If Brexit really was a mistake

Who is to blame?

In descending order of blameworthiness:

 

- the Tories generally for fvcking the country with austerity and having nobody to blame it on but Johnny foreigner 

- David Cameron, Alexander Johnson and Michael Gove for fvcking the country with their pathetic "career" ambitions 

- Nigel Farage's pilot for being too competent in an emergency

- Lincolnshire

- Corbyn and the rest of the tankie lexiteer lackwits

- 3dux and the mouth-breathing "sovvrinty" crew

1. Anyone who campaigned for it.

2. Labour and others who should have campaigned against it but failed to do so, meaning there was no effective opposition the Leave campaign and no one challenging the blatant lies it was pedalling.

I personally blame Ed Miliband.

If he hadn’t changed the leadership election rules for the Labour Party then Corbyn would never have become leader of the opposition, and (1) May would have lost the GE she called, and (2) there would have been a properly united europhile opposition in the House.

The only reason the ERG were able to hold so much leverage was because they knew Corbyn was unelectable, and hence could pile the pressure on Cameron and May.

Next in line is Cameron, for rolling the dice on a 50% majority referendum. What a spectacularly stupid thing to do. 

I don’t blame Farage. He was just a useful populist idiot.

1. Frosty - ballsed up negotiations

2. Davis - the only person who didn't know he was bluffing

3. Sadiq Khan - or whoever it was who suggested he should be anywhere near a TV debate. 

4. What RR said. 

I think the analysis is actually pretty simple.

 

Until the issue of a referendum was put on the table, UKIP was a bunch of very marginal weirdos. Yes, they were stealing Tory votes in certain areas - the swivel-eyed uneven jawed oddballs but not the quiet middle who gave Tories their votes.  Then suddenly Cameron got a panic on and tried to neutralise UKIP by killing them with a referendum. Only being a lazy scrote he did not put any work into the argument against. He and others just arrogantly decided they would never suffer the humiliation of losing the referendum to UKIP. No way. Nothing to see. Nothing to do.  Because they did nothing and UKIP carried on worrying the sheep, even some of the Tories started to quiver. Then we had a split in the party, yes-no.  And of course that just brought out the worst in them, with a load of people putting career and ego before country and people. Cameron thought "I've had a good run but this looks a bit like hard work so I'm going to skulk away. Still the Remain crew made no visible effort to explain to the Great Thickness what could be good about staying in the EU.  Farrage walked it. Smash, Cameron out, T May comes in without the wherewithall to resoolve this. Biggest wobbler of them all, Johnson, saw a vacuum, couldn't work out how to deal with it, took time out, then decided to run at it like an elephant playing rugby against kids in case he might shock everyone to fuc k ry as he usually did. And he did. Rest is history. 

Then we had a split in the party, yes-no

As if the split happened suddenly and OMG unexpectedly in 2016. 

We were just ordinary Tory men and then suddenly the UKIP wolf put the willies up us and we accidentally voted to feck ourselves in the eye. Don't blame us tories, it was totally unavoidable. 

Equal blame sits with the corbyn left FOAD.

Rof Royalty01 Jun 23 18:31

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Then we had a split in the party, yes-no

As if the split happened suddenly and OMG unexpectedly in 2016. 

We were just ordinary Tory men and then suddenly the UKIP wolf put the willies up us and we accidentally voted to feck ourselves in the eye. Don't blame us tories, it was totally unavoidable. 

Equal blame sits with the corbyn left FOAD.

 

heh, yes that split goes back a long way. The Gang of Khunts or whatever it was in 1995 and then the Maastricht thingummy and Thatchula No No No and Up Yours Delors etc.  And Corbyn ought to have been capable of at least some sort of lucid oratory on why a European Union is a good thing, social like. But was not.

It's way to early to conclude whether it was the right thing to do.  There were always going to be teething problems...over a few years, yes.

There are still many, many things wrong with the EU, not least the way they acted after we left.

Sure the leave campaign lied about the benefits, but so did the remain campaign...we are dealing with politicians here who are disingenuos across the board. 

I can say it has not made one jot of difference to my life, and I suspect most people would be in that boat despite all the whining.  We are a nation of whiners.

Never forget

 

From Brexit sage Daniel Hannan

The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.

The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy. We lead the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software.

https://reaction.life/britain-looks-like-brexit/

it was an absolutely massive collective national life error and there is absolutely no arguing around that and none will be entertained, especially from people on here whose clinical cretiny has generally been proven 

the EU had nothing to do with it; membership of the EU worked for everyone, including those thick enough to think it didn’t, and there neither was nor is much wrong with the EU

our biggest mistake was to mistake a question of trade policy - membership of a trading bloc whose advantages to us were massive - with some kind of angst ridden question of national identity, being the kind of thing only w**kers worry about in the first place 

I KNOW SOME REMOANERS WOULD LIKE TO REWRITE HISTORY AND GIVE THE EU AND THE EUROPEANS THE CREDIT FOR THE GOOD HARD BREXITING WE GAVE OURSELVES BUT THAT IS AN INSULT TO THE PLUCKY BRITS WHO MADE IT HAPPEN!!

Good analysis.

The electoral calculus of swapping the moderate Tory vote for the UKIP populist vote worked in 2019, and arguably it still does. Affluent professional and internationalist Tories are those left without a chair when the music stops. This is exactly why Starmer is bending over backwards to make sure he’s got the centre ground ahead of the Lib Dems. 

The thing about the populist vote is that it is fickle… if it turns out the numbers on the bus were BS, or that Brexit has made the square root of fook all difference to immigration, then the payback ain’t pretty. 

Ed and David Miliband’s mum and dad. 
 

If they’d grown up in an environment where they didn’t want to compete against their sibling, then DM would have won the GE against Cameron… 

Wot Runnersknee said. Who cares about fairness? The important things in life are sucking up injustices and looking the other way. Everything else is frivolous wokery.

So many people bear some blame.

The top ones for me are Cameron, for allowing the referendum in the first place, and Johnson for supporting Brexit before the referendum - he was a very influential figure even then and I'm sure that had a decisive effect. 

Also Ed Milliband's bacon sandwich gets a highly commended. 

  1. George W Bush, Tony Blair, Osama bin Laden.
  2. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, José Manuel Barroso.
  3. David Cameron, Angela Merkel, Barrack Obama, Guy Verhofstadt, Jean Claude Juncker, Emanual Macron
  4. Femi Notsorry, Philip Hammond, Dominic Grieve, Theresa May, Gina Miller.

I AM NOT LETTING ANY REMOANERS STEAL THE CREDIT FOR WHAT WE BREXITEERS HAVE DONE TO THIS GREAT NATION!!

IT WAS OUR IDEA! WE DID IT! AND WE WERE AND ARE IN CHARGE!!

The top ones for me are Cameron, for allowing the referendum in the first place.

Which Party had an in/out referendum in both their manifestos in 2010 and 2015? Clue: it wasn’t the Conservatives.

  1. George W Bush, Tony Blair, Osama bin Laden.
  2. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, José Manuel Barroso.
  3. David Cameron, Angela Merkel, Barrack Obama, Guy Verhofstadt, Jean Claude Juncker, Emanual Macron
  4. Femi Notsorry, Philip Hammond, Dominic Grieve, Theresa May, Gina Miller.

Nice of you to list your top porn searches, but what is the relevance to the thread?

You talking about Lib Dems?  Not sure that's true... and even if was... who cares?  They were never going to win so can put any old rubbish in their manifesto.  Are you seriously suggesting we should blame the Lib Dems for Brexit?

Labour and Lib Dems should be working together to kick every Tory out, I know there will not be a formal pre election agreement but they need to slow peddle nod and wink towards the other in seats where they have no realistic chance of winning.

Barney Labour started in 1983!!!

....as soon as possible after the House assembles, we will introduce a Repeal Bill: first, in order to amend the 1972 European Communities Act, ending the powers of the Community in the UK; and second, to provide the necessary powers to repeal the 1972 Act, when the negotiations on withdrawal are completed.

Following the publication of the White Paper, we will begin the main negotiations on withdrawal. Later, when appropriate and in the same parliament, we will use our powers to repeal the 1972 Act and abrogate the Treaty of Accession - thus breaking all of our formal links with the Community. Britain will at this point withdraw from the Council of Ministers and from the European Parliament

They carried on in 2005!

[The Constitution Treaty ] is a good treaty for Britain and for the new Europe. We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote to keep Britain a leading nation in Europe.

 

That promise was obviously broken in 2007 which massively propagated the anti-EU sentiment that Labour had been fomenting for the previous two decades.

That 2007 history will repeat itself when the flip flop becomes Prime Minister next year.

THERE SEEM TO BE AN AWFUL LOT OF REMOANERS ON HERE TRYING TO GIVE THE CREDIT FOR BREXIT TO ANYONE EXCEPT THE BREXITEERS!

WELL IT WON’T WORK: WE’RE NOT FALLING FOR IT!!

like i said (and you ignored), who cares?  Brexit is clearly a failure and Tories are the main culprits...

Couldn't help myself so just checked their 2015 manifesto: "Hold an In/Out referendum when there is next any Treaty change involving a material transfer of sovereignty from the UK to the EU. Liberal Democrats will campaign for the UK to remain in the European Union when that referendum comes."

Not the same as Cameron's offer.

Barney, it name it was on the constitution but it would have operated de facto as a membership referendum.

They made Ireland vote again when they went the wrong way. That wouldn't have washed here, which is why the "Constitution" was rebranded as the Lisbon Treaty and no referendum was offered. We couldn't have stayed if we'd rejected the constitution.

So the direction of travel was clear at that point but Labour could (and should) have nipped it in the bud then.  Brown also bottled a general election at the same time he chickened out on the EU issue. That cowardice emboldended Leavers.

Are you saying the core principle of ‘ever closer union’ would not inevitably have led to a further transfer of sovereignty, thus triggering an in/out referendum? What difference would it have ultimately made as to when it was held?

They made Ireland vote again when they went the wrong way‘

oh this shit again 

no, they changed the Lisbon treaty as a result of the 1st referendum because of Irish concerns over neutrality. It wasn’t a 2nd vote on the same document, that’s a brexity myth.

no, they changed the Lisbon treaty as a result of the 1st referendum because of Irish concerns over neutrality. It wasn’t a 2nd vote on the same document, that’s a brexity myth.

EVEN MORE UNDERHAND: THEY CHANGED IT SO THAT IT WAS THEN ACCEPTABLE TO THE IRISH INSTEAD OF SIMPLY ACCEPTING THEY HAD BEEN DEFEATED AND SCRAPPING THE WHOLE THING!

ONCE AGAIN THIS PROVES WE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO LEAVE!!

That's nonsense. A tiny minority cited neutrality as their main concern. It was actually all the issue that pro-leave people in the UK were concerned about that caused the no vote. Concerns that remainers seem congenitally unable to even acknowledge exist.

 

Reason for rejecting the Lisbon Treaty Percentage
Don't understand/not familiar 40%
Protect Irish identity 20%
Don't trust politicians/Govt policies 17%
Protect neutrality 10%
Keep commissioner 10%
Protect tax system 8%

This poll showed 94% of people rejected it for reasons other than neutrality.

Reason for rejecting the Lisbon Treaty Percentage
Because I do not know enough about the Treaty and would not want to vote for something I am not familiar with 22%
To protect Irish identity 12%
To safeguard Irish neutrality in security and defence matters 6%
I do not trust our politicians 6%
We will lose our right to have an Irish Commissioner in every Commission 6%
To protect our tax system 6%
I am against the idea of a unified Europe 5%
To protest against the government's policies 4%
To avoid that the EU speaks with one voice on global issues 4%
Because large Member States decide on EU matters 4%
To protect the influence of small states 3%
It would allow the introduction of European legislation in Ireland, such as gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia 2%
To avoid an influx of immigrants 1%
The EU does not need any fixing, it works fine 1%
Other 14%
Don't know/not applicable 3%

Who is to blame?

Probably most of the above.

Can't overlook the fact that the EU, which ultimately started as a coalition of 6 countries - 4 of which were trying to protect themselves from the other 2 - has massively overreached its original purpose, without proper democratic accountability, and a lot of people were / are not unreasonably unhappy about that.

Cameron called a referendum he never thought he was going to lose on an issue that most people didn't know anything about or really care about.  He vastly underestimated British public scepticism of the EU.

You know it got desperate when they spent millions of pounds designing and distributing a leaflet to every household in the UK saying please vote to stay in the EU.

Regardless of what was on the ballot paper the question got turned into, effectively 'do you want to be part of an EU superstate?'.  A clear majority of people decided they didn't want to be.

Regardless of what was on the ballot paper the question got turned into, effectively 'do you want to be part of an EU superstate?'.

AND DO YOU WANT AN EXTRA £350 MILLION A WEEK FOR THE NHS!!

AND AVOID BEING FORCED TO JOIN THE EU ARMY!!

AND STOP A DARK-SKINNED HORDE OF 80 MILLION SWARTHY TURKS FROM SWAMPING THIS GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND!!

Let us not forget that Christina Lagarde, Head of the European Central Bank, has a conviction for Fraud.  And yet any of us would be struck off for stealing a Mars bar.  

Having had friends who have completed secondments at EU institutions, the place appears rife with career grifters lining their own pockets.

French judges found Ms Lagarde guilty of negligence for failing to challenge the state arbitration payout to the friend of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

YOU SEE!

FRAUD!!

SHE CERTAINLY WAS CONVICTED OF FRAUD AND IT WAS SO SERIOUS THAT SHE WAS SENT TO PRISON FOR A YEAR!!

The 60-year-old, following a week-long trial in Paris, was not given any sentence and will not be punished.

The Court of Justice of the Republic, a special tribunal for ministers, could have given Ms Lagarde up to one-year in prison and a €13,000 fine.