US billionaire helped to back Brexit
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Some details on the actual technology are in this related article:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-merc...
> On its website, Cambridge Analytica makes the astonishing boast that it has psychological profiles based on 5,000 separate pieces of data on 220 million American voters
Then there are some speculation what data could it be and how would it be used. From that, it seems that the difference between other "Better audience targeting" tools used for typical commercial advertising campaigns would be mainly scale and accuracy?
As a side note, does anyone else thinks that this specific photo in article about manipulation was used to manipulate my emotions and invoke negative view of the other side?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-merc...
Some of it is explained on this 5 minutes video (ignore the clickbait title). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo3gOoOSdhY According to this professor one of the things they used for better targetting is a person's Big 5 personality profile that they extract from Facebook likes.
As far as I know Big5 is not the final, definitive model. There is this famous quote about performance of NLP machine learning system going up after firing a linguist, I wonder if we will someday hear similar comment about psychologists?
Yes, he's either got a crazy face or "laughing all the way to the bank" face. They used fairly "stock" photos of Mercer and perhaps Banon, but Trump has a look of confusion and Farage looks mental. For the record I'm neither pro Trump or pro Brexit. I wish both sides wouldn't participate in behaviors like this.
I wonder how long until your browser or an addon can get the gist of the article's subjects compare with image recognition the facial expressions and let you know if there might be some editorial bias. Just something to put in your subconscious before the editor/author works on your subconscious
You can see that sort of thing everywhere, subtle manipulation through image choice. Here's another example:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/06/brussels-punishin...
That article is supposedly about Brexit and Marine Le Pen, but the image chosen for the top of the article claims to be a picture of a Russian journalist (holding up pictures of Trump, Le Pen and Putin). In fact she's not a journalist at all, her name is Maria Katasonova and she is an obscure candidate for a far-right Russian political party. I can only assume the point of doing this is to try and plant the subconscious message that Russian journalism is unreliable.
www.cnn.com/2017/02/23/world/pope-atheists-again/
> Pope: It's better to be an atheist than a bad Christian - CNN.com
How this is not a fake news and misrepresentation of what the Pope have said? It's so bad that the story was removed from HN and even pro-atheist reddit didn't bough it...
EDIT: I do not mean to start a war here, I've read facetube's comment above as "our side is always provably right and other side spreads misinformation" and it seemed as naive and untrue view to me. Here in Poland none of 2 major powers represents my views and both manipulate news, and I assume situation is similar in US. I may have read it wrong, but situations where HN-trusted media spreads propaganda definitely do happen.
1: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/17/gay-right...
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nigel+farage&tbm=isch
He's not exactly known for looking Churchillian.
What problems does that actually expose about his platform, or how does it show that his opponents are correct? It is barely even an ad-hominem attack - am attack on his character or reputation might lead me to believe that his viewpoint is held by untrustworthy people, but his face? It means nothing.
And yet it does have a small subconscious impact, causing a bias in my thinking.
Milliband was also mocked for looking silly when eating a bacon sandwich, but that was reframed as shallow media shenanigans.
Depends on the agenda, I guess.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/10/21/1413910453638_Imag...
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/12/15/article-2248755-16...
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/02/01/39022CC20000057...
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/09/06/1409965807387_wps_...
In fact if you search on farage site:dailymail.co.uk vs farage site:theguardian.com it seems that, if anything, the latter tends to use fewer ridiculous images of him.
The Daily Mail also sometimes uses images of (left-wing) Jeremy Corbyn, such as this:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/02/05/01/3CD6941A0000057...
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/05/15/00/33DD38440000057...
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/15/23/2C5822330000057...
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/06/09/18/351879870000057...
Sometimes it's bias and sometimes it's just poking fun at or ridiculing public figures, but it's everywhere. We're all biased.
Did Trump outspend Rodham?
Who even knows the name of any independent candidate? They don't have advertising to tell us what they stand for or make us believe they're big enough to win.
Potentially millions of Illegals voted. (potentially) http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/trump-is-right-...
Here's one illegal that voted FIVE times. http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Trial-Begins-in-Alleged-Ill...
AND the DHS supposedly under Obama administration tried to hack electronic voting polls for six states. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-08/georgia-accuses-hom...
EDIT: I only said supposedly on the third because SIX is the supposed number, but the Georgia one DID happen.
The winner of the US presidential election must be elected by majority vote.
Of course, as long as we're hypothesizing the election to be by popular vote, we could make it by plutority too...
It's up to each state to choose their electors (plutority of popular vote, as you said being the most common, though not the only method).
He gained insane amounts of "earned coverage" -- airtime obtained without paying for it. Over $2 billion.
A conservative media source: http://conservativeintel.com/2015/09/11/trumps-earned-media-...
The NY Times if you prefer: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-t...
If anything the press's doubling down against him helped him because it also showed independents how in bed the press had become with one party.
Love him or hate he has a personality and he correctly realized that with a highly negative press it was best to portray them as the establishment as well.
The part I respect is he stomped on all three establishments which do their best to control Washington (RNC, DNC, and the Press).
https://medium.com/echelon-indicators/the-year-in-news-2016-...
Discussion:
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/6MMZjbxW...
This is an indirect measure, but shows major themes in discussion of news on Twitter, by Echelong Insights. Included, and pictured, is Twitter discussion of 17 major election-related stories. Three of these, the Electoral College, Fake News, and Steve Bannon, are principally or completely post election day phenomena, but the remaining 14 occur during the election cycle.
The two most dominant stories -- Wikileaks/Hacking (33.083m) and Clinton's Email (21.124m) stories dwarf the others (Deplorables, 5.989m being the runner-up). None of the Trump negative stories (Tapes, Taxes, Melania's speech, Paul Manafort, Trump University) come close, and several discussions which could have appeared quite notably don't: Donald Trump's live speech requesting that Russia hack his opponent's emails, or Clinton's claims that Trump would be Putin's puppet. These make absolutely no appearance here -- though whether that represents poor methodology or lack of actual impact isn't clear.
Keep in mind that Twitter isn't a public opinion survey, nor is it front-of-mind awareness of news. It's a proxy for both, and proxies can be useful or deceptive.
If there's an element here that's most powerful and useful, it's the relationship between leading and non-leading items: power relations are strong. Again, from first to third ranking here is a five-fold reduction in tweets. From first to 17th, a 25-fold reduction of interest and attention, at least on Twitter.
This explains most of the rare exceptions to the "winner spent the most" rule.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/derekxiao/2016/06/22/from-disas...
Including most of the mainstream media, tv personalities, actors, etc.
Not to mention that they had the full cooperation and support of the state, that was supposed to be neutral.
Plus thinly veiled (or open) threats from all kinds of businesses, heads of foreign states, etc against a Brexit.
Giving advice as a foreign leader to other countries is what politicians do and besides it usually has the opposite intended effect which was why every European leader had their mouths tightly clamped during the campaign with a few minor slips from memory.
Finally, the state was against brexit, that was their stated position they were never neutral except they promised to keep quiet during the official campaign as per normal election rules
Secondly, they merely stated the facts as the civil service saw it regarding exit providing the frank and fearless advice that is their job.
On the contrary. To the point that, if I was British, I would be gravely insulted, whether I was for brexit or bremain.
>Secondly, they merely stated the facts as the civil service saw it regarding exit providing the frank and fearless advice that is their job.
They oversold their version of the "facts". And the sky hasn't fall, and is not really likely to fall after the process is completed either.
On the contrary, the Euro experiment hasn't been going that well, not just the monetary part, but even its more basic starting premise (as openly stated by the politicians that kickstarted the European union process in the 50s: to keep Germany from getting power over Europe again).
I think you take my second point as saying whether are right or wrong merely i was saying that it was fairly well indicated that the state apparatus' advice was stay in.
And the effects? Well it was only ever going to be a couple point difference in GDP compounded over thirty years. Not the sky falling in. But that adds up to serious difference in gdp. The thing with these binary decisions is the road forks at that moment and we will never see where the other road goes. Although I am surprised with the resiliency of the economy this far, could it be that it takes time to move capital out without panic, I am not sure I'm not an expert.
As is probably clear I would have preferred staying in, without going into details I think being together with Europe has a lot of benefits which counterweigh the negatives.
Right, I'll be sure to tell that to my suppliers when they tell me my inputs are 20% more expensive than they were last year.
Indeed, the entire premise of this article is that people make up their mind based on what they see on Facebook, although Leave voters trend old (i.e. the people least likely to heavily use Facebook). The idea that it's sinister and scary comes from an academic "expert". This way of thinking has been pushed so hard by the left wing and pro-EU segment of media and society:
• Trust experts, not yourself.
• People who disagree with us are merely influenced by lies.
• It should be (pro-EU) MPs, not a referendum result, that decides what happens.
• When courts overrule referendums, that's democracy.
• Referendums are a bad idea because the outcome is pre-determined by whoever lies the most/spends the most money/is best at manipulation/etc.
It's a worldview that dehumanises anyone who disagrees and makes fools of anyone who adopts it, as the endless shrill cries of "what about the £350 million for the NHS" make clear - as if no lies were told by the Remain campaign! Emergency budgets that never happened, an insta-recession that never happened, Cameron saying he'd stay on and then immediately resigning, Obama saying the USA would shun the UK, the £4300/yr figure that was dropped the moment the Treasury produced it because it was clear this "expert prediction" was nonsense, the "we can stay in a reformed EU" despite the actual leaders of the EU saying that wasn't going to happen, etc etc.
But despite all that, only one side constantly harps on the idea that the vote wasn't reliable because of nonsense said by politicians: the side that never believed in voting to begin with.
It's perhaps because you listen to "left-wing" politicians and people in power, and you're out of touch with people who have actual leftist opinions, that you get this impression. But it has nothing to do with being left-wing as it has it with being in power.
So, I think you should stop labeling those things as leftist (they are not - democracy is in fact very much a leftist idea), you're only hurting your own cause, by seeing enemies where you could have allies.
And these "experts" you talk of, they're just as politically motivated as you are, think about that.
Could you give an actual example (quote) of what you consider to be bad from "the left"?
Let me give you an opposite example, so that the discussion is not so abstract: Yanis Varoufakis disagrees with all those 4 points (see DiEM25) and he is a leftist.
Experts are politically motivated, like everybody, yes. But that doesn't mean they don't give useful advice. I mean, your doctor is politically motivated, are you going not to trust him? Do you agree with: "Don't trust your doctor, only yourself"? In general, not trusting experts by default is a bad idea (maybe better would be to say: not trusting experts blindly is worse than trusting them blindly).
A quick example of bad left would be their reaction to Brexit and anyone that voted in favor of it, which to them meant, overnight half the country became racist.
Now, comparing a doctor, whom don't base their care on political opinions - to, say, financial experts that have something to gain from their "expert opinions" are two very different types of expert. But again, this is what we see coming from the left all the time, everything is black and white, there is no middle ground, you are either with us or a whole host of 'ism words.
Funny thing is, doctors actually have to make shitty calls i.e. triage, and sometimes society can be so broken, that to fix things, shitty calls need to be made; something the left are utterly incapable of doing.
Since I obviously disagree what is "left" (and since I identify on the left, I would dare to say I have a better idea what it actually is), clearly I don't understand who you mean by "we" and "them". (Which is funny especially since you accuse the left from seeing things in binary.)
See, I offer to educate you, what actually left is about, maybe you would find that you actually agree with it (which wouldn't be surprising for me). But unless you give me an example of person you think is leftist and has those opinions, I cannot proceed - I don't know what exactly is your misconception about left.
Your remark about Brexit is funny - I do consider Jeremy Corbyn to be leftist, even though I disagree with him on Brexit. So does he call himself racist?
Give me a specific example (aka quote), then we can discuss if the statement or the person is leftist and how much.
The left is actually pretty wide, diverse set of people, with many opinions (that's why I asked what the "narrative" means in this context, there is no one). You certainly cannot categorize it as "them" and "us". (And you are the one giving blank statements like "the left are utterly incapable of doing".)
About the experts - it's not really about the profession either. I mean, if you were given the choice to trust the same expert person, 1-year into their career versus 20-years into their career, you would probably choose the latter one, who is probably the bigger expert of the two.
I think the key thing with "experts" is actually not whether to trust experts or not, that's a false dichotomy. The real issue is: How to choose an expert? Which is tricky (although I know some tricks), but beyond my interest in this discussion.
I am basing my list on attitudes expressed by people in:
1) The Guardian
2) The Labour party
3) Friends who I know strongly identify as left wing
I think you'll agree Labour, the Guardian and people who explicitly identify as left wing are all describable as left wing.
Most people won't explicitly state outright that they distrust democracy. But all I have to do is examine the number of MPs that voted against the Article 50 bill (to begin implementation of the referendum) in each party to see a clear difference between the right and left wing parties. It was after all the Tories that gave the UK a referendum on the EU, and Labour that said they would and then went back on their promise.
All I have to do is compare randomly chosen articles in the Guardian and (say) the Telegraph to see the clear difference in attitudes.
And when I look at what my friends are sharing on Facebook, there's a clear correlation between those who were most appalled by Brexit and the ones who are constantly sharing anti-Tory screeds.
So, I do feel that my experiences are pretty consistent in this regard, and I know from articles and comments I read elsewhere that I'm not alone in this.
In my experience, distrust in democracy is pretty similar on left/right spectrum, mostly correlated with elitism. Many (although a minority) of university graduates are (ostensibly) leftist yet elitist.
It also has been shown that people who are in power (for example ruling party, members of parliament, etc.) are more likely to oppose (direct) democracy. That's probably the strongest predictor.
I don't believe that people who brought the Brexit referendum had democracy in their hearts, unfortunately. I have seen examples of politicians proposing a specific referendum because they thought the idea has majority support, and refusing referendum in other instances (for example, I doubt conservatives want referendum for Scottish secession in case of Brexit).
But regardless, I suggest you educate your friends. Democracy is the leftist idea (because it treats everybody as having equal power), this goes back to origin of the word left/right in the French parliament.
I'm not sure that correlates with what's happening in the UK. The Conservatives are in power and held the referendum and are now the party that is united behind implementing it, despite that it campaigned to remain. Labour is not in power and they're the ones trying to slow it down (SNP of course, also not in power, and united in trying to damn the rest of the UK as normal).
I have seen examples of politicians proposing a specific referendum because they thought the idea has majority support, and refusing referendum in other instances (for example, I doubt conservatives want referendum for Scottish secession in case of Brexit).
It was Cameron who made the Scottish indyref happen, wasn't it? Despite that the Conservatives are unionists. Again, I'm not sure your argument matches how events played out. They probably wouldn't want one right now because it was only a few years since the last one and polls don't indicate any major change, besides, the civil service wouldn't be able to implement both Brexit and Scexit simultaneously.
https://dominiccummings.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/on-the-refe...
https://dominiccummings.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/on-the-refe...
Please, help me explore how this is significantly different than the Russia vs US election issue on the other side of the pond.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pro-trump-megadonor-...
“America is finally fed up and disgusted with its political elite. Trump is channeling this disgust, and those among the political elite who quake before the boombox of media blather do not appreciate the apocalyptic choice that America faces on Nov. 8.”
I assume this statement is derived from data.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/no-one-...
In a political domain in which a large portion of the population is disenchanted, it's relative, possibly frighteningly, easy to preach a simple and easily digested and accepted message of salvation. It is almost always false. It is hugely appealing.
Trump has tapped that nerve, with the help of a number of others, the Mercers among them. I'd add Thiel to the list also.
Robert Reich says that Brexit and the Trump victory happened because the economic recovery after the 2008 crash wasn't quite a big hit (contrary to what we all might have hoped for).
Now that may be due to changing economic realities, i think that people blamed transnational entities (EU, NAFTA, TTIP) and the elites that supported these developments for what happened. The only entity that could change the status quo were the populists (due to the neo-liberal consensus that erased any real differences between right and left) [1]. Now the backlash against the populists might come either from a reformed left or from a reformed right, go figure.
I don't think that financial support by a moneybag could have changed the global picture in any significant way. For every right wing sponsor there is one on the left.
[1] in Britain they had Boris Johnson, who played a major role throughout the referendum campaign.
The Anti-Defimation League whose reason d'être is to combat anti-Semitism came out with a statement against Ellison on Dec 1, 2016,[2] but you won't see MSM mention the ADL condemnation of Ellison.
[1] http://jpupdates.com/2014/08/03/rep-ellison-explains-anti-ir...
[2] http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/israel-middle...
[3] http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/17/democrats-must-scrutinize-...
Of course choosing Ellison as a candidate to lead them was truly a lack of judgment on the part of the DNC but for some reason, NY Times, Washington Post, etc. failed to report Ellison's views and the ADL statement.
EDIT: The Wall Street Journal, unlike NYTimes and Washington Post does bring up Ellison's anti-Semitism, but only after the fact, not before the election:
"Mr. Ellison, who is an African-American Muslim, also faced complaints about his past associations with the Nation of Islam and statements he has made that were perceived as criticizing Israel. Haim Saban, an Israeli-American donor who funded the construction of the DNC’s Washington headquarters, in December publicly called Mr. Ellison “clearly an anti-Semite.”" [4]
[4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-elect-tom-perez-party...
It is also very much possible to be anti-Semitic and pro-Israel, but I won't go into those mental gymnastics here.
Edit: the mental gymnastics that have been offered elsewhere basically boil down to, "we hate Jews, but are fine giving them their own country if it means they leave America." White supremacists are also pro-Israel because they think having a Jewish homeland justifies having a white homeland (America, Europe, etc).
Practically speaking I'd say it is less than you think.
Anti-Zionism is often just a proxy for hating jews who live in Israel.
There's no real way to engage with somebody who willfully tries to remove that distance.
I could say something similar the other way but that would be to accept your invitation to a framing competition.
Actually this whole: there is no way to engage with x is a problem IMO.
I mean, do you include Israeli settlers within 'jews who live in Israel'?
When people argue that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, and must be a priori excluded, then debate and engagement is impossible. There is a difference between criticizing Jews and criticizing Israel, and erasing that difference necessarily forecloses on conversation.
Just FTR, I'm not trying to argue that.
Criticising Israel (or for that matter, Jews) should be totally ok.
A) more important than Israel is the tens of thousands taking it upon themselves to singlehandedly expand Israelly territory by we establishing settlements and outposts on internationally-recognized Palestinian land (with the support of Bibi).
B) I doubt you'd find an anti-zionist who would wholly disagree with that statement. Isn't living in Israel a fundamental part of being Zionist, after all? I think you have something foundational mixed up, because you are conflating absolutely disjunct issues. If one perceives the state of Israel to be in a constant moral, political, and physical state or aggression against Palestinians then that hate is part and parcel with that belief and there's nothing wrong with saying so.
Let's try again: people that say they hate Muslim fundamentalists is just a way of saying they hate Muslims who live in ISIS and Al-Qaeda controlled regions.
So? I'm sure you would argue that is absolutely not the same as having something fundamentally against Muslims themselves. How is hating the Zionist movement and those contributing to it in any way parallel to being an anti-Semite that does not like people of Jewish origin/faith that have nothing to do with Zionism (of which there are plenty).
Also, please note that anti-zionism would not distinguish between a Jewish zionist or a Christian one. And they have just as much gripe with the thousands of Ethiopians who make up a good chunk of the on-the-ground IDF forces, most of whom are not Jewish (except in name/technicality), and are regularly brought in to Israel to combat the disparity in growth rates in the Arab-Israeli vs "Jewish"-Israeli passport-holding population (Jewish is in quotes because it's really about non-Arab (Christian or Muslim) more than it is about being of Jewish descent/religion).
If I were to introduce a bill to the house floor today that says we give Zimbabwae one billion USD to build a missile system to defend against terrorist missile strikes - a system which they refused to share details regarding its operative details and technical/operational schematics - and it was voted down, would you say all of Congress are anti-Zimbabwaen and terrorist sympathizer?
You cite the ADL's statement about Ellison (which doesn't accuse him of anti-Semitism, but instead retracts ADL support based on his statements about US support for Israel government policy), but you seem to have ignored their statements about Bannon, eg:
http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/miscellaneous...
http://cleveland.adl.org/news/trump-appointee-bannon-accused...
The Mercers are behind Breitbart, Trump, Bannon and the British Leave campaign; I doubt that altruism has much to do with it.
We're discussing the family's dubious actions precisely because they go beyond pure self interest.
So, one part Machiavelli, one part sociopath?
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/5vxxyh/reddit_i...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2017/02/20/reddit-i...
As for the rest of the article and the graph of influence. I wish some SC wiz kid would build a "revenue Big Brother" DB so we can see and track all these often nefarious connections. We have video games out the ass but no way of knowing and seeing a graph of relationshios that for all practical purposes paints a picture of corruption. When will we finally get something that useful?
In all fairness: Isn't "extremely troubling undisclosed support-in-kind" exactly what Bannon and Mercer are charging the "mainstream media" with?
(Disclosure: No Trump supporter, nor Ukip. Not a citizen in both countries)
That idea occurred to me a few months ago. I've been researching it in some depth, and like most good ideas, I'm hardly the first to stumble accross it. In recent memory, Elizabeth Eisenstein has pursued the idea to a greater extent than nearly anyone else, in particular in her 1980 book The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Review here (full text available via https://sci-hub.cc):
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2779560?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...
I'm aware of a number of those transitions, and there's good evidence for nearly all of the corresponding changes.
1. Speach and language itself: increased intra- and inter-tribal communications. Strong evidence of rapidly advancing toolmaking, including stone tools, and weapons.
2. Writing. Co-incident with the start of civilisation itself, cities, and agriculture. Spread like wildfire from regions in which it first developed over a period of a few centuries for the most part.
3. Printing. Moveable type, in Europe, corresponded with thhe Reformation, schism of the Catholic Church, and a continent-wide 30 Years War.
4. Incremental improvements in literacy, papermaking, and printing: the American and French revolutions.
5. Steam-powered, iron-framed prresses, greatly increased literacy, and much cheaper paper: the Revolutions of 1848, in which 50 nations in Europe and Latin America experienced revolutionary uprisings.
6. Mass media, especially radio, public address systems, cinema, audio tape recording, grammaphone, and ever cheaper and faster presses: the rise of Fascism in Italy and Germany, demagogues in the United States (Huey Long, Father Coughlin, Joseph McCarthy).
7. In the 1950s - 2010s, mass social movements piggy-backing on radio, mobile PA systems (bullhorns), mass music, television, CB radio, call-in radio, telephones, mimeographs, Xerox machines, Fanzines, dial-up, broadband, and mobile Internet, Web-based apps, social media.
Profiling, targeted messaging, and other elements operate similarly.
The overall dynamics are complex, and I've omitted other elements, but the overall concept seems quite strong. Many authors have commented on elements of this, though few look to the darker side. Le Bon, Mackay, Bernays, McLuhan, Chomsky, Mander, Shirky, and boyd are among those who have.
some of us were smart enough never to start using them in the first place
It's just a numbers game like sales, you may not always be able to influence one particular voter but you can nudge a swing population X number of percentage points in your favoured direction.
People were not swayed by abstract arguments of balances of trade, but about lies told about paying £350m per week to the NHS rather than Europe.
Both sides engaged in hyperbole but no amount of rhetoric would change what people saw around them with their own eyes. Some saw a thriving metropolis that benefited massively from the EU; others saw factory towns decimated by the switch in trade away from the Commonwealth and towards the EU. It just so happens there were more of the latter than the former.
And the idea that the UK ever "traded" with the Commonwealth on anything like the scale it trades with the EU is nonsense.
The UK did a nice line in imperial resource extraction from Commonwealth countries for a good century or so. But it was never "trade" in the common market sense.
Any suggestion that it's possible for the UK to return to a time that never existed is obviously incorrect.
Both sides were given to hyperbole true, but that is largely driven by the UK (and most of the population of the western world) being distracted to death. Most people think the issues are too complex to worry about; they just know that the system isn't working and they will listen to people making emotive arguments who suggest they can fix everything by going back to the way it was. Of course the technology and efficiency changes genie can't be put back into the bottle; what company would voluntarily put themselves at an unnecessary disadvantage?
Trying to turn back the clock is a waste of energy.
[0] https://www.imf.org/EXTERNAL/PUBS/FT/ISSUES10/issue10.pdf