Winners don't have to provide justifications, it's the losers' responsibility to justify why they shouldn't have lost.

Rationalizations of losers are worthless if they can't appease the winners.

This isn't about who did or did not win - it's more a question of what did they win?

I.m not a brexiter - I voted remain. And my preference if we are to exit, is that we do it in a staged and controlled fashion that doesn't cripple our economy - but ... with hindsight, given that that was never going to be acceptable to the stronger brexiteers, we'd have been better off going for a clean break from the start and planning for that.

As it what we are currently looking at is something nobody is happy with. I would favour a new referendum. There are enough people who voted brexit in expectation of something very different (both sides lied constantly during the campaign, and most Brrits, myself included, are woefully uninformed about Europe and our relationship with it) to warrant a new vote.

If I order an expensive piece of kit off the internet and when it arrives it is a pile of shit, I can send it back and get a refund.

For a lot of people who voted to leave they have just received a steaming turd through the post instead of their spanking new piece of democratic freedom.

The first referendum we voted on whether we wanted to leave europe - it was a fairly amorphous proposition and barely anybody knew what that would actually mean. We voted on principle. Now I think we should get the chances to vote on details and facts.

We also used a very bizarre voting system. Almost any important decision that might change the way an institution, party or country will organise itself - the structural decisions, not just who occupies the seats - require a two third or 60% majority. We ran a constitutional vote like a party political vote and got a result much like those we get in our first past the post parliamentary elections: victory with slightly over half the vote. Almost a split own the middle between those supporting the winning proposition and those supporting the losing proposition.

To change the structure of the nation shouold require more than being able to mobilise a handful more people than the other side - it should require a groundswell of popular support.
If it is genuinely the will of the people - a majority of the people - that we leave, then a new referendum will confirm that.

That's what the losers always say.

That's what the losers always say.

We don't like it, let's have a do-over.

If you had been the winner, would you give the losers a do-over now⸮

They could come up with a laundry list of reasons (EU grievances) too.

Actually, had the vote gone our way by the same margin it went their way, they'd have a very good case for a revote in my opinion. I said right from the get go, back when everybody was predicting a remain victory that a referendum with simple majority was a stupid way to decide the fate of the nation and would end up leaving half the country upset and feeling let down, regardless of who wins - I have the same problem with first past the post parliamentary elections too - and have had through left and right victories and defeats.

Unfortunately, we can't have a reasoned debate about Europe in this country. Haven't been able to for decades. Political debate ping pongs between pro-europe and anti-europe propaganda. I think the majority of people in this country who voted in that referendum did so in almost complete ignorance of what they were actually choosing - and I absolutely include myself in that.

I've learned more about Europe and its political and legal structures, how that interacts with our and potential ramifications of this or that trading relationship in the last 2 years than in the 20 years leading up the vote.

I'd like a vote now while we all actually have some kind of a clue about how this shit works. I'd probably still vote to remain, but at least I'd know why I was voting that way.

The biggest search terms on google.co.uk after the brexit vote nwere all variations on 'what is the European union?'.

I actually think if we have another vote it might just go more comprehensively Brexit - if that happened, at the very least the government would have a very strong mandate for it - that would increase confidence at the very least.

Right on point as per

Here's what I would like to happen in order of preference:

1. A second referendum; or
2. a complete withdrawal from Europe that allows us to participate in international trade deals without having to compromise them to remain in an economic trading system over which we have lost any and all say - indefinitely.

They had two years to come up with a plan - and they fucked it up. They started this shit with the original referendum - a promise made for political expediency during a fight for dominance in one political party. They sent us down this road and they have spent two years fighting among themselves and trying to get a compromise between two diametrically opposed viewpoints.

We would have been better off spending the last two years planning for a complete exit - 2 years of uncertainty has not been good for the economy, it has not provided businesses with any kind of confidence. Now our choice is to crash out with minimal planning and wholly insufficient contingencies in place or revisit the question of whether we want to leave Europe. It is fucking ludicrous that they dont have a plan after 2 fucking years.

We could actually have made Brexit work for us - maybe we'd be less of a force in the world, but that's ok - we're not a fucking empire anymore. It wasn't my preference - I was dead against it but if we'd have just bitten the bullet when the vote was done and got on with planning the break away we could have made it work for us. Instead we got a pointless election that destroyed the credibility of the leader just as we needed some fucking confidence and direction and the whole affair has been limping round in circles ever since - with the leave date getting closer and nobody able to plan anything because nobody knows what the fuck brexit is going to look like.

This, basically. With the Scottish independence referendum the pro-independence lobby were instructed to produce a detailed document explaining the options for handling currency issues, international relations, defence, taxation and public spending etc. Etc. Whether you agreed or not, the information was there (here actually, all 670 pages of it: https://www2.gov.scot/resource/0043/00439021.pdf) to weigh up.
When I got the voting card for the Brexit referendum I was dumbfounded. Where was all that information that the promoters of change had to produce? All there was to go on was a slogan on the side of a bus. Fucking ridiculous. So at the very least a referendum on an **informed choice** should be granted us.





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Just think how much more you'll have learned in another 2 years!

Of course you would. You know there'll be an attrition factor when people are faced with the process of actual change...any change.

Do you really think anyone will swallow that line⸮ But, but, if we have a do-over now, you might be even bigger winners!

You're a nice lady; so, a compromise is in order: After Brexit has been accomplished, have a referendum on whether or not to join the EU. That way, people will be better educated and everyone (not just the old fogies) will have actually experienced life outside the EU which is so crucial to making an informed decision what with all the propaganda that goes on there.

Until then, suck it up and enjoy the amusement that people making uninformed decisions provides. The rest of the world is.

That is games playing. This isn't a game.

I'm not laughing at the people making uninformed choices - I was one of them, we all were.

I'm not even 100% sure I'd vote to remain again if we had another vote - the last 2 years have fundamentally damaged our relationships with European partners - if we were to change our minds and vote to remain we'd be in Europe as a much weakened member - possibly catastrophically weakened.

I would however like to know if we were leaving that we were doing so with some kind of plan in mind.

There never was a plan in mind. Boris Johnson, et al were promoting Brexit for the same reason another here says he only wants to wreck it all.

Anyone can see why Brexit can only be bad. For example, a first tier nation must make high tech products. Parts for cars cross borders tens or 100 times before finally being assembled inside an automobile. Cross state, provence, and nation borders is constant and necessary to build anything technically advanced. It happens in that region because trade is open and unrestricted across all those borders. Innovation and highwage jobs can never happen today with border restrictions.

That is what Brexit want to restore. Border restrictions. Strifled innovations.

How many borders do parts only in a light bulb cross? Maybe 30 or more - just for a light bulb.

Also essential for a productive economy is free motion of labor. I cannot think of a single place I worked where less than 50% were only from that one state. Most everyone comes from elsewhere - over the years and sometimes daily. Because that also is essential to have a product economy.

Brexit only want to restrict all that. Brexit will clearly make Britain less productive. But most people have no idea what is essential to make a nation productive.

One thing I love on the streets of London is the vibracny created by Schengen. That too will go away because so many have no idea what makes an economy productive and innovative.

Well over 100 years ago, a major innovation happened that can only occur where state borders are open. Sear created the catalog. The world never saw anything like it. The world's biggest Post Office was in Chicago to only serve customers of Sears catalog. That was the internet of its time. And could not happen in Europe where borders restricted such innovation, productivity, and job creation. EU is essential for any productive nation in that region. It should be that obvious to anyone with minimal economic education.

Strifled.

For all your knowledge of how to run a country, you should run for something.

Preferably away.

Sorry got to disagree here - London has always had that vibrancy and probably always will. It's been a world city pretty much since world cities became a thing.

I disagree too. The UK has never been part of Schengen.

Oh yeah - and there's that lol

I probably should have led with that amirite?

Well that must be why Dutch company Philips makes all its light bulbs in...

...wait for it...

London.

Oh! But by that I mean... surprise...

London, Ontario.

Canada

Who in turn is not an EU member, so.

British manufacturing will be crushed by this blow though. Whatever is left of it already. Can any Brits tell us what was left of it before the EU?

(I kid, I kid! I used to work for a British video equipment manufacturer... and I currently work for Britain's 15th largest company)

light bulbs?
 

Is this an xkcd-level post where I have to know a lot about a niche thing in order to get the joke?