Hacker News

Favorites Setup
Comment by jen20 | original | Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private
[−]jen20 · 2026-08-30 Sun 10:05 UTC · link
Absurd to suggest that anyone voting for Brexit knew what they were voting for - by design of the pro-Brexit shysters.
[−]nannal · 2026-08-30 Sun 10:07 UTC · link
Not sure that's an argument that shines good light on brexit voters.
[−]spacedcowboy · 2026-08-30 Sun 10:19 UTC · link
To be fair (a) I don't think he was trying to do that, and (b) I'm struggling to think of an argument that would shine good light on brexit voters ?

Perhaps that they're wonderfully trusting people who believe whatever politicians that Gary down the pub thinks are the best ?

[−]tialaramex · 2026-08-30 Sun 12:20 UTC · link
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.

[−]tim333 · 2026-08-30 Sun 14:01 UTC · link
The idea of independence wasn't ridiculous, it's just the details made it hard to make it work.
[−]sscaryterry · 2026-08-30 Sun 15:51 UTC · link
The problem is the idea was not credible.
[−]sscaryterry · 2026-08-30 Sun 10:30 UTC · link
Brexit voters were plain gullible.
[−]jen20 · 2026-08-30 Sun 12:18 UTC · link
It’s not supposed to. There is no light that can present anybody who voted for Brexit as anything other than a fuckwit.
[−]whackernews · 2026-08-30 Sun 13:30 UTC · link
Haha, so dogmatic. You reckon calling half of the UK fuckwits is a smart position? Maybe you’re the fuckwit.
[−]1718627440 · 2026-08-30 Sun 15:11 UTC · link
Depends on whether you are referring to the Brexit that was actually implemented or any conceivable type of Brexit.
[−]Nursie · 2026-08-30 Sun 10:25 UTC · link
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.

[−]legacynl · 2026-08-30 Sun 11:14 UTC · link
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.

[−]Nursie · 2026-08-30 Sun 11:46 UTC · link
> I think you're being revisionist

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”

[−]rabf · 2026-08-30 Sun 13:04 UTC · link
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.
[−]goalieca · 2026-08-30 Sun 13:13 UTC · link
I always hear the media drives narrative but no one complains about this when it’s going their way.
[−]1718627440 · 2026-08-30 Sun 15:15 UTC · link
"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.
[−]BLKNSLVR · 2026-08-30 Sun 12:28 UTC · link
I think everyone who voted against Brexit knew exactly what Brexit was going to be though.
[−]tim333 · 2026-08-30 Sun 14:02 UTC · link
I didn't. I voted against and thought it would be soft Brexit. But here we are.