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Post by Cousin Lou on Feb 1, 2020 13:36:45 GMT
The vote ensured it had to happen. This is a prime example of what I was talking about the other day, T. This thing where cold objectivity rules over personal feelings. The fact that you can look at something like this in this way - I don't get it. Are you like this with football? Maybe you are. Anyway - leave didn't gain anything LIKE a large majority, so we're left with almost half of voters feeling dissatisfied. Or worse. A really fucking stupid idea to take the vote to the people, regardless of what you think of the outcome. Most people had no idea. All the vox pops that we've seen on the TV in the last couple of years clearly indicate that. "I just think we should look after our own", that type of rubbish. I'm trying to be realistic, but I think this could mark the start of the further decline of the UK in economic terms. At the very least we're looking at several months of tough negotiations that will tie up parliament almost as much as it did over the last three years, giving it less time than it needs to look at domestic issues. Did you see Barroso on Newsnight last night? He made a lot of sense and pointed out some things that are rarely mentioned in relation to Brexit - mainly, that the EU had learned from the UK, that we had introduced a lot of trade regulations and NOT Brussels. He gave the example that the European internal market was in fact Thatcher's idea. We contributed a lot. They'll miss us. He also emphasised the fact that any future trade deals between the UK and the US are going to be hampered by the very different attitudes of both countries, essentially protectionism versus globalism. And this is a man who is not trying to sell newspapers - he's not writing headlines. He's using his own wide-ranging experience and his expertise to look at the situation objectively, and he wasn't optimistic. The stupidity of the idea to bring the vote to the people is just another example where politics completely miscalculated the sentiments among the populace. No way that Cameron even thought it could end the way it did.
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tory
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Post by tory on Feb 1, 2020 13:38:23 GMT
Well, your other argument seems to be "people didn't know what they were voting for".
Do you give people electoral suffrage or do you withhold it?
Presuming that because people didn't have the right knowledge they were unable to correctly apply it to the correct position is downright authoritarianism.
Yes, some people are thick, crass, uneducated and probably xenophobic at times. But they are people nonetheless.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 1, 2020 13:40:57 GMT
Yeah, but my point was more about how a complex matter such as our future relationship with the EU should never be decided by voters. They just don't know enough about it.
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Post by tory on Feb 1, 2020 13:42:36 GMT
If anything, Brexit has shown that a great deal of affluent, reasonable and intelligent middle class people would be perfectly happy to live in a society where an economic underclass has no political representation whatsoever.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 1, 2020 13:46:41 GMT
Well, your other argument seems to be "people didn't know what they were voting for". Do you give people electoral suffrage or do you withhold it? Presuming that because people didn't have the right knowledge they were unable to correctly apply it to the correct position is downright authoritarianism. Yes, some people are thick, crass, uneducated and probably xenophobic at times. But they are people nonetheless. My point was about YOU and YOUR reaction to all this! How you point to historical examples, make declarations such as 'it's democratic', observe results neutrally like some sort of commentator. It's frustrating to try and discuss things with you because of this.
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Post by tory on Feb 1, 2020 13:49:34 GMT
Yeah, but my point was more about how a complex matter such as our future relationship with the EU should never be decided by voters. They just don't know enough about it. Why did UKIP gain electoral support? Because the elected representatives of the government, the MPs, were not addressing concerns voters had about the EU. Therefore they set up a new party to give voice to those concerns. We elect MPs to make difficult decisions on our behalf. When those MPs dont address these issues then you have a situation like this.
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Post by tory on Feb 1, 2020 13:51:46 GMT
Historians have to be unemotional about all of this John. We have to look at all sides of the story and find the causes and what led to situations.
Only then, perhaps, might we find a core truth about it.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 1, 2020 13:54:32 GMT
Historians have to be unemotional about all of this John. We have to look at all sides of the story and find the causes and what led to situations. Only then, perhaps, might we find a core truth about it. Absolutely. But you're not a historian. You're a contributor on a message board.
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Post by tory on Feb 1, 2020 14:05:06 GMT
Historians have to be unemotional about all of this John. We have to look at all sides of the story and find the causes and what led to situations. Only then, perhaps, might we find a core truth about it. Absolutely. But you're not a historian. You're a contributor on a message board. Oh touche! Everyone is a historian to a certain extent. We all interpret events in our own way. It's just that more qualified ones can make judgements based on evidence - but ultimately they are still just intepretations and judgements.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 1, 2020 14:17:42 GMT
I don't want to spend any more time on this, really.
I value your contributions but, like I say, it's not easy to have a good old fighto with you when you keep talking about things dispassionately. Most people feel strongly about Brexit and Trump, but you tend to react with a shrug of the shoulders and a 'THAT'S DEMOCRACY!' kind of stance. Sorry but I find it a bit strange.
I can get the historical angle from any number of online sources, you know?
Anyway. I'm off to Sainsburys and I hope they accept my VOUCHER
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 2, 2020 9:28:01 GMT
Well, your other argument seems to be "people didn't know what they were voting for". Do you give people electoral suffrage or do you withhold it? Presuming that because people didn't have the right knowledge they were unable to correctly apply it to the correct position is downright authoritarianism. Meanwhile I'm still trying to unpick this one. So am I to conclude that you think people were sufficiently well versed to make a decision on EU membership?
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Post by tory on Feb 2, 2020 9:44:00 GMT
We elect members of Parliament to make those difficult decisions on our behalf. That's their job as MPs and subsequently, Cabinet Ministers.
However, in this instance, Members of Parliament ratified David Cameron's decision to hold a Referendum by a whopping 544 to 90, ensuring that the public would then be asked to vote on this particular scenario.
So, by holding a Referendum, Members of Parliament transferred responsibility on this decision back to the public. This was not a sole decision by Cameron - it needed to be given consent by Parliament before doing so. And they did this, in large numbers.
It is not the responsibility of the public here to be "fully versed" in the details of the scenario. They were given the opportunity to vote on the situation in a binary manner. The government provided lots of information about it. The public could find out lots of information about the EU if they wished to as well.
Referendums are, admittedly, difficult things because they present complex scenarios in a binary fashion. But, if Parliament transfers this decision making to the public, who by their very nature cannot be as "well informed" as them, then they cannot complain about the result. They have abjured their own decision making over to the public to make it for them, and when the result is produced, it is then their responsibility to carry it out.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 2, 2020 9:48:20 GMT
And you're at it again.
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Post by tory on Feb 2, 2020 9:49:46 GMT
Well, if you wrestle with a pig...
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Post by tory on Feb 2, 2020 9:53:46 GMT
How can you expect people to be "fully versed with the EU"?
I would imagine that there are very few people throughout the EU who are fully conversant with a bureaucracy that stretches from Poland to Portugal. I imagine that even the likes of Selmayr, Verhofstadt and Tusk aren't aware of all the byzantine bureaucracy that the EU entails.
It is an impossible ask to suggest that the ordinary person in the street can only vote IF they have sufficient knowledge of how something impossibly complex works.
This is not academia; someone shouldn't have to have a qualification to place a vote in a political context. Therefore I refer you to my post above where I suggest that the current system of abjuring responsibility to members of Parliament is what happens, and then when there is a once-in-a-generation decision, a referendum happens.
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