So the UK votes to leaves the European Union

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So the UK votes to leaves the European Union

Post by Cyberstrike nTo »

Any thought from the UK members here? I'm just curious about this (for either good or bad) historic vote.
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Post by slartibartfast »

...the lengths you have to go to just to get Cameron to resign.[/joke]

I suppose I'll have to apply for French citizenship, I hope I won't have to choose.
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Post by Auntie Slag »

The intent is to lay the groundwork for a new Galactic Empire, with the UK at the helm.

This ties in with what we know of the future, where evil space people (the Empire, the big bads in Jupiter Ascending, and that bloke in Serenity) tend to be English.

I already have a mid-level position staked out in an intergalactic mega station of unimaginable destructive power.
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Post by Sades »

I'm something like 10% British/Scottish, apparently. Predictably, about 10% of me is on the fence about the whole thing.
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

From a practical economic perspective, I doubt it'll make much difference in the long term.

If the government actually pass the legislation to pull us out (and there's no actual legal obligation for them to do so), we'll almost certainly do it having negotiated deals to continue the existing trade relations, at the cost of allowing free movement. Which is going to be fun when the people who voted solely because they bought into "omg get rid of teh immigrantz!" realise what's happened. We'll just be giving up our say in how things are run, putting us in pretty much the same position as Switzerland or Norway.

From a political and cultural standpoint... this is a bit of a disaster. Scotland are already pressing for another referendum to gain their own independence (and who can blame them). Cameron's resigned as Prime Minister. The Labour Party are lobbying a vote of no confidence in their leader for failing to stop it. Plus this whole scenario has left Nigel Farage (not even an MP, one of the main faces of the Leave campaign, basically a fascist) as the cackling victorious supervillain, having successfully executed his master plan. The fact the BBC trotted him out this morning to explain what's going to happen next when he is legitimately nothing to do with the government tells you a lot about the political situation right now.

The next general election is going to be carnage.

Basically the Tory Party have used us as pawns to settle their own little private dispute, making us responsible for the sort of decision we specifically elect MPs to deal with, and it's blown up in their face spectacularly. Cameron's spent the last six years creating a massive socio-economic divide, casually suggesting it's all the fault of the EU/foreigners in general, rather than him... stood for re-election on a promise of calling a referendum, then said we should definitely remain.

I've seen several news stories of people who voted Leave thinking a Remain result was inevitable so it wouldn't make a difference. So I can't help but think a lot of the votes were cast out of spite rather than being able to side with DC. Democracy in action.

Short term: country ripped in half because Cameron and Johnson couldn't just have a cock-measuring contest like normal people.

[disclaimer: it is a LOT more complicated than all of the above, with generational conflict, media lies, misrepresentation of facts, lower class resentment at being told what to do by snobby "experts" and other factors have also played a massive part]
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Post by slartibartfast »

Nicely put I thought :up:

This could also mean the end of the peace treaty in Northern Ireland too.
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Post by Knightdramon »

The comedy gold in this otherwise awful day is that within the first few hours a few of the major promises of Vote Leave have just suffered a U-Turn.

Fund the NHS with those 350 m you just saved? Uh, no, we never said that.

Leave immediately? Um, no, let's not haste with triggering article 50.

Cameron won't resign? Um he just did. Not even 10 minutes into the opening of the "business day".

I won't continue because this will just be doom and gloom but I hope within the next few months? years? folk will see that they've been conned and migrants were never their problem.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I was quite sad to wake up to this and, as Brendocon says, its the mess and the people who are celebrating that worry me. The very real prospect of Boris becoming Prime Minister is just... awful.

Some random thoughts...

Its left me feeling pretty bummed out. Amusingly, the poorest regions of our country (anywhere outside of London), are the ones who have benefitted the most from EU membership in terms of funding for infrastructure, various social projects that help the poorest and most vulnerable (Wales for example receives something like £8 billion in EU grants and whatnot but voted 68% in favour to leave the EU) that our government couldn't or wouldn't fund.

There was a good article on the BBC's website too by Mark Easton that pretty much nails the problems the UK has which can be traced back to the industrial revolution, with the huge upheaveals that brought and the divides that created in society which resonates today.

Still, if Norway, Iceland and Lithuania can survive (so, er, in good company there then), then I'm sure we'll muddle through in the same way and continue as we have throughout our EU membership - shouting from the sidelines whilst not playing a more active part.

One thing that did cheer me up was the reactions from the people of York, who voted to remain. A nice tonic to the toothless gibberings of some of "the great british public" who've latched onto this as solely an issue about immigration and funny foreign folk coming over here, taking all our benefits etc etc ad nauseam
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Post by Warcry »

I wonder what this means for the future of the European Union as a whole? It sounds like a lot of other countries were mulling over their place in the EU, and this is only going to strengthen movements all across the continent. It's also going to put more pressure on strong economies like Germany and France, now that the UK won't be there to share the weight of supporting debt-ridden basket cases like Greece, Italy and Spain. And now I'm hearing talk that there's a lot of support in France for an EU referendum as well?

It's been a bad few years for the EU. First they had the Greek debt crisis, which went to the brink of disaster. Then last year's migrant crisis, which they proved singularly incapable of addressing, leaving the member nations to deal with it (or not) in a patchwork of mutually-contradictory ways. And now a founding member decides to walk out, even in the face of short-term economic damage. This seems like the sort of thing that could snowball really quickly and take the whole union apart, and I don't think that'd be great for anyone in the long run.
Knightdramon wrote:I won't continue because this will just be doom and gloom but I hope within the next few months? years? folk will see that they've been conned and migrants were never their problem.
I think the best case you can hope for is that the EU realizes what a disaster this could be on both sides and launches a series of reforms to try and address the issues that have made people (in the UK and elsewhere) so livid. That way the government would be able to walk back from this ledge while still presenting it as a win for UK independence.

Obviously the "**** off we're full" hardcore UKIP types will never be happy until they've deported everyone with brown skin and/or people who can't trace their ancestors back to the time of the Domesday Book, but you'd have to imagine that a good chunk of the 52% who voted Leave could be convinced to stay if it looked like the EU was actually trying to fix itself.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

The biggest flaw in the EU to my mind is the lack of some federal authority to put checks and balances in place to prevent problems. The single currency hasn't worked well because all each state has done is change their individual currency for the shiny space money of the Euro with no one thinking that dodgy buggers like Italy might need watching very closely indeed. As much as people hate the idea, I think Europe would work much better if it was run along the lines of the US.

Shouting from Brussels and hoping people wont f**k up too much isn't really going to get people on side and make sure individual states spending doesn't go bananas.

And yes, the migrant problem and freedom of movement has been so poorly handled. Not helped, it has to be said, by allowing a lot of poor former soviet states join the EU just to p*** Russia off. Whilst that creates a lot of cheap expendable labour that has business rubbing its hands with glee, its meant in some areas, local tradesmen have been undercut and wages in a lot of unskilled jobs and retail have been trapped in a race to the bottom, couple that with zero hour contracts and you've got a lot of people who are suddenly a lot worse off.

I do hope this does make Europe buck its ideas up and realise that whilst the concept of a European super-continent is sound (it was after all devised as a Psot War response to create a situation where future wars would be impossible in Europe), in needs much more robost control and care in being delivered.
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Post by Knightdramon »

Skyquake87 wrote: One thing that did cheer me up was the reactions from the people of York, who voted to remain. A nice tonic to the toothless gibberings of some of "the great british public" who've latched onto this as solely an issue about immigration and funny foreign folk coming over here, taking all our benefits etc etc ad nauseam
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Warcry wrote: I think the best case you can hope for is that the EU realizes what a disaster this could be on both sides and launches a series of reforms to try and address the issues that have made people (in the UK and elsewhere) so livid. That way the government would be able to walk back from this ledge while still presenting it as a win for UK independence.

Obviously the "**** off we're full" hardcore UKIP types will never be happy until they've deported everyone with brown skin and/or people who can't trace their ancestors back to the time of the Domesday Book, but you'd have to imagine that a good chunk of the 52% who voted Leave could be convinced to stay if it looked like the EU was actually trying to fix itself.
I think the EU is, at the moment, keen on not losing face as the world watches. Here you have arguably their most privileged member, already with a special deal on the side, bargaining for a bigger special deal, getting it, and then telling the EU to piss off.

And what's ironic is that the majority of areas that had a majority vote of leave have received funds from the EU in terms of funding.

I am not sure if this can be turned around in a positive way. It feels more like "okay, you were special, but not special enough for us to bend over backwards. F*ck off" ---this feels like a well-deserved message to the UK and the fact that Boris is [at least in speaking] trying to delay negotiations looks like perhaps the Leavers were not prepared for a victory.
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Cornwall in particular voted Leave having been told that the UK government will make up the cut in funding they currently get direct from the EU.

Er... no.

Meanwhile, have some "man on the street" footage from Barnsley.
https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status ... 8094227456

He thinks movement of EU citizens is fine, but has voted out of the EU so he can stop people coming in from Africa, Syria and Iraq. Which, er, aren't part of the EU... so we... er... already have control of who comes in from those places.
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Post by Knightdramon »

Just goes to show that you don't put such things to a referendum, you just don't. The public is not remotely aware of the implications such things will have on their lives.

I keep thinking that the falling pound, going back on "promises" and all that will get us some Government official next week saying "ok folks yeah you had your say, we'll work hard for these things while still in the EU".
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Post by Warcry »

Skyquake87 wrote:The biggest flaw in the EU to my mind is the lack of some federal authority to put checks and balances in place to prevent problems.
Well...maybe. I think before it can do that, the EU (and so it's members) need to decide what it's meant to be. Sometimes it behaves like a simple economic association, like it used to be, and other times it playacts at being a full-fledged state. But it doesn't actually have the powers or mandate of a state, so when it does flex it's muscles over it's members it does so on piddly shit that just pisses them off. Or at least, that's how it seems from this side of the Atlantic...
Knightdramon wrote:I think the EU is, at the moment, keen on not losing face as the world watches. Here you have arguably their most privileged member, already with a special deal on the side, bargaining for a bigger special deal, getting it, and then telling the EU to piss off.
That's definitely possible and it wouldn't surprise me to see that, but in the long run I think they'd be hurting themselves as much as they hurt Britain. After all, an independent Britain would probably be one of the EU's two or three biggest trading partners. Any long-term trade barriers would hurt them both quite a bit.
Knightdramon wrote:And what's ironic is that the majority of areas that had a majority vote of leave have received funds from the EU in terms of funding.
This is pretty normal, IMO. Poor people usually tend to be the ones most likely to toss out the status quo, since they've got a lot less to lose. A lot of the people living there would probably tell you (rightly or wrongly) that the EU funding isn't doing any good because they and their neighbours are still poor.

There is irony in the fact that they might end up even poorer once all is said and done, but can you blame them for taking a chance if they're not happy with the way things are now?
Brendocon 2.0 wrote:He thinks movement of EU citizens is fine, but has voted out of the EU so he can stop people coming in from Africa, Syria and Iraq. Which, er, aren't part of the EU... so we... er... already have control of who comes in from those places.
For the last year there's been a (patently false) rumour circling the internet that countries like Germany and Sweden are going to grant immediate citizenship to ALL OF THE MIGRANTS, so that's probably what he's talking about. So he's definitely wrong, but it's because he's been lied to by people who want to make the immigration situation seem worse than it is.

Do a large number of British people oppose intra-EU migration? As a Canadian, that just seems batty to me. Even the most hardcore bigoted anti-immigration wackos you could find over here are mostly fine with immigrants coming in from other Western countries, they're just racists that want to keep out nonwhites.

Based on the news that filters over to our media at least, it seems like your bigots are more upset about other Europeans coming in than they are about Africans and Indians. That sounds like bizarro-world to me.
Knightdramon wrote:Just goes to show that you don't put such things to a referendum, you just don't. The public is not remotely aware of the implications such things will have on their lives.
The public isn't any more aware of what effect electing a political party is going to have over four years, either. Does that mean we should just call it a day for democracy?

People are on the whole fairly ignorant about politics, yes. But it's the job of their leaders to educate them on the consequences that an action like this might have. Considering all of the proper political parties opposed this and it still happened, I think you need to place the blame on Britain's politicians, not on her voters. If leaving the EU is as manifestly terrible an idea as you think, it should have been easy to convince the public of that -- and they utterly failed to do so. This should have been an easy win, but somehow they cocked it up. They're the ones to blame for this, not the public.
Knightdramon wrote:I keep thinking that the falling pound, going back on "promises" and all that will get us some Government official next week saying "ok folks yeah you had your say, we'll work hard for these things while still in the EU".
While that might be a good idea long term, it's also a good recipe for riots and mob violence. I can't see a leaderless government having the guts to risk it.
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Post by slartibartfast »

Ah crap. That would mean that it'd get dragged out until Cameron steps down in October.

EDIT : oh wait, he said it himself:
"I think it's right that this new prime minister takes the decision about when to trigger article 50 and start the formal and legal process of leaving the EU"
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Post by Knightdramon »

-removed
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Knightdramon wrote:-removed
Summed up in one word there.

I think most of you will have seen my twitter meltdown so I won't repeat myself too much. I do think that, considering he doesn't truly believe in Brexit as more than a chance for career advancement (he was pro-EU at the start of the year), I think if staying in is the only way to keep Scotland in--and no PM is going to do anything but try and prevent that as hard as they can as no one wants the death of the union on their watch--then the inevitable PM Johnson will do some sort of fancy footwork to keep us in whilst making himself look good, such as a minor redress of the current offer from the EU presented as a bold victory of negotiation before he holds another ref in support of stay.

Though even beyond whether that'd be morally right (I would say we've made our bed of shit and low we have to lie in it because that's democracy regardless. But then this is real lives at stake. Mind, the fact it was Leave who were the first ones to go "A 48/52 divide isn't conclusive enough, we must do it again" when they thought they were going to lose would ease my conscious) I'm not even sure if that'd be enough at this stage.

And who could blame Scotland--and Northern Ireland, though that'll be a much trickier proposition, though it'd be amusing if North and South were brought back together by this--from wanting out when their wishes are so out of step with that of the English and Welsh?

Actually, that was mainly just me repeating myself. Sorry.
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Post by slartibartfast »

Warcry wrote:Do a large number of British people oppose intra-EU migration? As a Canadian, that just seems batty to me. Even the most hardcore bigoted anti-immigration wackos you could find over here are mostly fine with immigrants coming in from other Western countries, they're just racists that want to keep out nonwhites.

Based on the news that filters over to our media at least, it seems like your bigots are more upset about other Europeans coming in than they are about Africans and Indians. That sounds like bizarro-world to me.
I believe the bigot rule-of-thumb is that an immigrant is anyone who comes from across the water. Eastern Europeans seem to have a particularly bad press though, like the worn-out joke that all the plumbers come from Poland ?
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Post by Knightdramon »

Just so we're clear, my -removed- post was edited by me as that was a bit too personal. It was not inflammatory towards any of our members ;)

I do think that at the end this will blow over. The sh!t that has accumulated from just one day, all the Leave figures immediately going back on their promises and the fact that our mate Bo Jo does not want to trigger article 50 makes it look like things might turn around.

Two things in mind---the Greek referendum from last year was not binding. A 67% on "no to austerity measures" was answered by even harsher austerity measures and there were no riots on the street.

I also don't see how this can be constituted as a democratic "vote" when a good portion of the country, the very people that will have their rights challenged while paying taxes and contributing all the while, the EU migrants, did not get a say in this.

Funniest thing in the whole referendum debate were the ethnic minorities talking against immigration, how EU migrants are making things worse for them. That's segmentation at it's worst; once Nigel and co mop up the dirty Europeans, who's the next set of "dirty" expendable non British folk that people will conveniently put all the blame on?
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Post by Patapsco »

My gut feeling when the Scottish referendum rolled around was that yes, Scotland should absolutely be an independent but the arguments put forward by the Yes campaign were so weak that even if I had been the most pro-independent voter I would have had to say no at the moment.

The same applies here: the arguments for Brexit when they weren't invoking out and out fascism were so nebulous that even applying the closest amount of scrutiny to them would have shown them up for the bollocks they were.

Take the "unvoted rules" thing: all the rules, regulations and laws are voted on by MEPs and then ratified so it's surely not UKIP's fault that all these laws got voted in when they couldn't be bothered to vote on them is it? It's the Brussels bogeyman wot did it. And while we're on laws, I'm pretty sure that the EU doesn't set our parliamentary budget or acts of parliament or bills of law in this country either.

And immigration? Megalols. As of now, the British immigration centre is based in Calais and we have the option to send migrants and refugees back to the first EU country they entered as part of the Dublin Agreement. The second we leave, that immigration centre will be moved to Kent, and all migrants and refugees will have to be housed at taxpayer cost while they are processed. And we can't deport them back to the first country they entered because that will be the UK.

I could go on and on but even now Leave is walking back on pretty much all it said so I think there will end up being some sort of concessionary deal done to keep us in the EU. Oh, and there's also the rumour going around that because the winning margin was sub 60% it's perfectly legal to call a second referendum
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