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Although I voted remain, I almost voted leave. There are good, very good reasons to leave. There are very very good reasons to remain and 'fix' from the inside.

However a friend on FB unfriended me after he declared all leavers were racist idiots. I suggested we need to understand why people voted leave. I tried to point out that the rise of the far right within Europe might be down to EU policies.

I think there are some big issues within Europe as described by Tony Benn https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=f0wFii8klNg

Of interest there are rumours that the EU is to announce a superstate http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/683739/EU-referendum-...

So maybe, just maybe, the leavers have it right. Do we want to be living in the Unites States of EU or do we want countries that identify as European and trade and travel equally between them all?

We live within a democracy and the public have spoken. Our politicians should execute the will of the people.

Er, the Leave campaign was expressly against free travel, and it's kind of silly to think you'd get the same trade terms leaving the EU. So the choice you provide to support the idea that maybe the leavers have it right is neither one the leavers are offering (on the travel part) nor one that is remotely realistic on either point as a result of voting leave (it's something that might have been achievable by staying in and advocating a different course for the EU.)

And you live within a representative, rather than direct, democracy which features non-binding referenda; the people speak with binding authority through elections of representatives. There may be reasons that the government should put the results of the referendum into policy, but appeals to the nature of the system of government do not provide that reason.

1. Free travel != immigration policy

2. Referendum > Representatives (the only reason we use representatives is because referendums don't scale)

In California, constitutionally, the power of referendum and initiative is reserved to the people, and does trump there per our the legislature. So, a system of government argument of the type you made would work for California.

The UK, however, has no such reserved powers of the people, but instead has parliamentary supremacy. The referendum is not, in that system, superior to the representatives.

  However a friend on FB unfriended me after he declared all leavers were racist idiots

That is certainly wrong and pretty much bullshit. What is true, though, is that virtually all racist idiots voted leave.

John Scalzi put it much more succinctly:

(from http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/06/22/hey-scalzi-do-you-have...) :

"Two, while not everyone who might vote “Leave” is an appalling racist and/or low-information nationalist, it’s pretty clear that nearly every appalling racist/low-info nationalist is voting “Leave,” and that the people engineering the Leave vote are perfectly happy to leverage those folks to get what they want. If you find yourself on the same side as appalling racists/ignorant “patriots”, you might ask yourself why, and additionally whether you might be more appalling and/or ignorant than you’d like to admit."

> Of interest there are rumours that the EU is to announce a superstate http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/683739/EU-referendum*
The Express is a provably unreliable source with no interest in telling the truth about anything beyond the football scores.

Accepted. Definitely pinch of salt.

> Remoaners
Seriously?
> decrying the idiots, racists, and old people who dared to vote against their righteous interest
The people who voted to leave are, generally, xenophobic old people. And they did vote against their own best interests, as they tend to.

> And it's all come out AFTER the result.
The is actually a very good point. People are acting like it was all incredibly obvious that voting Leave was a terrible thing to do. But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter.
A lot of the blame for that has to go to the media who printed anything the Leave campaign said even if it wasn't true (the £350m thing especially).
I don't think it's fair to totally blame the Leave voters for their bad decision. Besides it isn't totally clear now that it is that bad of a decision. The pound only dropped 6% (compared to 30% in 2008). And that's due to uncertainty more than anything else. It could easily go up again. In fact you can barely see the change on this graph:
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=10Y
> they don't get why vast swathes of ordinary people away from London would want to leave Europe.
To me it seems like most Leavers voted Leave because of some dissatisfaction with their life (too poor), and the Leave campaign successfully convinced them that it was because of Europe and immigrants. Or they just voted the way the government didn't want them to as a protest.

> But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter. A lot of the blame for that has to go to the media who printed anything the Leave campaign.
Which succinctly sums up why simple democracy is a bad way to make large scale decisions. It's good it was non binding.

>> And it's all come out AFTER the result.
>The is actually a very good point. People are acting like it was all incredibly obvious that voting Leave was a terrible thing to do. But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter.
I cannot disagree with you hard enough. All of the things that are "coming out" now were refuted during the lead up to the referendum, not only by the Remain campaigners, but by the experts the Leave campaign was so clever to disqualify. The was a handful of people/companies/economists that sided with Leave, while the lion's share was solidly with Remain - and they all said it was a terrible thing to do.

But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter.
I've heard it suggested [1] that the leave vote is indicative of a lack of trust in our political institutions. I think that's an interesting point of view, because it explains a lot about the recriminations about the result.
If you think our institutions are basically sound, and you hear dire warnings about brexit from government economists, national and foreign politicians, journalists, think tanks, business leaders, academics and industry bodies you'll naturally think "these well-credentialed experts all agree, only an idiot would ignore all these warnings"
If you think our institutions are unsound, and you hear dire warnings from the bodies that failed to predict or prevent the 2008 financial crisis and that told us Iraq had WMDs they could launch within 45 minutes, you'll naturally think "these bodies are just mouthpieces for the PM, only an idiot would believe all these warnings"
In other words, it _was_ obvious to _remain_ voters that we should remain - it just wasn't obvious to _leave_ voters because they approach the question with different world views.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-lates...

>In fact you can barely see the change on this graph: > http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=10Y
The reason you can't see it isn't that the drop isn't significant. It's because it's only been a week, and on a 10 year scale, it's just that last pixel on the graph. Meanwhile, it has shifted the entire graph upwards.

> I reckon leaving will send a signal about reforming the EU...
I heard this frequently, but it is never specified _what_ exactly should be reformed. Also I think that most people really overestimate the EU budget: It's about 1/10th of Germany's/France's or 6 times of Luxemburg's.

Someone was saying this sort of thing recently. "Way less of the EU budget is spent on admin than people think"
I think the true number was ~8.5bn from 140bn budget (but I'm going on memory, I assume it was euros). I'm not sure that is a low budget? France and Germany are actually running a country. Infrastructure, social security, armed forces, police etc etc. This is a layer of government over and above that, redistributing and legislating for (in theory) the benefit of all.
I honestly don't see it as a small budget, and whilst the admin costs may be 5% instead of 20% (which I seem to have as the median expected number in the survey) - it's still billions.
It's all a question of perspective.

What i think is more important, is that the map of EU expansion will change. I will not be surprised if Russia becomes a candidate member.

> but it is never specified _what_ exactly should be reformed
It's pretty clear that the EU, more specifically the Euro Zone, as currently run, can't go on. We either need a Federal government (i.e. fiscal + monetary union), or to disintegrate the Euro. Simply said, it's unthinkable that the US government would install capital controls in Alabama, whereas the EU government can do that in Greece.
That's the main issue; there are many smaller ones as well, but they exist in almost any political system and aren't specific to the EU.

> I'm somewhat indifferent on the issue; I reckon leaving will send a signal about reforming the EU ... Do I think that's worth the hassle of actually leaving? Pretty marginal.
It's this which upsets me as someone in favour of remaining. I know a large number of people who are personally concerned for the immediate safety of their jobs following an exit vote (working in the finance sector in London, working for research institutions currently funded by the EU, or Brits working outside the UK) and also have friends (and a sister-in-law) who have come to the UK thanks to the freedoms afforded by the EU, and who are worried about their futures now.
I have great sympathy with the desire to send politicians a message, and with a desire to make the EU a more transparent, more efficient organisation, but you can surely understand the frustration of people who are facing very real fears for their own livelihoods, when someone in favour of exiting tells us they are doing so not because they believe that leaving is the best thing for the UK, but rather because they want to "send a message". This message comes at a great potential cost, and the people sending the message are in many cases not the ones paying the price

> the UK needs to trade with Europe, so they cannot ever really leave. Any deal done will end up looking like Switzerland
Thse statements are seemingly facts to you, but personally I am not sure how either could become reality.
I believe that the UK will have to leave, because the referendum is said to be binding. Going back on that would not be good for future voting or agreements. Swiss politicians did not, as far as I know, behave in any way similar to how some British politicians behave when it concerns the EU.

Switzerland held a referendum on stopping freedom of movement with the EU, which passed. The EU refused to even discuss it and the borders are still open and that's not going to change unless Switzerland wants to cancel all it's EU deals. Which isn't going to happen.
Legally, referendums in the UK are advisory only.

> the borders are still open
I'm not sure where you draw the line for this, but last time I went into Switzerland I had my passport checked at the border.

But there is no restriction to workers from UE, in this regard I think the OP talked about "the borders are open"

When was that? I drove through coming from Italy a few week ago exiting at the French border on the North side and nobody looked at any passports.

You usually don't even have to show your passport when boarding a plane in Zurich as long you're flying within the Schengen area.
I think that's the case in most Schengen airports now.
What can happen is that you're checked by customs at the border. Since Switzerland is not in a customs union with the EU. Generally speaking, though, it's free flowing.

That's because Switzerland isn't part of the Schengen area, not because of the referendum. The referendum was about immigration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_...

"All four European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member states – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland – have signed agreements on association with the Schengen Agreement, even though they are outside the EU"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

That's because Switzerland isn't part of the Schengen area
That's wrong. Since 2008 Switzerland is definitely part of the Schengen area. While the UK is not.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area)
So if you fly in from the UK (or any non-Schengen country) you need t show a passport. As is the case in any other Schengen country.

Thanks for the hint, I rechecked and you are right, that part of my comment is outdated. The other part (about immigration) is current.

As you do coming in to the UK. Having your passport checked is not the same as having closed borders, EU citizens are still being allowed in.

If you're not a citizen of a country in the Schengen area then you'll need a passport.
And random checks at the border are permitted (i.e. contraband, people trafficking).
Also a country is allowed to re-implement border controls in case of crisis.

> If you're not a citizen of a country in the Schengen area then you'll need a passport.
And how exactly do you show that you're a citizen of a country in the Schengen area without showing a passport?

> Thse statements are seemingly facts to you, but personally I am not sure how either could become reality.
No, not at all. Things could turn out very differently, it's true. But I lean towards thinking that the countries involved will want to continue trading with each other and basically not rock the economic boat too much.

Many of the countries that remain in and strongly support the EU are likely to, in the immediate term, not give excellent trade terms to Britain to keep the perceived cost of leaving high to avoid encouraging leave movements in a couple of other members.

And then it's a poker game. How much are they willing to hurt their already lethargic economies to punish the UK? I reckon if all countries has a referendum, a fair few would vote to leave as well. It can't sit that well with people to punish the UK for leaving when there's a sizeable number of French, Dutch, etc, who want to leave as well.

Doing a deal which is positive for the UK will mean threatening the integrity of the EU (and all the potential economic chaos which could go with it).

> I believe that the UK will have to leave, because the referendum is said to be binding.
It was a non-binding referendum.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-result... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887 [3] http://www.theweek.co.uk/brexit/73775/eu-referendum-is-the-b... [4] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/23/welcome-to-the-world-after-br...

Thank you for the correction!
I was misinformed by some of my local media that said it was binding.
"Het referendum gaat door en het is een bindend referendum." http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/02/19/brexit-afgewend-eu-berei...

I would say it is binding in a political sense, but not in a legal sense.

Do you think there woulnd't be a literal uprising if the government dismissed it ?