Well, they would have loved to stop migration and voted in droves for brexit for that. Cant have that though, democracy or not, can vote for any party, but cant have that result they all promise before the vote closes and never deliver once the vote is in.
[−]MrBuddyCasino · 2026-08-30 Sun 09:53 UTC ·
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Almost as if democracy isn't real and all statecraft is driven by intra-elite conflicts.
Britain leaving the EU purely because a majority voted for it in a popular vote is a pretty bad example to use in support of the claim that democracy isn't real. It's probably this sort of vague cynicism about democracy that led Cameron to call the referendum in the first place, only to discover that people can actually vote however they like!
Forcing political speech to be truthful (or at least have a reasonable expectation of being truthful) with serious consequences (jail time) for knowingly lying would go a long way to counter the misinformation that caused Brexit.
It works better with an informed electorate. However, one of the reasons that voters don't bother informing themselves is the campaign of cynicism aimed at convincing them that all political parties are the same, that their vote doesn't matter, etc. etc. One might just as well say that an informed population requires democracy: why bother keeping track of national policy if you have no control over it?
In the days after the Brexit vote, it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence on Britain's membership of the EU. Lazy and cynical anti-democratic rhetoric just feeds into that cycle of ignorance and stupidity.
Which is how autocracy governments get hold of countries without military action, it only needs enough patience and uninformed electorate to win the election.
They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship.
Yes, you're entirely right. One further, I was at a talk from a law professor at a big uni once, where he had printed the entire text of the Medicare bill on a giant pile of paper. He explained that it had taken him, a professor, several months full-time to understand everything at stake; what chance has a representative to do so, let alone on every bill? What chance has a voter? What does it mean for democracy that no one with decision powers understands what they decide?
The UK government usually publishes explanatory notes together with the text of the bill itself. It's quite feasible to read these if you're interested in the details of a particular piece of legislation. E.g. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/pdfs/ukpgaen_20...
A truly wonderful point. Some attacks on low-information voters in other comments which I understand but none of us have read that whole Medicare bill. That’s even if we don’t have three jobs and six kids. Considerations when we reach for “lazy” or “dumb” to describe voters.
Boy, the number of hours to research candidates & propositions on the last ballot in California…
> it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence
+1 to this.
"I didn't thing it would actually happen!" IIRC there were polls soon after asking people if they'd change their vote or vote the same way again, and there was a fair amount of people saying they would have voted remain had they known.
Madness really
What annoys me is that Farage said something like "if it's 50.1% remain then this is not over" I.e. he'd be calling for a recount or a second vote. Yet it was basically that for leave and we got no recount or second vote. Similar deal for Scottish independence referendum... They keep on seeming to want to do another one so they get the answer they want, despite it being shutdown fairy recently.
To take my mother as an example she hadn't thought about it properly at all. She was surprised that her daughter (my sister) had voted Remain because apparently my mother who knows about the EU funding which enabled what my sister did, hadn't connected "EU funding" to the EU she was voting to Leave. "Oh" was basically all she had to say about that.
In the broader scheme of things you could also see this in the response of Brexiteers who were stunned that, as non members they now weren't able to travel freely across borders.
Voters aren't very bright because they're people, you've met people. I used to think that FPTP was a good idea because it's so simple that "The candidate who had more votes won" means the idiots won't be confused by the outcome. We saw that they're confused anyway, so, fine, since apparently simplicity wasn't achievable we should use a more complicated voting system with better outcomes.
Actually that was by design of the anti-Brexit faction.
Before you get ranty at me - I voted remain. But your comment is revisionist. The pro-Brexit shysters were not in power. After the referendum, whichever way it went, the pro-Brexit people were not going to be given power, it was not an election.
They had no mandate to implement anything. Any plan they promised would have been irrelevant to the UK government and had no more force than you or I scribbling on a pub napkin.
You know who was in power, who was in a position to make a plan, arguably whose duty it was to make a contingency plan if the referendum went south?
The very pro-EU faction at the head of the Tory government. But they didn’t. They told the public they weren’t making a plan so that it didn’t look like a low-risk option that the country could go for and be OK. The lack of plan was no accident, it was a Remain-side tactic.
The Brexiteers were/are wrong, hateful, shysters in so many ways. But your ire in this specific case should be aimed squarely at David Cameron. The Brexit shysters just didn’t have any power, and Brexit voters voted without a plan because it was the choice they were given.
I think you're being revisionist. It's not about the people in power, it was about the media. They controlled the narrative, and they were the ones that convinced everyone of illegal bendy bananas.
> The very pro-EU faction at the head of the Tory government.
When has any tory ever been pro-eu? i think you're misremembering how things went down.
Do you believe that either Leave.EU or Farage’s circus had the power to make a binding exit plan? How? What powers do you believe they had to do so?
> It's not about the people in power, it was about the media. They controlled the narrative, and they were the ones that convinced everyone of illegal bendy bananas
Errr, so the media should have made a plan? Not sure what you’re on about there really?
> When has any tory ever been pro-eu?
Osborne and Cameron were both very pro-EU. Ken Clark (now retired) has always been very pro-EU. Generally the “business is good” side of the Tories were pretty europhile. They have since been hounded out of the party, AFAICT, by the likes of BoJo.
> i think you're misremembering how things went down.
“David Cameron’s government committed an act of gross negligence and deepened the uncertainty surrounding the impact of Brexit by instructing Whitehall not to make any contingency plans for a vote to leave the EU”
David Cameron was guilty of over-estimating the British public. The Brexit vote was intended to put an end to the anti-EU contingent in the conservative party, he never expected that it had any hope of passing.
"The media" is not an entity and anybody with enough money can become "part of it". If you think "the media" controls the public opinion, you can just let the money vote directly, this is simply not a environment where democracy can exist. People still need to think for themself, if they refuse to do, it's their choice.
The sad thing of course was that the people coming across on boats or clinging to the underside of lorries etc are not EU citizens arriving legally. Plus it's not like EU is the only source of migration (hellow commonwealth).
I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc. We saw it with Trump's election, we saw it with Brexit. We'll probably see it with a reform majority in the UK parliament next election too.
There are global trends that the PM of the UK cannot change, but we live in a world of instant gratification so if the current PM can't make things change literally overnight, people are angry and annoyed.
Go read the comments section on any UK newspaper (left or right, tabloid or broadsheet) and the comments are really eye-opening (recommend doing this to at least get a flawed and partial cross section of what the vibe is). People are quick to anger and quick to point fingers. Might explain why we've had so many PMs these past few years.
> I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc
Hmm GDP was growing well, inflation was down, real household income was on the rise, annual wage growth was on the up, it was a long time since the great financial crash, unemployment was crashing in 2013/2014, and things comparatively were quite cheap.
Though I can't recall the general sentiment at the time. Net migration did have an historic spike (part of a longer term rise) for a couple of years. Perhaps the Brexit campaigners capitalised solely on that?
Crazy to imagine that economically things were doing great, by many metrics, but so many people got duped into thinking some foreigners were going to tank everything
(Personally, it was a fantastic period. Wages were good, jobs were good, things were cheap. I know many people who bought their first house during that period)
FWIW, Brexit was never, ever, ever about stopping migration.
It was about right wing elites deciding which migrants they wanted, and at best about regaining control of that policy from the EU. It was sold in a racist and bigoted way.
The reason we have less control over illegal migration is exactly Brexit, which, as people were warned at the time, torpedoed our actually cushioned position with respect to "first safe country" asylum rules, and meant we had no cross-border agreements with France.
The "Brexit" that people thought they were getting was always in their own mind because it had no definition. It was an imaginary victory which only has downsides, just as was pointed out.
no it was %90 about that finance and regulation thing for sharing banking and finance data to EU and related, I even fully forgot what was it. It was well hidden and among years it got lost but this was mainn reason. They will not tell you this unless you really deeply read it and see it.
- Education is not "elite", it's open to all.
- Informed is not "educated".
Forcing political speech to be truthful (or at least have a reasonable expectation of being truthful) with serious consequences (jail time) for knowingly lying would go a long way to counter the misinformation that caused Brexit.
In the days after the Brexit vote, it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence on Britain's membership of the EU. Lazy and cynical anti-democratic rhetoric just feeds into that cycle of ignorance and stupidity.
They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship.
Is there an example where "they" have not done that?
Boy, the number of hours to research candidates & propositions on the last ballot in California…
+1 to this.
"I didn't thing it would actually happen!" IIRC there were polls soon after asking people if they'd change their vote or vote the same way again, and there was a fair amount of people saying they would have voted remain had they known.
Madness really
What annoys me is that Farage said something like "if it's 50.1% remain then this is not over" I.e. he'd be calling for a recount or a second vote. Yet it was basically that for leave and we got no recount or second vote. Similar deal for Scottish independence referendum... They keep on seeming to want to do another one so they get the answer they want, despite it being shutdown fairy recently.
Perhaps that they're wonderfully trusting people who believe whatever politicians that Gary down the pub thinks are the best ?
In the broader scheme of things you could also see this in the response of Brexiteers who were stunned that, as non members they now weren't able to travel freely across borders.
Voters aren't very bright because they're people, you've met people. I used to think that FPTP was a good idea because it's so simple that "The candidate who had more votes won" means the idiots won't be confused by the outcome. We saw that they're confused anyway, so, fine, since apparently simplicity wasn't achievable we should use a more complicated voting system with better outcomes.
Before you get ranty at me - I voted remain. But your comment is revisionist. The pro-Brexit shysters were not in power. After the referendum, whichever way it went, the pro-Brexit people were not going to be given power, it was not an election.
They had no mandate to implement anything. Any plan they promised would have been irrelevant to the UK government and had no more force than you or I scribbling on a pub napkin.
You know who was in power, who was in a position to make a plan, arguably whose duty it was to make a contingency plan if the referendum went south?
The very pro-EU faction at the head of the Tory government. But they didn’t. They told the public they weren’t making a plan so that it didn’t look like a low-risk option that the country could go for and be OK. The lack of plan was no accident, it was a Remain-side tactic.
The Brexiteers were/are wrong, hateful, shysters in so many ways. But your ire in this specific case should be aimed squarely at David Cameron. The Brexit shysters just didn’t have any power, and Brexit voters voted without a plan because it was the choice they were given.
> The very pro-EU faction at the head of the Tory government.
When has any tory ever been pro-eu? i think you're misremembering how things went down.
Do you believe that either Leave.EU or Farage’s circus had the power to make a binding exit plan? How? What powers do you believe they had to do so?
> It's not about the people in power, it was about the media. They controlled the narrative, and they were the ones that convinced everyone of illegal bendy bananas
Errr, so the media should have made a plan? Not sure what you’re on about there really?
> When has any tory ever been pro-eu?
Osborne and Cameron were both very pro-EU. Ken Clark (now retired) has always been very pro-EU. Generally the “business is good” side of the Tories were pretty europhile. They have since been hounded out of the party, AFAICT, by the likes of BoJo.
> i think you're misremembering how things went down.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/20/david-camer...
“David Cameron’s government committed an act of gross negligence and deepened the uncertainty surrounding the impact of Brexit by instructing Whitehall not to make any contingency plans for a vote to leave the EU”
https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-07/seven-ou...
I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc. We saw it with Trump's election, we saw it with Brexit. We'll probably see it with a reform majority in the UK parliament next election too.
There are global trends that the PM of the UK cannot change, but we live in a world of instant gratification so if the current PM can't make things change literally overnight, people are angry and annoyed.
Go read the comments section on any UK newspaper (left or right, tabloid or broadsheet) and the comments are really eye-opening (recommend doing this to at least get a flawed and partial cross section of what the vibe is). People are quick to anger and quick to point fingers. Might explain why we've had so many PMs these past few years.
Hmm GDP was growing well, inflation was down, real household income was on the rise, annual wage growth was on the up, it was a long time since the great financial crash, unemployment was crashing in 2013/2014, and things comparatively were quite cheap.
Though I can't recall the general sentiment at the time. Net migration did have an historic spike (part of a longer term rise) for a couple of years. Perhaps the Brexit campaigners capitalised solely on that?
Crazy to imagine that economically things were doing great, by many metrics, but so many people got duped into thinking some foreigners were going to tank everything
(Personally, it was a fantastic period. Wages were good, jobs were good, things were cheap. I know many people who bought their first house during that period)
It was about right wing elites deciding which migrants they wanted, and at best about regaining control of that policy from the EU. It was sold in a racist and bigoted way.
The reason we have less control over illegal migration is exactly Brexit, which, as people were warned at the time, torpedoed our actually cushioned position with respect to "first safe country" asylum rules, and meant we had no cross-border agreements with France.
The "Brexit" that people thought they were getting was always in their own mind because it had no definition. It was an imaginary victory which only has downsides, just as was pointed out.