But this is for people who don’t (it’s not going to happen, anyway).
Personally, I voted remain because I want freedom of movement (in both directions).
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Not here in Oxford. There are a lot of people who were upset by the vote here. Oxford is a very pro-EU city, parts of it had over 90% of people vote remain ( I’d guess that Blackbird Leys was the only area that was close to voting leave). When I was talking to some of the people who were observing the referendum they said that in North Oxford they had to double check to make sure that someone hadn’t lost a stack of leave votes somewhere.
The Libertarian left in the UK voted remain on the grounds that the EU have been very good for human rights. There were even anarchists saying you should vote remain because of this! The Liberal Democrats have always been a pro-EU party as well (Thanks Nick Clegg, for destroying all of Charles Kennedy’s hard work at making them a strong third party 
).
I am in favour of EU reform but at no point did I consider an leave vote to be anything other than a very stupid idea. I’d rather have Oxford leave the UK than leave the EU.
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But we - 48% of the (voting) population DON’T want out. That’s the point.
Personally, I voted ‘Remain’ because I do buy into the core European project of a fully federal Europe. The UK means very, very little to me.
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No, absolutely fuck that. What about the 47.5% of voters in wales who voted for remain? I don’t want to go with little englanders and nationalism but that appears to be the direction we’re fucking going.
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I’ve been saying nationality should be fractal for decades but I can’t prove it :(. But fractal citizenship, which is what you appear to be suggesting, seems more feasible.
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Discussions like this make me wish that @William_Holz was still around here regularly (although he did show up briefly recently).
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When enough Britons have requested EU citizenship, the EU can invade, and have their conquest ratified by plebiscite.
where have I heard that before?
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I still get E-mails when you guys bring me up. 
You guys aren’t forgotten, I’ve just been more focused on implementing than discussing. I’ve always been more of a ‘show rather than tell’ kinda guy, and nifty things have been afoot.
And while I’m here…
So very agreed. And additionally there should be something that you choose to join and can leave freely that requires a fairly minimal but specific level of commitment if one’s talking about forming a ‘civilized’ group of any sort. Otherwise you just end up with races to the bottom.
The idea of several hundred million people being on the same page based on where they fell in the birth-circumstance lottery is pretty naive, right?
Plus…you know, evidence and reality and stuff. Lots of yuk.
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What a fantastically simplistic and aggressive stance to take.
Given that every voting region in Scotland voted remain, ‘experiencing the consequences’ of our actions is exactly why we need to have these discussions.
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Isn’t it fair enough that the rest of Europe, which has put in the hard work to make federalism work, both on the European scale and on the local scale (Belgium being the disastrous exception) has had enough of UK politics being played out on their backs.
It’s time that England sorts out its colonial past / legacy. And a big part of that is sorting out how this Island governs itself given that four nations officially call it their home.
One of the most appalling aspects of the whole Brexit shenanigans has been the utter refusal of English politicians to face the Scottish and Irish Questions, pretending it was all so simple. Behaving like some old conquering power–which I guess the BJs and JRMs of this world like to consider themselves. The simplifying is a UK sport, the EU especially Donald Tusk has been rather good on the complexity and realism front.
I for one am fed up with Europe being held hostage to English Imperial Political Pretences. There is no functioning federal governance in this country and the sooner that is sorted out the better for both the UK and Europe. Maybe, then, at last, UK politicians (meaning English Imperialists: “we are the best in the world x” we don’t need Europe" BS**ters) will actually address the structural issues facing this country instead of fighting proxy wars with Europe.
You are experiencing the consequences of English Imperialism and as far as I can see atm Europe is your friend.
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What on earth…?
Are you really replying to me?
ETA: Just to be clear, ‘our actions’ would be having voted remain.
Our expectation to experience the consequences of having voted remain would entail some kind of consideration of our vote in the process going forward. Hence, our expectation of there being some kind of discussion of that particular complexity. Given which, it would be simplistic and aggressive to adopt the stance that we should just take ‘our’ medicine because England and Wales voted leave. (Y’know, for the benefit of all those harried Europeans, tired of all that dang English imperialism, poor sods.)
“Well, you’re in the UK and England should have sorted out how it deals with you before now,” seems also to be simplistic and (slightly less) aggressive.
Although I may be misinterpreting your stance as you do seem to contradict yourself.
I await clarification.
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Glad to see you’re still on the case. I hope it’s going well.
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Yes. You are criticising a European’s “simplistic and aggressive stance”. And I am suggesting that the problem lies within the British Isles and it is understandable that the rest of Europe is fed up with the unresolved Scottish / Irish question being played out on the European stage. E.g. within the German Constitution (thanks to the Allies) there are clear provisions to ensure that small states (with tiny populations) have strong representation on the federal level, otherwise all of German politics would be run by Bavaria and Baden-Wüttenberg.
Not addressing how the votes of the devolved nations will be weighted in the referendum (given that England is far more populous and thus will always outvote the other nations) was political irresponsible. Consequently, the current mess totally predictable.
As it looks at the moment it is not unlikely that the Irish question will end up in the European Court. I.e. rather than tackling internal issues Westminster will helpfully be able to point to the mean old Europeans for dictating to them. There was of course the option to resolve the issue pre referendum, but so much more convenient this way.
It needs to be addressed within UK and starting to actually acknowledge there is an issue when it comes to how the various nations within the UK relate to each other would be helpful. The responsibility for this lies with the English. All the Scots can do is exert political pressure and they are doing pretty well on this.
But feel free to ignore …
Fair enough. Don’t mean we can’t miss your contributions. 
Keep on makin’ the dream real!
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Really? We should start to acknowledge it should we?
*bites tongue
*bites tongue in half
Dude.
[Give me a minute to calm down and I’ll dissect your opinion]
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Did I miss something?
Could you send links to articles / policies / party political statements on impact of Brexit on Good Friday agreement pre-referendum or anything that relates to how Scottish devolution will be taken into consideration in Brexit negotiations.
Yep. I would have thought, that if you are running a referendum and there is a strong chance that one bit of your devolved country votes differently from rest, than you would publicly discuss how you would deal with such an outcome. Possibly legislate for it. I surely didn’t here much of that discussion here in England.
The current situation: i.e. Scots voting differently than English was highly predictable and there was no strategy to deal with such an outcome. There still isn’t.
But yep, aggressive, simplistic Europeans wanting British to suffer.
In other news: Hope your tongue heals swiftly.
(Maybe try Diamond Age then.)
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Look, I can see you’re making an appeal to emotion here and that’s fine for the arena of propaganda that has largely dominated and driven the public discussion of these issues in the UK. However, that kind of appeal is a priori simplistic.
You are also code semantically switching. ‘Europe is fed up’, Law-makers should explore options you find amenable. The people of the UK should face the consequences because they haven’t yet found an answer to the question you have conveniently framed to be both answered (if only we could figure it out!) and urgent (because of all the fed-up-ness).
Not dealing with the weighting. This is pretty much all we have been doing in Scotland, politically, for the last 25 years. It’s a difficult and tiring process, constantly being manipulated through judicious application of propaganda, threats and bare-faced lies.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have just figured all of this out and not inconvenienced everybody with the difficult and tiring situation we find ourselves? Sure. Why not? Can I get fries with my flying pig and perfect world please?
The situation is vastly complex, changes on a dime and is occurring against the background of a virulent form of fascism-lite which you may have also noticed in those fed-up European nations on the mainland.
I can tell you that this statement is very insulting. Relegating the role Scots have to play in the creation of their future to whispering suggestions on the sidelines as England finally decides what’s best for us is such a problematic and puerile fabrication of wish-fulfilling nonsense that I can only imagine that you have no idea just how insulting you are being.
Insulting. Simplistic. And for your suggestion that because we haven’t found a solution, we should take the chance of hurting our country by going into the back room for several decades and sorting it out proper for the benefit of all the entities so tired by the prospect of working towards a functional Europe which cares a single fuck about what its citizens want, yes; Aggressive.
That would work, too. I wouldn’t like to be a Vicky, though.
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All is excellent!
On it!
Things are easing up a bit because of the Holidays, I’ll probably take a break and rejoin the fun.
I’ve just had all my bandwidth used up between the new job and becoming the face guy for a small startup (I’m chief of Robot Operations! And we’ve got a booth at PAX East!)
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