Brexit - am I stupid or what?

Good post @Kandy my friend

 

I have some time for this position - but we must not forget that we have regular elections, so you will get to try and reverse that decision within a few years at the very latest (probably somewhat sooner the way things are going...) No hint has been given to those who felt crushed and defeated by the 2016 Referendum as to when they will get to excercise their right to counter it - especially those who were not old enough to vote. [/QUOTE]

It was made clear at the time of the vote that it was a one time thing - not a regular election. Over the years, parties have been voted in on the strength of their policies and in a lot of cases they have followed through - privatisation of gas, electric and water networks being an example. I did not agree with it, nor will I ever, but I have to live with the decisions that were made on the back of the people that voted the relevant politicians at the time.

As for feeling 'crushed', well I am sorry but that is part of what is wrong with society now. People feel crushed, people feel offended and nowadays that usually seems to end up in an extreme castigation or witch-hunt of some form. What exactly happens when people feel crushed, or offended? They don't die - they may not be happy, but that is about it. And the best of it all is that those who are crushed or offended are those that would consider themselves to be the most liberal and gentle people going - - yet they are quite happy to shout and scream until they get their way, or have a lynch-mob attitude and hound someone out of their job/livelihood/home.

With regard to those too young to vote, well that is a case of tough luck I'm afraid. I was too young to vote when it came to Maggie Thatcher, but I have been living with the implications of her decisions for the rest of my life. That is tough luck for me.

There has been a structure to the democracy in this country for a very long time - you cannot simply have that changed to suit one vote and one vote only; indeed, it would be entirely unfair to change the structure of democracy at time close to a vote like this one, even if that change were to be made permanent.

I cannot write my thoughts about Nick Clegg on a public forum, but suffice to say that I feel he is very close to being a banker. If he told me that a carrot was orange, I would check for myself. He sold a LOT of people down the river in his relatively short time as leader of the Lib Dems, students being one group of people in particular.

His argument that there is consolation for the losers is utter bull - was there any consolation for the miners that Maggie shafted all those years ago? The families that lost fathers, brothers and uncles when they committed suicide once they had lost their jobs in the mines only because of her decisions? Was there any consolation for people of my generation (generation rent) when Maggie sold off all the housing stock without ensuring that it would be replaced at the same rate?

The framework was clear - and the question was very simple, do you want to stay or do you want to leave.

Conversely, when the next referendum is held (and it is going to happen, because it has been engineered that way from the start), and all those people who have been scared witless because they now believe that all the negativity that has been spouted is the truth vote to stay, you can bet your bottom dollar that once the dust has settled there will be some sort of motions taken in the EU that locks countries in even further and there will be no opportunity for those of us who lose at this vote to have any consolation. Why is it that everyone is suddenly believing everything that is being spouted by politicians now is the truth whilst we are happy to call them liars over what they said before the referendum (or indeed at any other time). Politician = Liar.

This may well have been a better way to have handled things, however the parties themselves could not agree on their own position. Each party is split with people supporting stay and people supporting leave; and the only party that was clearly standing as a leave party was UKIP who may well have had some traction when it came to the leave argument, but they were/are a complete nobody when it came to actually running the country.

There is a reason that it might have felt like 1930's Germany to some, and this is the whole reason that there has been a rise in the far-right across Europe -- people are sick to the back teeth of politicians lying to them and never delivering; they are sick and tired of paying more and more in taxation whilst getting less and less in return. And in the UK, people are sick of seeing uncontrolled immigration which is purely economic in most cases, whilst our infrastructure is on its knees and getting worse. In many ways, it was a protest vote, but to be honest the writing was on the wall when the coalition had to be formed to set up a government; that showed clearly that there was no single party worth a light, and people had no idea who to vote for. Sadly, politicians did not see it, or chose to ignore it.

 

Maybe there should be a vote on whether we have another vote!

 

Let us say that FC is not alone in the UK population in that opinion, Simon.

 

The definition of Treaty, in international law, longk, is "a treaty is any legally binding agreement between countries.

 

I'll vote for that

 

I will second that

 

I'm no political "animal", Simon, as my job demanded that I remained politically neutral in order to give an unbiased analysis and advice. But, nobody "could have put in plans for either outcome" as not even God could have forecast the situation we are now in. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors with both sides using every tactic, good and bad, to influence or stop a reference decision decoded by the UK population.
Some remainers are claiming that it was only by 4% that the UK decided to leave the EU but whether it was 1% or 40% it doesn't matter, it is according to the UK Law a legally binding decision. There is no way of explaining to the voters the infinite number of reasons that both sides could have put on the voting ticket, and legally and democratically, it would not be allowed as referendums are supposed to be carried without politically or other influences. The question of the referendum had to be simple



You have to ask the question why would a Pro EU Prime Minister propose such a referendum???
He did it for several reasons, two of those being (a) He didn't think he would lose. (b) There had been a growing discontent and resentment by a large part of the UK population over decades with the growing political and financial restrictions being placed on the UK without, in their opinion, having a real any real influence in the decisions being taken.

 

That sounds painful, longk,.........how did that work out