Things that personally annoy me about Brexit.

No. 145: the lack of people's willingness to respect or listen to the other side

I'm in a couple of WhatsApp groups where people talk politics. One of them is made up of friends I knew in London and its ultra hard remain. The other one is full of people who are ultra pro hard Brexit. On the remain group I'm seen as a 'Brexit apologist' and on the Brexit group I'm seen as a 'Remoaner'. I'm the same person in each group but each of them seem to occupy different universes and different realities.

I am a leftist and a remain voter but I'm a relative moderate on the Brexit issue. The Brexit issue somewhat cuts across the political spectrum anyway and its not always a strict left/right divide. For example, there are some socialists who want a hard Brexit and the most strident remain supporters are usually centrist liberals.

My position is that I would like Brexit cancelled but I respect the referendum result so I'm prepared to accept a soft Brexit. Of politically engaged people in my country, that is now a besieged minority view which gets attacked from both sides.

My problem with many hard remainers is that they refuse to accept the legitimacy of a referendum result in which our side lost. They think that there is a massive shift in public opinion to their side instead of a tiny one and that all Brexit supporters are stupid. They don't investigate the reasons why Brexit happened and they see it as a freak occurance against the natural order of things. Though leftists such as myself have long been criticised by those in the centre for such things as living in echoe chambers and not having a viable strategy, they have have ideas which could only be held by those who never engage outside their middle class London circle. In addition (and this is a particular issue of mine) they won't vote for a Labour government because they think Jeremy Corbyn is not pro remain enough. The probable result of this puritan centrism will be Boris Johnson as Prime Minister for five years and a hard Brexit.

Where hard remainers have no argument on the democratic mandate, hard leavers have no arguments on economics or logistics. They demand that what they voted for is carried out but they leave the details for how to do that to other people. Attempts to debate details with them are dismissed as 'project fear' - I.e. Political bias against their position which requires no other thought or consideration. They think the referendum result of 2015 gives them a mandate for a hard no deal Brexit when no such thing was actually debated then. If anyone won't let them have their cake and eat it then they are the enemy of the people.

I appreciate that I'm talking about the extreme forms of each position here and that plenty of people in each camp are not like this. I would one day like to merge these two WhatsApp groups so each could at least get an education as to what people in other parts of the country actually think.

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Kwek00 · 41-45, M

[quote][...]hard leavers have no arguments on economics or logistics. They demand that what they voted for is carried out but they leave the details for how to do that to other people. Attempts to debate details with them are dismissed as 'project fear' - I.e. Political bias against their position which requires no other thought or consideration. They think the referendum result of 2015 gives them a mandate for a hard no deal Brexit when no such thing was actually debated then. If anyone won't let them have their cake and eat it then they are the enemy of the people.[/quote]

The Ballot that people voted on looked like this:

It's pretty unnuanced. It's binairy choice: "out" or "in". "Out" won the vote, so people that identify with this "out"-vote just want it pushed through.

This entire conversation about "how", should have been held before the vote. And if it was important that "hard" or "soft" needed to be considered, it should either be on the ballot or discussed before the vote.

How I perceive it, and my opinion hasn't changed, is that this entire thing was unnuanced, uncoordinated, pretty much full of emotions and based on loads of false information. Now that the dust settled and all the damadge has been done, the nuance suddenly starts creeping in because it serves certain narratives. But all of this had to be done before the vote.

The crux of what was debated was: "out" or "in". "Out" won. Nuanced or unnuanced... as long as they don't hurt people in their constitutional rights, this referendum thing (which I believe is a historical fuck up) needs to be accepted for what it is. It's either that, or revolt. Not sure if that is going to be better... but that's pretty much what living in a society means if you let people vote on stuff.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@Kwek00 Yes, the leave side should have been made to present concrete plans before the vote. They didn't so people voted on a fantasy Brexit. Unfortunatelu it's a fantasy that people still believe. Where I do disagree with you is when you say nuance will creep back in. It definantely hasn't and quite the opposite.

Kwek00 · 41-45, M

@Burnley123 "In" , "Out" (I think we can agree) is super unnuanced and pretty much to the point. The moment you start talking about how you are going to leave (either with our without a deal) has a lot more nuance then "in" and "out". Suddenly how the UK is going to leave becomes an issue, while during the campaign I have seen verry little people informing the voters about: "have you thought about what will happen if we can't achieve a deal". And the Northern-Ireland conversation and how the UK will solve that mess just came out of the blue, because Northern-Ireland just doesnt seem that important unless it gets important.

I've talked to someone a while back who blocked me, who actually already aborted Norther-Ireland to Ireland. For that person "Northern Ireland" wasn't that important because he confined the entire Brexit conversation just to "Britain" (which made me fuck up in a discussion in semantics). It's quite convenient to not talk about Northern-Ireland at all on the internet, even tough it was a pretty big issue in the political conversation during negotations.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@Kwek00 But it's as I said, the leave side in particular don't do nuance. I mean what they say when a lot of their support is weak on detail. They have some good slogans but few can talk about how they will realistically do it. The same goes for the politicians too.

Kwek00 · 41-45, M

@Burnley123 I'm not sure about this? But how much did the remain side actually went into depth on things like: "what will we do with Northern-Ireland?" or "What kind of deal would be reasonable if we loose the vote?". Weren't they just really convinced after the scenes that they wouldn't loose. Because if they lost, they wouldn't just dissapear...

If you are tactician, you should at least have a plan B somewhere.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@Kwek00 strangely, Northern Ireland was barely discussed during the referendum. Weird I know but there you go.

The remain side ran a weak campaign because of complacency and lazyness. They made some attempts to call out BS on the leave side but people didn't listen.

Most people are not political wonks like you and I. They vote out of contradictory objectives, emotion and personal. Connection. One person said that the referendum was a victory of simple lies over complex truth.

Kwek00 · 41-45, M

@Burnley123
[quote]They vote out of contradictory objectives, emotion and personal. Connection. One person said that the referendum was a victory of simple lies over complex truth.[/quote]

I'm aware of this... that's why referenda on really important issues, DO NOT WORK... EVER. Unless everyone gets 3 months off from work, and hit the study books to understand what they are actually voting for. That's also why enlightenment thinkers were horrified by direct democracy because they feared demagogery, simple truths and emotional outcomes.

If you have a new referendum, you should decide if Cameron gets a governement pension and if he's still welcome on the Island. Like make him go the Falklands or something.

We have a Belgian prime minister who did a similair fucked up move a while back which gave us a 540 days impass of governement formation. He can keep Cameron company. If I had something to say in belgian parlement, that guy would loose his citizenship with a scratch of a pen.