I shared it because they all sounded like extremely reasonable points. They didn't sound crazy or irrational. The question was "are there any positive things to say about brexit" and the answer is "yes". Does that mean Brexit = good? I have no idea but the answer seems clearly not as simple as anti-brexit people seem to claim
It wasn't loaded. It was a genuine question. Did it backfire?
I voted remain. But the brexiteer argument was that the EU is NOT just a trading bloc and has conspiratorial designs on further reduction in national sovereignty. Indeed the EU commission are seeking this right now and have plans to campaign for it.
The remain campaigners and media denied this. They denied even that the EU wanted a military.
The responses to my question indicate that these people support further reductions in national sovereignty to be handed over to EUP and EUC. Tax setting powers and foreign policy powers included.
It literally proves the Brexit supporters correct.
He links to a Woodford Investment analysis that states that Brexit might not be that bad for the UK (the report is from Feb 2016). This goes against every other analyst report that I've read, and the optimism seems to be based on a perception that doing trade deals with other countries is easy. My guess is that the author is a Brexit supporter looking to justify their position. "Oh, I voted with all the old people? They are all actually really wise".
I think the point was, it's not even clear if the UK will leave the EU.
The referendum result was 52-48, with some people regretting their decision since they only meant it as a protest against the current government. Others are furious that the things they thought they voted for (money for healthcare, much reduced immigration) have already been backtraced upon by politicians.
We live in interesting times.
(I'm British and live in Denmark, so I have a clear bias in this.)
You're passing judgement on journalism. Yet you can't even distinguish between a paper's opinion, and that of the people it interviews.
Specifically, the article you linked to includes the full statements of everyone they asked. You can obviously accuse them of selectively choosing their panel's composition, but (a) it appears this is a group of people they regularly poll, meaning it doesn't have a specific anti-brexit slant because it predates that issue. And (b) I challenge you to find a group of 100 people with similar credentials that reflects your opinion.
I'd also like to see proof of brexit's positive effect in growth in 2016. Hint: that's impossible to do, unless you have an alternative universe.
If you invest the time to actually read the opinions, you'll also notice that almost every single one says they expect little effect on growth in 2016, which is probably pretty close to the truth, considering the referendum only happened in June, and the second half' numbers are completely within the normal range.
I'd also point out that several of comments quoted by the FT are as pro-brexit as you seem to want them to be. And that there are quite a lot of people today who would consider comments such as the following to be exactly the sort of contribution to public discourse that was regrettably underrepresented in the run-up to brexit:
We cannot count on the EU being prepared to grant continued access to the European market on the same privileged terms, particularly if the divorce turns vitriolic (contrary to received wisdom, in terms of trade flows "they" do not need "us" as much as we need them). And, if it were so easy to expand trade with the rest of the world to compensate, you would expect that to be happening already.
I took it seriously. In my social group, the bigger problem I saw was delusional Lexiteers. They're due to get literally nothing they said wanted out of Brexit.
I hope one day we can rejoin, and it doesn't break the UK into pieces, but right now I can't see the Union surviving.
Thank you for responding! Too few people have the courage to actually evaluate what would make them change their minds. Kudos to you for doing so.
I agree for the most part. And to be clear I’m not a British citizen so I don’t have a strong stake in this, but I am a EU skeptic and it bugs me when people assert that the Brexit position must be mentally deranged or some such. That’s a rhetorical cheap shot that speaks to the base instead of contributing to conversation.
With my Brexit hat on, I think we agree in spirit. I think the Leave movement DOES feel that the EU is and has been for some time moving against the long term interests of the UK. I even agree with this view myself.
However I think the thresholds you set for moving on it are too high and too optimistic. Politicians didn’t want Brexit, and those same politicians would be the ones responsible for creating such a plan. It’s not like you or I can negotiate with the EU terms for Brexit without the UK government’s participation. And that wasn’t going to happen. You clearly have your own cynicism, I just think you need to extend it to both sides of an issue. And that’s being realistic, not cynical :)
The mistake that was made, I feel, was in letting this be decided by a simple majority. They should have used a 3/5 or 2/3 threshold instead.
If only that was the case! One of the conversations I had before the referendum went like this:
Them: “We should leave because then they’ll give us a great deal.”
Me: “But they can’t give you a better deal.”
Them: “That just proves we should leave!”
This person has a Cambridge degree, yet this topic allowed them to mix up hopes and preferences with objective economic benefits and end up with cult-like thinking where the conclusion was kept despite the negation of the argument just used to reach it.
From time to time, I ponder their mistake and ask if I have made a similar one of my own.
1. Almost all Remainers think May is a hardcore Leaver, because of what I’m about to say for 3.
3. Except for anyone who heard or saw:
“Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the Single Market” - Daniel Hannan MEP
“Only a madman would actually leave the Market” - Owen Paterson MP, Vote Leave backer
And anyone who knows that Norway is in the single market who heard:
“Wouldn't it be terrible if we were really like Norway and Switzerland? Really? They're rich. They're happy. They're self-governing” - Nigel Farage
“The Norwegian option, the EEA option, I think that it might be initally attractive for some business people” - Matthew Elliot, Vote Leave chief executive
“Increasingly, the Norway option looks the best for the UK” - Arron Banks, Leave.EU founder
"What power have you got? "Where did you get it from? "In whose interests do you use it? "To whom are you accountable? "How do we get rid of you?". Prior to the Brexit vote a lot of people had trouble squaring these vis a vis the EU - especially the last one. Indeed, this, not immigration (UK is already a highly diverse society) was a significant factor for many voters. Clearly you have no problem with Benn's questions but maybe you could avoid making gross generalizations regarding those who disagree.
Benn's comment about that last question:
"Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system."
The problem is, many people wanted Brexit for different reasons. It's easy to find a consensus to the question "should the UK leave the EU". "Brexit" is an abstract, but "single market" and "passports" and "trade deals" and "Ireland" and "Scotland" and "financial regulations" etc are all details that need to be sorted out, and many people feel very differently on them.
It's easy to find a consensus to the abstract question "should the UK leave the EU". It's much harder to find a consensus to the all of these questions when asked together. All the people who wanted Brexit are backing away from May's solution because she needs to answer all of those questions 100% correct for 51% of the population. Any disagreement and the deal is off.
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