The inevitable Brexit thread


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WormysQueue wrote:
Rogar Valertis wrote:
You seem to think things won't change after this, but that's not the case. ...

Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with a lot of what the german government did and does, especially when it comes to Greece.

I see one problem though with you requiring us to compromise when that's what Germany actually did a lot over the last decades (and with good reason, I'll hasten to add).

Now we see nearly all other european countries turning away, when fugitives from regions whose misery we are at least partly responsible for knock at our doors. Now we see a country turn its back to the european idea for very selfish (and probably very wrong) reasons, because it wasn't willing to compromise. And more and more Germany is surrounded by countries where nationalist, xenophobic and europhobic forces gain more and more power (or already rule said countries) and thereby making compromises more and more impossible.

You really think it's on us to compromise? When all those past compromises suddenly mean nothing because the other countries decide it's time to draw the nationalist card again?

Sorry, but we are not the only one responsible for the continuing success of the european idea.

I'm not asking anything of you. I just stating why I think Germany's current position of prominence will get more and more untenable until the whole EU structure falls on itself.

Let's face it: all of the countries who founded or later joined the EU did so because they thought it was in their best interest but didn't really want to give away control on their economies or lawmaking processes.
Now Europe is not perceived by vast amounts of its own people as something that benefits them (and if you live in Germany you know this is true even there) but rather as an entity destroying small business enterprise, reducing healthcare, enforcing austerity, advocating for mass immigration and a lot of people, REGARDLESS OF THE COUNTRY, feel threatened by this. The ruling elite enjoys all the benefits from the EU structure (and more importantly they don't have to deal with its problems) but most of the people does not and as wealth keeps concentrating in fewer and fewer hands discontent grows (for example tell me your run of the mill German is happy about the minijob system? Those I know aren't). Enche the idea of putting an end to the european experiment.
Now we know for certain nations CAN leave the EU the pressure to do so will grow inside most of them, and there are no actions the EU will be willing to take against GB (which is not a small and weak country like Greece) that could scare other nations to stay. So the EU system is going to be tested and to overcome the test it will need to change its own policies and try to improve the living conditions of its own citizens instead of doing that for just a very small amount of them.
Personally I doubt this will be the outcome of the curent crisis though.


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aeglos wrote:
I have seen an street interview where someonesaid: "we must leave because imigrants are before me in the line at the doctors"

As an American, and a Floridian at that, I might be wrong, but... aren't a great many of the healthcare professionals under the NHS actually immigrants (supposedly because they are cheaper for the government to employ)?

---

Also, I've seen very little of Nigel Farage, but does anyone else find he has an extreme case of backpfeifengesicht (#7 on the list)?


Well the situation has certainly given me something to talk about during lunch I guess.

The Exchange

Nohwear wrote:
I feel that I do not know enough to really weigh in. However, I am concerned that certain powers in the EU will try to make an example out of Great Britain. That the lessons given at the end of WWI that lead to WWII will be ignored.

Well, Angela Merkel said today that it should be the goal of the EU to maintain close relationships with the UK, based on partnership. So I hope that they won't give in to that temptation.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Well, there's one positive - in few years, no more Nigel Farage venting his silly talks in the European Parliament at the expense of my taxes. It's a small consolation, but you gotta dig for those silver linings.

Scarab Sages

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Pillbug Toenibbler wrote:
aeglos wrote:
I have seen an street interview where someonesaid: "we must leave because imigrants are before me in the line at the doctors"

As an American, and a Floridian at that, I might be wrong, but... aren't a great many of the healthcare professionals under the NHS actually immigrants (supposedly because they are cheaper for the government to employ)?

Also, I've seen very little of Nigel Farage, but does anyone else find he has an extreme case of backpfeifengesicht (#7 on the list)?

A good chunk yes. 11% in 2014. (14% for professional clinical staff and 24% of doctors).

Farage's face needs punching multiple times. But if a helicopter crash won't kill him nothing will. The man is a cockroach.

I walked into to work this morning and cried. Everyone I passed on the streets of Camden and Islington were shaking their heads and muttering about "what have they done".

The leave campaign has been run on misinformation, outright lies and playing to fears. Promises of £390m a week extra public services plastered on campaign buses and it took all of what, an hour and a half before Farage's smug face was wheedling out of it "Nah blud, never said it" but nigel, it's in massive letters on yo..." "but mate i was ostracised from the main campaign".

I feel sick to my stomach.
My partner is Swedish/Latvian and we have no idea if she'll be able to stay. She probably will but we don't know.

My friend is a primary school teacher...she's already had to b~#!&$% three kids for bullying children born outside the uk (the usual hateful crap "you'll need to go back to your own country now!".

I'm a social worker, I'm meant to be fighting social injustice but i just haven't got the energy to fight this shit...my country is a cess pit and I want to leave.

The Exchange

Rogar Valertis wrote:
Now Europe is not perceived by vast amounts of its own people as something that benefits them (and if you live in Germany you know this is true even there) but rather as an entity destroying small business enterprise, reducing healthcare, enforcing austerity, advocating for mass immigration and a lot of people, REGARDLESS OF THE COUNTRY, feel threatened by this. The ruling elite enjoys all the benefits from the EU structure (and more importantly they don't have to deal with its problems) but most of the people does not and as wealth keeps concentrating in fewer and fewer hands discontent grows (for example tell me your run of the mill German is happy about the minijob system? Those I know aren't).

I don't disagree but that's also what's my main concern and what I stated before. It isn't the EU doing all those things, it's the single nations themselves.

The german minijob system, for example, is terrible, but it hasn't been invented by the EU, but by a german government. It isn't the EU reducing healthcare, it's the single countries.

But then the blame game starts and in the end it comes to a wrong perception of what Europe is. In the end, that's what made the Vote Leave movement so successful. Because the Brexit proponents didn't have to invent all those lies about Europe. The just had to repeat the lies already invented by the Cameron (and former) governments.

And yeah, the same thing has already started here in Germany, starting with lies our own government spew out about the EU.

Scarab Sages

Protest outside Downing Street so we don't end up with a prime minister chosen by Tory elites for the next 3 years after Hameron's resignation


Does the vote have to be followed up by official action on the part of the British government, or is it binding?

I'm wondering if the referendum could be a weather balloon to see what would happen if the UK did leave, followed by a "just kidding, nonbinding, Government chooses not to leave" if it went sour.

Or is that wishful thinking?


Rogar wrote:
"Now Europe is not perceived by vast amounts of its own people as something that benefits them (and if you live in Germany you know this is true even there) but rather as an entity destroying small business enterprise, reducing healthcare, enforcing austerity, advocating for mass immigration and a lot of people, REGARDLESS OF THE COUNTRY, feel threatened by this. The ruling elite enjoys all the benefits from the EU structure (and more importantly they don't have to deal with its problems) but most of the people does not and as wealth keeps concentrating in fewer and fewer hands discontent grows (for example tell me your run of the mill German is happy about the minijob system? Those I know aren't). Enche the idea of putting an end to the european experiment. "

well, look in many a european country how much infrastructure is paid with EU money, money from a system where a few richer countries pay a part of their money into a pool to benefite all coutries

people can't see the benefit of that? I really don't get it

people in countries with a poor economy can't see the benefit of free european job market? look how many young spanish people found work in northern europe after the big crisis

Scarab Sages

Treppa wrote:

Does the vote have to be followed up by official action on the part of the British government, or is it binding?

I'm wondering if the referendum could be a weather balloon to see what would happen if the UK did leave, followed by a "just kidding, nonbinding, Government chooses not to leave" if it went sour.

Or is that wishful thinking?

It's not legally binding but it's 99.9% going to happen.

handy article


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minoritarian wrote:
Pillbug Toenibbler wrote:
aeglos wrote:
I have seen an street interview where someonesaid: "we must leave because imigrants are before me in the line at the doctors"
As an American, and a Floridian at that, I might be wrong, but... aren't a great many of the healthcare professionals under the NHS actually immigrants (supposedly because they are cheaper for the government to employ)?

A good chunk yes. 11% in 2014. (14% for professional clinical staff and 24% of doctors).

Farage's face needs punching multiple times. But if a helicopter crash won't kill him nothing will. The man is a cockroach.

I walked into to work this morning and cried. Everyone I passed on the streets of Camden and Islington were shaking their heads and muttering about "what have they done".

The leave campaign has been run on misinformation, outright lies and playing to fears. Promises of £390m a week extra public services plastered on campaign buses and it took all of what, an hour and a half before Farage's smug face was wheedling out of it "Nah blud, never said it" but nigel, it's in massive letters on yo..." "but mate i was ostracised from the main campaign".

You got something wrong, both side used a lot of false factoids and deformed truths, not just the leave side.

The leave side did throw more reasons out than the stay side.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Gorbacz wrote:
Well, there's one positive - in few years, no more Nigel Farage venting his silly talks in the European Parliament at the expense of my taxes. It's a small consolation, but you gotta dig for those silver linings.

Didn't you hear? He's going to be our ambassador, given his experience in Europe (and the fact that we want him as far away from us as we can get.)


Nutcase Entertainment wrote:

You got something wrong, both side used a lot of false factoids and deformed truths, not just the leave side.

What Nutcase said is right. Both sides ran horrible negative campaigns, and it went on too long. It was difficult to find reliable facts. I'm glad it's over.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Paul Watson wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
Well, there's one positive - in few years, no more Nigel Farage venting his silly talks in the European Parliament at the expense of my taxes. It's a small consolation, but you gotta dig for those silver linings.
Didn't you hear? He's going to be our ambassador, given his experience in Europe (and the fact that we want him as far away from us as we can get.)

Well at least that'll be at solely the expense of your taxes ;)

The Exchange

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ericthecleric wrote:
Nutcase Entertainment wrote:

You got something wrong, both side used a lot of false factoids and deformed truths, not just the leave side.

What Nutcase said is right. Both sides ran horrible negative campaigns, and it went on too long. It was difficult to find reliable facts. I'm glad it's over.

But the Leave campaign flirted pretty close to demonising foreigners, which is not exactly very nice. Remember that immigration was their big argument, despite the fact that all the stuff about immigrants clogging up the NHS and welfare was basically untrue (actually, it's the old age pensioners, who mostly voted to leave, doing that). The Remain camp pretty much just told us we'd all be f$%#ed if we left. And that may yet come to pass.


Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
ericthecleric wrote:
Nutcase Entertainment wrote:

You got something wrong, both side used a lot of false factoids and deformed truths, not just the leave side.

What Nutcase said is right. Both sides ran horrible negative campaigns, and it went on too long. It was difficult to find reliable facts. I'm glad it's over.
But the Leave campaign flirted pretty close to demonising foreigners, which is not exactly very nice. Remember that immigration was their big argument, despite the fact that all the stuff about immigrants clogging up the NHS and welfare was basically untrue (actually, it's the old age pensioners, who mostly voted to leave, doing that). The Remain camp pretty much just told us we'd all be f*%#ed if we left. And that may yet come to pass.

That was far from being the sole argument of the Leave side.


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Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
But the Leave campaign flirted pretty close to demonising foreigners, which is not exactly very nice. Remember that immigration was their big argument, despite the fact that all the stuff about immigrants clogging up the NHS and welfare was basically untrue (actually, it's the old age pensioners, who mostly voted to leave, doing that). The Remain camp pretty much just told us we'd all be f~*@ed if we left. And that may yet come to pass.

The remain campaign exaggerated a few points, but I saw no evidence of outright lies. The leave campaign had lies and misinformation from day one that they refused to correct during the campaign. Here is Farage admitting that their central claim was false and there will be no £350M per day windfall for the NHS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8UjkoFfG2Y

Other big lies: NHS is at breaking point because of immigrants. Immigrants are young and pay more in taxes than they take out of the NHS. Our elderly are cared for in the NHS by immigrant doctors and nurses - because we don't train enough doctors and nurses. (This will get worse under the Conservative government who are removing bursaries for training student nurses).

There were many other big and little lies. One I spotted was that they blamed the EU for the European Court of Human Rights' ruling to award prisoners the vote. The ECHR is not an EU institution and its role is via law enacted by Westminster.

The Exchange

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Nutcase Entertainment wrote:
Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
ericthecleric wrote:
Nutcase Entertainment wrote:

You got something wrong, both side used a lot of false factoids and deformed truths, not just the leave side.

What Nutcase said is right. Both sides ran horrible negative campaigns, and it went on too long. It was difficult to find reliable facts. I'm glad it's over.
But the Leave campaign flirted pretty close to demonising foreigners, which is not exactly very nice. Remember that immigration was their big argument, despite the fact that all the stuff about immigrants clogging up the NHS and welfare was basically untrue (actually, it's the old age pensioners, who mostly voted to leave, doing that). The Remain camp pretty much just told us we'd all be f*%#ed if we left. And that may yet come to pass.
That was far from being the sole argument of the Leave side.

No, but it was the one which they really banged on about because it resonated for some reason. UKIP is always most popular where actually there aren't very many immigrants. In UKIPs only Parliamentary seat, the population is overwhelmingly white British. My office in London is stuffed full of immigrants, and most immigrants head for London because that is where the jobs are. Yet London voted to Remain by a significant margin, despite all of the public services supposedly clogged up. It was all rubbish, but the white pensioners chose to believe it. Leave's other "arguments" were about taking control, but never very clear of what exactly we were taking control. We still pool soveTheir argument about £350m per week was bogus and even the actual number is, compared to actual government spending, utterly trivial (the budget of the EU is about 1% of European GDP, compared with the over 40% we currently spend here in the UK). And their economic arguments rested on assumptions that were debatable and politically impossible to achieve (under free trade Port Talbot would go to the wall, but instead Leave blamed EU rules for us not being able to bail it out). The fact that their default response to anyone actually trying to debunk their "arguments" was "Don't listen to the experts" was also pretty dispiriting, and intended to drive away any cogent analysis.


Palinurus wrote:
Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
But the Leave campaign flirted pretty close to demonising foreigners, which is not exactly very nice. Remember that immigration was their big argument, despite the fact that all the stuff about immigrants clogging up the NHS and welfare was basically untrue (actually, it's the old age pensioners, who mostly voted to leave, doing that). The Remain camp pretty much just told us we'd all be f~*@ed if we left. And that may yet come to pass.

The remain campaign exaggerated a few points, but I saw no evidence of outright lies. The leave campaign had lies and misinformation from day one that they refused to correct during the campaign. Here is Farage admitting that their central claim was false and there will be no £350M per day windfall for the NHS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8UjkoFfG2Y

Other big lies: NHS is at breaking point because of immigrants. Immigrants are young and pay more in taxes than they take out of the NHS. Our elderly are cared for in the NHS by immigrant doctors and nurses - because we don't train enough doctors and nurses. (This will get worse under the Conservative government who are removing bursaries for training student nurses).

There were many other big and little lies. One I spotted was that they blamed the EU for the European Court of Human Rights' ruling to award prisoners the vote. The ECHR is not an EU institution and its role is via law enacted by Westminster.

... instead of "Leave side", it should be "Leave sides"...

The Exchange

Nutcase Entertainment wrote:
... instead of "Leave side", it should be "Leave sides"...

There was only one question. Even if Leave was a coalition of xenophobes and ivory tower trade theorists, the fact that Leave couldn't, or wouldn't, even articulate what was actually going to come after a Leave vote again displays the bankruptcy of the whole thing.


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Pillbug Toenibbler wrote:
aeglos wrote:
I have seen an street interview where someonesaid: "we must leave because imigrants are before me in the line at the doctors"

As an American, and a Floridian at that, I might be wrong, but... aren't a great many of the healthcare professionals under the NHS actually immigrants (supposedly because they are cheaper for the government to employ)?

Mainly cheaper in the sense that their training is paid for by somebody else.

As for Farage, I'm still disappointed that the duel between him and the Polish prince never came off.


Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
Nutcase Entertainment wrote:
... instead of "Leave side", it should be "Leave sides"...
There was only one question. Even if Leave was a coalition of xenophobes and ivory tower trade theorists, the fact that Leave couldn't, or wouldn't, even articulate what was actually going to come after a Leave vote again displays the bankruptcy of the whole thing.

Celebrities... writers, singers, sport men and women, actors, etc, they all had voices in the debates, not just politicians.

The leave had many different points of view, not all of them were mere political or economical ones, and not all of them were UK centered or anti-EU, well, EU as it is supposed to be.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

It sucks when the other side uses scare tactics to get old people to vote the way they want.


Seriously? (1) Could this be true? If so, how widespread is Bregret? (B) When you cast a vote, make it the one you actually want.

Liberty's Edge

We had the exact same thing happen in France in 2002 when the far right leader got ahead of the left leader and reached the final turn of the presidential election

Polls and media said it could never happen and people used their vote to protest against the government, blaming it for all that was going wrong in their life

They wanted to send a message, to be heard

They did not believe it would go further than that

This is why a referendum should not be used lightly : there is no second turn to correct your initial stance :-(

Liberty's Edge

I think Cameron is resigning to buy time for the stupidity to sink in.

Technically, nothing has changed until article 50 is invoked... and only the Prime Minister can do that. Cameron is basically saying that he isn't going to be the one to invoke it...

So there will be several months of delay while Cameron wraps things up and his successor is sorted out. Then the new Prime Minister may well delay making an immediate decision while they get settled... By the time anyone might demand article 50 be invoked, the UK economy will be suffering and the populace will have heard a lot more about the probable and potential impacts. The lies about millions of pounds being redirected to the NHS will finally be dismissed. Remaining EU members will likely have started to list their conditions for allowing an exit... which aren't likely to be pretty. Et cetera.

Thus, I think it is entirely possible that the UK could still reverse course on this. Indeed, I think the age gap in the vote makes it inevitable that they will do so eventually... it is just a question of whether they actually leave and then rejoin or stop the process somewhere in the middle. However, barring a general collapse of the EU, Britain will be back.


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So the Leave campaign won by forging an unholy alliance between the hard-right of the Conservative Party and the older, disenfranchised, northern working class citizen who hasn't voted since the Thatcher years, on the basis that the Tories would massively invest in public services and local resources.

In terms of unlikely alliances, this probably isn't quite up there with the Nazi-Soviet Pact but may certainly be in the Sauron-Saruman ballpark.

There is a slight problem here, namely what happens to those disaffected working class voters when the Tories continue to sell off the NHS, continue (if not double down on) austerity and keep shrinking government and public services. Maybe a resurgent Labour under Corbyn, having survived the new leadership challenge and vanquished the last remaining Blairites, sweeps them up and delivers this country to a socialist utopia in 2020. Or UKIP starts hoovering them up at a rate of knots as part of its potential new raison d'etre, "encouraging" immigrants already here to start going home.

Quote:
Seriously? (1) Could this be true? If so, how widespread is Bregret? (B) When you cast a vote, make it the one you actually want.

Anecdotally, quite widespread. This morning, the people of Cornwall - which voted for Brexit - suddenly asked if leaving the EU meant they'd lose their EU funding (hint: yes). And if so, would the small-government, ultra-capitalist, free market-obsessed Conservative Party step in and replace that funding (hint: no)?

Quote:
That was far from being the sole argument of the Leave side.

It was the predominant argument once it became clear that they had comprehensively lost the economic one. At one point in the campaign the Brexit camp looked completely beaten because they had tried going toe-to-toe on the economy and were crushed. They had to double down on immigration, immigration and immigration (with a dash of sovereignty, which the Tories didn't want to get into too much because of how they won the last general election but UKIP was happy to) because the second they tried to fight on any other ground they dipped in the polls.


CBDunkerson wrote:

I think Cameron is resigning to buy time for the stupidity to sink in.

Technically, nothing has changed until article 50 is invoked... and only the Prime Minister can do that. Cameron is basically saying that he isn't going to be the one to invoke it...

I watched the broadcast on Sky News on my Apple TV. He got the endorsement of a bunch of Conservative MPs to stay in office. Given that the British people have spoken with a margin of well over a million or two on this issue, it is incumbent on whoever is in office to invoke Article 50 at some point.

The Sky newscasters have speculated that he would resign on the idea that he'd be asked to return to the office at some point... it's a British thing.

Dark Archive

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The amount of facepalming I'm doing over this right now. whole bunch of people saying they wish they hadent voted for leave......Be nice if they had thought of that before oh I dont know voting to bloody leave

Community Manager

Removed some posts and their responses. This understandably a hot button topic for a lot of people, but please remain civil in the thread and don't resort to personal attacks and badmouthing people. It's not going to help the discussion, nor is armchair quarterbacking.


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Werthead wrote:

So the Leave campaign won by forging an unholy alliance between the hard-right of the Conservative Party and the older, disenfranchised, northern working class citizen who hasn't voted since the Thatcher years, on the basis that the Tories would massively invest in public services and local resources.

In terms of unlikely alliances, this probably isn't quite up there with the Nazi-Soviet Pact but may certainly be in the Sauron-Saruman ballpark.

There is a slight problem here, namely what happens to those disaffected working class voters when the Tories continue to sell off the NHS, continue (if not double down on) austerity and keep shrinking government and public services. Maybe a resurgent Labour under Corbyn, having survived the new leadership challenge and vanquished the last remaining Blairites, sweeps them up and delivers this country to a socialist utopia in 2020. Or UKIP starts hoovering them up at a rate of knots as part of its potential new raison d'etre, "encouraging" immigrants already here to start going home.

This almost sounds like they're trying to recreate the dystopian UK from V for Vendetta.

That's what makes me worry about this. How bad are they going to make things for the people?

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