Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Next year will mark the tenth anniversary of the suicide note.

That will be as good a time as any for the government to develop testicular fortitude.

Yet again, yesterday, the Mail was proclaiming how the Will of the People was being threatened by the government. The idea that the referendum was the only time the People have had their say, and that this was the only irrevocable vote in history, has somehow been established as fact and has to be challenged. We cannot allow what was basically a rigged opinion poll to dictate government policy forever.

Indeed. I’ve always maintained that because the 2016 referendum was deliberately framed as having a legal status of advisory only and non-binding, that meant that the decision to trigger Article 50 and end the UK’s EU membership was entirely a political choice by the Tories in government. It was, and remains, no more “the will of the people” than it is the will of the people to have Mr Blobby as the Archbishop of Canterbury. This lie needs to be much more effectively debunked.

davidjay wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2025 8:32 am Yet again, yesterday, the Mail was proclaiming how the Will of the People was being threatened by the government. The idea that the referendum was the only time the People have had their say, and that this was the only irrevocable vote in history, has somehow been established as fact and has to be challenged. We cannot allow what was basically a rigged opinion poll to dictate government policy forever.

Mail and co attitude to democracy 101: it's great when it suits us.

As Musk's minions are currently taking data from US government agencies with impunity, we see where the cunts actually want us to go. It's never towards democracy.

The other idea that needs booting into touch is "We knew what we were voting for." We didn't. Every Leave campaigner said we'd be staying in the Customs Union and it wasn't about immigration.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:13 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 5:11 pm One man did it. Without Bozo, you've got Michael Gove leading the campaign and setting people's teeth on edge, and being edited down on the news because he's too boring.

Though Johnson bears a massive responsibility, you can’t say it was all down to him. Gove, Stuart, Leadsome, Banks, Farage, Widdecombe, Cummings, Corbyn. The roll-call is long.

They all contributed, but without Bozo, they lose. And without Cameron there's no referendum at all. Those two are far and away the most culpable.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2025 1:52 pm

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:13 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 5:11 pm One man did it. Without Bozo, you've got Michael Gove leading the campaign and setting people's teeth on edge, and being edited down on the news because he's too boring.

Though Johnson bears a massive responsibility, you can’t say it was all down to him. Gove, Stuart, Leadsome, Banks, Farage, Widdecombe, Cummings, Corbyn. The roll-call is long.

They all contributed, but without Bozo, they lose. And without Cameron there's no referendum at all. Those two are far and away the most culpable.

And, without Farage, Cameron would not have felt the need to call a referendum.
Without Farage, Bozo would have remained a Remainer.

That's a fair point. I think Farage, Cameron, Bozo covers the main ones.

James O’Brien covers all the ground in his recent How They Broke Britain. Cameron is the prime culprit for conceding the referendum in the first place and drastically misjudging his capacity to see off a majority for Leave ( and for enacting the referendum as advisory only and requiring just a simple majority and not a two thirds one), but Farage put the pressure on him and Johnson picked up the fucking ball an ran with it to further his own interests. Cunts, to a man.

I think advisory is a red herring there. If everyone says they'll honour it, it's not really advisory. See what happened to Labour in heavily Brexit voting seats in 2019.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2025 2:28 pm That's a fair point. I think Farage, Cameron, Bozo covers the main ones.

And, if you’ll excuse the image, their love child Cummings

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2025 6:02 pm I think advisory is a red herring there. If everyone says they'll honour it, it's not really advisory. See what happened to Labour in heavily Brexit voting seats in 2019.

I do take your point, but that’s all part of The Big Lie. The fact is that the legal status of the 2016 referendum was that it was non-binding. In Labour’s case, politically they arguably had no choice but to go along with the “will of the people” bollocks, but only because of the relentless perpetration of The Big Lie. It’s a mistake that Labour feels the need to continue with even now that it is in government with every single measure of opinion for the last five years indicating a desire to reverse the mistake of leaving the EU.

Anand Menon reflecting on the campaign singled out George Osborne as an unintended asset for Leave. Even without much evidence to back it up his dire warnings that house prices would crash sounded a good thing to millions of floating voters not on the housing ladder.

Menon is director of a think tank that has commissioned this useful report.

Five Years On: Why Have Public Attitudes to Brexit Changed? John Curtice https://ukandeu.ac.uk/five-years-on-why ... t-changed/

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2025 7:54 pm

I do take your point, but that’s all part of The Big Lie. The fact is that the legal status of the 2016 referendum was that it was non-binding. In Labour’s case, politically they arguably had no choice but to go along with the “will of the people” bollocks, but only because of the relentless perpetration of The Big Lie. It’s a mistake that Labour feels the need to continue with even now that it is in government with every single measure of opinion for the last five years indicating a desire to reverse the mistake of leaving the EU.

Labour's recognizing Brexit happened, nothing more. It's not continuing with anything, it's rebuilding the relationship and trying to improve the deal. Trouble is that the Continuity Remain people have become as dogmatic as the Brexit hard men were. If you don't immediately concede one of the EU's main negotiating aims, you're basically Nigel Farage. I've even seen people apparently of the liberal left attacking the UK for having a better policy on marine conservation than the EU. This is the sort of thing that comes out in the wash when various things are discussed at once.

The trouble with "people regret Brexit stuff" is that these polls (like the Referendum itself) tend not to measure trade offs. Would the EU allow a Schengen opt out? If not. that's a pretty major political headache right off. I think it's reasonable to assume we wouldn't get it.

If Schengen survives the immediate future, we can be pretty sure that it will only be with amendments which permit a perpetual opt-out.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 3:51 pm The trouble with "people regret Brexit stuff" is that these polls (like the Referendum itself) tend not to measure trade offs. Would the EU allow a Schengen opt out? If not. that's a pretty major political headache right off.

The other one being the Euro which is why all the Rejoin polls omit it.
It's all academic until the Tories are for re-joining anyway.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 3:51 pm
Labour's recognizing Brexit happened, nothing more. It's not continuing with anything, it's rebuilding the relationship and trying to improve the deal.

This, 100%.
Without either a second referendum (please, no) or an explicit manifesto commitment, rejoining is not on. At the moment. Not in this parliament.

But the first phrase to learn in politics is 'That was then, this is now'.

[Corrected 4 typos, added a comma]

One thing I come back to- how did you feel when those Brexit results were coming in? When you saw Remain getting murdered in Sunderland and Swindon, with their car factories? I would say we all felt atrocious. This was epochal, no 'back in a few years".

Our first instincts were right.

Alistair Darling recalled meeting some Nissan workers who were voting Leave because they believed the EU wasn't allowing the UK to export cars to Europe. Amazing what utter tits people made of themselves to avoid saying 'send back the wogs.'

May Farridge's PSE be of heightened interest.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... port-finds