OK So I am waited a few days and am posting sparingly so don't bother to...

... go all abusive on me but a different viewpoint. It seems that the issue has become highly emotive and so myopia seems to be rife on here.

1 Did anybody really vote out on the £350m to the NHS figure quoted during the campaign. It was pretty much discredited during the campaign
we all know it was a gross exaggeration, OK a lie', and a pretty tranparent one but looking at a lot of the BBS 'remain crew' posts it appears only Brexit lied....

2 How about £4800 per week lost per family which also was a lie (and again was pretty quickly discredited).
3 Also the 'Emergency austerity budget' announced by GO which seemed feasible at the time and the dire warnings from the B0E.

In some ways these two were even more misleading as it was not possible to discredit them in the absence of any figures. Now Mark Carney is saying that contingency plans were in place and we are in a position to cope with whatever comes our way. GO has just stated that there is no need for an emergency budget as we are in a position of strength.

All those who say we voted out as a result of lies and spin need to take a long hard look. They are right. But lies were told in abundance on both sides. Many people sadly voted on immigration issues which were grossly misunderstood and neither side tackled it with integrity or honesty. The real problem of sheer numbers which nobody, particularly on here acknowledged was ignored in accusation and counter accusation of racism (of which I acknowledge also there was in certain quarters. Sadly, for a minority (and it is a minority) it was racism that decided their vote, but for many others it is a practical issue as to how you address 300k population growth (which doesn't include indigenous birth rate by the way) year on year arriving on our small island.

It is entirely possible that even with the above we MAY, just MAY have made the correct decision in the long term but for all the wrong reasons.
The defeatist, depressed attitude that seems to have gripped this forum, if replicated across the population will make it a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The vote is cast we have to make it work.

 

Probably fair to say neither side has proved trustworthy. But by voting for change you are taking a gamble - with prosperity, people's jobs, their mortgages and their pensions. And taking it without any reliable information. Even as a regular gambler that looks a rum one to me.

 

I think most people who voted remain did so on the overwhelming evidence and advice in favour of it, and because they have a progressive, inclusive, world view.

 

I will respond you a I respect your views even if we disagree on this and also because your reply is devoid of insults that I get from some on here.

I suppose I could be accused of being impetuous. Life is a gamble and I believe that staying in would have been just as big a gamble as coming out. As to the evidence, being retired with time to spare, being a bit 'anal' and having had an interest in macro and micro economics since A level days, I spent a lot of time looking behind the headlines and realised that most of them were basically full of , lies, mistruths errors, omissions and misdirections.

You are right in that I based my vote on the current situation and projections on where that was leading us. I determined that the EU cannot continue and that the leaders are too intransigent to change things and they were pulling the members states in a direction that most of the populations did not want to go.
I also have an issue with nationalism and religion. I did not vote out thorugh nationalistic fervour, nor, in spite of what some have accused me of on here, racism. I agree it is a gamble to leave but then again I still see it as a bigger long term gamble to remain chained to an ultimately doomed organisation that seem incapable of reform. I despair, like many on here of the motives that made some vote out but, as to the extreme Socialist who believe that we will become an extreme fascist State run by the extreme right wing Government with all rights for working people removed then that is utter claptrap and shows that people with those views have no faith in the moral strength of the overwhelming majority of the Britich people. Extremism exists on both sides of the fence but in the main, people are decent. We have to make this work although I beleive the press are, as usual up to mischief given that their paymasters did not get their way.

 

Do you find it impossible to respond to posts of people with whom you don't agree without resorting to insults or derogatory remarks or insinuations? Most people voting to remain, just like those who voted out, were totally reliant on the propoganda, lies, misdirections and omissions for their information that emanated from both sides of the argument.

 

But you can also equally say that remaining in the EU was also a gamble with the same, nobody can predict otherwise. You only have to look at countries like Greece, their gamble of more integration with the EU has backfired completely. We have heard talk from EU commissioners and other EU countries about vetoing our Veto because we were never really fully involved with the EU project. Probably rightly so, why should we be able to have an equal say if we are not full members of the club? My view on this is we either went full hog or voted to leave, with my preference being to leave. I also had issues with this so called racism tag handed out by the remain camp. I mentioned it on another thread, it can't be racist to want people from around the entire world to have the same chance of coming to work and live in this country, rather than discriminating against them for people inside the EU. I'm all for immigration but it does need to be at a level set by our government in line with how fast our infrastructure can cope with (housing, health services etc), again there isn't anything racist with setting a limit it is purely in our national interests and maintaining the standard of living for our people..

 

I don't think that the genuinely racist people were advocating more people from around the world moving here though were they? They wanted everyone to have the same chance alright - no chance. (Note I said the racist people, of which they were plenty.)

 

You may well be right, JD, when you say there are plenty of racist people in Britain.

But there are racists in every country. And a lot of hostility towards the English. I worked in Holland for a short time, and was treated appallingly. My son went to Paris last year and was verbally abused by Parisiens.

 

You're correct of course but I'm not sure what your point is or why it it is relevant to this discussion? I wasn't claiming that only Britain has racists, I was just telling MDG that racists were unlikely to have been voting so that more people could come here.

 

My point is that I'm getting fed up of the Remain people accusing the Leave voters of being racist, and claiming that they formed the majority of the Leave vote. Your post also implied that there "were plenty" (of racists in the Leave camp), but I apologise if I have misinterpreted what you said. It's a bit of an insult to our intelligence.

I feel that there may well have been a small minority of racists voting Leave, but not as many as we are led to believe. But there are idiots in all countries.

 

OK but just consider for a moment – what happens is we cannot make it work? Or it works, but its carp. Then what?

 

I don't know if that was aimed at me but I'm guessing it must be. I'm not sure how you think my post was any of those things. You are asserting, as a non-remain voter, the reasons why remain voters the way they did. I'm just saying that's not the case for anyone I know. How am I being remotely derogatory or resulting to insult?

 

JD without any subtext, I was wondering what your own personal view is regarding migration.

My view is (contrary to what some think on here) is that morally, everyone has the right to make their way in the world and do what is best for themselves and their families to improve their life especial when exposed to terror and life threatening dangers such as those trapped in places like Aleppo. Nevetheless compassion has to be matched by pragmatism.

One extreme is to let everyone go where they please regardless of resources available and impact it may have on the receiving region. The othe extreme is to turn your back on people in danger, living in fear and in desperate need and block movement of migrants.

No one but a real racist would argue the latter . Where between the two extremes would you place yourself taking into account the practicalities of any solution? Short of waving a magic wand and bringing peace to the Midlle East what would you do?

 

There were plenty of racists voting Leave, that is a fact that cannot be denied.

My post was about racist Leave voters, not all Leave voters. If you are not a racist Leave voter then it is not about you. Don't become a racist defender just to somehow make this about yourself when it's clearly not.

 

Having looked back at some of your earlier posts I realize I mistook you for one or two pro remain posters who do, indeed, make insulting or derogatory remarks when responding to pro exit posters. Your posts, some of which I don't agree with , are, however, reasonable views and not insulting. I therefore apologise for labeling you as such.

However, the post I referred to below I do take issue with and contradict your response. Your description of those voting remain implies those who voted Exit ignored "overwhelming evidence and advice and also... do NOT have a progressive inclusive view of the world". That is pretty judgemental and fairly derogatory as it is only an opinion which you cannot, particularly the last part, back up with evidence. Likewise, you accused me of stating why remain votesr voted the way the did and you are, by implication doing the same here.

I live abroad, count many people of different nationalities amongst friends and acquaintances, have worked in the Middle East, take a keen interest in public affairs and Macro and micro Economics so object to you implying that just because I voted out I ignored advice (which I did - expert is highly debatable when the expert has vested interests)

 

How on earth am I becoming a racist defender?

All I'm saying is that the claim that there are/were "plenty" of racist Leave voters has, in my opinion, been blown out of all proportion.

But you go ahead with your "facts".

 

I'd let everyone go where they please. My mind cannot understand why people feel they have more right to a piece of land because they came out of a vagina there (sorry for being crude but that really is all it boils down to in the end so I think we need to make it crude so that people don't hold in a higher regard than it should be placed). You have literally zero control over where you are born, none at all, and yet people use it as a basis to decide where people are allowed to spend the rest of their lives.

If somewhere becomes over crowded and a less pleasant place to be because too many people move there, then people will stop coming and/or will move away. If they don't and your life becomes affected to a point that you no longer like it then you can either stay and put up with it or move away to somewhere you like more. Yes it's an overly simplistic way of looking at it but that's my dream. It probably won't ever happen but then lots of people have dreams that they think will never happen, it doesn't mean that they don't continue to wish for it though. I wonder how many people mocked Martin Luther King, Jr's dream?

 

I didn't say you were, I said don't become one by continually trying to make this about you. No-one is calling you a racist, you're safe, you don't have to pretend that other people don't exist to prove your innocence.

 

Thank you. I'd like to think I've been on the whole pretty balanced.

I don't think anyone can dispute that the overwhelming expert advice was in favour of Remain. You might not have agreed with the analysis - I didn't agree with it all - but the vast majority of economic experts, academics, international bodies, politicians, trade unions, other world countries said we would be better off in. To quote Michael Gove of the Leave campaign, “People in this country have had enough of experts".

On the second point, I can only talk for remain. I have friends who are almost bereft who pretty much voted solely on the fact that they believe being part of Europe is all of those things. They see this as a rejection of hope and Britain becoming more insular and inward looking, less progressive and more embracing.