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This isn't democracy.

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Original post by James82
If the UK had been a net beneficiary from the EU budget then I'd have some sympathy, but as the UK are a net contributor then I don't have any sympathy as quite clearly the haven't contributed to UK universities, they have inversely deprived them of funding they could have had if the UK weren't net contributors to the EU.


I am sorry, but that is *******s. Russell group for example, was vocally against brexit precisely because of the fear of losing common european funds that are so necessary specially for scientific research.
Original post by Jammy Duel
You do realise foreign nationals have to pay taxes, right?
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I do, but they don't pay taxes for the UK while they live in their countries, while EU citizens have to do so due to common european taxation system, working through common funds.
Reply 122
There's about 15% mood swing in this country
Reply 123
Original post by JordanL_

Which lies?


For example, that the Touquet Treaty would be repealed and the French will send migrants in the UK.

It was wrong:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/25/french-border-deal-wont-be-affected-by-brexit-paris
Original post by arceus682
I am sorry, but that is *******s. Russell group for example, was vocally against brexit precisely because of the fear of losing common european funds that are so necessary specially for scientific research.


You're exactly right, the universities 'feared' losing funding, of course they won't. But it just shows you how project fear got through to even some of the more intelligent in society.
Original post by Jammy Duel
Because direct democracy could give the "wrong" answer? The collective is normally right.

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Yes, because direct democracy can give the wrong answer. I don't understand what's so hard to understand about this. If you've got a decision to make that is too complex to reasonably expect the electorate to understand and make an informed decision about, they should not be given the opportunity to vote on it. The only reason why this referendum has ever happened is because of years of politicians using it as a scapegoat to make the public feel personally attacked by it, giving the illusion that this is some decision of ideology rather than a decision of facts. People who are unwilling to understand an issue shouldn't vote on it. End of.
Original post by Plagioclase
Yes, because direct democracy can give the wrong answer. I don't understand what's so hard to understand about this. If you've got a decision to make that is too complex to reasonably expect the electorate to understand and make an informed decision about, they should not be given the opportunity to vote on it. The only reason why this referendum has ever happened is because of years of politicians using it as a scapegoat to make the public feel personally attacked by it, giving the illusion that this is some decision of ideology rather than a decision of facts. People who are unwilling to understand an issue shouldn't vote on it. End of.


I don't think you should belittle the electorate, besides this is much more an ideological question than it is a factual one, demonstrated by the absence of facts in the campaign and the absence of a crystal ball to know what is going to happen in the future.
Original post by James82
I don't think you should belittle the electorate, besides this is much more an ideological question than it is a factual one, demonstrated by the absence of facts in the campaign and the absence of a crystal ball to know what is going to happen in the future.


I'm not belittling the electorate, stating that they are uninformed is a basic fact. The overwhelming majority of the electorate viewed this entire thing through tunnel vision, not considering anything outside of the issues of immigration and sovereignty. There was not an absence of facts in the campaign, there was an overwhelming expert consensus in favour of Remain. The only thing that there was an absence of was a public willing to hear these facts over the fantasies presented by Leave.
Original post by Plagioclase
I'm not belittling the electorate, stating that they are uninformed is a basic fact. The overwhelming majority of the electorate viewed this entire thing through tunnel vision, not considering anything outside of the issues of immigration and sovereignty. There was not an absence of facts in the campaign, there was an overwhelming expert consensus in favour of Remain. The only thing that there was an absence of was a public willing to hear these facts over the fantasies presented by Leave.


It doesn't help your argument when the source you provides shows that basically the overwhelming majority of respondents got the facts right, even in the ones where more than 50% got it wrong such as the question of us being in the top three contributors is misleading, because we are the second largest net contributor, but the question never stated net or gross contributors.
Reply 129
Omfg if you didn't like it why weren't you complaining before the vote? Sounds like you're just sour to me
Original post by Plagioclase
Yes, because direct democracy can give the wrong answer. I don't understand what's so hard to understand about this. If you've got a decision to make that is too complex to reasonably expect the electorate to understand and make an informed decision about, they should not be given the opportunity to vote on it. The only reason why this referendum has ever happened is because of years of politicians using it as a scapegoat to make the public feel personally attacked by it, giving the illusion that this is some decision of ideology rather than a decision of facts. People who are unwilling to understand an issue shouldn't vote on it. End of.


But the Conservatives obtained a majority in the last General election by offering the referendum so it was clear the people wanted it otherwise we probably would of had another hung parliament.

Also I don't quite understand your last line, there are probably the same amount of remain voters who are clueless about the EU as there were leave voters.

Frankly the leave vote is the absolute correct decision until we can use hindsight, the scaremongering is still continuing among the remain camp saying how our economy is now in tatters (which it really isn't).

The real issues in the remain camp should be how theyre going to rebuild themselves, Cameron and Osborne are both going, Corbyn put up a quarter hearted remain campaign to the dislike of many many labour supporters and shown himself to be weak (I honestly feel like he was a closet Brexiter), and hes probably lost his job. The fact the remain campaigns most credible option currently is Tim Farron and the Lib Dems is frankly hilarious.
Original post by arceus682
I do, but they don't pay taxes for the UK while they live in their countries, while EU citizens have to do so due to common european taxation system, working through common funds.


You mean those common funds to which we're a net contributor so actually we're effectively paying for the foreigners, not the other way around?

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Original post by Apocrypha
Also I don't quite understand your last line, there are probably the same amount of remain voters who are clueless about the EU as there were leave voters.

Frankly the leave vote is the absolute correct decision until we can use hindsight, the scaremongering is still continuing among the remain camp saying how our economy is now in tatters (which it really isn't).

The real issues in the remain camp should be how theyre going to rebuild themselves, Cameron and Osborne are both going, Corbyn put up a quarter hearted remain campaign to the dislike of many many labour supporters and shown himself to be weak (I honestly feel like he was a closet Brexiter), and hes probably lost his job. The fact the remain campaigns most credible option currently is Tim Farron and the Lib Dems is frankly hilarious.


I am perfectly aware that there are a large number of remain voters who are clueless about the referendum (although fewer, given their average higher level of education) - which is, once again, the reason why this referendum should never have happened in the first place. This is a decision that should have been made by experts, not the public. I don't understand why you seem to believe that expert opinion = scaremongering. It isn't. Expert consensus doesn't suddenly become invalid because you don't like it. On top of that, economic problems are far from the only problem with a Brexit - in fact, I'd go as far as saying it's one of the more minor problems, in comparison with other impacts like the likely effect on the UK environment, science, art, education and global stability. In all of these areas, experts overwhelmingly believe that Brexit is going to have a negative impact. Except for you it's just scaremongering, because of course, you know better.

Original post by James82
It doesn't help your argument when the source you provides shows that basically the overwhelming majority of respondents got the facts right, even in the ones where more than 50% got it wrong such as the question of us being in the top three contributors is misleading, because we are the second largest net contributor, but the question never stated net or gross contributors.


Let's read the article again. The "facts" that only a minority got wrong were the particularly absurd ones that absolutely nobody should have any doubt about. It's an absolute joke that a quarter of the public believes a myth that was invented by the British tabloid press (the bananas). And look at those average estimated budget breakups. People overestimate our foreign aid budget by literally orders of magnitude. People overestimate the amount of money spent on EU projects by vast amounts. The majority of the public believes fabrications put forward by the Leave camp such as their claims about immigration. These are not tiny little errors, these are huge misunderstandings about key points that people made their decision to withdraw over. In a parliamentary select committee, if the group of decision makers were as uninformed as this, the group would be thrown out and they'd probably all lose their jobs. I don't understand why it's suddenly okay when it's the general public.
[QUOTE=Plagioclase;66113215Let's read the article again. The "facts" that only a minority got wrong were the particularly absurd ones that absolutely nobody should have any doubt about. It's an absolute joke that a quarter of the public believes a myth that was invented by the British tabloid press (the bananas). And look at those average estimated budget breakups. People overestimate our foreign aid budget by literally orders of magnitude. People overestimate the amount of money spent on EU projects by vast amounts. The majority of the public believes fabrications put forward by the Leave camp such as their claims about immigration. These are not tiny little errors, these are huge misunderstandings about key points that people made their decision to withdraw over. In a parliamentary select committee, if the group of decision makers were as uninformed as this, the group would be thrown out and they'd probably all lose their jobs. I don't understand why it's suddenly okay when it's the general public.

The article is obviously an extremely biased biased piece of tosh, it calls the public misguided for not believing the 'facts' over how living standards will reduce and immigration won't reduce after brexit, these are not 'facts', they are opinions, you can't claim that the majority of people got the facts wrong when the facts are made up.
Original post by Plagioclase
I am perfectly aware that there are a large number of remain voters who are clueless about the referendum (although fewer, given their average higher level of education) - which is, once again, the reason why this referendum should never have happened in the first place. This is a decision that should have been made by experts, not the public. I don't understand why you seem to believe that expert opinion = scaremongering. It isn't. Expert consensus doesn't suddenly become invalid because you don't like it. On top of that, economic problems are far from the only problem with a Brexit - in fact, I'd go as far as saying it's one of the more minor problems, in comparison with other impacts like the likely effect on the UK environment, science, art, education and global stability. In all of these areas, experts overwhelmingly believe that Brexit is going to have a negative impact. Except for you it's just scaremongering, because of course, you know better.



Let's read the article again. The "facts" that only a minority got wrong were the particularly absurd ones that absolutely nobody should have any doubt about. It's an absolute joke that a quarter of the public believes a myth that was invented by the British tabloid press (the bananas). And look at those average estimated budget breakups. People overestimate our foreign aid budget by literally orders of magnitude. People overestimate the amount of money spent on EU projects by vast amounts. The majority of the public believes fabrications put forward by the Leave camp such as their claims about immigration. These are not tiny little errors, these are huge misunderstandings about key points that people made their decision to withdraw over. In a parliamentary select committee, if the group of decision makers were as uninformed as this, the group would be thrown out and they'd probably all lose their jobs. I dont understand why it's suddenly okay when it's the general public.


The 'expert' opinions were not very expert at all, none of the 'experts' actually detailed what would precisely happen if we left they just chose the safer option which was to remain, and this country took the risk by leaving. I also want to take into account the influence of the EU on those expert opinions.

Sure enough its safer to to say we're better off in the EU, but only because you dont know whats gonna happen if we leave.

My advice is wait for hindsight, stop dwelling on these expert opinions because most of them were bias and lacking depth from both sides. A french referendum may be on the way and others will follow suit, I voted leave because i believe we will all benefit more so than if we stayed.

Edit: It's 100% scaremongering until proven true.
(edited 7 years ago)
Love that Leave voters are complaining so much about how we're unhappy with the results, when they'd be protesting a heck of a lot more had it gone the other way...
Original post by Alexion
Love that Leave voters are complaining so much about how we're unhappy with the results, when they'd be protesting a heck of a lot more had it gone the other way...


If we look at the demographics of leave voters and the demographics of protests, and which elections have lead to protests, often turning violent, yeah...no

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TSR is starting to piss me off. It's been a few days guys, you've had time... for gods sake.
Original post by Apocrypha
The 'expert' opinions were not very expert at all, none of the 'experts' actually detailed what would precisely happen if we left they just chose the safer option which was to remain, and this country took the risk by leaving. I also want to take into account the influence of the EU on those expert opinions.

Sure enough its safer to to say we're better off in the EU, but only because you dont know whats gonna happen if we leave.

My advice is wait for hindsight, stop dwelling on these expert opinions because most of them were bias and lacking depth from both sides. A french referendum may be on the way and others will follow suit, I voted leave because i believe we will all benefit more so than if we stayed.

Edit: It's 100% scaremongering until proven true.


What utterly absurd, anti-intellectual nonsense. There's nothing more I can really say about this, if you're arrogant enough to put your layperson's view in front of the expert consensus, there's nothing I can do. You can't argue with somebody who refuses to acknowledge evidence.

Original post by James82
The article is obviously an extremely biased biased piece of tosh, it calls the public misguided for not believing the 'facts' over how living standards will reduce and immigration won't reduce after brexit, these are not 'facts', they are opinions, you can't claim that the majority of people got the facts wrong when the facts are made up.


So you're telling me it's not true that there are only 3.5m immigrants in the UK? It's not true that only 0.3% of the UK Child Benefit budget is spent on foreign aid? That it's not true that the EU spends only 6% of its budget on administration? That's it's not true that Leave have outlined absolutely no concrete, clear plan as to how they intend to achieve the things they're claiming they can do when much of it has been contradicted by lawmakers and other countries? You're telling me that the majority of the electorate understand the impact that this is likely to have on the environment, on healthcare, on education, on science, on the arts and on European stability?
Original post by EricPiphany
TSR is starting to piss me off. It's been a few days guys, you've had time... for gods sake.


TSR has always been like this. The country never ever votes like TSR, some posters on TSR think they are all that matters. A poll on TSR is never an indication of how the country will vote.
(edited 7 years ago)

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