
Reality Check: Have Leave campaigners changed their minds? - ifdefdebug
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36641390
======
lordnacho
I can say the vitriol after the result has been crazy. My FB has dozens and
dozens of posts from Remoaners decrying the idiots, racists, and old people
who dared to vote against their righteous interest. At least there's a bit of
humour now that England have been booted out of the European Championship.

And it's all come out AFTER the result. Before the result, I suppose people
thought it would go to Remain, but also there was very little activity. At
least in my feed.

I'm quite shocked by how little sympathy my friends have for the other side.
There's a real split between people in the UK. People are saying they're
"ashamed" of their country, they don't get why vast swathes of ordinary people
away from London would want to leave Europe.

For the record, most of my friends are university educated and voted Remain.
The most powerful feature in classifying between the two camps seems to be
university education (seems 100% of my non uni educated friends went for
leave), the second conservatism (uni educated conservative voters more likely
to be leavers).

I'm somewhat indifferent on the issue; I reckon leaving will send a signal
about reforming the EU, but also the UK needs to trade with Europe, so they
cannot ever really leave. Any deal done will end up looking like Switzerland,
which says it's not in the EU, but for practical stuff is. Do I think that's
worth the hassle of actually leaving? Pretty marginal.

~~~
IshKebab
> And it's all come out AFTER the result.

The is actually a very good point. People are acting like it was all
incredibly obvious that voting Leave was a terrible thing to do. But it _wasn
't_ obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter.

A lot of the blame for that has to go to the media who printed anything the
Leave campaign said even if it wasn't true (the £350m thing especially).

I don't think it's fair to totally blame the Leave voters for their bad
decision. Besides it isn't totally clear now that it is _that_ bad of a
decision. The pound only dropped 6% (compared to 30% in 2008). And that's due
to uncertainty more than anything else. It could easily go up again. In fact
you can barely see the change on this graph:

[http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=10Y](http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=10Y)

> they don't get why vast swathes of ordinary people away from London would
> want to leave Europe.

To me it seems like most Leavers voted Leave because of some dissatisfaction
with their life (too poor), and the Leave campaign successfully convinced them
that it was because of Europe and immigrants. Or they just voted the way the
government didn't want them to as a protest.

~~~
michaelt

      But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to
      the average voter.
    

I've heard it suggested [1] that the leave vote is indicative of a lack of
trust in our political institutions. I think that's an interesting point of
view, because it explains a lot about the recriminations about the result.

If you think our institutions are basically sound, and you hear dire warnings
about brexit from government economists, national and foreign politicians,
journalists, think tanks, business leaders, academics and industry bodies
you'll naturally think "these well-credentialed experts all agree, only an
idiot would ignore all these warnings"

If you think our institutions are unsound, and you hear dire warnings from the
bodies that failed to predict or prevent the 2008 financial crisis and that
told us Iraq had WMDs they could launch within 45 minutes, you'll naturally
think "these bodies are just mouthpieces for the PM, only an idiot would
believe all these warnings"

In other words, it _was_ obvious to _remain_ voters that we should remain - it
just wasn't obvious to _leave_ voters because they approach the question with
different world views.

[1] [https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-
lates...](https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-latest-proof-
of-the-insularity-and-failure-of-western-establishment-institutions/)

------
danmaz74
> Boris Johnson said that British people would continue to be able to live,
> work and study in the EU, while at the same time the UK would be able to
> introduce a points-based system to control migration.

I can hardly understand how can so many people believe such an obvious liar.

~~~
tomp
Who would you believe then? Cameron who said that WW3 would start and Russia
would invade Europe?!

~~~
Brakenshire
Cameron did not say that. He said "Can we be so sure peace and stability on
our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth
taking?" which is absolutely valid. It is forty years since there was a
fascist government in Spain, 30 years since half of Europe was run by
authoritarian communist regimes, 20 years since there was genocide in Kosovo,
and a war in Ukraine is still ongoing. The EU has been absolutely vital in
stabilizing the continent over that timescale. Croatia and Serbia were
involved in a civil war where 20,000 people died within our lifetimes, and
Serbia will probably join Croatia as a member of the EU within the next
decade, with open borders between he countries and guaranteed rights for
minority groups. Cameron's comments were absolutely reasonable.

------
airesQ
Leave says that the EU in undemocratic. But the EU is a democracy. It is
certainly much more democratic than the British first-past-the-post and the
house of Lords. Saying that the EU in undemocratic is just a meme.

Then there is the question about the UK contributions. The UK does get its
money worth, by the profit made trading in one of the biggest markets in the
world (and with the countries that have trade deals with that market). By the
investment that flows to UK (the FDI). By being part of continent that is much
more prosperous then it would be otherwise.

The UK needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK.

Leave says that the UK has too many migrants, but it has fewer migrants than
Ireland, Austria, Norway, Switzerland. Roughly the same number as France and
Germany.

The Leave camp doesn't have a plan and is awfully misinformed as to how the
world works. It is a populist movement and that is all there is to it.

Though to be fair, I would like to see a bit of compromise from the EU side of
table. They are simply too intransigent.

In theory everyone in Spain can move to Malta. Of course this would never
happen in practice. But if the people in Malta are worried. The EU should
consider providing them the legal means to deal with that hypothetical
scenario. Instead of saying, its free movement, and that's it.

~~~
throwaway987611
> The UK needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK.

I beg to differ.

The Eurocrats in Brussels who are unelected. Wanted Britian out immediately
after the result.

Merkel, on the other hand. Had the Car manufacturers on the phone screaming at
her about the result. For them, the UK is 25% of their export market. I am
sure other German manufacturers are not too happy with the result either.

The UK is simply in a better position than the EU. Now more than ever.

Think about all those directives the EU placed on the UK. Now they can be all
changed.

Think about agriculture, fishing, energy, etc. Everything that HAD to be
negotiated as an EU entity. That only things could have been pushed through
the EU parliment is if all EU states agreed. That no other country had been
penalised!

Now, British interests come first. If the UK wants to do something and France
or another country doesn't like it. Now it's tough luck.

Now many times has France Veto'd something that Britian wanted before, because
her interests were marginalised or a sector under threat?

This is what people simply just don't understand.

Once all the smoke clears. Britian has a real chance to be more competitive
than France or Germany and that scares the hell out of them!

~~~
rimantas

      > Once all the smoke clears. Britian has a real chance to be
      > more competitive than France or Germany and that scares the
      > hell out of them!
    

To be competetive UK will need favourable trade terms. And that will cost
dearly with a side benefit that UK won't have any say in EU matters.

~~~
samdoidge
The UK has a trade deficit with the EU. They will be hurting themselves, in a
federation which contains some struggling economies as it is.

------
ikeboy
I'm not too impressed by the logic of the first part about immigration.

>During the campaign, some Leave campaigners sent a clear message that the
referendum was about controlling immigration. Some are now being more nuanced,
saying the UK's decision to leave the EU would not guarantee a significant
decrease in immigration levels.

Hm. So is it the same people and comparable claims? Let's see ...

>Nigel Farage said: "Mass immigration is still hopelessly out of control and
set to get worse if we remain inside the EU."

>Similarly, leading pro-Leave campaigner and Tory leader front runner Boris
Johnson said that the only solution to the scale of immigration which the UK
was facing, was to leave the EU.

>But in an article published in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, Mr Johnson
denied a victory for leaving the EU could be linked to immigration.

Um what? This is not at all inconsistent with the above statement. You can
think that X is a good reason to leave the EU without thinking that most
people who voted to leave did so because of X.

>He wrote: "It is said that those who voted Leave were mainly driven by
anxieties about immigration. I do not believe that is so."

This is completely consistent with the previous statement.

They don't have any quote from Farage in that section, only from "MEP Daniel
Hannan" who wasn't mentioned previously.

This reads as intentional misleading on the part of the BBC.

The rest of the article isn't much better. The bar for demonstrating hypocrisy
or retraction at least requires the same people to make the claims and that
the two claims aren't consistent. The BBC has not met it.

------
ZenoArrow
I'm starting to think that the book Manufacturing Consent should be part of
our school curriculum. I'd suggest seeing through media spin is a very useful
life skill.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent)

~~~
switch007
The corrupt have already got their hands on education - 40% of schools are
acadamies. I don't see Noam Chomsky being included in the curriculum, ever!

~~~
elthran
Are you really trying to say that all academies are corrupt? I fail to see how
not being controlled by a LEA means that you are straight away in the hands of
corrupt big business/the man/the illuminati/whoever you think these corrupt
people are.

------
jkot
> _some of those who campaigned for Leave are now distancing themselves from
> this claim. Some have gone as far as admitting that it had been a mistake._

So some people said something, and some other said something else, and some
other changed their mind. I would really expect better journalism from BBC.
Amateur bloggers are doing better job.

If BBC did their job in the first place, Brexit would never win. It would be
very simple to debung £350m figure and explain how EU works. Instead they
pushed their own political agenda.

------
return0
Post-brexit, all the talk on both sides is about the immigration issues, the
financial contribution and the future of the UK. No talk about the cultural
identity of the UK or a debate about whether it is a european culture. Both
brexiters and bremainers see the EU as an economic agreement only. The UK
should go its own way. the anglosphere is a better fit for them. The support
for bremain ranges from reluctant, to lukewarm, dispassionate and wary. We
should seek people who actually believe in EU's future. I think Brexit was
inevitable, although it came prematurely.

All the current brexit leaders, however, are delusional. UK needs to find
better leadership to get through this.

------
abpavel
That mandate of the EU is, and always was, to prevent WW3. That is its raison
d'être, and all decisions branch out from not wanting to repeat past mistakes,
and end up like Serbia/Croatia in 1996. You can point out Swiss all you want,
but Switzerland is as special is the City of London (not London city).

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "That mandate of the EU is, and always was, to prevent WW3."

Sort of. Many see that start of the EU was the ECSC (European Coal and Steel
Community). Robert Schuman proposed it in 1950 to "make war not only
unthinkable but materially impossible".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community)

However, the ideas behind the EU started before the ECSC. Jean Monnet is
regarded by many to be the 'father' of the EU. Here's a quote from a speech he
gave in 1943...

[https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet](https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet)

"There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the
basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and
economic protection…. The countries of Europe are not strong enough
individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for
their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a
European entity that would make them into a common economic unit."

Furthermore, there have been other groups that have promoted peace in the
region, namely NATO and OSCE. The agreement that led to NATO was signed in
1949, and OSCE was started in 1975, well ahead of the formation of the
political union of the EU (the ECSC and EEC were mostly trade deals).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_Co-
operation_in_Europe)

It's also worth noting that there was a failed attempt to build a pan-European
military in 1952, and that Jean-Claude Junckher has indicated the EU may want
its own army in the future:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Defence_Community](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Defence_Community)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/jean-claude-
ju...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/jean-claude-juncker-
calls-for-eu-army-european-commission-miltary)

~~~
kristofferR
Winston Churchill also voiced support for an "United States of Europe" in
1946, right after WW2: [https://archive.is/kOGDK](https://archive.is/kOGDK)

------
hnbro
one-sided reporting as usual.

------
Brakenshire
People are critical of the flagrant dishonesty of the Leave campaign, the way
that all concerns were dismissed with the 'Project Fear' or 'the British
public has had enough of experts' thought terminating cliches, and now the
refusal to admit that the public have been lied to, and the new tendency to
blame Remain voters and the EU for 'talking down the economy', or for
requiring now what everyone knew would be the case beforehand in our
trading/diplomatic/legal relationship post Brexit. And also the naked self-
absorption of Leave campaigners like Boris Johnson, who made a series of
completely unworkable promises and now doesn't even bother to turn up to
parliament to discuss them.

Britain paid £270m a week, and received back £100m. Johnson invented a £350m
figure, the entirety of which he promised to the health service, and then
promised the £100m spending commitments would be met. So his new spending
requirements are £450m a week, and the money saved £270m. In other words, he
has pretended to magic £180m a week out of thin air.

He has also effectively promised major restrictions of immigration alongside
access to the single market, which everyone knew was impossible, and promised
there won't be a recession, which is unlikely. He gambled the country's
stability for his personal advancement, and his duplicity and incompetence
will probably lead to a far right party becoming a major force in British
politics.

It is not surprising that people are angry.

~~~
crdoconnor
>People are critical of the flagrant dishonesty of the Leave campaign

It's not like the remain campaign was much more honest, and the level of
scaremongering was absurd.

Beyond the pale is the number of complaints that the sky has, in fact, fallen
in because the FTSE has plunged and the pound has dropped.

As if people from Sunderland or rural Wales were concerned about the cost of
holidaying the Riviera or taking a hit on their non-existent stock portfolios.

>He has also effectively promised major restrictions of immigration alongside
access to the single market, which everyone knew was impossible

Case in point. We'll continue to trade with Europe even without unrestricted
immigration - it just won't be tarriff free trade. Nonetheless, the tarriff
level will be throttled by WTO rules anyhow. Average tarriffs with the US is I
think something like 2%. Not a sky falling figure that.

~~~
nikcub
> As if people from Sunderland or rural Wales were concerned about the cost of
> holidaying the Riviera or taking a hit on their non-existent stock
> portfolios.

Economic downturns and recessions disproportionately affect the poor[0] and
disadvantaged[1].

[0] [http://www.russellsage.org/research/special-
initiatives/grea...](http://www.russellsage.org/research/special-
initiatives/great-recession/great-recession-rfp)

[1]
[https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/disc...](https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/discrimlend_final.pdf)

~~~
crdoconnor
A) The parts of England that voted to exit were _already in_ recession and
nobody noticed.

B) Actually they'll stand to do better because:

* There will be less competition for jobs, meaning a rise in wages.

* Westminster is more likely to direct funding their way in order to avoid another repeat of Thursday.

* The low pound will be good for export industries.

~~~
wolfwyrd
They'll still get hit hardest. Weak pound means more expensive imports. UK
imports ~40% of it's food [1]. That food will now cost more to import raising
prices at the supermarkets. Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income
on essentials like food.

The weak pound means importing oil (priced in USD) will be more expensive.
This will affect Petrol prices (we're already seeing a 2-3p rise at the
pumps). Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income on essentials like
fuel.

There are a number of knock-on effects from the weak pound. Yes it's good for
exports but overall it's going to be a rough couple of years for the already
disadvantaged.

Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the
EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement. No
treaty has ever been agreed with any country without this caveat (that covers
the Swiss, Norway etc). It's possible that the UK may be an exception but it's
unlikely.

[1]
[http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/issue/uk.html](http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/issue/uk.html)

~~~
crdoconnor
>They'll still get hit hardest. Weak pound means more expensive imports. UK
imports ~40% of it's food

I can think of one rule which will get revoked in that case:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-aside](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-
aside)

Much like Russia (which suffered a much worse currency slump and also imports
a lot of food), the UK will likely roll with it and engage in import
substitution.

>Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the
EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement.

That's clearly the deal the remainers wanted to take but if I recall correctly
they lost.

At the low end I'm pretty sure the wage rises coming from fewer Poles, etc.
will at least match - and possibly outstrip inflation caused by newly
instituted 2-4% tariffs.

~~~
drcongo
Have you read the linked article? The leave campaigners are now furiously
back-pedalling on their claims about reduced immigration. I'm intrigued as to
why you think there'll be "fewer Poles etc.".

Where are these extra jobs going to come from with a rock bottom pound and
markets in freefall? Do you believe this was a vote about repatriation or
something?

~~~
crdoconnor
I didn't read it that way. Boris trying to characterize the campaign as being
pro-control rather than anti-immigration seems to be an attempt to extend an
olive branch to the remainers rather than an attempt to do a 180 on
immigration.

He is about to enter a leadership contest and is hoping for votes from tory
members of the remain campaign.

He might do a 180 on immigration but I wouldn't say this is evidence of it,
and he likely knows he'll pay a heavy price come next elections if he does
(assuming he wins leadership).

The other guy who actually is backpedaling is just an MEP whom I'm pretty sure
nobody gives a fuck about.

~~~
deadfish
Boris was only in it to become PM. In the metro yesterday Boris was quoted as
to saying "the 'only change' the public would see post-brexit was greater
control of uk laws".

Even farage has his doubts -
[https://youtu.be/WrAHJ9fDHUU?t=384](https://youtu.be/WrAHJ9fDHUU?t=384)

