I am a 'remainer'. However, regardless of this, what is clear from reading some of the posts in this forum is how very divisive Brexit is. I think that, as a general rule (and there may still be some who do alter their views), if you have not changed your mind about Brexit by now, you are not going to. For this reason, though we debate and argue and get angry and sometimes we insult, we are basically, pretty much, just p***ing' in the wind.
Quote: Briosaid @ 5th October 2019, 8:41 PMNo, sonny. When will you realise Cameron was only worried about keeping the Tories in line?
Never, because it's the utterest rubbish seen through a haze of hatred. If Brexit was a purely Tory party coup then how did 17.4 Million people in Britain vote to leave? If they were all Tory voters they'd never be out of government. And at least a third of Tory MPs voted to remain.
The referendum was 24 years in the making since Major signed us into the new political EU without asking us if that's what we wanted. Then followed years of Brussels red tape, costing our local economies billions to comply with, strange laws which meant something to foreigners which we now had to follow, a Euro zone which crippled Greece, Portugal, Spain, even Italy, then in 2004 immigration laws which are crippling us more than anyone else because most of them come here. If that wasn't a recipe for a leave vote I don't know what was. 
Cameron promised a referendum purely to try and win the previous election by stopping UKIP from eating into the Tory vote. It was a shameful example of putting party above country and we're seeing the disastrous consequences now.
Every single thing that Alfred says is incorrect - to begin with, Britain has fewer EU immigrants than other EU countries, and almost all of those do useful work, many in the NHS or doing jobs Britons refuse to do, such as fruit picking. Perhaps armchair warriors like Alfred will work in the fruit farms post-Brexit...no, I didn't think so! Typical deluded Leave voter.
Quote: chipolata @ 6th October 2019, 10:15 AMCameron promised a referendum purely to try and win the previous election by stopping UKIP from eating into the Tory vote. It was a shameful example of putting party above country and we're seeing the disastrous consequences now.
True.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 6th October 2019, 8:57 AMThe referendum was 24 years in the making
No it wasn't.
People didn't care one way or another.
Immigration, on the other hand, was growing - fuelled by tabloids in the main.
This spawned UKIP - an anti-immigration party disguising itself as the anti-EU party - which frightened the life out of the Tories, threatening to divide their party and lose them votes.
The irony, of course, is that this attempt to patch up a divided party has ended up with - guess what - an even more divided party - throwing the country under a lie-emblazoned bus in the process.
Thanks.
A new sitcom, an updated Till Death Do Us Part. Passionate working class Brexiteer, still blaming Brussels for all his woes even though we left the EU years ago, sticking to his delusions of British superiority as the UK breaks up, his wife can't get get her medications and had to go on the game to pay for black market Insulin, sacked from his job as the now uncompetitive company goes under, his Remainer daughter and son in law telling him what a fool he was, queueing for the food bank in heavy disguise...and as a backdrop, England's bid to be 51st US state is on hold after Trump's assassination and a new pro-EU president takes over...
You've been reading too many cartoon strips Beaky.
Quote: chipolata @ 6th October 2019, 10:15 AMCameron promised a referendum purely to try and win the previous election by stopping UKIP from eating into the Tory vote.
Which is exactly the same as what I said. As soon as In/Out referendum promising UKIP gained parliamentary seats to reflect their 4million votes and on the rise in the 2015 GE a refendum would have been called at some point. It was inevitable, and what many had been calling for years. Cameron did what most PMs would do, call the ref to save his party and call UKIP's bluff. Even the LibDems wanted a referendum because no one thought Leave would win and it would shut UKIP up. But you lot lost because you still don't understand the mindset of the majority of the British public.
Quote: Lazzard @ 6th October 2019, 10:25 AMNo it wasn't.
People didn't care one way or another.
Yes it was and a 4% majority of the British people says they did.
My correction, it was 23 years in the making as UKIP was formed in 1993 shortly after Major signed our sovereignty away to Brussels. They campaigned very loudly for a referendum to stay or leave the EU right up until they got one. They also got because of the pressure put on the Govt. once the Scottish referendum was granted. It made it increasingly hard for Cameron to deny an EU ref once he'd granted a Scottish Independence ref.
Imo very strongly they made the mistake of thinking the same cautiousness would lead us to vote to stay in just as Scotland did. But they got it wrong just as poor judges of public opinion are still getting it wrong. We voted out against everyone's odds. Corbyn was voted in as Labour leader against odds of 2000-1. The Tories won an outright majority in 2015 GE against every single poll going. Conclusion - the liberal infused professional middle classes do not know shit about reality.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 6th October 2019, 11:36 AMYou've been reading too many of your onw cartoon strips Beaky.
Which is exactly the same as what I said. As soon as In/Out referendum promising UKIP gained parliamentary seats to reflect their 4million votes and on the rise in the 2015 GE a refendum would have been called at some point. It was inevitable, and what many had been calling for years. Cameron did what most PMs would do, call the ref to save his party and call UKIP's bluff. Even the LibDems wanted a referendum because no one thought Leave would win and it would shut UKIP up. But you lot lost because you still don't understand the strength of feeling of the majority of the British.
It wasn't just my lot that lost. We all lost.
Quote: beaky @ 6th October 2019, 10:21 AM, Britain has fewer EU immigrants than other EU countries,.
There are several EU countries who don't even have 3.5 million as a population. We have 3.5 million EU immigrants.
Quote: beaky @ 6th October 2019, 10:21 AMand almost all of those do useful work, many in the NHS or doing jobs Britons refuse to do, such as fruit picking. .
Beaky have you been to Britain lately, have you seen the state of some building projects here? some are condemned and have to be demolished. Talk to British builders like I do and listen to what they think of EU workers. The only upside for many is they get a lot of work redoing properly what a bunch of Romanians or even Poles have messed up.
I've seen many a sunken pavement, sunken drives, uneven concourses in the last ten years or so, groundworks in particular are in the worst state they've ever been in, why? Because jobs are going to cheap unskilled incompetents instead of experienced Brits with overheads to pay because they don't live 12 to a house.
Fruit picking was done by Europeans on working visas perfectly adequately long before 2004 and will be again. I blame the lack of British cleaners and fruit pickers on Blair's ridiculous fantasy of sending every school leaver to University so they then think anything other than being a doctor, lawyer or chief engineer is below them. The reality is they are competing a hundred or more for each post.
You can't read too many comic strips!
In 2016 nobody had any idea what Brexit would entail, politician and public alike. In 2019, we still haven't got a f**king clue. All I know is, nothing positive has come from it, and every day, some new thing that will be harder to get, or do post Brexit comes up, I just despair, I really do. I'm almost past the point of caring. Brexiteers who spout leave means leave cannot be reasoned with, so a second referendum could possibly screw things up even more. The whole issue was way, way too complex to be put to public vote anyway, not least with simply leave or remain as the choices, given how many subcategories of complexities there are within each of those choices.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 6th October 2019, 12:29 PMTalk to British builders like I do......redoing properly what a bunch of Romanians or even Poles have messed up.
Alfred you are trying to corrupt the laws of business here, people don't employ Romanians, they employ the best person for the job. The vast majority of business owners were against Brexit, a fact born out with the open letter from FTSE 100 CEOs and the FTSE 250. But I have no doubt your British builder mates and Boris will tell you whatever they need to , to get your vote/money. The fact Boris is working overtime to project blame away, rather than get a deal, is admittance he never had a Scooby Doos about how to deliver any of his promises. Boris's skill is setting us against each other, so we don't turn on him or the Tories.
There has been much talk from the remainers claiming that the leavers had no plan, but I have never seen, nor do I think that any exist, projections of what life will be like in the EU in 10-15 years time if the UK does NOT leave the EU.
It is that of course that the calamity projections should be compared against, not the current status quo.
I think that remainers think it will go on as it currently exists, they haven't bothered to study the requirements of the Lisbon and Maastrict treaties, which clearly indicate the way the EU wants to go. The UK has managed to wiggle out of the worst excesses of those treaties, with sub-treaties, but that really just shows how unsuited the EU policies are to UK requirements. And of course one of the future changes is that the UK power of Veto (over actions that could damage the UK) will be removed and replaced by weighted vote systems. Guess who gets the greatest weighting?