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Taking Back Control?

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Genuinely sad about this vote. But the polls after a democratic vote are what they are and it was nice to see people so obviously engaged. Obviously DC is now a dead man walking. I want to be positive, it could be a genuine invigoration of politics, but in the longer run I fear balkanization of the UK. What do you think the repercussions will be?

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Comments

  1. Not the result I wanted or expected but it is democracy so have to accept. In all of the hysteria one person impressed me greatly and that was Gisela Stewart – calm, sensible and impressive. Not many others with that quality.

  3. From an Australian perspective- the market is down a bit but that might be a response to uncertainty rather than the economic impact.

    From an Oz perspective, I’m hoping closer relations, perhaps easier working and trade again with UK.

      • No not really @garyjohn

        And certainly I don’t expect more immigration ,net, but I get the impression that this harking back to the old days would mean a more benign attitude towards those who were in the trenches with you rather than lining up in the aliens queue.

        6% of our exports I think go to UK. Our farmers ,esp fruit, were fucked over royally when the Common Market came in -can still recall all the fruit trees being chopped down.But that was many years ago of course. I understand that quite a few Aussie companies use Britain as their base/ springboard for the European business so that will be an impact.

        I don’t think the colonies are interested in buying British as much as selling to Britain.

        • I don’t think anyone’s particularly interested in buying British these days.

          Apart from some niche products, there’s very little we produce here that can’t be obtained elsewhere for a comparable price.
          Our manufacturing base is extremely fragile and our economy depends chiefly on financial services.

        • Wishful thinking I suspect JW but I know where you’re coming from. Every time I’ve arrived back in the UK in the company of Aussies, they’ve visibly bristled at having to join the significantly longer ‘alien’ queue.
          But maybe this will re-energise the Australian republican debate.
          You know, the one Malcolm T championed, whatever happened to that?
          Another principle traded for ego.

    • I think that’s what the brexiteers are sort of hoping – the colonies will once again rally to our cause & start buying British er, what exactly do we actually make anymore that Oz, NZ etc would want? As far as I know, Australia has shifted it’s focus towards Asia and sees itself as part of that trading bloc. What would she want from the UK?

  5. Be prepared for news story upon news story (like ‘London 2012’ from 2005-2012) in EVERY single news bulletin for the next decade about the repercussions (monetary, legal, border control, subsidies, fishing rights, human – if they still exist in the UK – rights etc.).

    If you voted because you DON’T like legislation, you’re in for a nasty shock. This is where the legislation begins. If you’re a European lawyer, ker-and-very-much-ching.

    I’m already preparing myself for a self-imposed news lock-down (see ‘Michael Jackson death’) for this has ‘Jackson job’ written all over it.

    It is going to be very, very boring.

  6. As an ex-pat of 40 years standing I will be putting a Union Jack on my car aerial for my work commute today to rub it in the faces of these namby-pamby Norwegians. It’ll show them what can be achieved with big-balled, no-nonsense, common sense talking politicians telling it like it is. I’m also thrilled that my aged aunts will now see their streets cleansed of Romanians. What a day!

  7. Well,who knows what the future will bring, but let’s assume we go ahead and withdraw as envisaged.

    One consequence would seem to be that in the medium term all of government will be bogged down sorting out things that have little or no impact on the country’s real problems.

    Lest we forget, Boris Johnson described these as poor skills and leadership, sloth, woeful manufacturing and a culture of entitlement. He might have added poor productivity and what appears to be an unsustainable NHS.

    Rather than focus on these we will now concentrate on efforts on negotiating our exit from the EU, negotiating new trade treaties, negotiating cross border arrangements in Ireland, replicating functions currently carried out in Brussels, reviewing and revising employment, immigration and human rights legislation. Oh, and possibly dealing with another Scottish referendum.

    I can’t say that I am filled with optimism, given that half of government came to a standstill a decade ago when the Hunting With Dogs Act was going through Parliament.

    As an aside does anyone know where one might find a small army of skilled trade and other negotiators? It doesn’t exist within the civil service and given our poor track record in exporting much beyond financial services, I am not confident the private sector has much to offer. Perhaps we will have to hire some from abroad.

  8. Well, really wasn’t expecting that. London, Scotland and N.I for remain and the rest of the country for leave. That really is one divided country. The leave campaign seem to have peddled some kind of Major Thompson lily-white fantasy land where a chap’s word is his bond without knowing what the consequences are going to be. The immigration card is one that has stuck and the remain camp overplayed the economic armageddon line. Of course the next few days, weeks etc is going to see turmoil and personally I am concerned because this could affect my job. Will the EEC have the wisdom to understand what’s happened and make some conciliation moves ? I should imagine they must be crapping themselves right now. The political ramifications are worrying because some of the Eurosceptic Tories behind Gove and Johnson are quite frankly barking.

  10. Twitter is full of remainers bleating about the result, well that’s democracy for you. 52% of the country voted out now we just have to get on with it. Most of the remainers have also spent their time pre referendum moaning about the state of the country, careful what you wish for.

  11. This was lost by the proxy vote. Brussels the proxy for Westminster.

    Cameron should throw himself off the top of Big Ben; he’s responsible for the biggest fuck-up in British political history.

      • I’m very angry at Cameron for the way he has sleepwalked the country into this. History will see him as a weak, reactive and disastrous prime minister. But in truth it would have happened anyway. No one could have become Tory leader without mollifying the antiEuropeans in the party with a referendum promise. If not him it would have been someone else

        • I’m none to thrilled with Corbyn whose barely-there support for Remain couldn’t have been more tepid if he had just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘meh …’ Which is pretty much what he did on TV this morning.

          • I think Gatz hits the nail on the head. Cameron gamboled on a referendum win to get the Tories in, and keep him in the driving seat. Watching the subsequent campaign felt more like the Tory leadership hustings than anything to do with the UK’s future. Labour should have been all over this vote and providing some kind of counter point to Farage’s wankery at the very least. I wonder at what point Labour will wake up and consider what might be required to provide some kind of opposition? It’s not going to happen under Corbyn.

                    • The Labour party are completely fecked. They’ve been the biggest disgrace of this whole campaign – the political debate of a lifetime and they basically sat it out. If there was a general election tomorrow I suspect we’d see the swing from Labour to UKIP massively intensify.

                    • Agree. It was bizarre to watch. Corbyn made zero impact, which was perhaps not unexpected.
                      My take on the whole shebang is that this was the first time the electorate could have their say as regards immigration, without having to consider the impact of their vote along Party lines.
                      I’d like to see the number of, professed, Labour voters who voted ‘Leave’, particularly in the North.

                    • Seems Labour were happier having the Tories in disarray than actually, y’know, following their principles.

                    • Labour MPs were apparently sent a list of talking points this morning, in which they were asked to stress that Corybn is “uniquely well positioned” as a “critical Remainer”. Ugh.

                      I agree with your reading. I think it’s more than just that: no single causal factor, more likely four or five depending on region, but immigration has to be near the top of the list. Whatever we may all feel on immigration, it’s impossible to ignore the public’s strength of feeling on the topic, and that’s been apparent for some time now.

                    • Great interview with Alastair Campbell on Sky News today.

                      To paraphrase him: You thought Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband were ineffectual? They were giants compared to Corbyn.

  13. People and music are more important than politics. We disagree more about this issue than most other things, but the other things are more important. It would have been a different outcome if there hadn’t been 2 decades of rapacious capitalism and treating the poor working class and their concerns the way Conservative and Labour Parties have. People have the power.

    • That’s rather good from my point of view (though I’m not particularly urban nor intellectual). But the difference is that half the country weren’t cheering and celebrating the car/drunk driver.

      • Oh come on, we can handle it. The other side won. We have to deal with that.

        What irritates me is the hypocrisy of people who berate the Daily Mail for doom-mongering suddenly talking like we’re a country on the brink of civil war.

          • Yeah because Fishface Gove, BJ and the other suspects all have the balls to invoke Article 50 now CallMeDave has hung them
            out to dry? ‘You reactionary shits pull the trigger, I’m off.’

        • I respectfully disagree. This is not a simplistic matter of “The other side won – we have to deal with that”, as though 48% of us have just lost a vote on whether to introduce charges for residents’ parking permits. This completely uninformed decision to Leave is going to fundamentally change the constitutional, economic, political, and social make-up of the United Kingdom forever. I’m not opposed to change, but not everything altogether at the same time, without anyone having a clue about what to do or how to do it, and with most of the macro-decisions being made by external and / or non-State actors.

          And yes, as a resolute anti-Mailist, I don’t think I’m being remotely hypocritical in believing that we’re on the brink of massive social disintegration and conflict, and that that certainly could turn into civil war, further down the track.

          As I see it:

          – the main political parties are shot to pieces – we’ll see a fragmentation of the political blocks and the emergence of myriad nut-job groupuscles – this will lead to the Italianisation of government, ie constantly-fracturing and re-combining coalitions, with no true mandate, no confidence in their own longevity, and thus no ability to plan
          – the emboldening of what we currently know as the racist ‘far-Right’ – having ‘won’ immigration controls as a result of Brexit, there’ll be a rise in political and physical attacks on those ethnic minorities already here (“Get ’em out!”). Those minorities, especially the one embracing radical Islam, will fight back very, very hard
          – increasing anti-Londonism / de-Westminsterisation / emotive calls for regional devolution – an independent Cornwall? Yeah, good luck with that, with no EU structural funding
          – increasing antipathy towards the ‘perceived-to-be racist’ 65yrs+ Leave demographic, from the angry and frustrated 18-24yrs Remain vote – the emergence of the Provisional Wing of Generation Rent
          – massive disinvestment by the tech sector, as global companies relocate their European HQs from the Thames Valley / London to Germany and France
          – the flight of FDI, especially Chinese, to mainland Europe

          And loads more – just keep reading the financial / markets pages / sites over the next few days / weeks / months.

          And on top of all that, I think the Wallabies might just nick the 3rd Test tomorrow.

          Is it too early to start drinking?

            • You know what you were saying about immature opinions? Instead of going yah boo sucks all the time, why don’t you try and actually, you know, engage with what people are saying once in a while? I can’t see anything to jeer at in jeff’s carefully reasoned post. But maybe I’m just too damn mature.

              • Nope. I’m with ianess on this, he really must have been out on the lash all morning to come up with that sub- faux Geordie apocalyptic, paranoid nonsense.

                Whilst age does confer wisdom through experience it can also make one rather too inflexible to change and stuck in the past.

                Get with the new beat daddio!

              • Mike – if you could refrain from having emotional spasms or hormonal spikes every time you see my moniker, you’d see that I believe the main reason Leave won was because of voter antipathy towards the levels of immigration experienced over the past 15 years or so. These voters came from both main parties.
                As regards Jeff’s post – I’d, clearly mistakenly, thought I was making an obvious joke about Juncker’s reported fondness for a drink. As for its content, anyone claiming ‘civil war’ will result as a result of a democratic vote is not to be taken seriously, IMHO of course.
                Who will take up arms? The liberal, metropolitan elite against the working class of the North of England? Best of luck with that.

          • Good post Jeff. Not sure about the wallabies forecast tho.

            Get me, I called the Scottish & referendum both wrong – WTF do I know?

            Unsurprisingly, I belong to various Royal Navy veterans sites. The bile, hate & abuse I have received (in general, but increased massively since the result came in) is beyond belief.

            I have no major problem with being on the losing side, but to read some of the comments, its a blindfold & cigarette for sometime soon.

            Finally, can I just say that not every 60 something voted leave.

    • This exactly Poppy. So much wailing and doom mongering, where do we leave the flowers. Anyone else see the Tweet from Brendan Cox? So eloquent, gracious and positive even though it wasn’t the result she would have wanted.

  17. Speaking from the Peoples’ Republic of Cambridge (and Scotland), the leave vote has already impacted me this morning.

    1. Friday morning Desert Island Discs was cancelled. Farage, you can have your independence but not if it means missing out on Kirsty Young.

    2. We’ve gone back to 1985, apparently. Do I have to sit my O-Levels again? I’ve not done any revision.

  18. I am intrigued as to the influence of the print media. Most politicians, businessman, academics, and even celebrities were coming out as remain. However, the biggest grouping for out was the press. The big hitters of the populist press were saying out. Were they leading or reflecting their readers opinions?

  20. Whatever your own views on the issue, this is a lesson in democracy.

    Future historians will note that this is what happens when politicians – yes, Labour party, I’m looking at you – stop listening to a large portion of the electorate.

  21. And I’m on holiday in Languedoc, having not had the sense to go to the cashpoint last night as the pound plummets. Merde. I really hadn’t believed this result possible. Roll on Salmonds call for a swift scottish referendum, to allow Scotland to stay before England/Wales leaves and I’ll be applying for a passport.

  22. If Remain had won by that margin, we’d be facing years of Leave not accepting the result, refusing to let it lie.

    I hope Remain become similarly vocal. Tutting might, for once, not be enough.

    • The online petition for a second referendum has passed the million mark. Also, the BBC have just had someone on who claimed that the public vote was, technically, merely advisory and Parliament could refuse to implement the result.
      I don’t believe for a moment there will be a second vote or that we won’t now leave. No one can even agree on how it should be determined when the EU has been informed of our intention to leave, thereby triggering Article 50 (do we need to send a letter or is the result self evident?). What a screw up.

      • The referendum is advisory – have a look at David Allen Green at the FT or on his blog – but I can’t see parliament going against it. But you could leave the EU and still sign up for the Single Market. Would satisfy the referendum. Article 50 is triggered when the government says it is triggering it. What a mess.

    • With the greatest respect, these Parties have been steadily on the rise over the past decade and there is a very strong argument that their growth is a direct result of dissatisfaction with the EU.

      • And if you decide to leave the party and take all your friends and family with you, you increase their chances of gaining even more traction. Far better to roll up the sleeves and tackle the bloody issue head on.

        I acknowledge of course, that our political leadership has been comprehensively incapable of dealing with the issue for decades, and have led us to this merry conclusion by a process of soporific inertia, mendacious laziness, self-serving trough-snuffling and downright fucking stupidity.

        As it is, as regards the effect upon the euroloonies, it’s a bit like a Kiwi moving to Oz and raising the average IQ of both countries simultaneously.

      • Or indeed (à la Ashcroft polling) with brown people, Muslims, immigration, homosexuality, feminism, that ‘global warming rubbish’, the internet and 21st century life in general. Inchoate dissatisfaction bundled up into one simple solution marked ‘Muslims immigrants from the EU are raping your nan, vote #leave.’ Bollocks of course, but there you go…

  24. What’s that smell ? Ah! The sweet smell of democracy, although some don’t like it up ’em. Shouting ‘scum’ and banging cars – very Geldof, that.

    Om Bexit Shanti

  26. Boris looked pretty scared today. He’s just realised he might actually have to do a proper job for the first time in his life. This is going to be great fun.

    *buys biggest bowl of popcorn imaginable*

    • He gives every indication that the whole thing was a lever to pop Dave out of no.10 – marginal vote for #remain, Dave stuffed – and never once did he actually think he was going to have to actually put on the big shoes & pull the trigger on chaos.

  28. From afar, it seems like the key driver is that life is tougher than it used to be and people don’t like it. This has occurred, by and large, over the period of the EEC. So getting out of the EEC may improve circumstances. It’s a reasonable hypothesis. There may not be causality but it is not lunacy to take this view for those finding life tougher and with a lower value on seamless travel and trade withing Europe.

    • Life is tougher for the young (no chance of buying a property and with tuition fees for the rest of enterity) and the low paid (no wage rises for about 8 years) but pensioners have largely been insulated from the economic problems.

    • I agree that this vote is really about the fact that for most people life feels harder in all sorts of ways than it used to – but I don’t think that coincides with the period of EEC membership. It’s just that the EU has become the proxy bogeyman for everything that’s broken in the country. God help Boris et al when life doesn’t magically become better once we’ve left.

      • I agree for many life has become harder. Many, if not all will also be affected by changes which are a direct result of EU membership.

        However, I worry that many leave voters have voted in protest at their decreasing lot in an apparently never ending imposition of austerity measures. Measures imposed by their own elected government rather than the Union from whom they have now chosen to divorce.

    • You could probably correlate globalisation/rise of China/internet disintermediation of trad services with the decline of the 45rpm vinyl single. This does not mean a land of milk & honey were we to force everyone to buy Tie A Yellow Ribbon by Tony Orlando & Dawn.

  29. I think the EU and its various governments are the ones who have taken back control. What happens next will be decided by them and what they think is in their interest, not the UK government, which doesn’t seem to have any negotiating position. It could be some sort of compromise to keep the UK in, or a hard line to stop other countries leaving. I’ve no idea, but who do you think is more likely to get what they want in a negotiation – Boris Johnson or Angela Merkel?

    • Note: rabid mental blood’n’soil cybernat loonies of 2014 (remember us? hi) actually had a scottish govt white paper and A Plan™ in case Scotland voted yes. Farage, Fishface & BJ have got fuck all because they are cretinous amateurs.

  30. As Occupy Democrats said; ‘Only the British would colonise half the world then leave the EU because the don’t like immigrants’.

    As Phillip Pullman said; ‘We had a headache so we shot our foot off. Now we can’t walk and we still have the headache’.

  31. Out of interest, why do the few on this board on the winning side seem so much angrier today than the majority who were not? You all seem to be so much happier to have ‘beaten’ the other side than to have ‘won’ the referendum. Just curious.

    • Exactly what I’ve been thinking.

      Leavers: we know what you were voting against, but what were you actually voting FOR? What concrete, specific, measurable things are going to be better once we’re outside the EU?

      • Being out and about in ultra-liberal Lincolnshire today and overhearing plenty of chat about last night, the only reason that people here voted to leave was to quote one intelligent chap was to “send the f****** foreigners back”. All we heard today was variations on that theme.

        Not saying that’s the only reason but it’s what we picked up today.

        • Of course. But I’ve yet to hear any Leavers, at any level, articulate exactly what that’s going to result in. Are NHS waiting lists going to drop from X weeks to Y weeks? Are class sizes going to drop from X to Y? Is Council Tax going to drop by X%?

          What exactly is the promise, the offer, the win?

          • I think that in most elections in developed democracies, most voters are primarily voting against something or someone, without particularly thinking in positive terms. It was disingenuous of John Major to take the 1992 election victory as a huge personal endorsement when so many people were clearly, er, voting against Neil Kinnock.

            Fatally, politicians have cottoned onto this – hence the scaremongering in this referendum, the last election and IndyRef1.

              • No, it was Tarbs and Brucie won that one. It was won on the Pro-Celeb golf course. (Also, Roy Hattersley as Chancellor? Jesusing effing Christ.)

                However, that Red Wedge was driven into the very heart of Spandau Ballet. So it wasn’t all bad.

    • I’m a Remain voter but even I can see that the Leavers’ victory is as much about the EU as it is about the fact that they’re sick of being dictated to by an elite, sick of being told they’re small-minded and racist when they dare raise a query about immigration, sick of being ignored by mainstream politics, sick of being patronised and told to get back in their box. That’s why they’re crowing. Because for all that contempt and condescension they still won.

          • Well, I didn’t march against any of those, but I’m not actually sure what your point is – marching is almost always just ‘against’ something, whereas, but part of the point of the democratic electoral process is to enable people to ensure that Idea A doesn’t get adopted by enabling them to vote for Idea B.

            So what IS Idea B here, then?

          • I did march against the poll tax, and when it was scrapped we thought we had slain the Jaberwick (grab joust day, calloo Callay). There was delight rather than anger when ‘we’ ‘won’. A possibility is that they suspect the system won’t deliver whatever it was they hoped for. My theory: 1) Johnson, who seems to be heir presumptive, doesn’t actually want to leave the EU. He was just taking a gamble that being the frontman for a right wing power grab opportunity resulting from an internal Conservative party squabble that resulted in national disaster would give him the position he desperately craves (but for which he is so ill suited, in more ways than one). 2) Parliament doesn’t want to leave the EU either. Only about a quarter of MPs backed leaving, and even after a general election it’s hard to see how a majority could be found to pass the necessary bill. They would have to pay lip service to the idea of respecting the will of the people of course, but can they approve measures which they, at best, disagree with and, at worst, believe will be disastrous? There could be some typical British fudge which results in them being able to say that we have left the EU when to all purposes we have not.

              • Oh FFS, ‘frabjous’ day. Not grab joust. I’ve opened the wine for dinner now, so I should just retire from commenting on anything serious before my typing deteriorates further.

                • I agree with all of your analysis in your first post there, Gatz.

                  Including grab joust, actually.

                  I think the political Leavers are shitting themselves, partly because they have no idea of what they want and partly because they know they can’t dare go against the ‘will of the people’.

  33. Is it OK to blame Tony Blair? He epitomises the political elite’s contempt for its core supporters. He presided over the expenses gravy train when it reached its peak and compounded it by raking in millions once he left office. In government, he encouraged immigration to help drive down costs for business. He pursued an illegal war, in which largely working class foot soldiers died, often because of lack of proper equipment but most definitely because of a lack of strategy. He ignored the relatives’ complaints and never visited the injured.

    Is it any surprise that traditional Labour voters feel that those charged with looking after their interests simply don’t care?

    • It’s certainly OK to blame his government for not imposing the transitional controls when Poland et al joined the EU in 2004. This was a cynical attempt to “rub the Right’s noses in multiculturalism”. That nice bit of social engineering has gone down a bundle in the former Labour heartlands, clearly….

      Prior to 2004 exiting the EU was only spoken of by fringe figures like John Redwood and Bill Cash. Another NuLab triumph!

    • Blair’s been gone the best part of a decade, and was still winning general elections right up to the end. Extremely hard to imagine this ever happening on his watch.

      Even harder to imagine him sat passive while the nation debated the biggest political decision of our lifetimes. But then, he’s not quite as righteous as Corbyn; a man who sniffs the dirty business of politics in the air and concerns himself primarily with avoiding getting any nasty muck on his robes.

      Expect a Labour evisceration at the next election; you can blame that on Blair as well.

      • Thank you. Yes. It was a while ago when the seeds were sewn leading to the traditional heartlands losing confidence in the Labour Party. Part of the reason he left, of course. Austerity has made it worse. Can we blame successive Tony governments for allowing the banks to do exactly as they pleased, knighting some of the worst offenders, or is that just Gordon’s fault?

        • The Labour Party was established to represent ordinary working people. His predecessors are not blameless but now it’s Corbyn’s job.
          Has he been tirelessly visiting places like Sunderland to explain how remain would keep overseas companies like Nissan investing in the area? Has he been to Boston to explain how workers rights will be compromised by a Tory government who can repeal the Working Time Directive etc.? Where was he today?
          Safe in London of course surrounded by people who would rather brand working class “leavers” as racists and bigots rather than understand how the party has let down the people it was created to represent. He is worse than useless.
          Unless Labour can find a communicator who can empathise with people’s everyday concerns and present a positive future it will lose them forever to those who cynically exploit their base fears.
          The SNP has managed to galvanise many ordinary people in Scotland by giving them a positive vision. Here in Northern England we desperately need the same inspiration.

  36. One of the fundamental points of the remain case is that by removing all these barriers, people, capital and commodity movement there is a net economic benefit.

    This is the free market position. But the consequence of this is that market forces will indeed seek out the cheapest option. With a massive increase in one productive input, labour, it stands to reason that this input will drop in price. So lower wages and with an abundance of it less tenure because their is no risk of supply.

    Compare this to more closed economies- autarky is the extreme, completely closed but there is a range of configurations involving more or or less free flow of resources. I lived in Zimbabwe in the early 80s. Largely closed off due to sanctions. There were shortages, you took your light bulbs with you when you moved, about 4 choices of shoes etc, lots of luxuries unavailable, black and white TV etc etc. But ,and this is a heretical view for someone with a degree in economics, I am not convinced that this was the poorer outcome.

    I ask myself if my kids could get full time jobs not endless casual or contract jobs, would I be prepared to not have my technology toys? I think I would.

    • In terms of wages you might expect supply to drive the price down but two things interrupt that – minimum wage and skill shortages. And then there are things like the political interventions such as we have here which determine that the majority of public sector workers get a 1% rise of less.

  39. Pity how some people still haven’t grasped the ramifications of their actions…..

    Cameron:
    “Blah, blah, blah, stepping down Autumn, blah, blah, great honour to have been your Prime Minister, blah, blah, the Conservative Party will go about the details of leaving, blah, blah, on my departure, yadda, yadda, yadda…..”

    Original six countries of the Common Market:
    “No, you nepotistic, Eton/Oxbridge tosser, you WILL f***** pull your finger out for once in your highly privileged, yet shit, existence, and do it NOW!”

    What is it about the word ‘leave’ that this twat doesn’t understand?

  41. Well, as ever I think you have to find your pleasures where you can. For me this will include, for example, the look on the faces of the local bigots when the media start paying more attention to Boris Johnson’s proposal to grant an amnesty to 100s of thousands of illegal immigrants.

    Comedy gold.

    • apols HP, hadn’t seen that you’d linked to the Huff’s account of this up above.

      My wife spotted this all over her friend’s pages on Farceberk this morning. We have family in Spanish territory and they are hopping mad, not to say worried.

  44. I wonder who will appear more efficient/well run/streamlined in Cameron’s last 4 months?
    The fag end of Call me Dave’s lame Government or the slighted, perplexed and insulted E.U.

    I know who my money’s on. In fact, all bets are off.

  45. Still reeling over this. I’ve always thought that the route to a more equal society involved a large number of people voting against their best interest, but that was supposed to be the comfortable, educated and lucky-by-birth, not the under-informed poor who have just voted for an absolute shitnami to come crashing down on their heads. Can’t blame them, though, I just wish they had had access to more facts.

    Without facts, if you offer unhappy people a choice between SAME and DIFFERENT they’ll choose different, because at least that offers the possibility that it will be better. This has been how we traditionally choose Governments in this country, and now it’s how we’ve chosen to kick ourselves in the balls. I’m sure there are many people who truly believe we’ve made the right decision, and I don’t buy into the theory that leading politicians would deliberately fuck the economy and piss off the electorate simply so they could be in charge afterwards. I wish the leader of the Labour party, of which I’m a member, hadn’t stood by and let this happen.

    More than the result, the thing that really scares me is the debate that led to it. In a matter of months we’ve gone post-truth, post-rational, post-expert – the foundations of decision making have crumbled into brazen lies and name calling. Politics has adopted the tactics of social media, and I don’t know how we get back from here.

    • Er…. “hadn’t stood by and let this happen” – Okay he was crap, but for (former?) Labour voters who backed Leave this was a referendum on immigration, and I can’t think of anybody from the Left alive or dead who could have changed that.

      The assumption that all “natural Labour voters” necessarily buy into the metrosexual, multiculti version of Labour that was forged in in 1980s dies hard. We’ve been very snooty about the Culture Wars in the US – but as this has shown, we’ve got our own one here.

      • You don’t think a Labour leader who properly put his shoulder to the wheel could have swung 2-3% of the population to Remain? Or maybe have energised the stay at homes?

        I guess we’ll never know, because he didn’t actually try. But if he has that little capacity to influence the debate then what in god’s name is the point of him?

        • What an opportunity to not only make his mark but also forge some unity in the party. The stupid, bearded twat just sat at home mumbling and paring his toenails. Between him and Cameron, the UK had the classic leadership vacuum that sucks in monkey-dancing, spume-frothing asses like Farrage and (hello!) Trump.

          The UK has just kissed its arse goodbye.

        • Woah! People who don’t like Corbyn blame Corbyn shocker…

          He’s the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time, sure. But I can’t imagine even Holy Tony swinging it. Perhaps he was trying to stay slightly above it, Tessa Jowell style. Who knows?

          I’m glad I don’t have kids and don’t have to properly care about this shite.

    • “the under-informed poor who have just voted for an absolute shitnami to come crashing down on their heads”

      Labour voter in shock ‘I just don’t get it’ mode.

      People like you will be the death of the party of which you claim to be a member.

      You’d do well to heed Poppy’s comments above and in the ‘brexit’ thread if you ever want to see labour again as a real opposition force.

        • Because they were disaffected and not being heard. They were also on the whole in the middle ground (like most of Britain) and could easily have swung a majority for ‘Remain’ had they been listened to and not patronised by over-educated rich kids pretending to be socialists, pretending to know what’s best.

          The ill-informed shit coming out of MPs mouths about the financial markets made anyone who knows anything about how markets behave cringe on their behalf.

          They assumed everyone still buys the ‘all appearance, no substance’ gush from the New Labour era. They do not.

          Lesson: don’t piss off people whose vote counts as much as the next man’s.

                • I said myself that it was a protest, as you can see up the page some distance, at 6.54 on Friday morning.

                  But there are ways of registering a protest vote that don’t involve rogering the whole bloody lot of us. It’s what you can choose to do at a General Election, assuming you can grasp the difference between that and a referendum of international importance.

                • Had their concerns been listened to by the MPs they put in power, many could easily have been persuaded not to vote ‘leave’.

                  As I said, I believe this referendum was won and lost in the middle-ground, not on the extremes.

                  ‘Protest’ implies they did not believe in what they were doing nor were they persuaded by the ‘leave’ campaign.

                  40% of ‘leave’ voters made up their mind in June. That’s a lot of middle ground conceded.

                  • So if it wasn’t a protest vote, what was it a vote FOR?

                    You voted Leave, so what alternative future did you vote FOR?

                    What am I going to see different about Britain as a result of your successful vote to Leave? Don’t tell me what ISN’T going to happen in future, tell me what IS.

                    • Heh, you’re into this, aren’t you, Jeff? I’m going to have a go at answering, even though I voted Remain. But if I had voted Leave I would have done so because I thought Britain was better off out of the EU. I’d have remembered a time before the EU — the EEC, I believe it was called — when we could move around and trade with other European countries just fine, but without all the other attendant stuff like straight bananas and turning Peterborough into Romania, and I’d have thought that things were better before the EU, and maybe they might be better afterwards, too.

          • I’m not convinced it was a protest vote against a party that isn’t in power and has the most left-leaning leader and cabinet in decades, as well as an active new membership trying to steer it in a direction that would benefit them. Unless those are the rich kids pretending to be socialists that you mention.

            I think you’re saying is that traditional Labour voters rebelled against [let’s call it New Labour for the sake of argument] by siding with expensively-educated even richer kids pretending to know what’s best. That can’t have been the best course of action, given the outcome.

            I like ‘over-educated’ as an insult though. That’s a new one to me.

            • What’s been apparent for a while now; immigration means something very difficult in Sunderland to what it means in London. Rich people are rich people first and foremost, whatever their accent and skin colour, which gives the illusion in the capital that multiculturalism is friction-free, and consequently politicians haven’t been listening to what most of the country has been telling them for several years now.

              That’s the bit I get. The fact that so many people have been willing to commit economic seppuku in order to be heard on the issue is the scary bit.

        • Because they are struggling to get jobs. They have to go n zero hours contracts via an agency. Because their son died in the war and they’ve had to move to a smaller house because of the bedroom tax. Because they are sick and disabled and could not work even if an employer would take them on. Because their benefits get sanctioned for illogical reasons leaving them to starve for weeks on end. Because they can’t pay their rent and get evicted. Because they have to endure the ignomy of using food banks. Because if it’s not them, it’s members of their family or people they know.

          Then, they see immigrants getting jobs, getting houses, getting support for their children in school and accessing free health care, sending money back to their home countries. They sit in A/E departments with their diseased gall bladders waiting for a translator to come to sort someone ahead of them in the queue who doesn’t appear to be ill.

          All this started with a Labour government. Labour has done nothing to suggest they are going to put it right.

          Of course they are livid. They don’t see that the EU has done anything positive for them. Of course they voted Leave.

          • That’s brilliantly articulated, thank you. But how does a dissatisfaction with the Government before the Government before last translate into a vote that probably means the next Government will be worse for them than the one we’ve got now?

            • They are dissatisfied with any kind of Government, it started with Labour and has continued since. They feel they have nothing to lose. They believe if half the immigrants went home, they’d have half a chance which is better than the zero chance they have at the moment.

              Let’s see what happens when the lies unravel and immigration doesn’t improve, jobs are actually lost and all those billions aren’t spent on the NHS.

      • In the meantime, the same people will remain under-informed and poor, and the consequences – which they are least equipped to weather – of this (mostly) Tory balls-up will gather pace, probably starting to properly bite around Christmas time when the increased costs of fuel bought with a weakened pound will begin to really take effect.

        • Yesterday afternoon I was give sight of an external economists report for the board of a blue chip UK company (not my employer). It forecast £20-40 billion off the UK economy and an extra two years of austerity.

          Maybe niscum could take a bit of time out of his busy schedule of imaginary day trading and shagging well fit teachers to pop round and give these people a long overdue lesson in how markets work.

                • You sound like those ill-informed MPs I mentioned who leap on statistics like this, cherry pick bits and then present it like it’s doomsday.

                  Reality: Markets don’t like uncertainty. FTSE will be back long before the Summer’s even out. They were halfway back yesterday before the morning was out.

                  What dragged it down? The banks. They got hammered.

                  Glorious news.

                  • Brilliant news, especially if you work in the financial sector. You will probably lose your job, stop paying tax, draw benefits and may even lose your house.

                    But as you say glorious news.

                  • Same old same old Brexit arrogance. Endless jam tomorrow, all the more tasty for being served by the ounce. See also pay increases, new hospitals, England beating France 7-0 in the Euro final and new royal baby.

                    Reality: Markets don’t like uncertainty. So they will be up and down like – just for you – a tidy piece’s knickers – while our governing elite (as opposed to the one in Brussels) try and select a new PM and screw each other blind on who will actually front the exit negotiations. Apparently “taking back control” doesn’t include any say in selecting the inevitable no-marks that will get a handsome fee for doing that. Trebles all round !

                    Meanwhile those little tinkers in the City look to keep things on the boil and short markets to make a few more bob. Amusing wild cards in the background will include Scotland leaving the UK, and reaction to the progress the UK makes on setting up trade deals outside the UK.

                    You might want to give Moody’s a ring and offer your insight, as their rating change clearly seems to lack your insight.

                    • Arrogance, hmmmm, yes.

                      As an anti-Royalist and anti-unionist, not sure if I fit your fantasy. England 7-0 in the final? Might be nice but I’d prefer the Republic to beat them tmw tbh.

                      Re Moody’s: my insights are nothing unusual, just not widely reported.

                      Honestly, you lost, dry your eyes mate, pick yourself up, dust yourself down (that’s enough. Ed)

  47. Well weeks did seem to go by without any real contribution from JC,.or anyone else in the Labour Party for that matter. Whether that was conspiracy or cock up, remains to be seen. But I am not convinced, as I have seen suggested, that Labour simply couldn’t get the broadcast media interested in covering what they had to say.

    On immigration, I appreciate that Jeremy Corbyn was never likely to, for example,come out with a figure for an upper limit on immigration. That said, along with the rest if the Remain campaign he seemed bizarrely reluctant to point out that the Brexit camp was ( at best misleading) its own supporters by letting them believe that immigration would reduce. We have also ended up with a scenario that in the Luton constituency where I used to live, some people voted out in order to reduce Muslim immigration.

    And it fell to Len McCluskey to point out,very late in the campaign, that ‘bosses’ would find a away round immigration rules in the same way they get round many other things.

    • I do partly blame der meeja. The fact that the BBC in particular presented the whole thing as an internal squabble within the Conservative party didn’t help. Politics is reported by political nerds who think this is terribly fascinating and important – bust most people do not give a flying bollick. Hence a pox on all your houses and the popularity of Farage, Corbyn, Leave… The look of shock on David D and Laura K’s faces yesterday was them coming up against the reality of what politics is beneath the Westminster soap opera.

      While I’m here… speaking in favour of unlimited immigration is the electoral suicide to end them all. “Vote for me and I will give you more of what you don’t like – GUARANTEED”.

  48. “We have also ended up with a scenario that in the Luton constituency where I used to live, some people voted out in order to reduce Muslim immigration.”

    No, that can’t be right, surely?

    I mean, do you have any data or statistics to back up this wild claim?

    God help us all.

    • My son’s friends quoting their grandparents
      My mother, quoting her neighbours . Anecdotal, but I have no reason to suppose that are lying, therefore I don’t think it is a wild claim to suggest that some people voted in the way I suggested. (As an aside, I heard people saying exactly the same here in Dorset).

      The irony is that 56% of Luton’s population voted out. By definition that must mean that a number of Muslim people voted to leave. Perfectly plausible that a number did so in the hope that a reduction in European migration might lead to a greater number of people coming from the Commonwealth. Or perhaps they just liked the Muslim bloke that stood for UKIP in last year’s general election.

  49. 2 comments- all this discussion about what the pollies coulda ,shoulda done assumes people were going to listen whereas the voters seem to have said they have had a gutful of politicians full stop- a pox on both of their houses . You can all get fucked – we’ve got the shits and this is how we are going to give voice to that view.

    Second comment,and not unrelated -this article in the guardian seemed prescient.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/divided-britain-brexit-money-class-inequality-westminster?CMP=share_btn_tw

    • I always find Harris to be a perceptive writer. What he hasn’t recognised here is that there is a parallel story to tell. He is quite right that there are real structural problems with the economy, poor employment practices and so on. But there is also a tale ( for some people at least) of complacency and poor skills. When Eastern European people first entered the about market in the South East, people didn’t employ them solely because they were cheap.

      • ….and he goes back to a life of ease in Witney, never to suffer a moment’s discomfort for the mess he’s caused for millions of people.

        But never mind – we’ve got gay marriage now, so everything’s okay. (Or we have until the new Home Secretary Lord Tommy Robinson repeals it)

  51. I live, and work, in the US – we face our own, um, electoral challenges soon.

    No-one, and I mean no-one, understands why this happened. Which is interesting from the external perspective.

    They’re used to working in a federal/local system, and understand that in the grand scheme of things, some you win and some you lose. “Yeah, it’s like California seceding” explains the idea perfectly, which only serves to increase the confusion.

    My company operates on a small, but global basis. This has now become our No1 priority for the Board, and the leadership team. We have a bunch of European employees working in London; a lot of our EMEA business is driven out of London.
    Are we going to move all that to Paris? It’s on the table. Frankfurt, maybe. You know, somewhere in Europe which will make it easy to do business in the EU.

    There’s a three page diatribe within me on this. But one of the most disappointing things is the fact that both sidea ran shit, lying campaigns that helped no-one.

    Thank FUCK I naturalized last May. I can disavow myself of this.

  52. HEY POPPY, I’M DOWN HERE, REPLYING TO YOUR POST OF 15.37 UPTHREAD
    I’m posting on my phone, and it seems that if there’s more than a certain number of reply-indentations on a sub-thread, the grey ‘Reply’ button becomes unavailable.

    Thanks for your reply. However, it still doesn’t take us any further forward because it’s all so vague. And straight bananas??!! Really??? Are we supposed to respect people who are voting on the entire future of this country with that sort of mentality? Are we to simply follow them into the fog?

    As I say, thanks for your reply but I’m actually keen to get a reply from an actual Leaver, ie @niscum, in response to my direct questions to him at 15.04, above.

      • No, I’m not being literal, I’m just trying to get below the surface of all the clichés generalisations that people keep unthinkingly trotting out, to see if there’s actually any substance (indeed, any actual thinking) there.

        So again, to Leavers but specifically to @niscum, what specific problems is Leave now going to solve, and how is it going to do it?

          • You’ve demolished your own credibility there by citing one single, tiny, trivial example out of the entirety of the EU’s work programme.

            And, of course, you did actually vote to Remain with Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/94.

            I really do think it would be best for an actual Leaver, ie @niscum, to explain what Leave is now going to do to guarantee that life will better for the UK and all of its businesses and residents.

            Come on Leavers, you’ve had four decades to get ready for this day – you must have SOME ideas?

            • I don’t think I did “demolish my own credibility”, I just pointed out that my bananas thing — which as I say, I raised as an example — had a basis in truth.

              But yes, stick to talking to a Leaver — you’ve said it three times, after all — and if I ever make the mistake engaging with you again, remind me not to.

              • That’s what political promises are all about, niscum. That’s why you voted for Leave, remember? Because they promised you that your life would be better outside the EU.

                I’m still keen to hear from you about what that will actually mean, in practice. Instead of answering the very simple and reasonable questions I put to you, all you’ve managed to do, as usual, is to level a juvenile insult.

                The reality is that you and your fellow Leavers are in control now – you won, we lost. We’ve dried our tears and dusted ourselves down and had a group hug, and now we’re eager to hear where you’re taking us and how we’re going to get there.

                There’s no one else to blame now – it’s all up to Leave to make things better.

                • @jeff mate, I think you should give up now before you bust an artery. You’re not going to get an answer.

                  Fact is, everybody’s lost. Judging by the rumblings of discontent on the Daily Mail (well, somebody has to), a certain section of the leavers are beginning to realise it.

                  With his gigantic miscalculation Cameron has created a perfect political vacuum that – never mind Europe – is completely going to change the political complexion of this country. Once 17m leavers realise they’ve been royally fucked over, that nobody’s going to hand them better jobs, any jobs, more money, fewer immigrants, more power in the hands of ordinary people and all the other things that were promised for the sunlit uplands of Hovis commercial Britain, they’re going to make up a formidable political force at the next election.

                  Labour is a busted flush, both wings of the Tories have proved they can’t be trusted, Scotland is out of reach…who does that leave? Why, UKIP of course. Especially if they’re led not by a gurning twat but by someone who looks and sounds like a proper grown-up politician. Step forward Daniel Hannan – a hop skip and a jump out of the Tories and he’s good to go.

                  You mark my words.

                  • Thanks Mike, appreciate your counsel. I knew I wouldn’t get an answer to my questions to niscum, as it’s obvious that Leave have no answers at all. I kept pushing at niscum as I just wanted to demonstrate conclusively what a complete and utter no-mark he is.

                    Really enjoyed the rest of your post, very interesting.

            • “Taking back control of their own country by removing external checks on the rapacious billionaires who will fuck them over while looking for a 5% annual return on their capital.”
              Hmmm, yup, I think that just about covers the #Leave programme going forward.

          • What, exactly, is the problem with that? Like many regulations that make up the nuts and bolts of all markets it seems complicated. But it isn’t really. It describes the standards that allow trade across a huge market. A better example would be the (even more complicated) standards for seed potatoes, which enables the UK (Scotland in particular) to sell its products across a huge market.

            Things that actually make a difference often seem dull. Such is life.

  54. A couple of things.

    1. I keep reading that people weren’t informed and yet surely, in 2016, the vast majority of people in the country have access to the internet (80%? 90%? 95%?), so why didn’t they inform themselves?

    2. Blaming Corbyn is like blaming Peters & Lee for the last Phil Collins album. It reminds me of the bit in ‘Fawlty Towers’ where Basil exclaims, “Oh, I see, it’s MY fault! Oh well, we must have to do something about that,” and starts hitting his own backside, saying “Bad Mr. Fawlty, take that, Mr. Fawlty.”

    • Can I refer you to the graphic I kindly replicated on this page up there a bit?

      As you can see, the typical “Leaver” tends to dislike multiculturalism, liberalism, the Green movement, feminism and the internet amongst other things. With a passion. Enlightened lot, by and large.

      • I agree with much of what you’re saying, but that’s not what the graphic shows.

        It shows that people who dislike those things tended to vote Leave. It doesn’t tell us anything about the typical Leave voter.

      • Are you attempting to suggest that this is the result of the Peters and Lee effect? Blind to the facts? That the people did not understand the chord structures? Did not or could not hear the harmony? And most importantly were wearing very dark over sized sunglasses on a day of darkened sky’s?

        Well, you’d be right

    • 1. Because the Internet doesn’t challenge views, it confirms them. Many of us thought Labour would win the last election and Remain would win this because our version of the Internet told us so.

      2. Corbyn

    • They did inform themselves. With Britain First Facebook memes. As we see in the US, people aren’t interested in boring old facts, which are tainted by association with “experts”. Better to just rely on the emotional jolt that *must* mean that something is true.

    • I kid you not, I’m 99.9% sure that bench is in Springfield Park, Hackney.
      A more multi-national/multi-ethic place in Britain it’s difficult to imagine.
      That particular spot, as it’s on the Stamford Hill side, is always teeming with Orthodox Jews.

      I suspect that polar bear was the only one in a two-mile radius who voted ‘Leave!’

      • My wife also said Springfield Park when she saw me looking at this. I have to walk the dog later, if it’s not pissing down in my metropolitan bubble I might go and check.

  56. The odd mention above of the impact on the FTSE 100, which recovered somewhat before close yesterday. Perhaps more telling to look at the fate of the FTSE 250, which suffered its biggest fall ( over 7%) since Black Monday in 1987. The significance of this is that the 250 is a better measure of UK firms, compared to the 100 which is chock full of mult-nationals many of whom actually do moatnof their business outside of the country.

  57. Never mind this Corbyn joker, David Lammy really has his finger on the pulse of the English people…

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-result-latest-david-lammy-mp-eu-referendum-result-parliament-twitter-statement-stop-this-a7102931.html

    So here we have a metropolitan London MP, a lawyer (natch), ex-Harvard, saying that Parliament should ignore the expressed will of the people. Way to heal the rift! This guy probably also tells people with lung cancer to smoke more fags.

  59. Fight fire with fire, I say.

    To face off against Boris, Labour can’t have a softly-spoken intellectual – they must come up with their own oafish but loveable figurehead with a loud voice and crazy hair. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the next Leader of the Opposition Lord Noddy Holder of Wolverhampton!

  61. Labour MP’s, they just don’t get it do they.
    Their arrogance and self importance is frightening. Why are they ignoring their electorate, and the party membership, and blaming all their ills on the wrong man? It was Cameron’s **** up wasn’t it, or am I missing something.
    If their voters, in their constituencies, voted out, surely it’s their fault.
    Don’t really like democracy when they lose any vote, do they?
    Not fit to wear the MP shirt.

    • But there’s the thing. They *aren’t* ignoring the electorate. Quite the reverse. They are, I agree, defying the majority of the membership who decided that the best response to an electoral defeat was a display of political masturbation. Will they succeed? It’ll depend on whether the membership has actually learned anything.

          • Lib Dems have always been pro-Europe. They must disappointed 30% of their voters voted Leave.

            This means that Labour MPs are simply being opportunistic in attempting to oust their leader. I can hardly blame them. If not now, when?

            • I don’t think it is just opportunistic. There’s a genuine danger of Labour’s Northern vote – and seats – decamping to UKIP. We’ve seen in Scotland just how sudden a shift FPTP can produce. They need to act.

              • Your right the 37% who did vote Leave are genuine targets. For many it was an austerity vote, with ‘it can’t get any f***in worse’, often heard.
                The disconnection is with the Labour party, the Tory light Labour party, not with it’s leader.
                Focusing on their own target, happily ignoring their own presence in the equation, and wilfully ignoring the voters, they will have yet again, missed the point.

                • I see. Labour is losing votes to UKIP because it isn’t left wing enough? I suspect it’s because Corbyn is a caricature of everything that they think has gone wrong with Labour – a Trotskyist stooge who gives every impression that he’s never been out of London in his life. The madness has to stop – or Labour will simply cease to exist as a national party of government.

                  • I’m afraid your suspicion is wrong.
                    They thought the Labour party was ruined before Corbyn, He’d actually given some hope, by simply being different.
                    I don’t think it’s a more left wing agenda required, it’s a desire for a party to stand up for them. People can spot the bullshit from afar, and The Labour party has tried, post Blair, to be all things to all people, and failed magnificently. Thus giving traction to Parties who are who they are, the Tories and UKIP

              • UKIP’s vote won’t be that strong, unless it seems Westminster are not going to invoke article 50. Most Labour voters will stick with Labour in the North for a general election. This referendum was a free go at kicking the establishment. The SNP have managed to don leftie clothing in Scotland.

                Margaret Hodges presides over one of the very few London areas that voted Leave. It’s interesting that she blames Corbyn. What did she do to mobilise Labour voters who voted for her?

          • Well, that is a fascinating read.

            Aside from the SNP %leave vote, the stat that grabbed me was:

            A net 46% of Remain voters think that life in Britain is better than 30 years ago. A net 16% of Leave voters think it is worse.

  63. Trying to find a positive note I’m arranging, with some Russian partners, to buy an old pie-factory in the run-down quarter of Tangier, where I plan to make Cornish Pasties, Melton Mowbray Pork Pies and maybe Welsh Cakes too for export via the Crimea to the UK and other non-EU territories enjoying wonderfully unregulated markets outside the EU. At last those pesky EU designated origin rules are out the window. We won’t have any annoying animal welfare worries either because the pies we sell will all be made from old donkeys that no-one cares about any more, and as an added bonus all the butchery will be halal to maximise the market. If I can get access to a supply of camel’s milk we can bang out Cheddar Cheese too. Champagne made from fermented dates probably isn’t on the cards, but you can’t have everything.

  65. The one thing that has struck me more than anything is that so many people who have for a long time moaned about how shit it is to live in Britain are now acting like we’ve left the Garden of Eden behind and walked into Hell. I get very confused sometimes……….

    • You are confused, aren’t you. Please, let me help.

      There’s a difference between an image of the Garden of Eden and a genuine fear that a largely tabloid engineered fear of immigrants…..it was the ‘white working class’ I always actively avoided in the likes of Harlow, Hitchin and Romford, not Muslims…..has destabilized the UK, Scotland, the Government, the Opposition, and the rest of Europe, and exposed huge divides in Britain between different ages, different classes and different parts of the country in one fell, Eton/Oxbridge educated, swoop.

      I think that’s quite a big deal, and I’m probably going to be less affected than a good 95% of the population.
      Still, ho-hum.

      • Thanks, but here we go again “tabloid engineered”, you avoid the “white working class” and criticise “Eton / Oxbridge”. Being in or out of Europe has nothing to do with any of those things. The people that voted “out” are fed up of feeling marginalised and ignored and want a change so voted for one, no hypocrisy there. Many of those that voted “in” have for years moaned about various Governments and policies and are now behaving like their Island Paradise has been taken away, it is that hypocrisy and double standard that confuses me.

        • Hold on. Society was not perfect and many people – me included – thought it should be improved. Something has been done which will make it worse instead. Those same people are not happy about this turn of events.

          Struggling to see where the hypocrisy and double standards come in.

          • “Will make it worse” how can you be so sure? Would staying in have made it better? I still don’t pretend to know that answer and I doubt that anyone but Mystic Meg does.

            • Read any of the reports on the upsurge in racist hate crime, @dave-amitri?

              Read any of the reports on the financial situation?

              Read any of the reports on how we’re going to be screwed by the 27 in any renegotiations?

              It’s already made it worse.

            • Well, one of the reasons I have that belief is the evidence provided by my job. Most of what i do is EU-related and involves working with scientists from other countries for a common good. Unpicking all of that will be both time-consuming and harmful to our national interests.

              • A thought on Article 50: we would be out of our minds to trigger it without a deal in place.

                As soon as the article is triggered we are on a two year countdown to being bumped onto the (extremely undesirable) WTO terms of trade. So we’ll be negotiating with a gun to our heads; the EU partners will know that they can simply wait us out and we’ll crack in the end.

                If we hold off on Article 50 then we create damaging uncertainty for ourselves, but also for the rest of the EU. Their incentive to resolve the issue is much, much greater. Which is why the Germans are so adamant we should trigger before talks begin.

                Article 50 is our leverage. Cameron refraining from immediately triggering it is just about the only smart thing he’s done all year.

  66. The problem is that this is as clear a case of the tyranny of the majority that you’ll see. 300 years ago the majority thought the Earth was flat. Being the majority doesn’t make anyone right or wrong, it just makes them the majority. Just because they’ve voted to jump of a cliff I’ll be damned if I’ll willingly join in.

    And no, voting leave Leave does not make somebody a racist or xenophobe. But it did mean that for at least one day, most who voted Leave were happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with racists and xenophobes.

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