Three non-obvious reasons to Vote Leave on the 23rd I'm just about old enough to remember the 1975 Europe referendum. Old enough to remember leaflets thudding onto the doormat (for every 'NO', there were three for ‘YES’). Most vividly of all I remember my father and our Austrian GP, who lived a few doors down in Teesside, discussing the EEC as he walked his dog past our house. …
"Yeees*. Only visa-free travel was a thing way before the EU and Three did free European roaming before the EU mandated it."
Sure it was. However, due to the UK demanding tougher border controls, and due to the UK not being an EU member any longer, visa-free travel has unfortunately (for UK) been scrapped.
It's on top of that scrap heap over there, along with the torn up ESA, CERN, and other scientific cooperation agreements.
Here is hoping that the UK leaves and then Scotland can become free from the corrupt political union inflicted upon it by bribes in the 18th century.
The "leavers" will whinge and whine about Scotland becoming free, but that it just what one would expect of the English exceptionalism being expressed.
Andrew, I rarely agree with your point of view but as someone looking around to find a positive reason to vote one way or another before 10pm today, I thank you for your exposition. My wife (a leave campaigner) was at our local Surrey station this morning handing out leaflets alongside a clutch of middle-class women who called her and the mixed race man she was with racist. These are presumably acolytes of the Clerisy you reference. I assume they, or their kids or their partners have the most to lose from any change.
I find it intriguing that the middle class aren't more conservative and more prone to want more localized government versus a federal government in Brussels. I would expect that class of voter (myself included) to tend more towards the "leave" camp just based on basic Republican/Tory sensibilities.
Isn't it ironic that the need to sell low-brow worse-than-toilet-paper tabloid "newspapers" in order to enrich a few (Murdoch), has led to a distorted view of the dangers for the British?
Fear-mongering and playing on people's most basic, uninformed instincts, may lead to a hasty uninformed decision.
I realise that a few have well reasoned reasons (sorry) to vote Leave, but the vast majority of the Brexiters just seem to know the one magic word "immigration". That's it. The Sun said so, so it must be so.
The first part of your article makes a lot of sense (thanks for the Kotkin link). However it seems to omit discussion of why anti-migration hostility, which has been strong for centuries, is suddenly becoming politically important now. (Tribalism? An accidental manifestation of the elites' worldwide loss of credibility? etc)
(your views on EU law, along with your earlier article on copyright, remain unattractive: too many fundamental errors of fact)
It very helpfully has a map showing where Albania, Macedonia, Montenergo, Serbia and Turkey are, and how many people live in those countries (very few as it turns out, apart from Turkey).
All combined, excluding Turkey, were similar to the population of Sweden, to my surprise!
On the back it also helpfully shows how to put a cross in the "Leave the European Union" box. That's so thoughtful of them!
Lot's of advice too to call your friends and make sure they are going to vote Leave today. I'm sure that will go down a treat!
I should let EVERYONE know that I am going to vote Leave -email, change Facebook status, display a poster in my window!
Gosh! This is increadible! I had NO IDEA that I was this influential and important!
Seeing how many on my street are likely voting leave (according to the leaflet), I simply MUST go along with the sheep. There is simply no way I can make up my own mind now when I have seen this!
Thank you so much, the Leave campaign, for, yet again, appealing to my lower instincts! Wouldn't want that pitchfork piercing my but now, would I?
Don't get too excited. This is Democracy 2.0 EU-style: If the people vote the wrong way, the people will certainly get another opportunity to get it right later. Or maybe not, it's become quite the fashion to just to ignore the whole thing and pretend the bad, bad, vote never happened.
Vote "NO" and see what they come up with to make it a: "Yes Sir, can I please have another, Sir"
How right you were/are !!!!
I did not believe we had lost ALL pretence to being a Democracy but it seems you are 100% right.
It was not made clear that 'Remain' votes counted as 2 'Leave' votes, but this is now clear in the way a second referendum is being asked for (no matter that it is legally a 'No go')
The Remain elite are now wrangling to declare the result is only Advisory.
(Even though Cameron standed that it was going to be acted upon immediately the result was known)
If that does not work, that they will simply vote the resulting negotiations as being 'Not good enough'.
This will be self fulfilling as if the EU Leaders know that the negotiations cannot result in any agreement from our Govt, at the end of the day, they will ensure that the UK gets the worse possible deal they can contrive.
All this is ignoring that fact that our 2 main parties see fit to kick off leadership contests BEFORE dealing with the result of the Referendum.
(This is possible because Cameron throw a 'Political Grenade' over his shoulder as he slinked off when he lost, so to speak. Such grace in losing !!!)
If it was possible to enact a 'No Confidence' vote in our Parliament, I would. !!!
They are all a disgrace. They are more concerned in their own careers and the so important fight to get further up the greasy pole of Political life.
There is a petition worth voting for !!!
Instead of the useless whining of the 'People that could not get their own way'. (Remain Voters) !!!
We do seem to have created quite a 'entitled generation' who cannot understand our system of Democracy and feel that everything they want is a given.
I thought only children asked for 'Do-overs' !!!
We have very few major UK based businesses that are not either majority or wholly foreign owned.
They are here for two reasons, first is relatively cheap labour, second is we are a gateway to the EU and a market of 500 million people. Take the EU away and these businesses have very little reason to be here.
For example Ford recently announced that if we leave the EU they would have to "re think their presence in the UK", another example HSBC have stated they have plans to relocate at least a quarter of their jobs to the EU should we leave, given they employ 16000 people in the UK that's 4000 people suddenly on welfare, and you'll pay for them out of increased taxes.
Forget this fictitious £350million a week figure that I received in the post this morning despite it being proven to be a lie months ago, your council tax, VAT & income tax are going to go through the roof, public services are going to disappear and supermarket shelves will be empty, and thousands if not millions will be out of work within months of a leave vote
A major part of our economy is derived from being a gateway to the EU for foreign businesses, as we make damn little ourselves, we leave, they leave, our economy crashes and if you think our politically driven austerity is bad try living on an island that suddenly has to negotiate a hundred trade agreements before the food stocks run out, when the civil service probably has the capacity to negotiate a handful of such agreements in a year.
People will starve, people will riot & it won't do any good as there still won't be any food.
Of course I could be wrong on this, but if you are a Brexiter, and we leave the EU and I turn out to be right, please send me your name and address so that when I run out of food or money I can come to your house and share your food & money, after all if I'm starving or homeless it's your fault and it's only fair you should share my problems as you will have caused them.
Staying in the EU, is not perfect I'll admit but we can't change it if we leave, better to be in the tent pissing out than outside the tent being pissed on.
If you can't prove 100% that the UK will be better off outside the EU and I do mean prove not just telling me I'm talking bollocks, then kindly don't fucking gamble with other peoples lives. If it's only going to affect you if you lose a bet then fine you do what you like it's your risk and your loss, but this gamble affects everyone, if you fuck it up you fuck it up for everyone, don't expect a pat on the back for your principles.
"but if you are a Brexiter, and we leave the EU and I turn out to be right, please send me your name and address so that when I run out of food or money I can come to your house and share your food & money, after all if I'm starving or homeless it's your fault and it's only fair you should share my problems as you will have caused them."
That will be hard to do, since you posted AC.
However, if we do leave, and people do end up starving on my street and I have enough to spare - then I will be sharing what I do have. Having principles means that you stand by them, even when the chips are down, otherwise they aren't principles are they?
Good for you, I'll be doing he same, I won't watch people go hungry, I just hope everyone else will do this.
Nice to see Farage has finally admitted the £350 million figure was wrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0ktojE6WQA
And I believe the leave campaign has asked the PM not to invoke article 50 so we're still part of the EU and still subject to it's rules including free migration of EU member citizens, though I sincerely doubt they'll want to come here now our economy has evaporated
What a measured, reflective, and insightful post this is. I only saw it today post-referendum. But I am pointing my many left-leaning acquaintances to it as a useful explanation of why their tendency to self-righteous belief and their disregard and disdain for the working class has led to this kind of reaction and result. Most appear (without any apparent sense of irony) to have resorted to petulant complaining about democracy ('this is what happens when you let people make decisions', 'I didn't vote for this so it's wrong', etc.), blaming racism, and advocating that over 50's should not have been given the vote.
I'm an American, but grew up hearing of British determination from my parents, who sailed to Britain in September 1940 to join the American Hospital in Britain, near Basingstoke. I doubt the terrifying predictions of Britain's demise, as they doubted it would fall to the German military onslaught; I wish you well.
I agree but we have our own politicians talking the panic up.
There is a sense that some of the Remain Supporters in the 2 main parties are now prepared to encourage the worse possible consequences to prove a point.
I wait for someone with a level head to show some leadership and to accept the democratic decision of our people.
The UK can survive outside of the EU and trying to evoke a crash is not to anyones advantage..
I am losing any remaining respect for our politicians if this is the best they can do. (Not that there was much left after the Referendum Campaigns by both sides !!!)
Your question highlights the point.
After the Referendum there is not a Remain or Leave side !!!
The decision has been made and there is a 'UK side' that has to accept the result and deal with it.
The two sides are still in battle IF the result is going to be contested against the original intent to follow the result, as expressed by Cameron.
It would appear that the intent as expressed was ONLY valid if the result was to remain !!!
This is not the democracy that I believed existed in the UK.
Disagree all you like but accept the result is all I ask.
I would have accepted the Remain result if that was the case but I seem to be in the minority that understood how the Referendum worked !!!
The key point is that the people who are making the most noise are the group that made the least effort to vote.
You cannot complain about a result in a vote you could not be bothered to partake in.
Being vocal does not make you any MORE right.
Just as in all votes we have in the UK, a no-vote effectively supports the other side (whoever that may be).
Just as the 'great unwashed' are being blamed equally the 'great indifferent' are to blame also.
Ask the question 'Why are there so many people who could not be bothered to vote ?'
"The decision has been made and there is a 'UK side' that has to accept the result and deal with it."
Nah. If you vote Labour, and the Tories win, you don't become a Tory supporter.
Nigh on 50% voted to stay, and Leave lied their rather ugly heads off to get a win.
I'd say the legitimacy of the vote is in doubt.
The Falklands (Malvinas?) becoming Argentinian, Gibraltar becoming Spanish, Scotland becoming Scottish, and Northern Ireland becoming Ireland may be the fallout of all this. Some good, some not so good.
U.K. becoming England and Wales -not so good. Quickly, someone, make Wales independent too!
Looks like vote 2 should be:
1. Pretend it was all a bad dream, and never invoke article 50. Or:
2. Dissolve the United Kingdom, finger up to the EU, and put the Queen on the dole.
Looks like you still don't get how a referendum works !!!
The referendum is to get an answer that is the end of the process.
It was not framed as a best of three or any other fudge.
RE: "Nah. If you vote Labour, and the Tories win, you don't become a Tory supporter."
I did not say anything about changing who I support but simply that the result is the end of the fight.
If the Tories/Labour/LibDems/etc win an election I don't get to keep contesting the result no matter how much I don't like the result.
Likewise for a referendum.
The only valid way would be if there had been some limits, as per the infamous 'Petition', which had been clearly stated BEFORE the referendum campaigns had been started.
You have a right to be upset if you did not win but that is all, the result has been reached and the result stands by the original definition of the process.
If you don't like the process then change it via the existing rules BUT this still does not have any impact on anything that has been done in the past.
I cannot understand why anyone thinks that Petitions & rallies etc will make any difference.
The referendum is not an internet poll where to can debate the question and/or the result ad infinitum.
It is just a lot of entitled spolt people who cannot understand they cannot get their own way.
No matter who you count it 52% > 48% hence the result stands.
"The referendum is to get an answer that is the end of the process."
If you haven't noticed, the process is just about to begin. Stalled by massive fights in the two main parties.
If the people changes its mind, it would obviously make sense to have a second referendum.
Why would you go ahead with a irreversable change if the apetite for it is gone?
Given that none of the fairytales told by the Brexit camp seem possible, a vote on the actual possible results should be held. Be it a referendum or a general election.
You have a right to be upset if you did not win but that is all, the result has been reached and the result stands by the original definition of the process.
Well, the powers that be are working on that "process". First off, Boris didn't want to hold the grenade after pulling the pin, now Nigel Farage is quietly slinking away "Mr Farage said his "political ambition has been achieved" with the UK having voted to leave the EU." --- Never Mind that stuff about *leaving*, "getting our country back", eh, nah, "voting" was good enough and all!?
They are walking it all back. After the summer holidays, this unfortunate incident will be totally erased.
Except ... Now that Britain has been called and folded, it's negotiating hand is not all that great any more and it has better lube up for the rogering that is coming.
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