Why The Hate For Brexit Voters?

[LuisDantas]

How do you get this from 'we've been talking about it for years'?

I do not. I get that from your observation that the circles @Immortal Flame frequents have a very different opinion from yours.

The problem many Remainers had was that many genuinely didn't understand that many Britons wanted Brexit, because it hadn't been talked about in their circles. Usually urban, liberal, specialised job fields, where people were pro-globalism etc. These conversations usually happened in rural English and Welsh areas and within the North of England where we had been decimated and left behind owing to many many factors.

So... you are complaining that the Remain campaign ought to have been more insistent and reached out more to rural areas, then?

While also pointing out that you have been wanting to vote for Brexit for decades, apparently?

That is not necessarily a contradiction, but it sure looks like a tall order.

We had a Brexit vote based on this small majority (which it ended up being) of English people who wanted to leave.

From the POV of the Leaver, some Remainers came off as living in bubbles that didn't interact with the people who would be Brexit voters.

Seems to me that you are conflating two different issues here.

One is the apparent need for some form of protest against a lack of proper representation in Westminster. Far as I can tell that is a very real and significant issue, but not really connected to Brexit except in that there is a strong component of mistrust and dislike of the EU in there.

The other is Brexit itself. Which, ultimately, ends up making worries about the EU and the rest of the world more necessary than before. I guess it was hoped that it would somehow be the opposite.

I don't see much of a defense against this kind of danger that does not involve achieving higher political awareness of issues before voting.

You are right that in the UK there is no real venue for this and the complex class system disallows for inter-party conversations just generally.

Many Leave voters, for example, we also lifelong Labour voters.

As were many Remain.

It's way more complex than it's being made out and the LSE article gets it pretty well.

Which is why I dislike being called 'wrong', since it's not an issue of right or wrong. I don't think those who voted Remain were 'wrong'. They had valid reasons for doing so.

I don't get it. Did you want to vote for Brexit, or did you not?

I don't think you can both express your support for Brexit and also refuse to accept responsibility for its existence at the same time.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There.

Is.

No.

Right.

And.

Wrong.

In.

A.

Democracy.

Nonsense.

How we vote is an expression of our values and is informed by out understanding of the facts.

A person's values can be judged to be good or bad and our understanding of the facts can be correct or incorrect.

In a democracy, you're free to vote as you see fit. You're also free to keep how you vote secret. But if you choose to tell people how you vote, democracy doesn't have any magical shield against criticism.

You can't be locked up or fired from your job for voting for the "wrong" party or ballot measure, but people can certainly express disagreement with the positions you choose to share.

 

[Rival]

Nonsense.

How we vote is an expression of our values and is informed by out understanding of the facts.

A person's values can be judged to be good or bad and our understanding of the facts can be correct or incorrect.

In a democracy, you're free to vote as you see fit. You're also free to keep how you vote secret. But if you choose to tell people how you vote, democracy doesn't have any magical shield against criticism.

You can't be locked up or fired from your job for voting for the "wrong" party or ballot measure, but people can certainly express disagreement with the positions you choose to share.

This is opinion though.

It's not objective.

I can't say that someone who voted for Blair was objectively right or wrong, I mean that's just absurd.

Politics is subjective, it's not mathematics.

 

[LuisDantas]

(...)

We wouldn't have wanted to leave if we thought it would be a disaster.


For some it was. We wanted the EU to get its fingers out of our pie.


Labour was pro-Remain so why would we have voted for them?

I guess it came down to deciding how much you wanted to learn about the expected consequences of Brexit before voting.

In all honesty, I don't really understand why anyone would want to vote on anything before attempting to learn of the consequences.

 

[Rival]

I guess it came down to deciding how much you wanted to learn about the expected consequences of Brexit before voting.

In all honesty, I don't really understand why anyone would want to vote on anything before attempting to learn of the consequences.

You seem to believe that if we'd have thought about the consequences we'd have decided they would be bad.

Again, if that were the case we wouldn't have wanted it.

We voted based on the idea of the consequences, which we thought would be beneficial.

I'm still not sure where you're coming from.

 

[LuisDantas]

You seem to believe that if we'd have thought about the consequences we'd have decided they would be bad.

It is either that or believing that you would have refused to vote at all.

Again, if that were the case we wouldn't have wanted it.

We voted based on the idea of the consequences, which we thought would be beneficial.

I'm still not sure where you're coming from.

If you did not want to learn what your vote was all about, I don't think you should have voted.

To do so ill serves any democracy.

 

[Rival]

It is either that or believing that you would have refused to vote at all.




If you did not want to learn what your vote was all about, I don't think you should have voted.

To do so ill serves any democracy.

Why do you believe we didn't know what our vote was about? The vote happened at all based on the existence of people who had wanted it for years.

I mean, I really don't know where you're coming from here?

 

[ChristineM]

Why is there a suggestion that anyone who voted for Brexit was misled?

Well the £350 million a week promised to the NHS was rather misleading, in fact it was a ****ing blatant lie.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This is opinion though.

It's not objective.

I can't say that someone who voted for Blair was objectively right or wrong, I mean that's just absurd.

Politics is subjective, it's not mathematics.

Aspects of politics are objective; aspects are subjective.

If someone voted for Blair because he was going to enact policies A, B, and C and achieve goals X, Y, and Z, well... Blair either did these things or he didn't. Objectively, the prediction was either realized or not.

And subjectively, a person can say that those goals and policies - or what he actually did - were either morally right or morally wrong.

 

[Rival]

If someone voted for Blair because he was going to enact policies A, B, and C and achieve goals X, Y, and Z, well... Blair either did these things or he didn't. Objectively, the prediction was either realized or not.

Yes, but a vote is not a crystal ball.

We often vote based on promises not actualities.

We accept that, which makes it not-objective, but trust based.

If I vote for a party to demolish the NHS and instead they give it extra funding, how would I have known?

Everyone is in the same boat, here.

 

[LuisDantas]

Why do you believe we didn't know what our vote was about?

Because you are telling me so repeatedly in this very thread.

The vote happened at all based on the existence of people who had wanted it for years.

I mean, I really don't know where you're coming from here?

You apparently wanted something that you somehow came to believe would be Brexit back in 2016.

I have reasons to believe that the Remain campaign was lacking and the Leave campaign was dishonest, but still.

Brexit is not and could not even hypothetically be about things that are inherently impossible; it can not make global concerns non-existent; it can't magically make the UK more sovereign, because sovereignity is ultimately a measure of perceived significance and leaving the EU could only ever harm that significance as well as the perception of same; and if there is any way that it would make rural UK areas more prestiged in Westminster, I am not aware of those.

Brexit is just Brexit. It is all about presenting the Tories as a force to be reckoned with despite their severe internal conflicts and clear inability to promote constructive policies. It is about promising a wealth of previously blocked opportunities to people that owe it to themselves to ask questions about those promises. It is about establishing commercial barriers on the UK and calling that a bold victory.

 

[Rival]

Because you are telling me so repeatedly in this very thread.

I think you're confused.

I didn't say any such thing.

You seem to believe that if we didn't vote based on what politicians said, we were ignorant of our vote? Is it something like that?

You seem to have it the wrong way around.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Why is there a suggestion that anyone who voted for Brexit was misled?

First of all there is anger. I remember how one sided the BBC was about it throughout the campaign and how it kept talking down to the public and declaring how the vote should go. This (no doubt) angered the pro-Brexit voters, but losing angered the stay voters equally. Remember that the vote was not overwhelming but was close to 50/50. Many people did not see leaving the EU as a conservative decision but as a radical one.

Maybe Londoners like to be told what to think. The Stay campaigners and the government tax funded BBC go on and on in a 1984 creepy fashion about anything the brexiteers say wrong, any exaggerations, any lies they tell, any accounting mistakes. On. And. On. Really like 1984. It is creepy.

If the PBS here controlled the media I'd react. They tried to do the exact same thing as the BBC. They (our supposedly most journalistic politically neutral entity) told the American public what to think about Brexit! Yes, the freaking PBS decided for us what to think. Those fools thought we wanted to be told what to think. I hate that. Who the hell do they think they are? If they get any money from taxes they ought not be telling people what to think, because this is a republic.

The BBC is worse, because it has so much control over your media. You need to fire that company: Brexit or no Brexit. They are talking down to you, and they have no business doing so. They are funded by taxes, and maybe they shouldn't be anymore. I'd lay the Brexit results at their feet with their creepy 1984 pushy messaging.

Those who voted for Trump are misled?

As if we had sense we'd vote for the 'right' thing.

As if there's a side that votes dumbly and tends to be rural, conservative and traditional and there's a side that votes sensibly and they are urban, liberal and progressive. It's bull****.

I'm a little scared, honestly, that over here many Trump voters truly do believe a lot of Maga conspiracies. Its dissembling, and it makes me want to do something illegal. That would just make the situation worse, however. That is what fear does to us though: stops us from thinking, limits our ability to see the bridge a mile down the stream from where we stand. My fear blinds me, sometimes.

Why is the BBC peddling fear?

Now over here on this side of the ocean we have a lot of fear, and its driven by messaging by the two major political parties. These parties are created by the way our electoral system functions. It naturally forges two distinct parties into existence, and the only question is who controls each of the two parties. Each party tries to scare voters about the other party and also to belittle the other party. Plus we have a very strong evangelical political involvement, currently; and the evangelicals get concerned about all kinds of things; but mainly its just our two party system at work as usual.

 

[Debater Slayer]

This is opinion though.

It's not objective.

I can't say that someone who voted for Blair was objectively right or wrong, I mean that's just absurd.

Politics is subjective, it's not mathematics.

But one can say that someone who voted for Blair ended up enabling one of the most bellicose leaders of the 21st century, and since Blair's election negatively affected millions of other people and partially contributed to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, I can fully understand why someone would condemn it.

Whether one calls politics itself objective or not, the effects of Blair's election on those lives are a fact. I think those effects are much more significant than the philosophical terms that we might use to describe politics.

Should one see a vote for someone like Putin or Blair as equivalent to a vote for a more peaceful leader or not criticize the former more just because politics is not objective?

 

[LuisDantas]

I think you're confused.

I didn't say any such thing.

You seem to believe that if we didn't vote based on what politicians said, we were ignorant of our vote? Is it something like that?

You seem to have it the wrong way around.

How did you come to the conclusion that it would be in your best interest to vote for Brexit and not to vote against it?

How did you come to believe that Brexit would somehow help address these grievances that you say you had for decades?

I can understand mistrusting what politicians say. But for a serious and weighty matter one would hope that you would pay some attention to both Leave and Remain claims. And the Remain arguments were just way, way more convincing - to say nothing of less dishonest.

And yet, even today Labour does not dare challenge Brexit. So is it really a matter of politicians being untrustworthy?

 

[Rival]

But one can say that someone who voted for Blair ended up enabling one of the most bellicose leaders of the 21st century, and since Blair's election negatively affected millions of other people and partially contributed to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, I can fully understand why someone would condemn it.

Whether one calls politics itself objective or not, the effects of Blair's election on those lives are a fact. I think those effects are much more significant than the philosophical terms that we might use to describe politics.

Should one see a vote for someone like Putin or Blair as equivalent to a vote for a more peaceful leader or not criticize the former more just because politics is not objective?

I don't appear to possess this thought process.

People don't vote for people they think will bring mass carnage. If people had known what Blair would do they wouldn't but he still retains a 50/50 favourable/unfavourable image in the UK. We don't by any means really hate him; he's not tarnished like Thatcher or Cameron.

I don't believe in blaming the voters for the actions of the one for whom they voted, otherwise no-one should really ever vote. More often than not, all options are bad for multiple reasons.

But moreso, we cannot predict what they will actually do, what will happen 2 years from now. Things like COVID were not predicable, so we couldn't possibly have voted for the Tories based on a pandemic. Random factors are for more meaningful than concentrated votes, imo.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Why is there a suggestion that anyone who voted for Brexit was misled?

Those who voted for Trump are misled?

As if we had sense we'd vote for the 'right' thing.

As if there's a side that votes dumbly and tends to be rural, conservative and traditional and there's a side that votes sensibly and they are urban, liberal and progressive. It's bull****.

@Augustus

I think the thread title is a bit different from the OP: I don't think that suggesting someone was misled is the same as expressing hate for them, although the two can overlap.

That said, I also don't assume uniform reasons or intentions on the part of all voters for a specific candidate, policy, or change. I'm sure some Brexit voters supported it to leave the EU knowing the outcome, for example, but some others either didn't have a clear picture or simply didn't care to know more.

If someone votes for Putin specifically wanting a war on Ukraine, they have not been misled about Putin's policies, except if they believe that Putin invaded to "protect" Russia or "denazify" Ukraine—those are verifiable statements that can be shown to be either correct or incorrect.

On the other hand, if someone votes for Putin believing that he's a peacemaker and that he will pull out of the war on his own, then I think it's safe to say that this person was misled, and that, again, can be objectively demonstrated just by examining Putin's actual policies.

 

[Rival]

I think the thread title is a bit different from the OP: I don't think that suggesting someone was misled is the same as expressing hate for them, although the two can overlap.

That said, I also don't assume uniform reasons or intentions on the part of all voters for a specific candidate, policy, or change. I'm sure some Brexit voters supported it to leave the EU knowing the outcome, for example, but some others either didn't have a clear picture or simply didn't care to know more.

If someone votes for Putin specifically wanting a war on Ukraine, they have not been misled about Putin's policies, except if they believe that Putin invaded to "protect" Russia or "denazify" Ukraine—those are verifiable statements that can be shown to be either correct or incorrect.

On the other hand, if someone votes for Putin believing that he's a peacemaker and that he will pull out of the war on his own, then I think it's safe to say that this person was misled, and that, again, can be objectively demonstrated just by examining Putin's actual policies.

I just don't find most politicians as predictable as your example.

I think politics is a lot murkier than that.

We once had a party (Lib Dems) that about a decade ago their Wiki page didn't even have a section on their economic policies because they didn't have any. Lol.

 

[Secret Chief]

People in smaller, rural areas felt disenfranchised by globalism, that's basically it.

Yes and all the mad keen brexity farmers have got real peed off since the sunlit uplands came along. Shame.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, but a vote is not a crystal ball.

We often vote based on promises not actualities.

We accept that, which makes it not-objective, but trust based.

Right: it's very easy to be wrong when voting for a politician or a party.

We're still wrong when it happens, though.

If I vote for a party to demolish the NHS and instead they give it extra funding, how would I have known?

Everyone is in the same boat, here.

It seems like we're conflating two different issues:

Was your prediction incorrect? Yes.
Should you ought to have known that it would be incorrect? Depends.