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Comment by craigsmansion | Hacker News Reader

> but I think that they had a vote.

Norway also had a vote on the EU. I was also close. "No" won.

What Norway didn't implement was a "winner takes all" approach. They're not in the EU. They're not in the Customs union. They are in the EEA. Everybody wins, everybody loses, but nobody feels like their wishes have been completely ignored.

There is no reason the results of the Brexit referendum couldn't have been interpreted like that. It's not like there's only one seat that can be filled by one person and there has to be a loser. It's not an election.

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I think for a lot of participants there does have to be a "loser" - it's been turned into a "culture war". That's where things like refusing to accept ECJ jurisdiction seem to be coming from. That's why there's such a nasty edge to the whole thing, and such a refusal to engage in compromises that might move the thing forwards.

I don't think it's a case of "having to be a loser". Rather the nasty edge is coming from a loss of confidence that the (upper-middle-class, college-educated) political class will represent the people - and not without reason, given how our political and social elites (still!) dismiss any concern about immigration as nothing but stupid racists, as seen in this very article.

So what are the non-racist fact-based concerns about EU freedom of movement migration? Why is leave voting highly correlated with not actually having high levels of EU migrants in the area?

To forestall the public services argument, to a large extent the public services are made out of immigrants, especially in health and social care.

I'm no fan of May and this is probably giving her too much credit (and oversimplifying) but is it possible she's nailing this?

Her "Brexit means brexit" and "No deal is better than a bad deal" rhetoric has kept the hardline Brexiteer tories from throwing her overboard. But maybe after a 'long, hard fight' she gives a theatrical sigh and accepts the Norway deal. Everyone gives a resigned shrug and we don't have country-wide riots.

As I said in another post here, since people who voted Leave had different ideas of what they meant by Leave, there is no possible way to do this that will satisfy even the majority of people. A compromise that leaves most people feeling not too dis-satisfied may be the best possible outcome.

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