Hacker News Reader

Comment by _Understated_ | Hacker News Reader

> it's pretty well understood that in majority we don't want to leave, the other half are mostly a combination of naive, manipulated and coerced based on false claims and social media...

What?

There was a vote. A vote where everyone elligible had the chance to voice their opinion and the majority (albeit slim) said "we want out".

As for the slur of being naieve and manipulated that's bullshit (from my standpoint anyway).

You seem to be referring to people getting their news from social media... if that's their source then hell-mend them. Social media is an echo chamber. It's not designed for two-sided debates.

WRT to the false claims: If anyone actually believes that a politician has their interests at heart then they're delusional.

You seem to just be bitter that you (I assume) voted to stay in... I suppose you want another one until you get the result you would prefer!

View on HN

"the majority (albeit slim) said "we want out"."

The point is that isn't really actionable, it isn't a plan.

Hard Brexit was discussed, soft Brexit was discussed, BRINO, Norway plus. Everyone voted for their own preferred Brexit, so now we're in the situation on which Brexit to implement, and no one can agree, so which Brexit to go for?

And I would like to point out that no deal Brexit was never seriously discussed in the run up to the referendum, so there isn't a mandate for that. We were though promised that we would be able to leave the EU, keep access to the common market, and save ourselves £350 million a week, in what would be the 'easiest trade deal in human history'.

It was never seriously discussed because Theresa May didn't believe in it. Now that there will be an actual supporter in charge, you'll probably see more action on it.

What does that matter? The point was that "hard brexit" wasn't raised as a real possibility by the Leave campaign before the referendum (in fact hard vs soft wasn't even a thing before the vote). The campaign was based on promises of a lovely favourable trade deals and a hybrid in-and-yet-out where it suited us arrangement.

The fact that Boris is PM and he's A-OK with hard brexit doesn't change any of that. And I don't know what "more action" we could see - it is by very definition the zero-action option.

Nit.

Hard Brexit is moving further away from Europe compared to a soft Brexit which would be something like Norway or closer.

What Teresa May was offering was a hard Brexit.

What Boris is proposing is a no deal Brexit

https://fullfact.org/europe/what-is-hard-brexit/

> We were though promised that we would be able to leave the EU, keep access to the common market, and save ourselves £350 million a week, in what would be the 'easiest trade deal in human history'.

If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is. Surely it isn't the case that more than half the voters really believed Brexit was going to be that easy?

Maybe not all of the Leave voters believed it would be that easy, but enough did. Or alternatively at least bought some of what the Leave campaign were selling - the "we send £350m a week ..." stuff was a big one

The Murdoch press and their shills plus some of the other tabloids relentlessly and over decades systematically trashed the European project with lies, half-truth and other unsavory tactics.

How, exactly, do you expect a populace to make an informed decision under such a relentless assault?

Slightly less than half of voters voted for a concrete thing, slightly more than half voted for anything else.

Its like the tax cut someone else mentioned. Sure 52% of the population could vote in favour, are all of those going to vote in favour of a tax cut for the rich? Or a tax cut for the poor? Or for low carbon technologies? Or to support the coal mining industry.

And because there wasn't a 'plan' for Brexit there wasn't a decent conversation on any Brexit plan. You couldn't pin down the Brexiteers because as soon as you suggested that leaving the common market would damage the economy, they'd tell you we could stay in the common market.

To answer your question more directly, I don't think the level of integration was appreciated, Northern Ireland wasn't discussed at all. Further than that I'm not sure you can say anything about all Brexit voters because its such a broad church, as it was never defined.

But the vote was poorly informed and actively manipulated. Many people voted leave as a protest against the state of the country, not the EU, and have said so. And many of the most persuasive statements made by the leave campaign were shown to be deliberate falsehoods.

I respect the desires of those who genuinely wish to leave the EU, but the referendum result was not anything close to a true measurement of that, and any measure since has been grossly polluted by the ensuing acrimony.

The referendum was about many things, and most of them weren't our membership of the EU.

> Many people voted leave as a protest against the state of the country, not the EU, and have said so.

This is true in my experience, almost all arguments I have ever heard in person are of this form... I don't know where this came from but suspect the concept of "Leave == Change" was likely seeded on social media.

> The referendum was about many things, and most of them weren't our membership of the EU.

Yes, this is the source of the problem, even though manipulation is more of a problem than it used to be, this vote is particularly vulnerable to it because it's so poorly defined - it's basically impossible to have a sane and comprehensive debate about the topic so instead people naturally cling onto something that fits their values, and it's extremely easy to just fabricate those things in this case.

Perhaps I live in a bubble but to me it was pretty clear: In or out.

As for the result not reflecting the people that's nonsense: Everyone with the ability to vote and the right to vote could and should have voted. If they didn't then tough.

If people were swayed by politicians promising one thing or another and all the nonsense that flowed through social media then that's on them.

I don't get this attitude that people have of "oh, it's not fair, we were lied to". We are talking about policicians here: they are only going to say whatever makes them popular and gets/keeps them in power.

Except that in or out isn't clear because it doesn't cover the details of what out means.

I'm assuming you wouldn't expect the Brexiteers to stop campaigning if they had lost the vote? They'd just carry on trying to smash things up until they got their way.

There were supposed to be rules follow with regard to funding and truthfulness on the part of the Leave campaign and it's now clear that those rules were broken. [1]

So in short, those of us in the UK that think the UK would be better off as a member of the EU are still going to fight for that because we care about doing what we think is best for the country.

[1] https://news.sky.com/story/vote-leave-broke-campaign-spendin...

I agree with you but that doesn't invalidate the initial vote. The only marginally democratically legitimate way to do a revote would be for the UK to ask to voters to choose between actually negotiated and realistic terms (or maybe multiple, e.g. hard brexit + any deal they can strike with the EU if ever) and staying.

Oh yeah, absolutely all of the people who voted leave were completely rational. Like my father-in-law who voted leave so we can send all them Indians back home.

Ah yes, the common, people didn't vote my way, so they must be crazy/racist/stupid.

People had their reasons for voting the way they did, and you show your ignorance and lack of perspective when you dismiss their views like that.

Calling people racist doesn't make opposing views go away, especially when over half the people in the country have those views.

edit: Keep up the downvotes, it doesn't change anything.

Someone who voted for brexit to ‘send the Indians home’ is clearly both racist (self-evident) and stupid (how would brexit do that?)

One person's anecdote (that we don't know happened) doesn't represent half of a country's population.

What't the GPs are doing are dismissing valid views from the other side by shouting racism. There's no proof or any real evidence provided that the other side is racist, just anecdotes.

Not all people who voted leave are racist, but all racists voted leave.

Source?

> if that's their source then hell-mend them. Social media is an echo chamber. It's not designed for two-sided debates.

I think you are writing off a huge portion of people because their manipulation is convenient and happens to fit your opinion. The effects of manipulation through social media are a real and significant societal problem that undermine any type of democratic process. It is particularly vulnerable when the decision is poorly defined in almost every way imaginable beyond the entirely abstract concept of "not part of the EU".

This is nothing to do with my opinion... Social media is an echo chamber. Plain and simple. Opposing views are unwelcome!

Here's a small test for you: go into an anti-vax group on FB and present a reasoned argument as to why vaccines are safe.

You will be annihilated!

If people believe their social media was manipulated they either need to stop using it or at least stop believing it.

If they can't do that then how do you hope to have a reasoned debate about the pro's and con's of Brexit?

I don't disagree that the Brexit thing was a joke from start to finish but we are talking about politicians here. Everything is a game to them and in my opinion as a group they are inherently untrustworthy.

I honestly do not believe you will ever hear the truth from either side. Or if you do, it will be drowned out by the noise.

FWIW I think social media is societal cancer to put it mildly.

The problem was tht the populace was just asked:

IN or OUT?

None of the unsescapable consequences were mentioned, not was the form of an exit discussed.

social media is a real problem though. witness how Brazil's elections went: basically WhatsApp was used to spread really nasty stuff about the opponents, and since it's a country whose consumption of social media >> any other media, that had a real effect.

i suspect we'll see this used in other elections ASAP.

https://theconversation.com/whatsapp-skewed-brazilian-electi...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com