[Malankazooie]

Brexit, I believe is short for 'brain exit'. The official word for when everything that makes sense goes out the window and everyone is just stupid all the time.

John Oliver, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

[Tiste Simeon]

I've been given leaflets for both the Brexit Party and Tommy bellend Robinson. The absolute cheek of people telling me the EU isn't democratic one minute then asking for my vote the next. I despise them all.

[Grief]

Hahah yeah that's pretty galling. This election is looking to be a huge mess (both domestically and in EU-wide terms). A good time for opportunists since the big parties look like they'll take a hammering for how Brexit has gone... while the populists have neatly sidestepped the messy practical details and now get to jump back in saying how their vision has been betrayed or whatever.

Having said that, there's a very fair argument to be made that the EU is severely lacking in the democracy department. It's one of the reasons that I'd consider more legitimate in terms of opposing the EU when it's made in good faith.

[Mezla PigDog]

I have no idea how to vote in the European Election.

I wasn't even sure who I was going to vote for walking into the booth in the local council election the other week.

The more reading I do, the less sure I am!

[Tiste Simeon]

I'm thinking Green party. They're anti-Brexit and anti-austerity. I know it's a wasted vote but then so is voting for Labour.

[Maark Abbott]

Tiste Simeon, on 17 May 2019 - 06:40 AM, said:

I'm thinking Green party. They're anti-Brexit and anti-austerity. I know it's a wasted vote but then so is voting for Labour.

Vote Labour to block Tories generally, but for this EUlection I'll be going back to the Green I think.

[Gorefest]

I'm in a bit of a quandery. As an EU citizen in the UK, I sent off paperwork to get myself registered for the EU election voting, but I still haven't received any confirmation on whether I can go and vote or not. Furthermore, even if I do get this confirmation, I actually don't know whether I am voting for UK parties or for Dutch ones. I assume it must be UK parties, because I'm walking into a UK voting booth, but at this point fuck knows.

If it is for UK parties, I am torn between Greens and LibDems, leaning towards the latter simply because I think they might get more bulk. I did vote Green in the local elections a few weeks ago.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 17 May 2019 - 08:45 AM

[Mezla PigDog]

Interesting, I'm leaning towards Green too at the moment. Tiste - I'm not sure anything is a wasted vote anymore.

The quandary I have is that I actually kind of respect the Labour position of respecting the referendum result and working through the options of soft Brexit > general election > confirmatory referendum. And I don't want to split the Remain vote because the Leave voters have less options to split between.

But then I really don't want to leave the EU. I also don't want to be a single issue voter because there are bigger things in need of attention.

A Lib Dem vote is a vote for the status quo i.e. neither of the 2 main parties getting anywhere on Brexit. Which nobody is happy with.

I think the best case outcome is the Tories get wiped out which pushes them to oust May and get a true Brexiteer leader which pushes their pussy fence sitting Remain MPs into action and sends parliament either into meltdown leading to a GE or into a soft-Brexit/no Brexit majority. Or the country becomes a place not worth living in. Either or.

So then I think fuck it to my vote and go Green.

[Maark Abbott]

Mezla PigDog, on 17 May 2019 - 09:33 AM, said:

Interesting, I'm leaning towards Green too at the moment. Tiste - I'm not sure anything is a wasted vote anymore.

The quandary I have is that I actually kind of respect the Labour position of respecting the referendum result and working through the options of soft Brexit > general election > confirmatory referendum. And I don't want to split the Remain vote because the Leave voters have less options to split between.

But then I really don't want to leave the EU. I also don't want to be a single issue voter because there are bigger things in need of attention.

A Lib Dem vote is a vote for the status quo i.e. neither of the 2 main parties getting anywhere on Brexit. Which nobody is happy with.

I think the best case outcome is the Tories get wiped out which pushes them to oust May and get a true Brexiteer leader which pushes their pussy fence sitting Remain MPs into action and sends parliament either into meltdown leading to a GE or into a soft-Brexit/no Brexit majority. Or the country becomes a place not worth living in. Either or.

So then I think fuck it to my vote and go Green.

How is Labour respecting a vote won on misinformation and the breaking of the law in and of itself respectable? Respecting a public opinion is one thing, but respecting an outcome predicated on false information and outright illegality is quite another.

[Mezla PigDog]

Until there are prosecutions the result remains valid. I assume. And I don't know how many leavers were persuaded directly by the campaign anyway.

I'm not defending it but we live in a country that technically chose this electoral and legal system so there is a part if me that wants to say suck it up.

[Mezla PigDog]

And I often complain that parties don't work together or compromise so I feel like a hypocrite jumping on them for compromising. Life is full of them and society doesn't really work without them.

Disclaimer- I hate compromising but needs must. And I am reminded of Worry and his complaint in the US that Dems are always compromising and end up getting whipped by the Reps who never do. So, shades of grey. I'm a shade of grey person and I don't understand how people are so clear cut in their Brexit opinions when it is such a complex and finely balanced thing. I know what I want but I don't know what the right thing to do with the situation at hand is.

This post has been edited by Mezla PigDog: 17 May 2019 - 12:55 PM

[Maark Abbott]

Mezla PigDog, on 17 May 2019 - 12:50 PM, said:

Until there are prosecutions the result remains valid. I assume. And I don't know how many leavers were persuaded directly by the campaign anyway.

I'm not defending it but we live in a country that technically chose this electoral and legal system so there is a part if me that wants to say suck it up.

"Until there are prosecutions" does not excuse the fact the law has been broken, and that fact remains the governing body for elections / referendums have confirmed the same.

There are unsolved murders - the fact these murders are unsolved does not erase the crime of the murder happening in the slightest, and the same principle applies in this instance.

[Tiste Simeon]

Also the leave campaign admitted it on the day we were meant to leave and it got buried by everything else happening on that day...

[Mezla PigDog]

I don't disagree but is there a legal mechanism to fix it? What if the outcome is that the referendum result is valid and we have forced the majority to wait on something that was democratically mandated? I don't know those answers.

It's such an emotive issue and that is because of the culture and climate we live in. Murdoch press, people lying about the EU for ages and getting away with it, rich people wanting to keep everyone else down. It's a symptom of a lot of issues that have been wrong in the country for a long time. Leave or Remain, the Tories and right wing press are still a bunch if disgusting privileged bastards and will still be here. We've got the country we deserve, as a population I mean. Personally I deserve a socialist utopia but I can't persuade a majority to agree with me so I'm sucking it up I guess and trying to make my votes count as much as possible. Unless I get actively involved in politics I don't think there is much else to do. I try to remain sanguine and respect the other side as much as possible. Stupid poor people voting against their own interests kind of have my sympathy while the country is riddled with inequality. Just don't make me have to mix with them.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Mezla PigDog, on 17 May 2019 - 01:08 PM, said:

I don't disagree but is there a legal mechanism to fix it? What if the outcome is that the referendum result is valid and we have forced the majority to wait on something that was democratically mandated? I don't know those answers.

It's such an emotive issue and that is because of the culture and climate we live in. Murdoch press, people lying about the EU for ages and getting away with it, rich people wanting to keep everyone else down. It's a symptom of a lot of issues that have been wrong in the country for a long time. Leave or Remain, the Tories and right wing press are still a bunch if disgusting privileged bastards and will still be here. We've got the country we deserve, as a population I mean. Personally I deserve a socialist utopia but I can't persuade a majority to agree with me so I'm sucking it up I guess and trying to make my votes count as much as possible. Unless I get actively involved in politics I don't think there is much else to do. I try to remain sanguine and respect the other side as much as possible. Stupid poor people voting against their own interests kind of have my sympathy while the country is riddled with inequality. Just don't make me have to mix with them.

Nail on head.

Also, say they declare the original result invalid and we have another referendum - are we really so convinced the result would come back Remain? You can't rewind the clock and put us back in the theoretical same position without the Leave campaign lying (it's not as if the Remain campaign were squeaky clean either as I remember, and they ran a bad campaign, which they would still do.) I couldn't say which way people who are ultimately clueless but fed up of the pantomime would jump in the case of another vote.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 17 May 2019 - 01:55 PM

[Mezla PigDog]

One thing I didn't mention about why I'm tempted to vote Labour is because apart from Brexit I agree with more or less everything that Corbyn stands for and I don't want my support for a clearly remain party to to be misconstrued as a vote against the direction Corbyn is taking Labour. I don't want any of my votes to be single issue. I have been waiting years for the Labour Party to go back to the left and now that they are I want more left wing policies to see the light of day. They are more important and the Labour message to stop seeing ourselves as Remainers or Leavers and to see ourselves as anti-austerity, pro-equality is right long term. If I had a choice between no Brexit and the status quo vs soft-Brexit and a left wing Labour government I would take the latter. In a heartbeat actually.

[Grief]

Maark Abbott, on 17 May 2019 - 12:44 PM, said:

How is Labour respecting a vote won on misinformation and the breaking of the law in and of itself respectable? Respecting a public opinion is one thing, but respecting an outcome predicated on false information and outright illegality is quite another.

I would expect uproar if they took that position vocally - it's way too easy to frame it as "elites saying Brexit voters are too stupid to know what they actually want".

Mezla PigDog, on 17 May 2019 - 03:20 PM, said:

One thing I didn't mention about why I'm tempted to vote Labour is because apart from Brexit I agree with more or less everything that Corbyn stands for and I don't want my support for a clearly remain party to to be misconstrued as a vote against the direction Corbyn is taking Labour. I don't want any of my votes to be single issue. I have been waiting years for the Labour Party to go back to the left and now that they are I want more left wing policies to see the light of day. They are more important and the Labour message to stop seeing ourselves as Remainers or Leavers and to see ourselves as anti-austerity, pro-equality is right long term. If I had a choice between no Brexit and the status quo vs soft-Brexit and a left wing Labour government I would take the latter. In a heartbeat actually.

This is a hugely frustrating position. See also the straightforward narrative of the local elections showing "both sides being punished for their stance on Brexit". As the results came in I had to wade through pages of that on the BBC to discover the numbers at the bottom showing that the Tories had been hit far harder...

The way Corbyn has been portrayed over the past years has been immensely irritating, especially since his own party does him no favours in that regard.

[Illuyankas]

That's what happens when you promise to reform a corrupt and disingenous media, it attacks back. Especially with MPs who stand to lose out on lucrative post-MP careers or investments, the selfish leaking fucks D:<

And wording it as a Second Referendum is just saying 'we didn't want this outcome so we're overruling you' to leave voters; it doesn't matter that it was illegitimate or tampered with because no one gives a fuck about accountability any more. The best bet is to rephrase it as a confirmation of that if the UK goes it'll be on these terms, here's a vote to either depart on the terms of the deal or stay in (incidentally allowing Leave.EU or whatever to frame it as Leave vs Remain instead of Stay vs Depart or something was a huge factor in Leave winning, imo).

It doesn't matter about your personal opinions of the voter base, you cannot hold them in contempt; if doing so worked we'd wouldn't be leaving and the US would have President Hillary Clinton.

[Maark Abbott]

I disagree that I can't hold them in contempt. In much the same way I hold generically stupid gammons in contempt...

[Morgoth]

Grief, on 16 May 2019 - 11:13 PM, said:

Hahah yeah that's pretty galling. This election is looking to be a huge mess (both domestically and in EU-wide terms). A good time for opportunists since the big parties look like they'll take a hammering for how Brexit has gone... while the populists have neatly sidestepped the messy practical details and now get to jump back in saying how their vision has been betrayed or whatever.

Having said that, there's a very fair argument to be made that the EU is severely lacking in the democracy department. It's one of the reasons that I'd consider more legitimate in terms of opposing the EU when it's made in good faith.

In what way is the EU severely lacking in democracy?