I’m unconvinced that you are actually baffled, but they almost certainly are.
Unrelated, but to the point:
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Aside from the NHS, there’s little if any new money available for non-Brexit-related issues, and top civil servants are being assigned to work on Brexit either in their own departments or in the unit created especially for exiting the EU.
Why can’t they just use the the 350 million pounds per week they’re no longer “sending” to the EU?
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Or Nigel Farage admitting the next day that many of the pro-Brexit arguments were lies. But hey, they duped the voters and got what they wanted, so at least that’s something.
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Hehe… If I were in the UK parliament I would come up for a new proposal for what to do with that “money” every day.
Now children listen, children learn!
Or else you’ll let your nation burn,
Whe’r Brexit or MAGA or Weimar Reich,
Pol Pot or Lenin or T’resa May alike.
No tru’r advice I offer for free!
As Britain goes sinking back into the sea;
As Trumpy did our democracy smote:
Never let your rednecks vote.
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Sadly, I think you overestimate the extent to which
a) the lies have been exposed and
b) how much/how many people were influenced by those lies,
and most importantly I think you underestimate how many people who voted leave don’t care about those pesky details.
Admittedly my main exposure to pro-Brexit viewpoints is on the allotment and chatting with the neighbours so take that for what it’s worth. Some of these people are vile xenophobic frothpots, some are lovely if misguided.
I can safely say that none of them think the government will get a decent deal but they don’t care.
They voted to leave for all sorts of reasons - mostly boiling down to Daily Mail talking points about immigration, immigration, lightbulbs and vacuum cleaners (yes, seriously), immigration and a vague general jingoistic feeling of unease that Britain is somehow not being given enough respect by other EU leaders but mostly it’s the lightbulbs and immigration.
As far as economic concerns go, most of them are safely retired. As long as they can still hop in the caravan and go to Spain or Croatia or over to Portugal to play golf, they don’t care about travel.
More importantly even though most of them are old enough to be retired, none of them really have any idea how much of their daily life is only possible because of the EU. They genuinely don’t think things will be as bad as predicted.
I think to be fair this also applies to the politicians which is why you have/had all these people saying how we could leave the EU but still have all the benefits.
They simply can’t conceive of a political/economic set-up where those benefits don’t apply. They can easily conceive of how wonderful it would be if the ‘bad’ bits weren’t there, so…
I would say this shows quite nicely that the electorate in general is still firmly for Brexit. Mainly on the basis that as @Ratel says they’ve been told for years that everything bad is the EU’s fault, especially all the foreigners coming here.
The various governments have all encouraged immigration for sound economic reasons and tried to assuage the electorate’s xenophobia by saying that they’d love to limit migration but oh dear, the EU won’t let us.
It’s hardly surprising that when given the chance a large portion of the electorate decided to take them at their word.
So long as the politicians keep promising massive reductions in immigration, most Brexiters will be perfectly happy in the short term.
And short term is all any one in the Tory party is thinking.
Longer term, they know that they can happily continue blaming the EU for everything that goes badly.
This kind of thing is exactly the kind of message they want to sell:
It may be true but whether it is or not, it is a lovely thing for UK politicians to cling to.
Gives something to hang appeals to ‘Blitz-spirit’ on, pro patria, “Keep Calm and Carry On”, etc.
Personally I don’t think EU leaders and especially the EU civil servants care enough about the UK to want to ‘punish’ us any more than the inevitable consequences of leaving will already do.
It’s obvious (as it should have been from the outset) that any arrangement we make with the EU has to provide fewer benefits than membership.
The current spectacle of our desperate scrambling to hurl our cake out of the window while begging them for another slice (only larger and with more cream and cherries!) is probably enough deterrent.
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Speaking of which, I recently finished Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark. It looks into the background of European politics and the personalities in charge of the various countries, and how the changing geopolitics and escalating crises led the European leaders to the point where they “sleepwalked” right into the Great War. Worth checking out!
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That really can’t possibly be the thing with the highest V.A.T., tea? Packaged quicklime then? Genuine Vauxhall parts?
Ex-pats can’t unite against the bleeding statue of Cromwell’s disdain, pour vinegar on May to remove her barbs and prevent further paralysation, then install the glowiest goth of Goa they can find to reforge the nation? Surely the oldiest olds would vote^Wwobble for that in rank gouts. Or have an Italian in to re-sort MPs rallied for. (No, the gavel always goes first, then you squeeze the chamber drum. Then matters. You forgot. All right?) Does Leeds have to declare a New Empress first? Haven’t seen the ol’ Procedural Hat Trick in a while…
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Revolution means you don’t have to let anyone vote, unless they happen to be in agreement with you.
I think the Founding FathersTM might take issue with this statement.
Right, women and blacks were permitted to vote right from the start. I’m sure all of them agreed that poor and uneducated men should be permitted to vote as well.
You’ll find only a few of the Founding Fathers had what we’d today consider egalitarian views (example: Thomas Paine).
But that’s my point - neither of the two main parties were firmly for Brexit. Or firmly against it. The pro-Brexit vote should have been split Con/Lab, and all of the anti-Brexit vote should have gone LibDem.
Sadly, I think it just shows that they’d rather vote for the personality of the party leader, rather than pay attention to any of the policies. The Lib Dems didn’t manage to find a leader with a personality that time round.
(There’s also the problem that their time in coalition with the Conservatives destroyed their credibility, of course…)
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