Democracy Doesn't Work

[Gordon EF]

12 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Yes it is.

One thing it says to me that a lot of people who thought the EU was less important than brown neighbours were persuaded that leaving the EU would mean no more immigration. 

What does that shift say to you? 

That opposition to brown neighbours triumphed in the market place of ideas?

I'm not sure many people on this thread fundamentally disagree with each other. In the referendum, the Leave side and large swathes of the media absolutely played on people's prejudices and ignorance, particularly around immigration and the Remain side were effectively useless idiots who didn't understand where this thing would be won and lost, trotting out economics professors and warning of world war 3.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Gordon EF

[strichener]

5 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

It shows that the referendum wasn't a response to a rising groundswell of hostility to the EU, it was to bring to an end the civil war in the Tory party and the threat of UKIP poaching their votes.

How would a, for all intents and purposes, single issue party that wanted put of the EU take votes from the Tory's given that there wasn't a rising groundswell of hostility to the EU? 

There has been hostility to the EU since the 60s as @Jacksgranda has already stated.  It's similar to nuclear weapons in that it would rank very low on people's current issues but if there were a referendum on it this year, you may be surprised at the level of engagement.

[coprolite]

6 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

That leaving the Eu and immigration are so closely linked that having them as separate options on that poll is slightly misleading.

The poll is meant to be a measure of people's subjective view of the relative importance of different issues to them.  As such i think that your original description of "telling" is more appropriate than "misleading". 

There are mutually exclusive issues in each category-eg: Syrian refugee crisis, Euro crisis that will affect one but not the other so it would be a nonsense to have EU/immigration as a single issue. 

Just now, Gordon EF said:

That opposition to brown neighbours triumphed in the market place of ideas?

I'm not sure many people on this thread fundamentally disagree with each other. In the referendum, the Leave side and large swathes of the media absolutely played on people's prejudices and ignorance, particularly around immigration and the Remain side were effectively useless idiots who didn't understand where this thing would be won and lost, trotting out economics professors and warning of world war 3.

Yes, it did. 

I don't know whether it's because the majority of brits are fundamentally c***s or just easily led to cuntishness. 

Also, i' m not really disagreeing with anyone much. Spirit of enquiry. 

[Gordon EF]

4 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Yes, it did. 

I don't know whether it's because the majority of brits are fundamentally c***s or just easily led to cuntishness. 

Also, i' m not really disagreeing with anyone much. Spirit of enquiry. 

The question seems to be was there always this latent anti-EU sentiment that was waiting for it to be a live issue or were millions of people tricked into voting for something they didn't really want by a small band of Brexit extremists.

I don't see any way it's not a little bit of both. I think it's fairly wild and utterly overestimating the competency of Farage and co to think it's solely or mostly the latter.

[oneteaminglasgow]

20 minutes ago, coprolite said:

There are mutually exclusive issues in each category-eg: Syrian refugee crisis, Euro crisis that will affect one but not the other so it would be a nonsense to have EU/immigration as a single issue. 

I’m not sure this is true re the Syrian refugee crisis not affecting how people viewed EU membership. Vote Leave certainly used it to further their aims...

Edit: for what it’s worth, I would say for a lot of people, EU membership would have been a subsection of wider ‘concerns about immigration’ in their political outlook. I don’t think, outwith certain communities, that any of them cared about fishing or ‘unelected bureaucrats’ before they were told to. 

Edited December 28, 2020 by oneteaminglasgow

[Sergeant Wilson]

31 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

It shows that the referendum wasn't a response to a rising groundswell of hostility to the EU, it was to bring to an end the civil war in the Tory party and the threat of UKIP poaching their votes.

It's always been raised by a vocal, influential minority with vested interests. They're clever enough to push the right buttons in the right places to fire up anti-Europe/foreigner antipathy. Do that in highly populated areas and you can achieve majority.

[coprolite]

3 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

The question seems to be was there always this latent anti-EU sentiment that was waiting for it to be a live issue or were millions of people tricked into voting for something they didn't really want by a small band of Brexit extremists.

I don't see any way it's not a little bit of both. I think it's fairly wild and utterly overestimating the competency of Farage and co to think it's solely or mostly the latter.

I don't think it's at all mostly the latter, but i do think that might have had enough of an effect to flip a minority to a majority. 

I also think that for a lot of people the EU was barely an issue at all and they would be swayed by some very basic dishonest arguments, like the £350m a week, without giving it much thought. 

[welshbairn]

8 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

I’m not sure this is true re the Syrian refugee crisis not affecting how people viewed EU membership. Vote Leave certainly used it to further their aims...

Edit: for what it’s worth, I would say for a lot of people, EU membership would have been a subsection of wider ‘concerns about immigration’ in their political outlook. I don’t think, outwith certain communities, that any of them cared about fishing or ‘unelected bureaucrats’ before they were told to. 

That poster was amplifying a straightforward lie by Boris and others that Turkey was about to join the EU. I don't think they met a single criteria for membership.

[coprolite]

4 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

I’m not sure this is true re the Syrian refugee crisis not affecting how people viewed EU membership. Vote Leave certainly used it to further their aims...

I've not seen that before. 

I was referring to it being, in reality, unrelated to the EU. 

I'm sure Vote Leave had the EU responsible for child abuse, cancer and the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs but i can't keep up with their lies. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

That poster was amplifying a straightforward lie by Boris and others that Turkey was about to join the EU. I don't think they met a single criteria for membership.

I know - have they not been trying to join since the 80’s with no prospect of it happening any time soon? 

But in any case, the implication of the poster is clear that ‘Turkey is going to join and then all these Syrian refugees will be allowed to come here.’ It was clearly trying to link “Refugees are swarming over here” with EU membership.

All utter fucking nonsense of course.

[coprolite]

6 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

That poster was amplifying a straightforward lie by Boris and others that Turkey was about to join the EU. I don't think they met a single criteria for membership.

And France would leave before letting them in. Cyprus also reported to be not so keen. 

[Super Saddler]

15 hours ago, Carnoustie Young Guvnor said:

It was a complete irrelevance a lot more recently than the 90's, we live in the same world, you know that's true the same as I do because of your lived experience.  Some form of anti-EU party has probably been around since the day we joined the EU.

 

If there was, they must have been totally irrelevant because no one ever heard of them.

[welshbairn]

 

[Dunfermline Don]

I wonder how that happened.

And yet as we have seen over the last few weeks, EU countries do still and always have had control over their borders.

[Fullerene]

23 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

I know - have they not been trying to join since the 80’s with no prospect of it happening any time soon? 

But in any case, the implication of the poster is clear that ‘Turkey is going to join and then all these Syrian refugees will be allowed to come here.’ It was clearly trying to link “Refugees are swarming over here” with EU membership.

All utter fucking nonsense of course.

Istanbul is easily the largest city in Europe, Turkey has a population similar to Germany.

I think these would be big factors in any decision to let Turkey join the EU.

[strichener]

25 minutes ago, Super Saddler said:

If there was, they must have been totally irrelevant because no one ever heard of them.

Never heard of the SNP?  They were anti-EU until the late 80's when they switched to "Independence within Europe"

[BFTD]

I don't think any political party does well on the issue of purity of policy - you can look at manifestos from decades back and find some surprises for all of them. Which is good, because people get things wrong, or the world changes, and it would be foolish to hang on to (for example) a desperate desire to keep foreigners out of the job market just because that's what Grandpa's generation wanted.

The ones you have to watch for are those who campaign on one issue and drop it entirely when they get a sniff of power.

[Jacksgranda]

54 minutes ago, strichener said:

Never heard of the SNP?  They were anti-EU until the late 80's when they switched to "Independence within Europe"

Sinn Fein ditto. Except for the "independence within Europe" bit. More along the lines of  "Unified within Europe", thanks to our brave volunteers - and Gerry Adams.

[strichener]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

I don't think any political party does well on the issue of purity of policy - you can look at manifestos from decades back and find some surprises for all of them. Which is good, because people get things wrong, or the world changes, and it would be foolish to hang on to (for example) a desperate desire to keep foreigners out of the job market just because that's what Grandpa's generation wanted.

The ones you have to watch for are those who campaign on one issue and drop it entirely when they get a sniff of power.

You make the assumption that changing position on issues automatically means that your previous policy was wrong and the current position is correct.  This may be the case in some instances but certainly cannot be applied universally.

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

4 hours ago, welshbairn said:

https://qz.com/1725402/only-5-percent-of-brits-cared-about-the-eu-before-brexit/

Game, set and match.  Great find.  This was deliberately manufactured by the right wing media, its all artificial. Nobody gave a shit about the EU till Murdoch et al started telling them they did. only the nutcases were interested.