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Comment by justaguyhere | Hacker News Reader

I don't feel bad (much) for those who voted for Brexit - all they had to do was spend 15 mins googling and thinking. Even if they didn't understand the full impact of leaving the EU, it was plain then (and now) to see it is such a bad idea from any angle. I do feel bad for those who voted to stay - they're gonna suffer now, despite voting responsibly and sensibly.

I don't know how to take this - one way to look at it is democracy won and people spoke, the other way to look at it is we can't always expect the masses to make rational/sensible decisions.

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> I don't know how to take this - one way to look at it is democracy won and people spoke

Democracy failed here. People elect representatives for a reason. Normal people shouldn't be expected to understand the complexities and nuances of a public policy decision. It should have been the responsibility of the elected representatives to have reasoned discussions, to weigh the pros and cons etc. and finally make decision for the people they represent. They abdicated on their most basic duty and we are in this mess now.

That's not so much the problem here. The problem is that the voters answered the wrong question, as a result of a bad binary choice and lying campaigns.

If voters had known what they are in for, they wouldn't have voted to leave.

Have you asked each and every person to come to your conclusion? I voted "leave" because I don't want unelected officials like Junker deciding the law of the land in a UK.

Perhaps you should get more informed and read up on the Kalergi Plan.

It looks like what this guy was saying was that people would be fucking a lot and ethnic groups would mix as time moves on. I mean, this is literally the story of homo sapiens. Mass migrations and ethnic mixing - been happening for hundreds of thousands of years.

You really shouldn't have voted leave my friend.

There is such a thing as surveys which can capture motivations and reasoning. And then there is the rhethoric of the leave campaign, some of which was obviously untrue back then (the famous NHS line on that bus), and some have turned out to be lies after the referendum (like the optimistic assumptions about a brexit deal). At the very least the voters did not have a clear picture of how the deal would work out.

Your point about "unelected officials" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the EU works. "The EU" or its officials don't decide that much, if anything at all. Most of it relates to being able to exchange goods and services in a fair and safe manner. And even then, these decisions are driven by the elected governments of the member countries, because the "unelected officials" are selected and directed by those.

For example: if a company from country A is providing a service in Country B, using workers from country A, then there need to be certain rules. Labor protections should apply equally, as should professional qualifications and such. Similar things apply to goods traded between countries. If one country lowers its standards, for example for medical equipment, and the other members are forced to accept that equipment, then there is both a safety concern and a competitive concern. That's why so much regulation is coordinated at the EU level - and driven by the member states.

And no, bilateral treaties can't keep up the slack, because 28 member countries would have to have bilateral treaties with each other, which would be impractical.

as you are telling others to be more informed, and you said that Junker is unelected.. how do you think Junker ended up in there? Do you think he can just do whatever he wants without having to asked? Or you think every important official should be directly elected by the citizens? Spoiler: it does not happen in the main democracies for roles such as president or even head of state, and of course it does not happen for the Queen. I would be more upset bout that than about Junker.

Particularly these "unelected officials" are a necessary part of every burocracy.

Unless a voter spends a ridiculous amount of time studying and keeping current in politics, he can only meaningfully participate in a limited number of elections and issues. "Down the ballot", even for things like AGs or Judges, much less regulatory officials, people lose interest and competency.

More immediate access to information leads to more direct democratic pressure on legislators. This is not necessarily a good thing.

Democracy didn't fail - the process of legislation failed. The UK didn't vote on how they would leave the EU or what was wrong with the current arrangements, they just strung together a poorly-worded promise and played chicken with the constituency.

Democracy hasn't failed here. Your MPs have.

Humphrey in Yes, Minister puts it very aptly: the UK joined the EU to try to screw it up from within after failing to screw it up from without. De Gaulle saw through this and that is why he refused to let the UK join while was at the helm.

The UK leaving the EU and/or disagreeing with what it stands for (to the UK: a market; to the rest of the EU: a peace project with benefits) has been a debate ever since the UK joined. If I am not mistaking, nearly all challenges to PMs in the UK since have been about the EU.

True, the EU is not perfect. But it's more or less functional and it's brought us peace since 1945. Plus, as an EU citizen, it's wonderful to be able to move from one point on the continent to another on a whim.

A large chunk of EU MP's time is actually spent transcribing EU law into Member State law, which is to say a lot more -- good -- stuff gets done in Brussels and Strasbourg than gets reported by the media. The EU, as an aside, happens to be a convenient scapegoat across the EU: when it's good, it's because of us; when it isn't, it's because of Brussels. But you'd never know that reading UK press.

To me the real WTF is that Brexiters didn't even believe in their own project all while pushing for it [1]. They had done such a good job in the decades prior at scapegoating the EU for just about everything, that UK voters ended up voting Leave, thereby pointing a gun at their own face.

More outrageous still is that some of the movement's leaders, such as Farage, are jumping ship by moving to continental Europe.

Frankly, as a continental EU citizen who has been watching this circus with growing awareness since the late-80s, the only thing that comes to my mind is: unless the UK public gets its act together (in which case I fully expect the rest of the EU to insist on the UK abandoning its budget rebate nonsense and adopting Schengen and the Euro, on top of aligning with the EU project once and for all), good riddance.

[1]: Mehdi Hasan's take on this in Chris Hayes' podcast is spot on: https://player.fm/series/why-is-this-happening-with-chris-ha...

UK? No... This is an issue of English imperialist history. British Empire is dead, but too many people forget that.

English majority was lying all the way from mid 20th century. Last two blatant lies - promise to the Scots to keep them in the EU and 350mil to NHS(which was really a front for "they are stealing our benefits").

Politics failed, not democracy. Failed to offer an intelligent question, failed to present rational argument (never have I seen such disingenuous campaigning, by both sides, in UK politics as for the referendum), failed to present the result in the context of our constitution and system.

The referendum was called by Cameron to try and keep the party hardliners in their box. Nothing more than playing politics. The remain vote was supposed to be a foregone conclusion or he'd have not called that referendum at all. Cameron's reaction the morning after says it all.

In the words of Chris Patten, former Tory chairman:

"The whole sorry shambles began with a decision to call a referendum in order to try to manage the English nationalist right wing of the Conservative party."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/07/uk-must-have-s...

I agree, however I feel the same about the election of President Trump. The founding fathers created the Electoral College to prevent the masses from doing something stupid. The US Constitution is a document that was designed to only allow as much democracy as needed to prevent a dictator (King) but no more. The founding fathers, internally vs what has been publicized, were teriffed of the masses. The masses in charge get you the French Revolution. While I agree there where some that needed to loose their head it became a blood bath. I would say the same thing of China, where the masses happily killed everyone Mao pointed at.

The newspapers have spent 30 years running misleading stories about the EU, and at least 20 running scaremongering about immigrants ever since ECHR came in. In some ways it's the biggest victory for a campaigning press in history.

A democracy needs an informed electorate to function.

By your own admission, [the majority of] those that voted Leave didn’t understand what they were voting for.

By that measure, I don’t believe “democracy won”.

That is why I said I don't know how to take this.

Yes, a democracy needs an informed electorate to function. But it is the electorate's responsibility to keep themselves informed. There will always be fake news, click baits and outright wrong/illegal manoeuvers from someone or the other.

IMHO, if the electorate can't take a few mins to understand what they are voting on, they don't deserve to vote.

I agree with you.

Sadly, any time I have suggested that not everyone is equal and therefore not everyone deserves the same rights in determining circumstances for others, someone has invoked Godwin’s law.

Tough problem to solve.

> But it is the electorate's responsibility to keep themselves informed.

Is it? Surely this is why we have people we delegate to because most people aren't going to be spending their time trying to keep up with the finer points of macroeconomics within a multicountry trading block as it pertains to tariffs, etc.

Much like I delegate to a doctor when I'm ill - if he gave me the wrong treatment and said "it's your fault, you should be better informed", that would seem a little harsh, no?

[edit to correct a mistaken plural]

I disagree with your analogy. You're equating a highly regulated and complex profession like medicine with unregulated, emotionally charged profession like politics which routinely attracts the worst possible humans to participate (not the voters, but those who contest in elections). Tell me honestly - how much effort and time would it take for a British voter to read up the basics of Brexit, and then take 30 mins to think through it, the day before the vote?

Compare this with cancer or some other problem for which I go to the doctor to - it is not an easy task to understand the nuances of various drugs and treatments. Still, at least some people spend time and learn as much as possible before putting drugs into their bodies. But there is an implicit trust in doctors, because bad doctors don't last long in their profession. But bad politicians? It is almost a given that if a politician isn't a crook to some degree, he/she isn't gonna last long. By this time, the electorate should have learned to view everything that comes out of any politician's mouth with distrust, the opposite of what they (generally) do to a doctor.

Also, one doesn't need to learn the finer points of macroeconomics - Brexit is a bad idea for Britons, from every angle, even without understanding the depth of the issue.

We can blame the politicians all we want - but in the end, we vote for these politicians. Until we keep doing it, what right do we have to complain?

There was a lot of misinformation and unrealistic promises made by the Leave campaign that swayed the vote in their favour. The campaign was also unlawful due to illegal overspending which May ignores.

If the public were told the truth about what we'd be sacrificing for "sovereignty", I don't think we'd be here.

I am very skeptical about the Brexit but on the other hand nobody knows the future. But the best description I have read about the Brexit:

If you are imaginary enslaved [by the EU] then your freedom can also only be imaginary and will likely disappoint.

Overspending is hardly the issue... People that are angry at the "polish immigrants" are no better about it today, than yesterday.

Read up on the Kalergi Plan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altiero_Spinelli

A lot of people voted to leave the EU, not the EEA, which is all linked together in a gigantic pile of mess, and most barely understands it.

It was like the vote for Trump, the current way of living simply wasn't working out for many, ( Make America Great Again ) and they could not careless about the consequences, since the government had been ignoring them for far too long, they decided to take a vote into something different.

When I read ( arguably only limited in scope as I didn't spend much time on it ) how the remain were positioning themselves, most of their point were money, immigration, money, immigration, money. And really didn't answer any concern of the leave camp. It was like an internet argument, except happening in real life, You are Wrong, and I am Right. This does absolutely nothing to bring the two camps together. And to me It was very irresponsible from both side of the parties. At the end of the day, a representative democracy, normally people shouldn't have to be making this decision. Now it is the people that are going to suffer.

Yes, at least that's painfully obvious now.

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