography of John Adams.

And I flick through it, and I come across this chapter. Adams Vs. Thomas Jefferson for POTUS.

George Washington has stepped down after 2 terms because he's had enough of media attacks, lies, scandal, and smears.

And Adams Vs Jefferson is a campaign of lies, scandals, dishonesty, and smears, with Alexander Hamilton lurking in the background and co-ordinating attacks on Jefferson.

So here we have 4 founding fathers, 4 of the greatest men in American history embroilled in lies, scandals, smears and dishonesty - either dishing it out, or suffering the attacks as in Washington's case. You'd think the media would be grateful to the man that snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in the New York campaign? Not a chance.

That was over 200 years ago.

2000 years ago, and here's Cicero complaining about Julius Caesar's demagogue oration and political tricks when Caesar was First Consul...

Nobody on Dakka seriously thinks that Brexit was unique in human history for Bullgak?

As Nixon's advisor said when JFK defeated Nixon in 1960 - they cheated better than we did.

If British Dakka members want quality European debates, go on youtube and get stuff from the 1970s on the EEC referendum.


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jouso wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
.

When the debunkers finally catch up with you, you instead switch to discredit them rather than try to defend your positions ("Tired of experts"/"Project fear"/"Fake news"). By that point you've solidified a core of rabid followers due to you promising each of them their own personal moon, sun and stars and they've bought in enough that to accept that they've been scammed would be a huge kick in their ego, so it is easier for them to just go along with it and actually believe that it is the other side which is making stuff up to ruin their wondrous brexit/president rather than pointing out serious issues.

'Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside'

The Brexit tiger is eating anyone who gets close, simply because it was built on a foundation of mutually exclusive promises.

May is still PM - everybody predicted she'd by gone by Xmas.

Brexit negotiations are onto Phase II. Again, doom and disaster were predicted.

The UK was supposed to be in recession by now. We're not.

Things are not as bad as people predicted.

There is still a week until Christmas.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
I mean I could have done better remain arguments than the government, and I don't even like the EU.

The Leave campaign was criminally dishonest.

The Remain campaign was criminally incompetent and arrogant.

sad really.

Pretty much sums up the referendum as a whole and really why there should be at least another referendum where a lot of the nonsense spouted by both sides is now exposed for the nonsense it was and still is.

The calls for a second referendum do seem to becoming more focussed now.

Here's a poll that shows that Leave vote is now 10 points behind those thinking we should now Remain (although noting the usual caveats with regards polls) but the general trend is the same.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-second-referendum-latest-poll-remain-ten-points-leave-bmg-a8114406.html

The whole of todays news on the independent is different arguments for and against a new referendum.

http://www.independent.co.uk/