UK Voted To Leave

[Damo]

So we woke up to this.

Going to sleep last night I was absolutely sure we were going to stay in, to my surprise we're leaving the EU! I"m genuinely worried for what's going to happen now that we've left the EU, I know the cost of pretty much everything is probably going to rise as we import a lot from other countries, I just recently found out that apparently 80% of animal welfare comes from the EU.

What are you're views? How did you vote?

 

[winter.frost]

With a difference of 1.27m votes, the UK just pulled the trigger on our every system of stability. I remained awake over the course of the night, to behold the spectacularly stupid unravelling.

We will lose Scotland. We could lose Northern Ireland. They tell us we should be celebrating the fact that the £ is weakest it has been since the mid-1980s. If this experiment fails, we will never have as good a seat at the EU table again.

We needed David Cameron, a veteran of financial crises, but now we can look forward to political demi-joke Boris Johnson as our prime minister. London made its voice clear: REMAIN. Therefore, depending on the political climate of the future, I will seriously consider moving to Scotland.

How could those 17.4m seriously vote to destroy the 'United' part of the UK? 'Great' Britain is just an ephemeral nostalgia that cannot be won and has nothing to do with the EU.

David Cameron wrongly put his faith in the electorate. I contentiously abstained yesterday because it was a bad campaign and an issue I did not want to enact power over. At heart of course I wanted to stay, but this was an issue for which I elected my MP and I believe we should have left the decision with those we gave power to. That is what parliament is for. Yes we can say it was also a great democratic exercise, but the outcome clearly indicates that the electorate did note vote with all ownership of rational thought. It voted on a feeling, on resentment, and on false hope misplaced.

The truth is I believe many 'leave' voters have just not got a clue of the magnitude of their decision - it will not take long for those 1.27m voters to feel it all too keenly. To cap it off there are more letters of 'vote of no confidence' in circulation. This is not the Britain I have come to know - it is as though we have a politics of litigation, a pox of the modern age. Can we really be so naive as to suggest that our politicians are incapable of serving more than themselves?

Well, it has been said that Boris Johnson has sacrificed millions of livelihoods just in order to secure one; his own.

I hope against hope that, somehow, Scotland will still vote to remain. But it won't, and so the kingdom I was born into is now doomed to extinction. This birth land of mine, broken.

 

[winter.frost]

UK electorate can sign this, if they so wish, to trigger second EU referendum. But I wouldn't hold your breath:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215

Or you can just protect our hedgehogs
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/121264

 

[Damo]

The truth is I believe many 'leave' voters have just not got a clue of the magnitude of their decision - it will not take long for those 1.27m voters to feel it all too keenly. To cap it off there are more letters of 'vote of no confidence' in circulation. This is not the Britain I have come to know - it is as though we have a politics of litigation, a pox of the modern age. Can we really be so naive as to suggest that our politicians are incapable of serving more than themselves?

I'm sure most of the population that voted to leave just wanted to control of the UK's boarders, completely unaware of the drawbacks of leaving the EU.

I hope against hope that, somehow, Scotland will still vote to remain. But it won't, and so the kingdom I was born into is now doomed to extinction. This birth land of mine, broken.

Would Scotland have any reason to stay?

UK electorate can sign this, if they so wish, to trigger second EU referendum. But I wouldn't hold your breath:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215

Or you can just protect our hedgehogs
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/121264

I've signed these, though I'd imagine they'll need a lot more votes.

Today's a sad day.

 

[Sally]

I think it's a good thing. I do not have a problem with immigration, I don't mind paying a bit more for stuff in the short term while things sort themselves out. I do like the fact that the people we vote for to run the country are not being run in turn by unelected people in another country. Luckily we are not in the Euro so it should be easier to leave. I have other reasons for voting Leave that are my own. The majority spoke and the Remain people need to accept that and not treat the Leavers as idiots. Truce?

 

[winter.frost]

The vote was won by 1.95% of the population. Hardly a majority, and certainly not large enough for 48.1% Remain voters not to feel stung and embittered and all the other things we are feeling. It was a very dirty campaign, the lies are already being admitted to (see Farage on Good Morning), and the majority of those Leavers will not be living with the decision as long as the Remainers whose livelihoods - for being younger - are more precarious.

I am sorry, Sally, but there will not likely be a truce for a long time. Leavers have caused us to lose Scotland, possibly Northern Ireland; of course there will not be a truce - they have broken up our country and made it the 'Divided Kingdom' and there is nothing, nothing that could be worth that. Like I said, the land of my birth is gone now and it's down to a meagre 1.95% of the population.

To put that into perspective, this petition for a second EU referendum, as of 12:50PM 26th June, has been signed by more persons (250% more persons) than the Leavers who clinched it. And that does put things into perspective.

 

[Sally]

I'm not sure I understand why you did not vote if you feel so strongly about it. It is because of the politicians like Tony Blair and others that the faith of the people in those people have been undermined. I am not supporter of Boris Johnson, the papers do not reflect my reasons for voting out of Europe, my mind was made up long before the referendum was even mooted. I am glad that we are out. I am old enough to remember before the EU and it has changed out of all recognition from what it was supposed to be. Then the British voted NOT to join, but Edward Heath had another referendum and we got taken in on that one, so maybe you will get your wish and referendum after referendum will be had until the Remain get the answer they want. That is not democracy, that is bullying. Thankfully we are not in the Euro, so we should be able to extricate ourselves reasonably easily. Switzerland are not in the EU and they are fine, Greece are in the EU.. enough said.

 

[winter.frost]

For me it was more like a zero-sum game, no matter how I felt.
The reason I did not vote was threefold. 1. By the time it got to voting I was so deeply shocked with the behaviour of both camps the taste in my mouth was unbearable. 2. I knew how close it was going to be and did not want to have any part in the responsibility of disappointing half of the population. 3. Because I feel this is the sort of thing that should have been decided by our politicians - we elect them for these kinds of matters - and whilst it could be called a victory for democracy I'd much rather have weekly referendums of every important policy there is than something piecemeal.
There's just no way this couldn't have been utterly disruptive and destructive. I'm sure there are voters who have rose-tinted ideas/memories about the past, but I just don't think that is worth losing Scotland over. These voters have caused the break-up of our united country and, for me, nothing can be more sad.
But it's not as though the younger voters haven't seen the effect of the 'ever closer union' either. Having been born in the time of John Major, I have also seen a dramatic change which I wouldn't think is necessarily desirable. However the world has changed, and we have to move along with it. Not break apart.

As of 5:40PM 26th June the petition stands at 262% more votes than the difference that won the referendum.

The wording of the 2nd referendum petition states clearly that it is about clarifying the narrow majority. Therefore if there were to be a 2nd referendum and Leave pulled out ahead even further than 1.95% I think that would do us all a lot of good and there would be less pain and anger.

 

[Sally]

It is the way the world is moving that requires us to break apart. I don't have a rose-tinted idea of the past. Scotland had the chance to be independent and decided not to do it. Australia had the chance to go it alone and did not do it. Northern Ireland has always wanted to be stay part of the UK. It isn't up to us to vote on those issues. We have a chance to change things now for England, which is my country, without being over-ruled by Europe. We are out of the TTIP argument now, a terrible agreement being arranged between Europe and America where global corporations can sue governments who pass laws that prevent a company making the profit they think they could make, even if it is undesirable or undesired by the population of that country. This makes governments ruled by corporations. Do you really think that is okay? That is the kind of things Europe will bring us. We have never been fully into Europe, we still have the Bank of England. If we voted to stay in we would have had to go fully in, Euro, the lot. No more NHS. We are still the country everyone wants to come to, we wouldn't be that anymore. We can now trade with the Commonwealth again, something that the EU made us cut back on because we had to buy from Europe instead. This is a good thing if only people would look at the benefits. I could see no benefits to staying in, and nobody has been able to come up with any that aren't to do with a short term economic downturn, which the Bank of England had foreseen and put money into the economy to offset it.

 

[winter.frost]

Scotland had the chance to be independent and decided not to do it.

Yes, when we were a United Kingdom as part of the EU. But we are all one country as we are separate. I was born in the South West, but grew up in Wales. The distinctions aren't that great, I learned the language, and certainly consider the UK to be solid, real. To say 'England is my country' is exactly the kind of nationalism that gets us into so much trouble. England doesn't have a good track record for treating its outlying territories, even including NI/Wales/Scotland (let alone the rest of the world) very well. The red and the white, or the union jack?

No-one likes powerful corporations, no. But then we're naive to believe they haven't infiltrated our political systems for decades already; when they do so they are simply known as 'lobbyists'.

Every country, whether it belongs to the Euro or not, as a separate bank. It would be madness not to have that contingency. Also, every country has kept their old minting presses. As for the Common Wealth, things have changed there as well. Look at Canada's recent 7-year negotiation with the EU, or the strengthening bonds the EU has with Australia - particularly in terms of cultural exchange - that is now the EU's second largest trading partner.

The Bank of England cannot tell creditors and traders what to do. The pound is devalued and continuing to plummet. It cannot offset the uncertainty the world sees in us. We're at $1.345 now when only three days ago we were more like $1.502. Carney is a great man to have at the helm, don't get me wrong, but we've already seen public statements made by major Leave figures (such as BoJo) that if there is an economic recession they will apologise.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/who-will-dare-pull-trigger-article-50-eu

But it's also important to point out that here BoJo says he still wants freedom of movement and the single market:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...much-that-britain-is-part-of-europe--and-alw/

I just don't think Leavers realise that no-one is prepared, no-one has the answers, and it's a really a game of reality catch-up everyone is having to face now. A scramble to formulate a plan.