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Comment by TheManInThePub | Hacker News Reader

> This is government policy and it is popular

Be very careful with such a statement.

Regardless of where you sit on the issue, the Brexit referendum was roughly 50:50. The UK is fiercely split [1] and such issues are not going to be resolved anytime soon. It is incorrect to state such a policy is popular..... roughly half the population voted against it.

[1] And dare I say it... looks in danger of splitting up.

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Brexit was, apparently, very popular with uniformed services such as armed forces, police etc, presumably border control too. I can imagine such disproportionate action is one way to feel good about your job and justify extra funding: just look at how many people we detained! Also, I’m not a paper pusher who waves people through, I regularly catch enemies of the state and put them where their place is.

In that respect, I suspect it is a popular policy among those who enforce it.

OK then, it's fair to state that the policy is not unpopular. It commands a good deal of support from the electorate.

Populations usually split one third reactionary, one third progressive, and one third will-vote-how-they're told.

If the policy is "popular" - which it isn't, except among the reactionaries - it's in no small measure because the UK media have normalised this kind of abuse.

This kind of thing is almost a predictable syndrome associated with post-colonialism. Other countries have been through it, now it's the UK's turn.

When countries lose their empires/influence, racism and fascism provide a compensation that can temporarily restore childish fantasies of omnipotence.

It's associated with a death wish, so things generally get worse - sometimes much worse - before they get better.

The referendum vote is not the best point of reference. The Conservatives won comfortably in 2019, and recently won a by election, again comfortably, all on a platform of implementing brexit.

Won comfortably in the UK does not mean too much in the UK. Easily 30-40% of the votes get just disregarded in the UK system. (I did not check the actual figures for the recent elections.)

They had the biggest vote share but this was still under 50% in 2019. It's only due to FPTP that this translates to a majority of seats.

They had the biggest vote share. Just like Leave did in the referendum. It's fair enough if you want to campaign to change the electoral system, but both of these things legitimately came from the present one.

Sure, but that's irrelevant for the message you were replying to:

> The UK is fiercely split [1] and such issues are not going to be resolved anytime soon. It is incorrect to state such a policy is popular..... roughly half the population voted against it.

You tried to dispute that by pointing out that the Conservatives won comfortably in 2019. I don't think it does given that the vote share in 2019 still suggested a roughly 50:50 split of the population.

In the 2019 election, more people voted for the parties opposed to Brexit or advocating a second referendum than for pro Brexit parties.

CON, DUP: 44.4%

LAB, LIB, SNP, GRN, CYM: 50.7%

Brexit is now done so last week's local elections can't be used as a point of reference on that subject.

Labour neither opposed Brexit nor advocated for a second referendum during the 2019 GE campaign though. We cannot be sure what their voters' position on Brexit was. My assumption is that the majority of them were opposed, but a significant minority were still in favour, and we do not know how big that significant minority was, we do not know whether it would have been enough for the outcome of a new referendum to be different from the previous one.

> Labour neither opposed Brexit nor advocated for a second referendum during the 2019 GE campaign though.

Yes they did. From their party manifesto[1]:

> Within three months of coming to power, a Labour government will secure a sensible deal. And within six months, we will put that deal to a public vote alongside the option to remain.

Large numbers of voters switched from Labour to Conservative because of Brexit. It's probably fair to count all Labour voters from that election as "not in favour of Brexit".

1. https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Real-Change...

That "sensible deal" is still Brexit, it's just not a no-deal Brexit or hard Brexit. I had missed the bit about putting that new different deal to a public vote though.

> all on a platform of implementing brexit

Nope. They won exclusively due to targeted "hidden" campaigns via Facebook and other directed means, sending messages designed to sway the voters in a number of very narrowly decided constituencies. This is how they got 56.2% of the parliament seats despite winning only 43.6% of the votes.

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