My reason for voting stay was largely ideological - being united in something is better than being on the outside - but many intelligent people in banking, industry, and the arts agreed with me with more sensible financial reasons too.
Two years on since the crucial vote the government is still negotiating with the EU for a good deal but seems to have very little idea of how to achieve this. More and more people from government are now talking about preparing for a No-deal Brexit, and plans are afoot to stockpile medicines and other vital supplies just in case. To which all I can say is, 'Seriously?'
And that brings me to Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. No, I can't. I'm speechless at the very thought.
There have been many surveys done recently that claim that more and more people have now understood the facts and seen the folly of leaving and would change their minds if given another opportunity to vote, hence the calls in the media for a second referendum.
But I don't think that is necessary. There are plenty of arguments to say that the first one shouldn't have been held and maybe the most crucial point is that it should have remained a government decision. Which is what, in my opinion, it should be down to now.
Why can't Theresa May and her government say, 'We have looked very carefully into the possibility of leaving the EU. We have considered the pros and cons and we have come to the conclusion that the best thing for this country is to remain in a united Europe. We realise many of you will be disappointed but as the government we have to do what we genuinely believe is the best thing for this country and its people and we believe that working with our European partners is the way forward.'
Perhaps I should send this draft to Mrs May. Perhaps no-one else has suggested it ...
5 comments:
Totally agree. I imagined much the same statement from Theresa May immediately after the referendum, which despite all the "democratic will of the people" baloney was only advisory and therefore could be overruled.
A country can't and shouldn't be governed by referendum and Brexit never made sense.
Theresa May hasn't got a clue what she's doing, she just sort of bleats occasionally and looks around as though she's hoping that Batman swoops down to rescue her.
Well....
I was a staunch remainer - like you fundamentally on a philosophical level I thought being joined is better than not. I think we've forgotten why Churchill thought it was a good idea when he suggested "A United States of Europe" in the late 40s. Secondly economically it's bonkers to say to the block who you do 40% of you exporting too "We're off to talk to the others"... Oh yeah all those trade deals? They'll take decades to get in place!
However-much I'd rather stay in I think the answer now is that stupidly Cameron promised the referendum when he was losing MPs to UKIP back in 2013/14 (Reckless and that other one I can't remember...) Anyway I firmly believe he thought he'd be in another coalition with the Lib Dems and they would argue not to hold it - he'd cave in and the in fighting in the Tory party would have continued. Sadly he didn't factor on the Lib Dem voters being so outraged at the betrayal on student fees and basically killing the Lib Dem vote dead. Suddenly he had a majority and had to hold it. So it rushed it through hoping to win.... idiot!
Also both campaigns were utterly terrible - lies and exaggerations on either side. However we are where we are. I actually feel we should just leave now - this is what 52% voted for. I don't think we'll get a deal as on our side this has to be the most divided and incompetent government in my lifetime. I actually can't see the EU agreeing to a deal with us - if I was them I wouldn't. It's only 9% of their exports - painful but you can ride it out... it's over 40% of ours who has the upper hand here?
Loads of Tories wanted to leave Europe, though not for the reasons that seem to have spurred the majority of the populace into voting GO! I always thought we should have joined the European Free Trade Area like Switzerland and Norway (for freedom of trade and movement) and not the EU (with its political control). And I would have voted REMAIN because despite the EU's shortcomings even I could see that leaving would be a disaster. As soon as the various exit scenarios were spelt out I could see what will happen ~ we will end up leaving with no deal, business will suffer and Britain will go into decline.
As for immigration, from what I picked up it seems to be non-EU immigration that gets people's goat the most ~ people coming in from poor countries where there's no sense of reciprocation.
Years ago, sometime back in the 1990s I saw something on TV about the falling birthrate and how in the future there just won't be enough people to do basic jobs (even with artificial intelligence and increased mechanisation) and the Government and the leaders of commerce have always known that the answer to this (other than getting people to have more babies, which I can't see happening) has to be MORE IMMIGRATION.
Anyone hoping for a Britain with fewer immigrants in 10, 20, 30 years' time is going to end up quite disappointed, I think. (Unless we go down the toilet so badly nobody wants to live here at all.)
I agree with you that a lot of the leave campaign was a load of bullenscheiße as they say in Germany... but what can you do??
By "reciprocation" I mean there's supposed to be 2.29 million EU nationals living in Britain and 1.8 million Brits living abroad in the EU, so there's a kind of swap going on (even though the countries involved are different. They say there's a million Poles here while most Brits seem to go for France and Spain. My Mum seems to spend half her time in France despite being stricken with stage 4 breast cancer.
As for immigration in general I'm not particularly bothered about it. I've always intended to go and live abroad, that's one goal of mine that's so far gone completely unfulfilled. I'd love to live somewhere like Switzerland with all those lakes and mountains, accurate watches, nice chocolate and cuckoo clocks. + I did French and German to past A level. Although the Swiss version of German is about as different from standard German as Dutch. For some reason it's still thought of as "Deutsch" though.
PS did you know the terms "Deutsch" and "Dutch" come from the same mysterious Germanic root?
By the way, Liz, what is it you do in Swansea nick? Are you the chaplain there? Do you watch God TV by the way? I think a lot of those TV preachers are charlatans.
The only religious programming I watch is something called Answers in Genesis on Revelation TV (Freesat 692) and there's another one on Inspiration TV with a similar theme. They take evolutionary theory and debunk it and reprimand evolutionists sternly. It's really good viewing. There was a guy on whose a professor of design engineering at a top English uni who made a really good point. He said that it's easy for theoretical scientists to spout off about what ***might*** have happened ~ but when you're in the design business you know that nothing happens by accident and to design something like a flying drone takes immense skill and lots of tinkering with so many variables to balance. A real dragonfly weighs less than a gram and can fly for hours covering miles and miles. The fake dragonfly they made weighed about 10g and conked out after 5 mins!
I saw a thing on with Ray Mears where they were plucking willow warblers out of the air, holding them upside down (the birds looked really annoyed by this) and then bundled into a tube to be weighed. One of the warblers was just 8.5g and Ray Mears said imagine constructing a flying machine weighing 8.5g that can fly all the way to Africa and back (and sing beautiful songs while doing so).
So that's why I don't believe in Evolution!!!
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