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mytailorisrich | on: Trump wins presidency for second time
Your comment somewhat illustrates the point. It disparages those who voted for Brexit instead of trying to understand them, which is a recipe for eventual failure as we've seen.

Judging by this thread, it's still not possible to have a discussion on this...

chimprich | parent | next
> It disparages those who voted for Brexit instead of trying to understand them,

But why? Why is it the job of the people who are on the side of established truth who have to understand the views of the fantasists? I saw more "disparagement" from the pro-Brexit crowd than the Remainers. Why isn't it their responsibility to understand the realist position?

We told them Brexit would be a disaster. We were told we were scaremongering. It went ahead anyway, and it turned out to be awful. It was a stupid decision, and it was terrible judgment.

Why can't we tell people that some proposals are stupid? And why can't we tell people after the fact that they made a stupid decision? How is it our fault that they make bad decisions?

ben_w | root | parent | next
I think — as a Remainer who remained so hard I responded by moving to Berlin — that "why" is "because it was a referendum and that's how those work".

It's not sufficient (or necessary) to be correct to win in a democracy, winning requires being convincing, which may be easier with the truth but is also much harder when insulting half the electorate.

Even when it's very tempting afterwards to say "we told you so".

As for how to be convincing… dunno. I'm much more comfortable with computers where I can google the errors.

mytailorisrich | root | parent
People were concerned about loss of sovereignty and high immigration. These are perfectly valid concerns and the Leave campaign perfectly understood that when they picked "Take back control" as slogan.

Immigration is also a big factor in the Conservatives' defeat in the general election. People felt cheated as immigration hit a record high and voted Reform UK, which handed Labour a huge majority despite actually getting fewer votes than at the previous election.

So it's quite extraordinary to see the comments here with zero reflection on why all of this happened. This is the real, dangerous divide between the well-offs in and around London and the rest of the country.

I have read that the two main issues on voters' minds in this American Presidential election were immigration and the economy, so result is not very surprising.

ben_w | root | parent
Loss of sovereignty in particular was a fictional concern in regards to the EU, given the structure of the EU and the relatively high power of the UK within it. The degree to which the EU should be made more democratic is precisely the degree to which it remains exactly what leave campaigners said they wanted to replace it with: a traditional boring free trade agreement in the hands of negotiators appointed by the governments of the member states.

"High" migration likewise had nothing much to do with EU membership, as the government demonstrated precisely by following Brexit with, as you say, record high immigration.

One of the other famous big concerns Leave campaigners had was the cost, which famously became the £350 million a week on the side of a bus. This number was even called out as a falsehood at the time, but it was believed by enough to make a difference.

Remainers were unable to convince the majority that the benefits of EU membership was worth the cost, financial or otherwise, regardless.

d4rti | parent
There was nothing coherent to understand. A rag tag coalition mainly built on delusional positions.

- we can have all the trade benefits without freedom of movement (specifically denied by EU at the time, didn't materialise)

- we will have 'more trade' afterwards (fails to understand how trade works)

- we won't have to follow EU rules (in reality, we can't really diverge that much from how the EU works without incurring penalties)

- we won't have to pay anything to them / we hold all the cards / ... (we did pay for our liabilities and we definitely didn't hold the cards)

- we can become much more left wing if we leave the neoliberal EU (fails to account for the fact our country isn't particularly left wing overall)

- politicians will have to take responsibility/can't blame the EU (brexiteers keep blaming the EU even now, BJ et.al. have faced minimal or no consequences for their actions)

- we can fish again (ignores relative importance of fishing vs the actually productive economy, disregards that EU is a big market for said fish)

What do you suggest we engage with?

ozim | root | parent
Well oversight on financial institutions by EU is gone, yeah you still have regulations for normal business that you have to do with EU. But super rich and corporations can drop their money in UK puppet territories and EU is not going to have pressure points. Google "UK tax havens" and I bet brexiteers were handsomely paid for their efforts by people who want that scheme to continue instead of sharing any of that money with EU.