The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[Genie]

The referendum was basically, do you want to do something different? without defining what it was. Nobody knew what the leave option was. With that in mind some went with it, some not.

So, remain knew what they would get, but didn’t know what the alternative was. Had it been defined then some may have voted leave (and vice versa).

Remain knew what they would get, but not what they were voting against.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Genie

[chrisp65]

4 minutes ago, Genie said:

The referendum was basically, do you want to do something different? without defining what it was. Nobody knew what the leave option was. With that in mind some went with it, some not.

So, remain knew what they would get, but didn’t know what the alternative was. Had it been defined then some may have voted leave (and vice versa).

Remain knew what they would get, but not what they were voting against.

 

You don’t need to know the future permutations of what you are against, to know what you are for.

If I am allowed to vote Aston Villa or unknown other team, then I can happily vote Aston Villa. That it later transpires the other team might have been Wrexham, Bohemians, or Eintracht Frankfurt is irrelevant. I know what I am voting for.

[peterw]

22 hours ago, bickster said:

I think you'll need to add some ketchup to this claim

difficulty is having a definitive source asking the question purely to those that voted in 2016. This is generally around it though:

Quote

Remain would win a second Brexit referendum by a narrow margin if the vote were held today, new polling suggests.

Five years to the day since the 2016 referendum took place, a Savanta ComRes survey found 51 per cent of respondents would now vote to remain, whereas 49 per cent would vote leave, based on interviews conducted last week.

Compared to the results of the 2016 referendum, where 51.9 per cent of people voted to Leave and 48.1 voted to Remain, the nation appears to remain as divided as ever.

The polling also showed that very few people had shifted positions since the 2016 referendum. Only 6 per cent of Remainers said they would now vote Leave, and 7 per cent of Leavers would now change their vote to Remain.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-vote-leave-remain-2021-b1871157.html

[peterw]

7 hours ago, Genie said:

The referendum was basically, do you want to do something different? without defining what it was. Nobody knew what the leave option was. With that in mind some went with it, some not.

So, remain knew what they would get, but didn’t know what the alternative was. Had it been defined then some may have voted leave (and vice versa).

Remain knew what they would get, but not what they were voting against.

that's not how it was shaped though. It was taking something back not getting something new or different. It was tugging on the emotional heart strings for the days of Albion and maidens dancing around polls with guys with sticks; dragons swooping overhead protecting the isles whilst Arthur and Merlin kept us all happily at one against the wicked attempts of Morgana and her evil magic. It was very basic and enough people fell for it. 

Edited May 25, 2022 by peterw

[Genie]

1 hour ago, peterw said:

that's not how it was shaped though. It was taking something back not getting something new or different. It was tugging on the emotional heart strings for the days of Albion and maidens dancing around polls with guys with sticks; dragons swooping overhead protecting the isles whilst Arthur and Merlin kept us all happily at one against the wicked attempts of Morgana and her evil magic. It was very basic and enough people fell for it. 

It was shaped as everything we already had, plus more.

We’d keep the ability to holiday, live and work in the EU. Our trading with the EU wouldn’t be affected either. We could buy and sell everything just as before.

But

We’d also save £350m a week

We’d be able to control immigration better to keep out those pesky foreigners from doing the low skilled jobs.

We would have new trade deals with other major countries around the world.

All upsides, no downsides.

Now why wouldn’t you vote for that? Because it’s completely unrealistic especially given the fools who were championing it. They never said how they would achieve the pro’s, and it was against many people saying they couldn’t.

52% still liked the sound of it and went for it

48% thought it wouldn’t happen as advertised and we’d be worse off as a nation.

[sidcow]

3 hours ago, peterw said:

that's not how it was shaped though. It was taking something back not getting something new or different. It was tugging on the emotional heart strings for the days of Albion and maidens dancing around polls with guys with sticks; dragons swooping overhead protecting the isles whilst Arthur and Merlin kept us all happily at one against the wicked attempts of Morgana and her evil magic. It was very basic and enough people fell for it. 

I don't remember that on the side of the bus, Wow.

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

It was shaped as everything we already had, plus more.

We’d keep the ability to holiday, live and work in the EU. Our trading with the EU wouldn’t be affected either. We could buy and sell everything just as before.

But

We’d also save £350m a week

We’d be able to control immigration better to keep out those pesky foreigners from doing the low skilled jobs.

We would have new trade deals with other major countries around the world.

All upsides, no downsides.

Now why wouldn’t you vote for that? Because it’s completely unrealistic especially given the fools who were championing it. They never said how they would achieve the pro’s, and it was against many people saying they couldn’t.

52% still liked the sound of it and went for it

48% thought it wouldn’t happen as advertised and we’d be worse off as a nation.

Yes, you can argue till you are blue in the face about what people really wanted but the one undeniable fact is that the leave campaign strongly argued that you could have your cake and eat it.

We can leave the EU, control our destiny/borders, make our own laws and NONE of the negatives of leaving will actually happen.  That's where the project fear and remoaners thing came in.  People were sold the idea that we could leave and the fisherman could still sell their fish to Europe without the silly quotas, the goods could still flow with no barriers, the farmers could sell their produce as easily without the various rules and regulations.

So yes, people voted for an alterative without knowing what it was but they had been promised that in doing so nothing negative would come from it.  This is the issue.

 

[cyrusr]

15 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I don't remember that on the side of the bus, Wow.

Really?

[blandy]

10 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I know what I am voting for.

I mean that's broadly right, but remain voters, or at least some of them/us, we didn't really know what we were voting for. In my case I voted against Leave, more than for remain, if that makes sense. I knew leave would be worse than remain, for all the reasons that have been repeated endlessly in this thread and elsewhere, but in truth the "for remain" part there was quite an element of unknown about it - would the EU continue to get ever more centralised, ever more kind of inveigled in stuff that was previously domestic, would they try and do more TTIP type stuff, would they continue expanding memberships? Of course the future is unknowable and it's true that a lot more was known about what remain would mean than what leave might bring about, but, at least for me, I didn't knw what I was voting for with much certainty, just that I was certain that leave (and the politicians who supported it) were a really bad thing.  

[bickster]

4 hours ago, peterw said:

difficulty is having a definitive source asking the question purely to those that voted in 2016. This is generally around it though:

Firstly, there's a reason why you can't find that data, multiple reasons actually but primarily because no polling company asks that question and they don't ask the question because it's irrelevant. For one, it's blindly obvious that if they kept asking the question to just people who voted in the referendum that remain would be in the lead by now even if no-one changed their mind, just because of demographics and the age imbalance of the voters i.e. old people have have dropped off this mortal coil and they were hugely leave. It was only about 12 months after the vote that dead people vs newly of age voters would have changed the outcome of the vote if the proportions remained constant, so it wouldn't be too much longer that this would have happened among just the cohort that voted. It should also be obvious that the relevant question is of the population now not back then

Secondly, that article is 11 months old and I can't find a single poll in the intervening period that says any different. The last poll I can find where the question was "If there was another referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, how would you vote?" and remain was ahead, was actually around the time of that article, every poll since then (all by Deltapoll as it happens) have been remain ahead and their most recent poll in February of this year has Remain on 48% Leave as low as 40%. There is a trend seemingly developing in this data but I'd say its too early to say for definite if that is the case. The other significant factor in the polls is the amount of people saying don't know, this is also reducing. The last poll having widest gap between remain and leave with also the least number of don't knows.

[peterw]

22 minutes ago, bickster said:

Firstly, there's a reason why you can't find that data, multiple reasons actually but primarily because no polling company asks that question and they don't ask the question because it's irrelevant. For one, it's blindly obvious that if they kept asking the question to just people who voted in the referendum that remain would be in the lead by now even if no-one changed their mind, just because of demographics and the age imbalance of the voters i.e. old people have have dropped off this mortal coil and they were hugely leave. It was only about 12 months after the vote that dead people vs newly of age voters would have changed the outcome of the vote if the proportions remained constant, so it wouldn't be too much longer that this would have happened among just the cohort that voted. It should also be obvious that the relevant question is of the population now not back then

Secondly, that article is 11 months old and I can't find a single poll in the intervening period that says any different. The last poll I can find where the question was "If there was another referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, how would you vote?" and remain was ahead, was actually around the time of that article, every poll since then (all by Deltapoll as it happens) have been remain ahead and their most recent poll in February of this year has Remain on 48% Leave as low as 40%. There is a trend seemingly developing in this data but I'd say its too early to say for definite if that is the case. The other significant factor in the polls is the amount of people saying don't know, this is also reducing. The last poll having widest gap between remain and leave with also the least number of don't knows.

There's no compelling data either way that I'm able to rely on 100% and a lot of it is largely a small show of hands on topical discussion programmes like Question Time which clearly isn't going to translate across the whole population. Therefore a lot of it is anecdotal but if there was such a huge groundswell of feelings that Brexit was a mistake we would be hearing more about it. This comes from various stakeholders, NGOs, constituents asking Qs of MPs, and task groups employed to get the feeling of the people on a range of issues (doesn't just cover Brexit).  

The problem for these types of questions and opinions is how its worded.  " Are we better off or worse off" for example isn't the same as asking someone if they'd change their vote. Similarly, having one side or another ahead in a poll that doesn't really alter a great deal in terms of being in a position to really push for another referendum. There needs to be a greater call for it - as in Scotland - to change people's minds and make the majority want to rejoin, or see it as something really attractive to want to do. 

I think the point of the gap widening is significant and when we're at a point where 55-60% minimum are repeatedly saying rejoin then any govt worth their salt would re-open the question, but its too soon to do so as there would be a reactionary backlash. It would also give a stage for Johnson et al to worm their way back into the publics affections pointing out that they and only they care for what the electorate want. 

I agree that the trend is going one-way, but so do polls for mid-term govts where they are usually at their lowest but come General Election time that swings back round. I think another EU vote now would be too soon and risk the stay out cause having a rallying cry of remainers trying to take their voice/opinion/vote away from them. Plus there's too many of them for it to just go away quietly. This is just one of them that rejoiners will have to suck up and play the long game; however encouraging it may be to see polls going one way. I will caveat this, of course, by pointing out that as i do not live in the UK (or Europe) I may be wildly out of touch. Which is of course possible.

[HKP90]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Yes, you can argue till you are blue in the face about what people really wanted but the one undeniable fact is that the leave campaign strongly argued that you could have your cake and eat it.

We can leave the EU, control our destiny/borders, make our own laws and NONE of the negatives of leaving will actually happen.  That's where the project fear and remoaners thing came in.  People were sold the idea that we could leave and the fisherman could still sell their fish to Europe without the silly quotas, the goods could still flow with no barriers, the farmers could sell their produce as easily without the various rules and regulations.

So yes, people voted for an alterative without knowing what it was but they had been promised that in doing so nothing negative would come from it.  This is the issue.

 

In other words, lies. I am still astonished people actually fell for it. It was more than obvious at the time that the leave argument had no basis in reality or pragmatism. I'm not really all that sympathetic with leave voters getting shafted to be honest. Just angry they shafted everyone else. 

[bickster]

20 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

I am still astonished people actually fell for it.

You have to consider that approximately 50% of people are of below average intelligence in the UK  

[HKP90]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

You have to consider that approximately 50% of people are of below average intelligence in the UK  

That's the thing. It doesn't take intelligence, it just requires a lack of laziness in actually researching something you vote for. That should be the minimum requirement for voting. People talk about increasing voter turnout. It seems saft to me to try to get voters to get to the ballot boxes when they either don't care enough about the subject to vote for it, or can't be bothered to actually research it. Encourage those who do, and have, to get out there and vote and we might get somewhere. 

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I mean that's broadly right, but remain voters, or at least some of them/us, we didn't really know what we were voting for. In my case I voted against Leave, more than for remain, if that makes sense. I knew leave would be worse than remain, for all the reasons that have been repeated endlessly in this thread and elsewhere, but in truth the "for remain" part there was quite an element of unknown about it - would the EU continue to get ever more centralised, ever more kind of inveigled in stuff that was previously domestic, would they try and do more TTIP type stuff, would they continue expanding memberships? Of course the future is unknowable and it's true that a lot more was known about what remain would mean than what leave might bring about, but, at least for me, I didn't knw what I was voting for with much certainty, just that I was certain that leave (and the politicians who supported it) were a really bad thing.  

 

Yes, I agree with that. None of us can truly know what the future holds so essentially you can never truly know anything. You cannot know what will happen if you go out for lunch, if you go home this evening, if you have peas for tea.

So yes, on a philosophical level, none of us can ever truly know in advance what any action will ever lead to.

But in simplistic terms, I genuinely believe I knew what I was voting for. More of the same direction of travel. More of being in the decision making process with our nearest neighbours and all the freedom of movement etc that brought with it. I voted for the known unknowns rather than the unknowable unknowns.

That I didn’t know covid and Putin were coming or that NATO would be expanded or that Germany would get itself so snagged on Russian gas. Agreed.

[blandy]

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

in simplistic terms, I genuinely believe I knew what I was voting for. More of the same direction of travel

Changing the subject slightly, I didn't like the "direction of travel" of the EU, to be honest. I mean TTIP on its own was almost enough to make me a leave voter - happily it got binned after people found out what was going on and how it was being secretly handled. But that kind of thing was as bad as anything any government has done with policy (excluding wars, or Brexit itself) in the UK. It did get canned, thanks to some tenacious opposition, but it should never ever have come to that.

So back to your point, I suspected that voting remain, reluctantly, I did know I was voting for more of the same direction of travel, but I didn't like it. That said, voting leave I would have liked even less.

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

Changing the subject slightly, I didn't like the "direction of travel" of the EU, to be honest. I mean TTIP on its own was almost enough to make me a leave voter - happily it got binned after people found out what was going on and how it was being secretly handled. But that kind of thing was as bad as anything any government has done with policy (excluding wars, or Brexit itself) in the UK. It did get canned, thanks to some tenacious opposition, but it should never ever have come to that.

So back to your point, I suspected that voting remain, reluctantly, I did know I was voting for more of the same direction of travel, but I didn't like it. That said, voting leave I would have liked even less.

I think we were both in pretty much the same boat. I did genuinely consider voting leave I didn’t have an absolute position from day 1. In that aspect, I might have been in a minority.

I knew what I was voting for. It wasn’t my optimum choice, but that wasn’t on the ballot.

 

[Xann]

27 minutes ago, blandy said:

 I didn't like the "direction of travel" of the EU, to be honest. I mean THE TORY POISONED TTIP on its own was almost enough to make me a leave voter - happily it got binned after THE GERMANS & FRENCH KICKED OFF.

 

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, Xann said:

 

Back in the day, I do recall you were one of the few people raising TTIP. It wasn’t registering at any scale in the UK as an issue. Not that I was seeing anyway, other than a few London based agitators and music perverts.

Then we went over to Berlin for a short break, and it was everywhere, Grafitti, stickers on lamp posts, a story in the magazine in the hotel!

It kind of summarised quite nicely our lack of knowledge of the club we were in and how that club worked.

[choffer]

6 hours ago, blandy said:

I knew leave would be worse than remain, for all the reasons that have been repeated endlessly

I doubt this adds anything to the debate (because it's often way beyond my understanding) but if I'd known nothing of the arguments for or against either side, I'd have just looked at those backing each campaign and worked it out from there.