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Comment by nbevans | Hacker News Reader

It isn't "spiritually" true. It is factually true to the extent that the High Court ruled 350m was approximately the correct gross figure. Indeed some say that figure is conservative because it was based on projections from an official figure dated from 2014 that put the gross at closer to 450m. I'm guessing 2014 was high because of financial bailouts still being paid into the EU coffers.

From the ruling statement:

“The alleged offence set out in the Application for Summons is that the Claimant “repeatedly made and endorsed false and misleading statements concerning the cost of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union”. It appears that if the Claimant had said/endorsed a figure of £350m per week gross, or £250m per week net, there would have been no complaint.”

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019ewhc... (search in doc for "350" to find the juicy bits)

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I could say that as a consumer I used my skill and cunning to buy something for 20% discount compared to everyone else, if I quote the price before VAT, but the fact is that I would have paid the same price as everyone else once VAT was applied. The whole idea of saying "we send £350m to the EU" was based on the same mental gymnastics.

Isn't it strange that any and all seemingly pro-Brexit posts here are being downvoted.

What you posted is factually correct. From observation, HN has turned into just another Slashdot, unfortunately. I came here to escape from Slashdot's obvious liberal-biased bubble, but the infestation has happened here too. No doubt this post will be downvoted into oblivion as well, including the other replie(s) I've made on this topic. :(

What is pro-Brexit about my post though? :~)

I've had some reasonable conversations on the topic here but I do feel it in downvotes (which I'm not interested in anyway)

No - it isn’t strange. This is Hacker News. We are here to talk about the technical aspects of the alleged search manipulation, not your political beliefs. It’s well known that political opinion isn’t on the table for discussion here. If you want that kind of discourse, check out the politics subreddit, where you will find oodles of children spouting their uninformed political opinions.

It's not nearly that simple.

There have been plenty of non-flagged stories on both UK and US politics where they deviate from the regular, with discussions that haven't descended into flame war and a sea of greyed posts. Not specifically relating to tech, but are exceptional in some way. e.g. Brexit and the various constitutional shenanigans, some surprise USSC or agency ruling etc.

Reasonable discourse has resulted with good points on both sides - along with a minority of both sides playing it like reddit - black/white voting, and absurd easily disproved comments.

The "day-to-day" and regular politics can stay in the reddit cesspit.

As you go down the age scale, and up the education scale, you get higher support for Remain. Freedom of movement is probably much more important to entrepreneurs too -- if you support Brexit you're probably in a small minority on HN. Would make an interesting poll.

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