Forum Topic

Seven years ago a small majority of Brits voted for a revolutionary change in Britain’s relationship with its nearest trading partner.  We had been told that the E.U. membership was the source of our problems and that leaving this club would lead to massive improvements in a whole range of areas - our economy, our control of borders, our imports and exports, our international influence and so on.  Of course anyone who has been paying attention since then knows that this is not what have happened but instead we are poorer, lagging behind other major countries by several measures, we have had a string of unstable governments and little prospect of any improvement in the short or medium term.  Perhaps worse and more consequential is that it’s now clear that while so much emotional and physical energy was focussed on ‘getting Brexit done’ that the government was neglecting other far more important matters.So please don’t be surprised that there are no celebratory street parties - that’s because there’s nothing to celebrate - and please don’t accuse those of us who are highlighting the problems of being anti-democracy or in some way not ‘accepting’ Brexit.  We have no choice.  It happened. We get it.  And please don’t affect boredom with the issue.  It’s not going away any time soon.  The problem is that some Brexit voters seem unwilling to own the consequences of their votes, the revolution that has led us to where we are now.  More and more of them , happily, are coming to an understanding that they were lied to and that is one of the reasons that polls are showing ever lessening support for Brexit. So those of us who feel Brexit was a mistake are not trying to overturn democracy.  We are just exercising our democratic right to discuss important issues that many politicians, and others, prefer to sweep under the carpet.  I’m tempted to say ‘Suck it up’.

Alastair Banton ● 1179d

Janice, I don’t think you have been insulted on this thread.  You might want to look again at various postings especially your own.  First, I went out of my way to show my appreciation (on two occasions) to you and Russell for being the only two leave voters to step forward on this forum to speak on behalf of Brexit.  But no thanks did I get.  Rather your next post, after I described the EM meeting, accused me of hypocrisy on the strange ground that I had expressed my respect for some people whose votes and opinions I disagreed with.  You seemed to think that this was not possible.  Perhaps not for you but I assure you it is for many, maybe most people.  It’s actually a famous cornerstone of democracy - ‘I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it’.In your subsequent posts you mostly ignore points or questions that other people make, preferring instead to change the subject and make various accusations and challenges that lack evidence or relevance to the topic under discussion.  Now this kind of online behaviour may not be classed as ‘insulting’ in your view but I would respectfully suggest that it is neither particularly friendly or polite.  I do get that, as you have previously admitted, a lot of your posts are conscious wind-ups, but please understand that there is such a thing as over-doing things.  Maybe pare it back a bit?  And one more tip.  If you say ‘bye bye’ on here, mean it.  It will help your credibility. I don’t suppose, Janice, that you will pay any more attention to this than you do to much else with your uniquely selective focus, but I put it out as something for you to consider. Alastair

Alastair Banton ● 1174d

‘It seems you like asking questions but don’t like answering’.  That is a strange accusation, Janice, because I’m equally happy with both.  I think the only question you asked me on this thread was how did I know how audience members had voted leave, with, I think, the implication that I couldn’t have known.  But I was happy to answer you that it was through a show of hands although later you seemed troubled that there were leave voters in the meeting at all  for some reason.  You also presented me with the rhetorical question which iirr was ‘Why do you think all polls are wrong?’  Well I didn’t answer that one because it made a totally false assumptions about my thoughts about polls which I’m happy to clarify for you now.I thing all polls should be treated with a degree of scepticism but that some are more accurate and scientific and generally more reliable than others for reasons that I haven’t got time to go into here.  If all major reputable opinion polls are saying broadly the same thing then I think it is fair to conclude that they are broadly correct.  For example, it would be a foolish person who decided that the Tories were going through a period of great popularity at the moment.  And of course the Brexit referendum was an opinion poll.  Robert has already made some interesting observations about that above so I won’t so any more but just ask you to consider it as objectively as you would any other poll.One other thing, Janice.  Is it not you rather than me who doesn’t like answering questions?  After all you have often, on this forum, said that you refuse to explain exactly why you voted for Brexit, haven’t you.  But more than this  you have also argued that it is your perfect right not to explain your reasoning.  I don’t think I would ever do this except of course with respect to impertinent or over-personal questions, but as for politics I think it needs to be in the public domain, so please ask away!

Alastair Banton ● 1173d