Originally Posted by
Albionic68
Hello 123.
I don’t mean to be facetious but if the referendum was completely flawed on the grounds that people were lied to and misled, then every local and national election I’ve ever voted in could be described as the same. So by using your frame of reference for what is or isn’t democratic we’d need to rerun every election since I turned eigh**** in 1986. Well it’s only fair really, I didn’t agree with a lot of the outcomes. Out of nothing more than idle curiosity would you have been so keen on a second referendum had the majority voted to remain?
Flipping things on their head you’ve absolutely no idea whether others voted remain for the exact same reasons you did either. Did they do so with a desire for greater integration with the EU at some future time, trepidation over the unknown or just a willingness to avoid rocking the boat? Did you all vote for a future European Army ala Juncker’s ideal? Did you all vote for whatever crazy idea pops out of some EU Commission quango at some future point? No, you probably didn’t. Is that anti-democratic too then?
I’m pulling your leg and playing devil’s advocate here, but you may all as well have voted for all those different things as you don’t know for certain what the EU’s agenda is going forward. There is more than an element of the unknown in any vote and subsequent outcome. You state people are more informed now but are they really? Or have they just been force fed more of the same from a different latrine thus becoming even more entrenched in other people’s sh it? And if the British electorate are now more informed, what will your response be if the result once again goes against your hopes, dreams and future aspirations?
Only the naive or stupid would suggest there’ll be no short to medium term issues untangling ourselves from the EU and securing future trade deals. For anyone to suggest it’s going to be plain sailing across an open and calm sea would be ridiculous. But what about the long term outcomes, will we be better off in future? Or will we definitely be worse off? Who knows? Would we definitely be better off in the long term if we were to remain? I don’t know, do you? I may use this here internet thingy and Google translate to ask a few Italians and Greeks what they think.
What I fervently believe though is the EU should never have expanded to the number of nations currently under its umbrella. Rather than diversifying our collective economic portfolio, I believe they’re diluting the economic gene pool. For me it isn’t a case of whether we should leave, but whether we’ve left it too late for me to see sufficient long term gains in my lifetime.
Toodle pip and all of the very best chap B) .