undefined | Better HN

0 pointsgarmaine8y ago0 comments

Thank you for responding! Too few people have the courage to actually evaluate what would make them change their minds. Kudos to you for doing so.

I agree for the most part. And to be clear I’m not a British citizen so I don’t have a strong stake in this, but I am a EU skeptic and it bugs me when people assert that the Brexit position must be mentally deranged or some such. That’s a rhetorical cheap shot that speaks to the base instead of contributing to conversation.

With my Brexit hat on, I think we agree in spirit. I think the Leave movement DOES feel that the EU is and has been for some time moving against the long term interests of the UK. I even agree with this view myself.

However I think the thresholds you set for moving on it are too high and too optimistic. Politicians didn’t want Brexit, and those same politicians would be the ones responsible for creating such a plan. It’s not like you or I can negotiate with the EU terms for Brexit without the UK government’s participation. And that wasn’t going to happen. You clearly have your own cynicism, I just think you need to extend it to both sides of an issue. And that’s being realistic, not cynical :)

The mistake that was made, I feel, was in letting this be decided by a simple majority. They should have used a 3/5 or 2/3 threshold instead.

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

monkeynotes8y ago

I agree with the `3/5 or 2/3 threshold instead` threshold, absolutely. You also understand that the referendum was never legally binding, if the politicians really didn't want to do exit the EU they could have deferred an exit, got a better deal, or just do nothing at all. The reality is, there was considerable wheel greasing to get Brexit moving through as quickly as possible once the Leave vote was in.

To be clear, many UK euro skeptics exist in parliament and are delighted with the vote [1]. That's a recent article but as far back as I can remember (1980/90s) the Tory Eurosceptics particularly have disliked Europe in principle. And the vote leave campaign was basically a quasi-coup conducted by the Eurosceptics fronted by Boris Johnson (MP) who is essentially a public school version of Trump.

Essentially D.Cameron said to his Eurosceptic members 'if I get in we'll have a vote'[2], and it backfired - the Eurosceptics mislead the public, he lost and had to resign and they got May into government without anyone even having to vote for her. In the face of such machinations you have to give me a pass on my own cynicism, it's hard to have any good faith confronted with such dishonest nonsense.

To say politicians didn't want Brexit is really misunderstanding a fundamental element of the UK's socio-political climate.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/09/tory-mps-br... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Union_...