The Brexit referendum thread: potential consequences for GB, EU and the Brits in CH

[marton]

	Quote:	Loz1983
	It's pure opportunism. Whatever you think about Corbyn, he had nothing to do with this. Maybe that was the problem?

The leader of the second largest UK political party who formally supported Remain and lost

[JagWaugh]

	Quote:	Faltrad
	Yes, but there must also be people who voted remain out of fear for the unknown and are happily exited that the others were more courageous to make the jump. With 4 points difference in a referendum, the majority is clear. I don't like it but I like the clarity of the situation.

I was marvelling more at the flipflop and the complete and utter inability to recognise that she is responsible for her choice as a voter.

[amogles]

	Quote:	Castro
	The most cogent statement I've read all week ----------- Australia has had five prime ministers in five years, the poor yanks look as though they'll have to choose between two options both of which have more disapproval than approval, and the UK leaves the EU. It seems like a ridiculous amount of instability. One might even call it absurd. But it's not surprising. You can't feed a society exaggeration, hyperbole and propaganda for over a decade, and then claim surprise when people don't seem to be making rational decisions on the basis of well established truth. There's a cost associated with not telling the truth. There's a cost associated with polarised, adversarial public discourse. There's a cost associated with media more concerned with profits than the public interest. It is, apparently, time to pay the piper. source

Actually, the press, and especially the gutter press are rapidly losing circulation. People are being informed by social media, where accuracy and accountability is even poorer than in the tabloid press.

[PaddyG]

I always thought Corbyn was a reluctant remainer, but had to try and tow the party line to keep his troops happy. He was never particularly vocal during the campaign.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

	Quote:	dawiz
	To remain fair here: the Scots were threatened that they'd be kicked out of the EU if they voted in favor of quitting the UK. The prospect of a referendum, which still wasn't certain to take place at that time, probably was the lesser of two evils for many voters.

And now they're out anyway as the UK has voted to leave. Just proves the EU can't have it both ways and neither can Scotland. Though I'm sure the EU will rush to assure Scotland that all the thousands of agreements they have under the UK umbrella will continue if they do decide to vote to leave the UK in a future referendum despite their previous threats. Not sure they could do that though, as it's UK law and not Scottish law that the EU have been dealing with. But EU will want to make as positive a show as they can before the whole thing breaks up.

[Faltrad]

	Quote:	JagWaugh
	I was marvelling more at the flipflop and the complete and utter inability to recognise that she is responsible for her choice as a voter.

Oh yes, this is what referenda are about... a question is asked, but the answer is only partially related to it. Sometimes it's even a very little part. In teacher speak, we call that "to allow the learners to fail".

[marton]

	Quote:	porsch1909
	NI join Scotland? What an utterly daft thing to say. NI to have a referendum to join a united Irish republic....more likely.

But Ireland has said many time they do not want NI! Possibly because of the huge Social benefits bill they would have to shoulder;

current NI £5.6bn bill includes:

£971m spent on Disability Living Allowance, which has surged by more than 22% in five years;
£179m on Jobseeker's Allowance - broadly unchanged from 2010 despite the number of people in work rising significantly;
£655m on housing benefit - a rise of 17% in the last five years;
And £734m on employment and support allowance, which has jumped by 39% in the last year.
In total, £5.583bn was spent on welfare in Northern Ireland during 2014/15, including £2bn on the retirement pension.

That total has risen by 15% since 2010/11, when expenditure added up to £4.851bn.

[marton]

	Quote:	PaddyG
	I always thought Corbyn was a reluctant remainer, but had to try and tow the party line to keep his trops happy. He was never particularly vocal during the campaign.

You reap what you sow!

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Interesting statistic: when Greenland voted to leave the EU their result was also 52% leave, 48% remain.

[Pachyderm]

	Quote:	dawiz
	I'm giving you my personal (mostly Swiss) opinion here. But I guess it's only consequential for you to follow your own advice and also refrain from commenting on topics pertaining to Swiss politics (which you obviously have no idea about and are not interested in, judging by your "MEI" question) in the future.

I'm sorry for the groan, but I can't accept such rudeness.

1. You mentioned "MEI" at least twice without explanation.

2. I wanted to know what it meant before responding to your other point attacking British people, so I searched the English Forum but found no threads about MEI to educate me.

3. I then went to Google and searched on MEI. I found numerous possibilities including the name of a rock album, a character in a fantasy board game, a bird-like dinosaur, and a chemical compound. None of those sounded likely.

4. At that point, I gave up, satisfied that I'd made a fair effort to educate myself, and that's when I asked you what it meant (even though it was irrelevant to the main point).

5. Worst of all, don't tell me to "refrain from commenting on topics pertaining to Swiss politics" when I was doing no such thing, and have no immediate intention of doing so. I was responding to your uninformed attack on British democracy, and your misunderstanding of the Brexit vote. Nothing whatever to do with Swiss politics.

Yes, I'm labouring the point, that sort of unwarranted rudeness is way out of order, and makes me annoyed.

Have a nice day.

[Rob]

	Quote:	Pachyderm
	I'm sorry for the groan, but I can't accept such rudeness. 1. You mentioned "MEI" at least twice without explanation. 2. I wanted to know what it meant before responding to your other point attacking British people, so I searched the English Forum but found no threads about MEI to educate me. 3. I then went to Google and searched on MEI. I found numerous possibilities including the name of a rock album, a character in a fantasy board game, a bird-like dinosaur, and a chemical compound. None of those sounded likely. 4. At that point, I gave up, satisfied that I'd made a fair effort to educate myself, and that's when I asked you what it meant (even though it was irrelevant to the main point). 5. Worst of all, don't tell me to "refrain from commenting on topics pertaining to Swiss politics" when I was doing no such thing, and have no immediate intention of doing so. I was responding to your uninformed attack on British democracy, and your misunderstanding of the Brexit vote. Nothing whatever to do with Swiss politics. Yes, I'm labouring the point, that sort of unwarranted rudeness is way out of order, and makes me annoyed. Have a nice day.

MEI is the Masseinwanderung initiative.

[k_and_e]

	Quote:	Pachyderm
	I'm sorry for the groan

I love the Brits!

[amogles]

	Quote:	bigblue2
	which is quite true, every single person I've seen / read interviewed only cared about there own situation, head of weatherspoons, of course he wants out, he want all that cheap booze from abroad stopped and people drinking is his pubs. All those 'man on the street' who thinks he can't get a decent job because of the polish builders (not because he's uneducated and lazy), democracy clearly doesn't work, but the alternatives are just as bad

not too different to the EF then.

[bigblue2]

nail in the coffin for british car manufacturing?

give how many cars are now actually made in the uk, this would be a prefect opportunity for France, German, Italy etc to load the dice, lets face it the brits are never going to dump there german brands, so imposing a nice fat import duty on british made cars would be a sensible move, honda, toyota, landrover, nissan, mini etc would be stupid not be looking into alternative euro based sites

[dodgyken]

Does it say "Lets use ALL that to better fund the NHS?"

[Pachyderm]

	Quote:	dawiz
	...I just think that the EU will now play "wounded animal", lash out and walk away from negotiations. Threatening your negotiation partner is a clear sign of weakness - I see that in my boss every day. And without a strong position and good arguments, things fall apart quickly.

The EU as an institution can't "play wounded animal, lash out, and walk away". The simple fact is that it's in the interests of the EU as a whole to have a good relationship with the UK. I agree that there is no great incentive to offer the UK a wonderful deal in case it incentivises other nations to break away. But we are intelligent adults, friends and business partners, and we should all approach the challenge in a mature way.

Have we "threatened" the EU in any formal way? Plenty of individuals, including me and people more important than me, have been critical of what the EU has become, but the EU must take on board these criticisms. Throwing their toys out of the pram isn't going to solve the underlying issues.

	Quote:	dodgyken
	Does it say "Lets use ALL that to better fund the NHS?"

The UKIP guy on the news this morning , quickly scaled that back to 'maybe 100 million. Not sure just yet.'

[spalebärg]

Well, I enjoyed my breakfast* this morning.

*) actually my second breakfast

[dodgyken]

	Quote:
	The UKIP guy on the news this morning , quickly scaled that back to 'maybe 100 million. Not sure just yet.'

And even then we are talking many years down the line - the NHS might not even exist then

[Faltrad]

	Quote:	Pachyderm
	Throwing their toys out of the pram isn't going to solve the underlying issues.

From a German tax payer's point of view, the pram is the UK not wanting to pay. Brexit solved that underlying issue. I'm fine with that, I don't like the solution but I do admit that it is a solution.