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Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

1. They are not citizens, their lives may be affected but they have no vote. This has no bearing whatsoever on any of my argument above.

2. I voted 'remain'. If this result is ignored for a.second referendum I will vote 'leave' because I believe democratic respect is more important than EU membership.

3. Your 10% figure is pure conjecture.

4. It was a 4% margin.

5. Whether the referendum is legally binding or not has no bearing on its democratic legitimacy, nor on the potential fallout of ignoring the result.

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I agree with your principles, but I do think this may be an exception...With all the mis-information peddled by the media pre-vote and given the number of people who have already come out saying they didn't fully understand the implications of voting leave, I personally believe that another referendum wouldn't be the worst thing, especially given that the win was by such a small margin. What if we were to have a second referendum and the result came out 60/40 in favour of remain- would your opinion remain the same?

I wonder how much of this is the media indulging its own bias, and how significant the 'bregret'* stuff really is.

I really hope we don't find out how a second referendum goes, as I think it would paint the EU and westminster in a worse light, and put UKIP firmly into ascendancy.

*I really hate all these portmanteaus...

The media is working really hard with the bregret thing, the same they worked really hard making sure everybody would vote remain. It's sickening how they want to suppress the will of the majority.

Really? From what I saw, the news sources with the biggest circulation tended to be heavily biased towards leaving.

Right, I forgot, that was exactly what the Sun and the Mail were up to. :P

I wouldn't be so sure a re-run would go the way you expect. There was also a large amount of open lying and misinformation from the Remain side. To name just a few:

Cameron saying "I will campaign for in or out depending on whether I get a good deal for Britain". Reality: he got nothing and then claimed leaving the EU would be morally wrong.

Cameron saying "this isn't about me, I'll stay on no matter what". Reality: resigning the very next day, having known full well he'd do that if he lost yet he openly lied to the public about it.

Osborne saying "there'll be a punishment budget". Reality: that has now mysteriously vanished.

But I don't think any of that will really matter in a rerun anyway. The pro-remain side seems to think voters are spreadsheets that weigh up the output of yet more spreadsheets which pretend to represent the real world, and then make their decision based on that.

In reality most Leave voters clocked ages ago that politicians were not trustworthy and made up their minds based on other factors. If the referendum is ignored then expect a lot of Remain voters in the regions to switch to Leave: it will be widely interpreted as the end of democracy itself if they don't.

I guess you do not care whether the UK will be (or maybe is) way worse off economically and that xenophobia/racism is now an "every day" thing. Fine, vote "leave", probably suits better that mentality.

This hate by some on the remain side is most unbecoming.

You've got effectively called me a racist there. You realise this is precisely the sort of rhetoric that's lead us here?

I just mentioned the facts after the result. Are they not? And I'm trying to say that they have such a big effect, that defending them is not, in the long-term, good thing for this society. I'm just sad that a minority is viewed falsely as a majority.

Calling episodes of racism and xenophobia for what they are qualifies as "hate" towards those who voted Leave?

The attack on the Polish cultural centre is "rhetoric"? The murder of Jo Cox is rhetoric?

Feel offended, but at least don't try to paint yourself as subject of hate.

The incidents you mention were awful and are not to be tolerated. We (as a nation) voted to leave the EU, not to allow this kind of hateful violence.

But you know full well that the rhetoric I'm talking about, as exemplified by that post, is the attempt to paint everyone with any 'leave' symapthies as a racist.

"Of course not all Leavers are racists. That would be a terrible thought. But all racists now think 52% of the population agree with them."

https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/747080385683660801

Did you just say that the hate of the remain was what made you vote leave in first place? Really?

Nope.

I didn't vote leave, for a start.

The shouting down of dissenting opinions by either directly or indirectly labelling them as racist, rather than taking them seriously or even trying to understand them, is one of the factors that has lead to widespread disillusionment with both Westminster and the EU.

That's what I'm saying.

Ok, I got you now and appreciate your answer. But let's be honest.. What's that "taking our country back" all about?

I'm not saying that this is all voters general opinion, but it sure looks like the majority's. I don't hear anyone coming up with plausible arguments and I really wanted to hear them.

Oh I'm not going to claim there aren't racists and xenophobes around. I'm outraged that all leave leanings are characterised that way.

There are many good arguments and many bad ones that don't involve hatred of foreigners. "Take our country back" would, to me, meaning regaining full legislative control. Yes, this includes immigration, and yes I would limit that based on skills and an annual quota.

I don't believe for a second this is racist.

Well, I do believe that's racism. Why else would you limit someone coming over their skills? And I'm not saying that feeling racist is abnormal. I'd just prefer people to cut the crap.

And I'm actually curious about what would those skills be as I don't believe that's a reasonable approach..

Your idea of racism is so wide as to be meaningless then. Sorry.

I feel no need whatsoever to defend myself from accusations of racism based on support of the idea of quota and skill-based immigration.

Well, first of all, quota and skill-based immigration is 'leave'. I thought you mentioned you didn't vote to leave..

Anyway, it was your vote, I don't really care.

My idea of racism, it sure is wide.

Who is John to limit people from going wherever they want, while trying to make a living? Does the place where John was born makes him different or special somehow? I consider this racism. Isn't John going to end up making bricks same way as the migrant?

It just sounds way more rational to let the market decide. If immigrants can't find a job in here I'm sure they will leave and move some place else. If they happen to find a job and contribute to our society, then this should mean they have their place here. They should be able to stay and live.

And I'm sure there will be plenty of jobs, without the need for a specific skill set, that they will be willing to do. Jobs that many people in this country refuses to accept, because 'it's just £7 an hour' or because 'I didn't study for this' or whatever.

I am utterly disgusted and bloody sick of being portrayed as a racist, xenophobic bigot because I wanted to take back democratic control of my country. Race issues had nothing to do with my decision to leave.

How dare you paint me in that light when you know absolutely nothing about me or my motives for wanting to remove my country from the clutches of an undemocratic state. Your narrow-mindedness is part of the reason I want out.

This all reeks of bitterness and toy-throwing by those that voted remain.

It's over. We are out. Accept it or feel free to move to a European country... I don't mind.

Until article 50 is invoked we're not out. And until that happens why should I accept it? The EU is no less democratic than the UK itself, and talk of "taking back democratic control of my country" is xenophobic even if you don't intend it to be. the EU is not the "other", they don't impose on us because we are part of it.

The EU has problems with democratic accountability.

That we also have them at the UK level is irrelevant to me, we're not having a referendum on that (yet).

Your definition of xenophobic is so wide that it would cover the very existence of nation states within the EU. I don't think all that many people share it.

> talk of "taking back democratic control of my country" is xenophobic

Then democracy itself is too

> The EU is no less democratic than the UK itself

MPs are elected

> they don't impose on us because we are part of it

Not for much longer.

It annoys me as well, and I was in favor of staying in. Its the same when anyone raises an objection to immigration, they are almost immediately silenced by calls of racism or xenophobia. Thats no way to have a proper debate about anything.

Accusations of xenophobia are hard to avoid when the anti-immigration debate has been led by the National Front ("Go home pakis"); the BNP (Nazi salutes); Britain First (an incoherent but unequivocally fascist ideology).

We've already seen a rise in xenophobic, racist, hate crime.

To use UKIPs line, why aren't moderate anti-immigrationists condemning this violence?

They are, see my other posts in this thread.

Some of them are.

https://twitter.com/sima_kotecha/status/747404962242633728

UKIPer in that thread calls Sima Kotecha a liar, manufacturing fake outrage, when she describes someone calling her a paki.

Those groups are always going to support immigration controls - what has that got to do with anyone else?

> We've already seen a rise in xenophobic, racist, hate crime.

Have we?

> Have we?

Yes. We need to National Crime Survey to be certain, but police forces are already reporting an increase in reported incidents, and affected groups are reporting an increase in incidents.

"Go home pakis" is a far cry from questioning immigration, or not agreeing with an open door policy.

But you have done exactly that, associated anyone bringing up the subject with a fascist ideology.

"anyone raises an objection to immigration, they are almost immediately silenced by calls of racism or xenophobia"

The probelm is that those who raise objections to immigration never seem to have anything constructive to say after that. So if you're not a racist or xenophbe, how about we have a discussion about allowing freedom of movement but actually SOLVING the problems that have been brought about by it?

The EU are going to demand freedom of movement if we are to stay in the EEA - so what's your answer?

Why does the solution have to involve freedom of movement?

It's not xenophobic to want to curb the net migration number.

It has to because the EU are going to demand it as a condition of entry to the EEA. Not demanding it will invite any-European movements in other EU countries like Italy and even France to demand out. When it comes to Britain's future economy, the EU holds most of cards.

And even if UK doesn't remain in EEA, immigration will be a fact of life. Hell, half of all immigrants in the UK don't even come from the EU!

Immigration will be a fact of life, and long may it continue. Net immigration on the scale we've seen lately OTOH, not so much.

Other countries may well demand a get-out, if they perceive it's to their advantage. And if it is, I'm not sure why the EU should seek to stop them either.

I guess we'll see one way or another.

So.. what were your motives?

Democratic control. That was it. I knew that it would have a negative effect on the economy short term but I wanted the control to be in the hands of the people I elected.

EU still has UK representatives...nominated by the ones you democratically elected.. But I get your point.

Unfortunately the most discussed argument is to have sovereignty over who can come into the country and who cannot. That is racism to me.

It's the argument that was put at the front of the queue during the build-up to the referendum itself and makes for very polarizing headlines but it played almost no part in my decision.

I wanted sovereignty over everything: Border control is just one part of the whole argument.

> Unfortunately the most discussed argument is to have sovereignty over who can come into the country and who cannot. That is racism to me.

I don't, however, agree with your stance that having a say who can and cannot come into the country is racism. How can you say that it's ok to let anyone in but by saying we need checks and balances is racism?

You may call it discrimination but that takes many forms, not all of them bad.

Racism it is not.

Edit: spelling, clarification

> It's the argument that was put at the front of the queue during the build-up to the referendum itself and makes for very polarizing headlines

Agreed.

> How can you say that it's ok to let anyone in but by saying we need checks and balances is racism?

Discrimination and racism sound like the same to me. I read people saying they would like to choose based on peoples skills, which is a complete nonsense. Why not let the market decide? People would be able to come in as they like, if they wouldn't get a job nor benefits, I'm sure they would go away. Otherwise, it would mean they have a place in here. Wouldn't that be a wiser decision?

Your parent poster said "that xenophobia/racism is now an "every day" thing."

People with pre-existing xenophobic/racist have found vindication & legitimisation with the referendum result.

Many papers today are carrying stories of attacks along these lines, I'm sure the rest will in the following days also.

"It's over. We are out. Accept it or feel free to move to a European country... I don't mind."

The back-pedalling has only just begun. People voted leave for a lot of reasons, and they will have their displeasure at progress heard to differing degrees.

I'd suggest you give it a little while before you take it as read that any side won for the cause they voted for.

The intent of the parent post was clear, it was calling my thinking racist and xenophobic.

At the very least this is unhelpful, and devalues the impact of such words.

The parent post wasn't replying to you - so I'd argue it wasn't calling your thinking anything whatsoever.

While I'd agree such terms are being carelessly banded about, there's no need to go looking for reasons to be offended here.

Follow it back up the chain, paying close attention to which users said what, you'll see the post concerned was a reply to me.

There are points where I almost feel there is a reverse-physiology campaign going on, pushing people towards 'leave' by pissing them off.

> Race issues had nothing to do with my decision to leave.

So it was "just" xenophobia and bigotry. That's all fine then. Carry on.

The Remain side has a far bigger and more systematic problem with classism than the Leave side has with racism.

The UK is one of the most ethnically diverse and tolerant nations on Earth. This is a fact you'll find difficult to argue against.

London you mean...

No, all the UK actually

Look at Gloucestershire.

Overall it's not particularly diverse. One of the larger towns (Cheltenham, pop about 110,000) is 96% White British in last census. Nearby Gloucester is much more diverse - one street has over 70 different languages spoken as a first language, and the school in the UK (but outside London) with most different languages spoken as a first language is in Gloucester.

So, while I believe the UK is diverse it's a bit more complicated than that.

If you ask ten random people in the UK to tell you where Gloucestershire is I would be surprised if more than three of them would be able to?

They'd know it's roughly south west, near wales.

But that makes your point stronger, no? That even in this small (by population, not geographical) rural county there's still a mix of not much diversity and lots of diversity.

I guess it does, yes.

This is part of the problem! The UK has an inequality of attention: everyone looks inwards towards London. It's the places that are ignored that voted to Leave. And there are a lot of them.

I'm reminded of the proposal of "managed decline" for Liverpool in the 80s. Give up rather than fixing the problems. Ironically Liverpool has since prospered enough to vote Remain, although that vote may also be due to the longstanding boycott of the Sun newspaper there.

Cursory looked up some ethnographic statistics the other day, and if wikipedia is to be trusted, UK as a whole certainly does not appear to be very ethnically diverse - although London is.

Good for you. Can wikipedia tell you what other countries fair better?

A simple google search might have informed you. Indeed there is a Wikipedia page on multiple ways of measuring it.

At least 100 countries are more diverse, ethnically, linguistically, racially, you name it. Germany is among them, so is the US. France is about the same level of diversity. A majority of EU countries are more of a melting pot than the UK, in fact.

The UK is 87% white, 95% English speaking, 92% Christian/atheist/agnostic. It doesn't get much less diverse than that.

And of course the places that aren't homogenous (inner London for instance), all voted "remain" by a huge margin.

Thanks for the information. As you can probably guess I wasn't that motivated to find it for myself since I was fairly confident in my original assertion.

switzerland

Hard to believe when stuff like Sharia Zones are a thing.

They aren't a thing.

Some sharia "courts" operate in the UK, as do Beth Din and Ecclesiastical Courts.

They're mostly for mediation and actual courts feel free to ignore them.

They've all been involved in pretty severe human rights abuses. Christian courts moved abusing priests around the country rather than reporting them to the police; Christian courts did little to prevent the sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children by nuns. Beth Din are currently involved in not giving Jewish women "Gets" - a religious divorce that can only be provided by the husband. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/scandal-of-wo...

Sharia Zones, as talked about by US media, don't exist.

Xenophobia isn't the reason intelligent people are pro 'Leave'.

For example, many powerful free-trade Libertarian think-tanks backed Brexit: the Hoover Institution [0], the Cato Institute [1], the Adam Smith Institute [2], etc.

These certainly aren't racist dumb-dumbs or protectionist "little Englanders", and their opinions are well worth a read. While bigots exist and certainly voted 'Leave' that does not mean that there are not good, open, free-market reasons to leave the EU.

[0] http://www.hoover.org/research/cautious-yes-brexit

[1] http://www.cato.org/publications/economic-development-bullet...

[2] http://www.adamsmith.org/evolution-not-revolution

Not that many intelligent people are actually 'pro Leave':

http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/files/2016/06/brexit-education-re...

My point is that it's completely idiotic to characterise highly-prestigious globalist think-tanks as anti-immigration or lacking intellectual capacity. They hold globalist perspectives which are worth reading and understanding; in fact the more divorced they are from establishment positions, the more worthwhile it is to understand them.

You are right that there are lots of people without University educations which backed Brexit. Rather than hating them perhaps you could try to understand their struggles and feelings on how they have been betrayed by the establishment [0]?

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/25/meet-10-brit...

Many of the Leave campaigners do actually subscribe to these libertarian views, including the only UKIP MP.

But they clearly believed so strongly, that they didn't think it was wrong to stoke immigration fears to win, and then turn round and explain that actually, free market economics suggests that low wage immigration is actually a good thing. This is playing with fire, and may end tragically.

I'm actually expecting a future government to turn round and refuse to replace the funding that used to come via the EU - as the economy will be in a bad state and we don't have the money anymore and, the main reason, which is pure ideology.

Which is already causing some angst.

Cornwall mostly voted Leave (higher the UK average) but have since asked for the EU funding for Cornwall to be protected.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-cornwa...

Certainly in the areas that don't consistently vote for the government making the decisions anyway.

Lord Ashcroft commissioned a poll on the referendum day. That poll is here: http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-...

The main reason given by Leave voters was "The principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK"

That argument also justifies dissolving the UK:

Decisions about Scotland should be taken in Scotland

Or even dissolving England.

Decisions about London should be taken in London.

In fact, the argument you just quoted is basically "representative democracy is bad".

Edit: if you downvote, please leave a comment arguing why.

Couldn't agree more, decisions about the Yorkshire should be taken in the Yorkshire:

http://www.yorkshirefirst.org.uk/

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