So, Brits. How's Brexit Going?

[downbeatplumb]

So this is something I have been wondering about recently.

I was in a debate with a Brexiter who was claiming that the government was pro-Remain. He had a good point in that they did send round a leaflet paid for by taxes as to why the government thought that it was better to remain in the EU.

This was Cameron's Tory government. He had the power to call a referendum. His government sent round the leaflet. So my question is this. Why was the referendum set up to maximise the chance of a Leave vote?

The point I had been making was that it was an advisory referendum taken as binding which meant that people did not have to know what they were voting for. If it was binding then people would have realised the consequences of leaving and been less likely to choose that option.

But then it occurred to me that they did something even more indicative of ensuring the Leavers won. The deliberately excluded a large majority of Remainers. Both the British citizens living in the EU and the EU citizens living in the UK.

See they could have chosen one or the other. In the Scottish independence referendum anyone who lived in Scotland at the time could vote. This excluded Scots living abroad. But that made sense because it is the people living in the country that form the country. They are the ones who have to live with the consequences of the decision.

Or you could argue that a country is made up of those that were born there in which case the British expats abroad should have been given a vote. But no, they chose to cherry pick only those born in the country who were living there at the time. Which means they selected the part of the population more likely to have a more insular view of the world.

But this was David Cameron's government. He had the power to call a referendum. He must then have also had the power to implement it. So I am wondering if his hand was forced, maybe he was blackmailed (we know photos exist of him fucking a pig's head) and all he could do was send out a leaflet advocating staying in the EU. Or maybe that was to encourage the protest vote?

The more I think about this, the more I come to the idea that there has been a coup in this country.

They assumed that everyone would vote logically and in the best interests of the country. 


What they failed to understand is that at least some people saw it as a vote against the government and they had just made themselves hugely unpopular by austerity.

What they also failed to do was lay out the benefits of the EU, (I think the just thought they were so obvious) and attacked the downside allowing the Brexis to taint it with the inaccurate "project fear label" and they also let them get away with outrageous lies like £350 million extra a week for the NHS which will never materialise.

Even Boris Johnson assumed they would lose. He wanted to be the heroic leader of a doomed movement. The look n his face when they won spoke volumes and he went into hiding for a bit until he worked out new tactics.