So, Brits. How's Brexit Going?

[I_am_not_mafia]

Steve Bannon Claims To Have Also Been In Contact With Michael Gove And Jacob Rees-Mogg

Bannon said he would travel to Europe again soon and would use his organisation to campaign aggressively to install a large, anti-European Union faction in the European Parliament in elections next May.

He said he was already raising funds from unspecified European sources and that his foundation would help nationalist movements around Europe to build up their polling, messaging and political “analytics” capabilities.

Bannon said Britain’s departure from the European Union was “fundamentally going to change” European politics and forecast it would fuel a substantial anti-EU result in the European Parliament elections.

Wrong. The disaster happen in in Brexit land is serving as a warning to the rest of the Europe about breaking away.

Johnson, Gove and Rees-Mogg are among the most prominent members of a section of the Tory party which campaigned forcefully to leave the EU.

“Boris Johnson is one of the most important persons on the world stage today,” Bannon said, before describing the MP as “his own guy”.

[robvalue]

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.

Yes I've heard that a lot, that many people voted "leave" as a protest against the government, without any serious consideration that Brexit might actually go ahead.

[downbeatplumb]

No deal Brexit most likely outcome.

Project fear, project accurate prediction.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45073294

[Pat Mustard]

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.

Yeah I agree that there was definitely a sense that the Remainers would win. After all, people generally prefer the status quo and you're right that there was a definite protest vote going on to effectively smash the system. But this still doesn't explain why both EU citizens and British expats were excluded from voting in the referendum. Even people from the Commonwealth were allowed to vote. I can't square this with any of the other theories about what caused Brexit.

I'm wondering if those in charge of implementing the referendum planned for the protest vote and made sure this happen by persuading David Cameron, a remainer who expecting to win, to make it clear in people's minds that the government was pro-EU. After all, we know from general elections that if it seems too likely that one side is going to win then their supporters don't always bother voting and this means that they end up losing.

I really want to know more details about what went on behind the scenes.

---

Don't give voters too much credit.  We had a similar choice in 2016 and look at the pile of noxious shit we ended up with.

True. I forget that things are now different in Scotland. The independence referendum really energised the population because for once they felt like their vote actually meant something. The issue was debated in depth for a long time up here in all the media and engaged a lot of people. For too long now it hasn't made any difference how Scotland has voted. We still end up with the government decided by English voters because there are just so many more of them. Listening to the piss-poor barely thought out reasons from relatives I know down south, many seemed to just parrot simple views fro newspapers.

The thing about the tory camaigning before the referendum is they used it to placate the far right brexiteers in their ranks and the far right brexiteers who'd decamped to the kippers and the bnp. They made no effort to push remain properly because they weren't interested in speaking to the majority but to the fringe.

Oh and next time you speak to your friend ask them if the government is so remain why is Maybot so lenient on the brexit wing of her party. Every time they contradict her they get a promotion every one of their amendments is caved in to. Even the Chequers white paper got a serious hard brexit rewrite since first being revealed to cabinet and Bojo the Clown's resignation.

Hell, Maybot herself was the most hardline brexiteer until two weeks before the referendum.

[I_am_not_mafia]

He was a friend of a friend. No idea who he was.

[Minimalist]

"We have set out the basis in which a deal can happen but if the EU decides that the theological obsession of the unelected is to take priority over the economic wellbeing of the people of Europe then it's a bureaucrats' Brexit - not a people's Brexit - then there is only going to be one outcome."

Um, the EU will be fine.  It's Britain that will be fucked but that was probably a foregone conclusion anyway.

[LastPoet]

"We have set out the basis in which a deal can happen but if the EU decides that the theological obsession of the unelected is to take priority over the economic wellbeing of the people of Europe then it's a bureaucrats' Brexit - not a people's Brexit - then there is only going to be one outcome."

Um, the EU will be fine.  It's Britain that will be fucked but that was probably a foregone conclusion anyway.

Huh? Right now what we are trying to do is to twart wildfires due to the hratwave. It seems the most immeduate concern.

[LastPoet]

At least its what I hear from the union. Rough year in heat.

And The us keeps busy with... its own president. I swear they made a similar movie.

[Minimalist]

The US is burning up too...in the west.  Meanwhile they have floods down south and tornadoes in Massachusetts.  But don't worry.  The Orange Turdfuhrer says climate change is a hoax and who better to know than that moron.

[pgrimes15]

My mum voted Brexit because she doesn't like the Germans (she was a child during WW2). In her mind, that emotion trumps any argument that many of her grandchildren , nephews, nieces etc work in the supply side for the foreign owned car industry, and their jobs could be under threat. She has a "this was their finest hour - we will never surrender" view of British exceptionalism and repeats "I think we will be alright" to my arguments about brexit downsides.