Brexit... sad.. so sad

[cowsmanaut]

I have no idea what the government officials are thinking about now.. I mean based on the vote, close to half of the UK is going to be super pissed at them.. such a close vote is a big deal. Especially considering the resulting issues. Loss of freedom of movement in the EU, which also means loss of workers who can no longer stay.. which could mean that some companies could go under if they have a lot of people having to leave.. not to mention those who might have been dating and now are faced with possibly separating.. compound that with the drop of the Pound .. It's just a huge mess.

I'm sorry for all of you who are having to go through this now.. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be.

[Ameena]

Yeah, we'll see how badly this goes for England, which from the sounds of it could well end up split from both Scotland and Northern Ireland (since they both voted to stay in the EU so might have their own votes on whether to split from the rest of the UK, in the case of Scotland this will be the second time they'll have voted to split in the last couple of years), leaving just us and Wales. And I bet a load of the people who voted to leave are older people who wanted to leave "because immigration" and they'll probably be mostly dead in a couple of decades and leave the rest of us around to pick up the pieces. On the News just now there was a reporter saying how a large percentage (I think it was about a third or something, certainly a significant number) of the inhabitants of some town somewhere are from eastern Europe and they've set up homes and businesses and stuff there. So if we end up kicking out all such people, won't the towns they live(d) in become suddenly pretty deserted, with loads of abandoned shops and houses because the people who ran them have been sent back to their country of origin?
I can see racism in general getting worse because of this - a major factor in people voting to leave was immigration, so I bet if they start kicking people out we'll see a sudden upsurge in the "Go back to your own country!" kind of attitude, whether the target of such was born abroad or not .

[Jan]

It has been one of the saddest days in my life, seeing the UK leaving - I've been pretty down all day. Mr. Putin must be rubbing his hands now and laughing out loudly, with the West castrating itself. I've always seen the need to be in the same boat with the UK, to "keep the Russians out, the British in, and the Germans down" - now we can end up with the British out and Russians in (can't comment on the Germans ). Thanks God we still have NATO.

I can understand - not accept, but understand - the migration argument, and I think that we, as other EU member states, should have offered more compromises to Mr. Cameron these few months earlier when he was negotiating the "new deal". I think that we all hugely underestimated the migration issue and thought that just *somehow* everything would be OK. So I think this mess is a result of actions taken on both sides of The Channell - we should have offered more to keep the UK in.

I have a terrible premonition now of the UK being led by those Johnson / Farage twits (or alternatively by the Corbyn clown), Trump as a US president, the EU breaking up and nationalists, racists, lunatics and xenofobs taking power in the Central European countries. We are really dancing on the knife edge. I think that now we should all work as hard as possible to have the best EU - UK relations, to keep the UK as close to the EU as possible.

[terkio]

I am afraid I desagree.
About immigration, the trouble is from immigrants that refuse to integrate. You know what I am pointing to and may call me racist.
We had a lot of immigration that is no trouble whatsoever. I am not a racist.

[cowsmanaut]

I understand your statement.. I think. I have friends from close to every ethnic background you could find.. I deeply respect the differences that exist in their cultures, things that are important to them.

That said, I don't think the reverse is true, as many have sought to change how things are done in this country (as well as others) to accommodate their wants. Something they would not grant in their own countries. Most countries expect you adapt to the culture present. You can keep your own thoughts and practices at home, but in public you "do as the romans do" .. Certainly a lot of the giving on the part of government can lead to resentment and fear of losing your way of life. Add to this that some of those who come from countries where the currency is worth far less are sometimes willing to take jobs for far less income which means they may be first to be hired to make sure more money goes in to the bosses pocket. This is where the "they are taking our jobs" anger comes from.

The thing is.. The keystone in modern countries is economy. If you hurt that, most of your people suffer as a result. The reality of those low income workers is that they are low skill jobs that many people don't even want. However if a highly skilled tradesperson took a job you wanted, chances are they were probably better qualified than you. The better the companies do in the country and the people with jobs continue to have jobs, they pay taxes into the system and that leads to services for all the people within. You remove the people and companies paying into those services and you watch the country bleed out.. Mass exodus of a workforce (likely what's about to happen to UK) is never a good thing. Add to this that they are worth less as a result of this.. it makes it harder to get money from outside the country as well because now the worth of their currency has dropped.. So the people voting out of fear/anger towards those from other countries don't see the big picture. Also, Ameena, you're right.. based on stats taken. The majority of the exit vote came from people over 60. Ie people who no longer work for a living. Someone had posted that some dude who was 90 something years old crawled his way to the polls to make the last vote of his life time to exit the EU.. like some kind of "hero".. nope.. kind of like driving a knife into the queens left buttock and yelling "FOR THE QUEEN"..

It's unfortunate how things are working out. I hope Scotland and Ireland do have a vote to head back to EU.. I think it'll shake up the people and make them rethink the choice.

[Gambit37]

I'm absolutely gutted.

I did not vote for this and most people I know did not vote for this. But that's because we live in the prosperous, tolerant south of England. We live near to London. We see the benefits of a multicultural society and how enriching it can be. (Of course London has itself become too expensive for most people to live there cost-effectively though, but that's a different discussion!)

As you go further north, it's a completely different matter. The job situation is exactly as Cowsmanaut says. Often low-skilled workers have been relegated due to not accepting very low paid jobs which in turn immigrants have taken. Many English people are completely frustrated that what they see as their identity (their job) has been taken away from them. When you no longer feel that you're being heard and that your life has been taken from you, what are you going to do? You'll lash out at the first thing that threatens you -- and for many that is 'migrants stealing their jobs'. But of course it's not that simple - the situation with migrants isn't anything like as bad as people make out. No, the real problem is systemic lack of public spending on essentials: new homes, new jobs, supporting industry, etc. Decades of this from both Conservative AND Labour governments have meant that Britain is not equipped to deal with the needs of its own, let alone any large changes in the migrant population.

The worst thing about this is that the vote to leave has been made by many people as a way of sticking their fingers up to Whitehall for the mess that the gov have created. What the Leavers failed to grasp is that most of what they think they've voted for was never caused by the EU issue in the first place. It's British problems that required British solutions. The immigration card was a smokescreen and actually kinda irrelevant. Unfortunately, both the remain and Leave campaign ended up spouting tons of lies about all this to the point that the normal public were never in a position to work out the truth, so just voted with their 'heart'.

Cameron should never have offered the referendum in the first place. The public here don't know enough about these complexities to be trusted with that sort of vote. And now those who did vote in ignorance (or spite) have screwed everything up for everyone. Take a look at these bellends for example!!! >>> http://indy100.independent.co.uk/articl ... Z1btq_FnVW

We can't change what's happened. This will go ahead. The best we can do is to remain positive and try and see what we can do in the forthcoming weeks. I am extremely sad and upset at what has happened, especially since I now work at a great company who have a diverse workforce, many from the EU. How can I look my colleagues in the eye if they are thinking 'Did he vote to leave? Does he want me here?' It's so upsetting

My worst fears have come true. Actually, no they haven't. My worst fears are that any of the power-made Tories make it to the top. Boris Johnson is unfit to be in government, let alone be Prime Minister. But he will likely end up as our PM as the result of a private vote within the Tory party that we can't affect. And for people who voted to leave the EU because of what they saw as us being ordered about by "unelected EU bureaucrats", this is a deep irony. Boris Johnson as PM won't have been elected by any of us, and that is a final kick in the teeth.

I fear that we've not only voted for our own death, we've dug our own grave too.

[Sophia]

The good news, if you could call it that, is that the referendum doesn't actually do anything. It informs the government of the will of the people-- supposedly, anyway-- but the actual decision to leave the EU still has to be voted on and approved by Parliament. So, I suppose there's some chance of Labour and whoever getting together and saying "hell no." I mean, if you want to get increasingly outlandish, the House of Lords could even step up and do something, which might not be so great for people who don't like the idea of being ordered around by unelected leaders. But eh. Anyway. All this is probably grasping at straws, but it is stuff that will still have to happen.

As for the situation over here, maybe this will dissuade a few would-be Trump voters, or something. Be careful of what you wish for, and all that...

[Gambit37]

Parliament may not legally be required to honour the referendum, but the damage done if they don't will be catastrophic. It's not a realistic outcome.

This on the other hand does give a tiny, tiny ray of hope:
https://waitingfortax.com/2016/06/24/wh ... ean-maybe/

[Saumun]

I was surprised and extremely saddened by the result...
When i say surprised, i mean by the overall result as opposed to on a local level... where i could just feel something in the air pushing towards exit (i'm from the northwest, where apart from Liverpool and central Manchester, "Leave" tended to hold sway).

I really did think that as a nation, we'd lean towards remaining in the EU as the undecided usually tend to go for the status quo when it comes to the crunch.... How wrong i was!

I agree with much of Gambit's piece, but the one that worries me the most is the fear of PM Johnson (which is probably inevitable) and his cronies running wild and unchecked with workers rights... Lifting regulations and such. A truly frightening prospect!

I feel that many people were too easily bought by sound bites, or worse... out and out lies! Lots of people also focused all their ire towards one particular issue (i think we all know what it is) and never took a step back to consider the broader implications. It irritated me greatly when explaining to a couple of colleagues why i was voting to remain, i'd hear things like "Oh... I didn't consider that", while i was thinking..... Well you bloody SHOULD be before making this decision.

Let's be under no illusions here.... David Cameron offered the referendum purely for political gain. To win back disaffected middle England tories in the last general election. Now it will result not only in the break from the EU, but a break up of the UK. For shame!

[Sophia]

It's not a realistic outcome.

You're probably right. On the other hand, before today I wouldn't have called the UK leaving the EU a realistic outcome either...

The right wing media over here act like this is the greatest thing ever, and the "special relationship" is going to bloom and prosper like it's FDR and Churchill (or Bush and Blair... ) all over again.

[cowsmanaut]

from a basic point of numbers. If the vote to leave, half the country is pissed off, and if they don't, half the country is pissed off. Though, luckily if they vote to not leave, the half that's pissed of are old they may not have great memories as it is.

Really, it should be a vote for the young who are to inherit this decision. The people who are legitimately driving the country and it's economy. Ie. those most impacted by the change.

As for Forest Trump... how does that man not drown every time it rains?

[Jan]

It's a shame there's no "Back" or "Load" or "Restore" button in the real life... as others said, many of the Leave voters actually now regret their decision, only now realising all the consequences. In fact, I think that even Johnson himself was quite stunned and many of the Leave leaders are beginning to realise with horror that they will actually have to run the country and have responsibility, instead of constantly murmuring and nagging in the back benches without any real risk.

But of course there should have been no referendum in the first place, the UK is a parliamentary democracy and the decision should have been made in the Parliament, not in the street. As Saumun said, Cameron only did this to appease his backbenchers and get the endless argument finally off the table - but the "lucky child" was not that lucky this time. He won the Scottish referendum, the second general elections, so he thought ho could win this one as well... a very big mistake, a big risk, but, honestly, most of the other politicians and commentators thought the Remain side would win, although very nearly.

I really am worried, feeling umcomfortably close to Russia now, sort of exposed...

[oh_brother]

Yesterday was a very depressing day, and I still can't believe it has actually happened. If Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders congratulate you, you know you have done something wrong.

The tone of the whole campaign was horrible, with immigrants becoming the scapegoat for domestic policies. Of course many people will have voted to Leave for different reasons, not necessarily xenophobic, but as someone put it on Twitter "It is not that half the population is racist. It is that racists now think that half the population agrees with them".

And sadly this is just a symptom of a world-wide shift to nationalism, protectionism and anti-intellectualism. None of those things ever work out well.

[cowsmanaut]

just a slice of what the "out" voters might have been thinking

https://www.facebook.com/21266704579391 ... 595779058/

sad... sad sad sad sad..

Here in Canada the banks are already talking about potential issues on our end, and Trudeau is trying to calm people down but he's getting booing as a response and Quebec is now talking leaving again after this "hopeful example" .. WTF..

When is it we colonize mars again?

[Saumun]

I certainly agree with oh_brother's assessment as to the tone of the referendum.

It was all fear and hate. Just as bad were the outright bare-faced lies dressed up as facts and peddled to the masses. The sad thing is that many people actually swallowed them, and i don't think the "Leave" campaign were taken to task on this anything like enough.
Even when it was pointed out to Johnson that his own campaign bus was emblazoned with untruths, he just brazened it out with smiles and denials.

People were even misled by promises made by people that had no power to make them...
No better example than earlier today when Farage distanced himself from the "Leave" slogans that he himself championed, when he disowned a pledge on NHS spending (a video surfaced later contradicting his U-turn.... I think that must qualify as an O-turn).

The point here is that Farage is not in government. His party have only one MP in the HoC. He has no power to make any such promises, so any such opinions of his regarding what will happen in the event of an exit are irrelevant... Yet people swallowed it!

[Saumun]

Sorry for the double post, but i've only just watched the link Cows' posted...

I admit i wasn't sure at first if it was a spoof or not, but alas i wouldn't be surprised if it was real. Unfortunately there are many people in the UK that really are that stupid. I hate to say it, but there are a great many that are not mentally equipped to vote on something of this magnitude (i know this sounds arrogant, but it's genuinely how i feel). Believe me... I've witnessed it first hand.

As Jan alluded to (further up the page)... It's what parliamentary representatives are elected and paid to do. Unfortunately they seem to consider the future of the nation as secondary when it comes to gaining votes from marginal constituencies.

I hope Mr. Cameron's legacy is that of the person who threw the nation to the dogs!

[cowsmanaut]

There are people that dumb the world around.. plenty here at home, and across the border and so on.. Yet they procreate and vote and actually have jobs.. sometimes..

I've learned so much about this whole ordeal over the past few days and how little of the downside was seemingly spread in the media.. instead favoring to show propaganda on why people should exit. It REALLY hit home today when my own father showed up and stated he thought it sounded like a good thing for the UK because he watched the Brexit movie.. which is sadly filled with falsehoods..

The following, if you've not already seen it, is John Oliver talking about it prior to the vote. He pokes a bunch of fun but you can see he get's fairly serious at a few points and is clearly pissed off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgKHSNqxa8

Looking beyond the jokes, it's quite startling. It also lead me to research further and that just freaked me out more.

[Jan]

Frankly, I'm also a bit disappointed by Her Majesty and the Royal Family. I know that they want to be above the politics and don't want to side with anyone, but, hell, this was a major decision influencing the future of the country, and its very existence in fact! The Queen is quite popular among the pro-Leave voters, she should have come on the TV to urge people to vote Remain. I've always envied the British their monarchy, but it failed this time and one can start asking, what are they there for, except wearing fancy hats? This was the right time to step in.

As for Cow's yesterday's video, it might be real, it might not. Silly people are spread quite evenly arount the globe , so, it might be real. As Churchill put it, "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".

Of course, a referendum is not a bad thing in general. But first, people must learn doing it, they must understand that power means responsibility, that their actions influence many and that consequences might be cruel. Just look at Switzerland. It's best to start with local issues, like "do you want the water treatment plant here or here" or "do you want here a park or a supermarket", and only then progress to more complex and nation-wide issues. If you start with such a complex issue as the EU, you're asking for troubles.

[Ameena]

It seems that a lot of Leave-voters are regretting their vote because "they didn't think it would actually count" or something - my sister found a poll somewhere online yesterday where a whole load of Leave-voters are saying they'd change their minds if they could vote again. Personally I didn't actually bother voting at all, in the end, because I didn't feel like I could make a properly informed decision because as is the case in all politics, all the people campaigning for votes are gonna be telling you what they think you want to hear in order for you to vote the way they want you to, you're not getting the actual information and facts you need to really make up your mind.

Apparently something like 75% of the voters were "young" (ie under 30 or so) and voted to stay in the EU...but have evidently been outvoted by the older folks who won't be around in a couple of decades anyway to have to deal with whatever consequences are still kicking around. When it's just England and Wales with a giant, modern version of Hadrian's Wall across the top of the country and stuff . I've seen someone on TV being interviewed about why they voted to leave and they said something like "we'll be less likely to be attacked by terrorists". Umm, no - if someone wants to come and blow up some important part of the country, they're gonna do that regardless and in fact are probably already living quite happily within the UK, so any actions concerning the borders will do absolutely nothing to stop them .

Surely the fact that we have the approval of Donald 'king Trump should be enough to convince people this was a bad decision...though my dad did find a funny page online somewhere where he (Trump) had posted on Twitter or something saying words to the effect of "Good for you, you voted to take your country back!" (I'm not sure whom he thinks has our country but never mind that )...whilst still in Scotland, of course, where they, like Northern Ireland, voted heavily to remain in the EU. So there's a wonderful (and very NSFW) collection of amusing replies from Scottish people saying "Um, no we didn't..." but, you know, with a load of...interesting appellations for Mr Trump .

[Saumun]

all the people campaigning for votes are gonna be telling you what they think you want to hear in order for you to vote the way they want you to, you're not getting the actual information and facts you need to really make up your mind.

That is substantially true for most of Britain. The proportion of people that had "the facts" is miniscule, which is why i don't think there should have been a referendum in the first place.
Many seemed to treat it as if they were voting for an x factor contestant.

Also... a straight vote for vote win doesn't sit well with me in something this important. If it had been a 60/40 split or higher i could have accepted it (i'd have still thought it was mad though). But a 51 point something/48 point something split means that half the nation (or as good as) is furious.

And who could blame the Scots for wanting another independence referendum when they overwhelmingly vote to remain, but are forced out anyway.

[cowsmanaut]

One of the biggest issues with governments on a whole... and I mean this pretty much world wide.. is that they RARELY seem to be taken to legal measures for lying to the people. Even here in Canada the previous prime minister did things that should have landed him in jail.. but instead he still kept on doing as he wished until the second he lost re-election.. and even then did a bunch of stuff to tie up the next 4 years of who ever won the election. It's clearly corrupted at a core level and given that we are supposedly in some level of power, to vote for who should lead us.. we're still powerless to do anything about them when it's discovered they lied through their teeth.

This claim of 350 billion pounds and how it was going to be spent was clearly false.. and well known to them at the time. They also had no intent on spending it on what they claimed they would.. why is that not taken up with some jail time attached?

[cowsmanaut]

Let me put it a different way. If a person worked for a company and convinced their boss that firing mail room staff to hire web developers was a good move because everything was electronic today. Then they turned around and instead of hiring web developers stored the cash, and maybe purchased new coffee cups for the staff and gave themselves a little raise etc.. Not only would they be fired.. they would find themselves either in jail or at least in court. However, you apply this at a government spending level and nothing happens.. people complain, it's in the news.. but really.. nothing happens.

[cowsmanaut]

just read a massive load of stories relating the racism in the streets. People beaten, rape threats. and a whole lot of "we voted you out so get packing" variations. Among those also "make britian white again"...

I'm just lost.. I can't comprehend the sheer mass of these stories.. it seemed so endless I just had to stop reading.. terrifying..

[Jan]

One of the biggest issues with governments on a whole... and I mean this pretty much world wide.. is that they RARELY seem to be taken to legal measures for lying to the people.

Right. But that's nothing new, nothing surprising. That's why we have independent media - they've become one of the pillars of Western democracies, they balance and check on the other pillars... or they should. But, of course, traditional media are weakened by economic problems and the rise of various "new", "social" and on-line media. By the way, the BBC is also being criticised for not working exactly well during the referendum campaing, giving too much time and attention to various radicals and twits, not cross-checking carefully many arguments during the campaign etc.

[Saumun]

It's the thing that has wound me up the most in this referendum. Even more than the hate and fear tactics... the direct, unabashed lying!
Unfortunately it's par for the course when it comes the voters... and if it's not outright lies, it's a stream of broken promises in pretty much every election manifesto. Promise the earth to get power and then never deliver.
Take the current UK government (please!). In the run up to the 2010 election they promised to cut borrowing substantially.... then proceeded to borrow three times more in the space of five years than the previous government did in their whole thirteen year tenure. Didn't stop them making savage cuts all over the public sector though. You'd think that would be enough to see them out of office in the next election, wouldn't you? But no.... It just takes a few well placed lies and a little misdirection (in this case... let's bring up immigration to take their minds off it) and BAM! Job done!

[Ameena]

Yep, the terms "smoke and mirrors" and "bread and circuses" seem to spring to mind...the latter being the "lol look what X politician just said, aren't they a twat, vote for me instead!" finger-pointy stuff that seems to constitute politics .

[cowsmanaut]

It's not new, you're right. As for saying it's not surprising , that's only making the point further. We've lost the will to fight because it's just "par for the course".. as for Independent Media, they are just as prone to threat and bribes as any other source of humans on the planet. As it stands the Brexit media out there has been little more than lies leading up to the vote and filled with racially fueled turbulence which is now burst forth on the streets.

Our own previous Prime minister (Harper) controlled media with telling them what they could ask him, to which he had scripted responses. He had facebook hacked to AUTO like his government page for anyone who even glanced at it, pushed search engine results and redirection on google... and you would never know any of this was happening until some random person or group later exposed it. Ie, the blogger who said "hey, apparently I just liked Harper. His friends told him. He silenced scientists, cut spending and rights to various media groups to silence them as well. When you RUN the country in which this stuff is happening, there's apparently always a way to keep them doing what you want.. It wasn't until Justin took office that we discovered all the other stuff he was doing behind the scenes.. the billions of dollars gone.. Through lies and manipulation he was able to stay in office 10 years and able to get away with virtually everything. He's still showing up in the house of commons, prancing about and smirking.

People have a responsibility there too though.. I mean so many don't bother to do the search required to make an informed decision.. they COULD get many of the facts if they wanted them.. some of it is common knowledge or at least exposed in various parts on the web. However, you need to do a fair bit of work and for so many it's not important enough to them to bother.. they want the fast food version of the info to be fed to them and then complain when it wasn't what they ordered..

[Jan]

To get back to the topic... how many countries can you fit into two rather small islands, I wonder?

[Saumun]

People have a responsibility there too though.. I mean so many don't bother to do the search required to make an informed decision.. they COULD get many of the facts if they wanted them..

I completely agree...
We now have a swathe of so-called 'Bregretters' saying how much they regret voting to leave, and while i accept some may be gullible enough to swallow certain lies, there are many saying that they weren't made aware of what would happen to the economy/shares/sterling/etc...

Erm... Yes you were! By members of pretty much every economic institution in the UK. Even by the governor of the Bank of England. It's just that lots of people heard exactly what they wanted to hear and didn't bother to look any further into something that might dispel their own blinkered notions.

[Sophia]

I like and have always liked the idea that people should be required to demonstrate a basic competence about what they're voting on before they get to vote. Sadly, the idea is pretty toxic because it's most often used by racist or otherwise oppressive governments in order to disenfranchise large groups of people, so measures like this are generally viewed as "anti-democratic." Personally, I think it's the opposite, because a democracy doesn't really function without an informed electorate. This outcome-- and all the regret, people googling what they voted on after the fact etc.-- seems ample demonstration of the failure of democratic institutions when people have no clue what they're voting on.