How do we think EU negotiations will go? (Vol 2)
Discussion
mx5nut said:
<snip>Remain played in to the hands of the "project fear" line with negative predictions about what would happen if we left (easily spun to "even if it's true, it's the big bad EU punishing us") rather than positive statements about the benefits we've enjoyed for 40 years.
Those "benefits" that we've apparently enjoyed for 40 years - are they the same benefits Germany has enjoyed or the benefits Greece, Italy and Portugal have all enjoyed??Have those "benefits" been enjoyed by everyone in the UK??
mx5nut said:
<snip>They were free to make claims about where the £350m could go, knowing they wouldn't be held to account to make it happen. The Remain campaign, lead by the incumbent government, could not as they would be held to account if they won - being destroyed at the next GE if they weren't able to deliver.
It was a referendum - the rules of engagement are not as rigid as the rules of engagement in a GE - This in my opinion is not a good thing and in the event of future referendums it should be tightened but the Government was able to spend 9 million on a booklet delivered to every household in the country - I still have mine - nice to occasionally go back to it if I'm feeling a bit down - never fails to make me laugh.mx5nut said:
<snip>By the day of the vote - Leave voters, anecdotally, seemed excited (with emotions ranging from nervous to paranoid in some cases - #usepens) to be going to place their vote. Remain voters were quietly confident, but going to the polling station was more of a chore - "just to make sure". Doubtless, some will have put it off - to their cost.
So some of the 25% that could vote but didn't would have been down to the fact it was a chore and not required because "confident of a win" I suppose we could ask PM again why he didn't vote 
PurpleMoonlight said:
B'stard Child said:
So some of the 25% that could vote but didn't would have been down to the fact it was a chore and not required because "confident of a win" I suppose we could ask PM again why he didn't vote
I was at a flat earth society meeting.
Cummings, who masterminded the Leave campaign, is absolutely unequivocal that the £350m/NHS line won the vote for Leave. He also says immigration was their best and strongest card.
Leave was dead in the water until the last few weeks. It was all about the campaign and he buttons it pressed.
Leave was dead in the water until the last few weeks. It was all about the campaign and he buttons it pressed.
ORD said:
Leave was dead in the water until the last few weeks. It was all about the campaign and he buttons it pressed.
I shouldn't even be arsed to challenge that but I will....
Remain never ever was ahead in the corrected polls..............
From here
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/eu-refere...
ORD said:
Cummings, who masterminded the Leave campaign, is absolutely unequivocal that the £350m/NHS line won the vote for Leave. He also says immigration was their best and strongest card.
Leave was dead in the water until the last few weeks. It was all about the campaign and he buttons it pressed.
Thanks but I think it has already been established, that one sides propagandaLeave was dead in the water until the last few weeks. It was all about the campaign and he buttons it pressed.
was superior to the other's.
First of all, thank you to all in the Remain camp who took up the challenge and answered the two questions in a constructive way.
As promised, here are my own views, with me trying to put myself in the position of a Remain voter:
1 For me, the unacceptable element of the Remain campaign was the unrelenting focus on the dangers of leaving, coupled within that with the use of some really quite distasteful "nudge nudge, wink wink" type smearing of Brexit voters. It was not necessary, and all it served to do was to make those who had already decided to vote Brexit more determined to do so, and rouse a % of those who maybe were on the fence, to join the Brexit side because of the obvious hyperbole that Remain deployed. Camerons speech evoking the war dead (the infamous WW3 hint speech) was a big step too far. The attempt by some to hijack the tragic murder of Jo Cox was the final straw. (although it's also possible that this did glean some votes for remain)
2. My overwhelming memory of the Remain campaign was that it simply failed to engage the imagination of the people. Yes that was a hard thing to achieve, but going full on negative/project fear made that task massively more difficult - in fact impossible.
As a Remainer I would have wanted a positive campaign, that acknowledged the issues of remaining within the EU, whilst making it clear that the UK was going to continue to fight tooth and nail to make Brussels change, notwithstanding Camerons failure to secure much lasting change during his last attempt. Trying to sell that failure as an acceptable success was wrong. We should have said "well, it's a no for now, but we're going to go back in with a number of positive initiatives, and we are going to be doing so with the following member states who share our views/concerns etc.
Somehow, we also should have articulated an absolute guarantee of "this far and no further" in an effort to neutralise the creeping spectre of "ever closer union" that was one of the concerns expressed by Brexit leaning voters.
On the immigration question we should simply have cheated - and by that I mean we should have basically picked a fight with the EU by introducing our own rules regarding FOM, configured in such a way as to achieve what the people wanted. Trying to stick to the EU rules was massively damaging, but let's be honest, our fellow EU member states are not above writing their own rules and ignoring EU rules when it suits them in other aspects of policy - France in particular is notorious for this. There would have been one hell of a row, for sure, but the UK Govt would have been seen to have some balls on behalf of its electorate, and it would have neutralised a big Brexit camp card.
On the 350m, we should not have been so churlish as to challenge the number at all. Every challenge only served to highlight that the UK was a massive net contributor to the EU, at a time when every aspect of our own public services is under financial pressure. To the man in the street, whether the real number is 350 per week, 250 per week or 195 per week is utterly irrelevant. ..... Its still hundreds of millions per week, and thus billions per year to an institution that (apparently) does not listen to us.
Why pick that fight? We cannot win it. Instead we should have said, "well the number is questionable, but it is true we are a major contributor to the EU, and for good reason... the good reasons being... etc etc.
Lastly, we should have projected a positive message of our time in the EU, (and no, that does not include some specious claims about peace in our time and roaming charges, both of which were easily rebutted) but also, (and this is a big bit) we should have articulated how we were going to step up and make ourselves leaders in Europe but creating a new, alternate vision of the future for the EU that did not necessarily align with the Juncker/Verhoefstat (sp?) vision for the future.
Our failure to do this allowed Brexit to point to the likely future of the EU by simply pointing to the "ever closer union" clauses in the treaty of Rome, and made real in the minds of the people by the rumblings about an EU army, harmonised taxes, etc. That is a future that an even bigger majority do not want, and the way to fight it was not to say"we have a veto" but to say, "not only do we have a veto, but we are going to propose this future instead - a future based on trade, not political union.
I think that might have won the day.
As promised, here are my own views, with me trying to put myself in the position of a Remain voter:
1 For me, the unacceptable element of the Remain campaign was the unrelenting focus on the dangers of leaving, coupled within that with the use of some really quite distasteful "nudge nudge, wink wink" type smearing of Brexit voters. It was not necessary, and all it served to do was to make those who had already decided to vote Brexit more determined to do so, and rouse a % of those who maybe were on the fence, to join the Brexit side because of the obvious hyperbole that Remain deployed. Camerons speech evoking the war dead (the infamous WW3 hint speech) was a big step too far. The attempt by some to hijack the tragic murder of Jo Cox was the final straw. (although it's also possible that this did glean some votes for remain)
2. My overwhelming memory of the Remain campaign was that it simply failed to engage the imagination of the people. Yes that was a hard thing to achieve, but going full on negative/project fear made that task massively more difficult - in fact impossible.
As a Remainer I would have wanted a positive campaign, that acknowledged the issues of remaining within the EU, whilst making it clear that the UK was going to continue to fight tooth and nail to make Brussels change, notwithstanding Camerons failure to secure much lasting change during his last attempt. Trying to sell that failure as an acceptable success was wrong. We should have said "well, it's a no for now, but we're going to go back in with a number of positive initiatives, and we are going to be doing so with the following member states who share our views/concerns etc.
Somehow, we also should have articulated an absolute guarantee of "this far and no further" in an effort to neutralise the creeping spectre of "ever closer union" that was one of the concerns expressed by Brexit leaning voters.
On the immigration question we should simply have cheated - and by that I mean we should have basically picked a fight with the EU by introducing our own rules regarding FOM, configured in such a way as to achieve what the people wanted. Trying to stick to the EU rules was massively damaging, but let's be honest, our fellow EU member states are not above writing their own rules and ignoring EU rules when it suits them in other aspects of policy - France in particular is notorious for this. There would have been one hell of a row, for sure, but the UK Govt would have been seen to have some balls on behalf of its electorate, and it would have neutralised a big Brexit camp card.
On the 350m, we should not have been so churlish as to challenge the number at all. Every challenge only served to highlight that the UK was a massive net contributor to the EU, at a time when every aspect of our own public services is under financial pressure. To the man in the street, whether the real number is 350 per week, 250 per week or 195 per week is utterly irrelevant. ..... Its still hundreds of millions per week, and thus billions per year to an institution that (apparently) does not listen to us.
Why pick that fight? We cannot win it. Instead we should have said, "well the number is questionable, but it is true we are a major contributor to the EU, and for good reason... the good reasons being... etc etc.
Lastly, we should have projected a positive message of our time in the EU, (and no, that does not include some specious claims about peace in our time and roaming charges, both of which were easily rebutted) but also, (and this is a big bit) we should have articulated how we were going to step up and make ourselves leaders in Europe but creating a new, alternate vision of the future for the EU that did not necessarily align with the Juncker/Verhoefstat (sp?) vision for the future.
Our failure to do this allowed Brexit to point to the likely future of the EU by simply pointing to the "ever closer union" clauses in the treaty of Rome, and made real in the minds of the people by the rumblings about an EU army, harmonised taxes, etc. That is a future that an even bigger majority do not want, and the way to fight it was not to say"we have a veto" but to say, "not only do we have a veto, but we are going to propose this future instead - a future based on trade, not political union.
I think that might have won the day.
Edited by andymadmak on Saturday 20th January 10:12
andymadmak said:
First of all, thank you to all in the Remain camp who took up the challenge and answered the two questions in a constructive way.
As promised, here are my own views, with me trying to put myself in the position of a Remain voter:
1 For me, the unacceptable element of the Remain campaign was the unrelenting focus on the dangers of leaving, coupled within that with the use of some really quite distasteful "nudge nudge, wink wink" type smearing of Brexit voters. It was not necessary, and all it served to do was to make those who had already decided to vote Brexit more determined to do so, and rouse a % of those who maybe were on the fence, to join the Brexit side because of the obvious hyperbole that Remain deployed. Camerons speech evoking the war dead (the infamous WW3 hint speech) was a big step too far. The attempt by some to hijack the tragic murder of Jo Cox was the final straw. (although it's also possible that this did glean some votes for remain)
2. My overwhelming memory of the Remain campaign was that it simply failed to engage the imagination of the people. Yes that was a hard thing to achieve, but going full on negative/project fear made that task massively more difficult - in fact impossible.
As a Remainer I would have wanted a positive campaign, that acknowledged the issues of remaining within the EU, whilst making it clear that the UK was going to continue to fight tooth and nail to make Brussels change, notwithstanding Camerons failure to secure much lasting change during his last attempt. Trying to sell that failure as an acceptable success was wrong. We should have said "well, it's a no for now, but we're going to go back in with a number of positive initiatives, and we are going to be doing so with the following member states who share our views/concerns etc.
Somehow, we also should have articulated an absolute guarantee of "this far and no further" in an effort to neutralise the creeping spectre of "ever closer union" that was one of the concerns expressed by Brexit leaning voters.
On the immigration question we should simply have cheated - and by that I mean we should have basically picked a fight with the EU by introducing our own rules regarding FOM, configured in such a way as to achieve what the people wanted. Trying to stick to the EU rules was massively damaging, but let's be honest, our fellow EU member states are not above writing their own rules and ignoring EU rules when it suits them in other aspects of policy - France in particular is notorious for this. There would have been one hell of a row, for sure, but the UK Govt would have been seen to have some balls on behalf of its electorate, and it would have neutralised a big Brexit camp card.
On the 350m, we should not have been so churlish as to challenge the number at all. Every challenge only served to highlight that the UK was a massive net contributor to the EU, at a time when every aspect of our own public services is under financial pressure. To the man in the street, whether the real number is 350 per week, 250 per week or 195 per week is utterly irrelevant. ..... Its still hundreds of millions per week, and thus billions per year to an institution that (apparently) does not listen to us.
Why pick that fight? We cannot win it. Instead we should have said, "well the number is questionable, but it is true we are a major contributor to the EU, and for good reason... the good reasons being... etc etc.
Lastly, we should have projected a positive message of our time in the EU, (and no, that does not include some specious claims about peace in our time and roaming charges, both of which were easily rebutted) but also, (and this is a big bit) we should have articulated how we were going to step up and make ourselves leaders in Europe but creating a new, alternate vision of the future for the EU that did not necessarily align with the Juncker/Verhoefstat (sp?) vision for the future.
Our failure to do this allowed Brexit to point to the likely future of the EU by simply pointing to the "ever closer union" clauses in the treaty of Rome, and made real in the minds of the people by the rumblings about an EU army, harmonised taxes, etc. That is a future that an even bigger majority do not want, and the way to fight it was not to say"we have a veto" but to say, "not only do we have a veto, but we are going to propose this future instead - a future based on trade, not political union.
I think that might have won the day.
I agree with much of that, Remain might have looked a bit more credible. However, it still misses the key point that the government simply didn't understand the mood of Provincial England (and seemingly never ventured outside the M25 to find out). Even with a better performance from Remain, I and many others would have voted to leave. Now, in 2018, I've still seen nothing to suggest any overall benefit in staying in the EU.As promised, here are my own views, with me trying to put myself in the position of a Remain voter:
1 For me, the unacceptable element of the Remain campaign was the unrelenting focus on the dangers of leaving, coupled within that with the use of some really quite distasteful "nudge nudge, wink wink" type smearing of Brexit voters. It was not necessary, and all it served to do was to make those who had already decided to vote Brexit more determined to do so, and rouse a % of those who maybe were on the fence, to join the Brexit side because of the obvious hyperbole that Remain deployed. Camerons speech evoking the war dead (the infamous WW3 hint speech) was a big step too far. The attempt by some to hijack the tragic murder of Jo Cox was the final straw. (although it's also possible that this did glean some votes for remain)
2. My overwhelming memory of the Remain campaign was that it simply failed to engage the imagination of the people. Yes that was a hard thing to achieve, but going full on negative/project fear made that task massively more difficult - in fact impossible.
As a Remainer I would have wanted a positive campaign, that acknowledged the issues of remaining within the EU, whilst making it clear that the UK was going to continue to fight tooth and nail to make Brussels change, notwithstanding Camerons failure to secure much lasting change during his last attempt. Trying to sell that failure as an acceptable success was wrong. We should have said "well, it's a no for now, but we're going to go back in with a number of positive initiatives, and we are going to be doing so with the following member states who share our views/concerns etc.
Somehow, we also should have articulated an absolute guarantee of "this far and no further" in an effort to neutralise the creeping spectre of "ever closer union" that was one of the concerns expressed by Brexit leaning voters.
On the immigration question we should simply have cheated - and by that I mean we should have basically picked a fight with the EU by introducing our own rules regarding FOM, configured in such a way as to achieve what the people wanted. Trying to stick to the EU rules was massively damaging, but let's be honest, our fellow EU member states are not above writing their own rules and ignoring EU rules when it suits them in other aspects of policy - France in particular is notorious for this. There would have been one hell of a row, for sure, but the UK Govt would have been seen to have some balls on behalf of its electorate, and it would have neutralised a big Brexit camp card.
On the 350m, we should not have been so churlish as to challenge the number at all. Every challenge only served to highlight that the UK was a massive net contributor to the EU, at a time when every aspect of our own public services is under financial pressure. To the man in the street, whether the real number is 350 per week, 250 per week or 195 per week is utterly irrelevant. ..... Its still hundreds of millions per week, and thus billions per year to an institution that (apparently) does not listen to us.
Why pick that fight? We cannot win it. Instead we should have said, "well the number is questionable, but it is true we are a major contributor to the EU, and for good reason... the good reasons being... etc etc.
Lastly, we should have projected a positive message of our time in the EU, (and no, that does not include some specious claims about peace in our time and roaming charges, both of which were easily rebutted) but also, (and this is a big bit) we should have articulated how we were going to step up and make ourselves leaders in Europe but creating a new, alternate vision of the future for the EU that did not necessarily align with the Juncker/Verhoefstat (sp?) vision for the future.
Our failure to do this allowed Brexit to point to the likely future of the EU by simply pointing to the "ever closer union" clauses in the treaty of Rome, and made real in the minds of the people by the rumblings about an EU army, harmonised taxes, etc. That is a future that an even bigger majority do not want, and the way to fight it was not to say"we have a veto" but to say, "not only do we have a veto, but we are going to propose this future instead - a future based on trade, not political union.
I think that might have won the day.
Edited by andymadmak on Saturday 20th January 10:12
The mistake that the remain camp made was to assume that the economic argument would win the day. It was predictable that any campaign so heavily influenced by George Osborne would focus on this and, with the benefit of hindsight, it should have been seen that this wouldn't in itself win the day and that stronger counters to the less rational, more emotive arguments from leave should have been given more weight.
I happen to believe that the remain campaign is still not doing enough to set out the social consequences of continuing down the brexit path.
I happen to believe that the remain campaign is still not doing enough to set out the social consequences of continuing down the brexit path.
I think one one of the best paragraph's in the Cummings article which seeks to explain the general trend of politics in the last 10 years is this one:
"The 2008 financial crisis. This undermined confidence in Government, politicians, big business, banks, and almost any entity thought to be speaking for those with power and money. Contra many pundits, Miliband was right that the centre of gravity has swung against free markets. Even among the world of Thatcherite small businesses and entrepreneurs opinion is deeply hostile to the way in which banks and public company executive pay work. Over and over again outside London people would rant about how they had not/barely recovered from this recession ‘while the politicians and bankers and businessmen in London all keep raking in the money and us mugs on PAYE are paying for the bailouts, now they’re saying we’ve just got to put up with the EU being crap or else we’ll be unemployed, I don’t buy it, they’ve been wrong about everything else…’ All those amazed at why so little attention was paid to ‘the experts’ did not, and still do not, appreciate that these ‘experts’ are seen by most people of all political views as having botched financial regulation, made a load of rubbish predictions, then forced everybody else outside London to pay for the mess while they got richer and dodged responsibility. They are right. This is exactly what happened."
.............and in 2018 we now get Carrillion going bust with public contracts on hold and loads of small suppliers probably bankrupted by it but the people who ran it into the ground walking off with bonuses......
If something doesn't change I can't help but think that eventually it isn't going to end well.
"The 2008 financial crisis. This undermined confidence in Government, politicians, big business, banks, and almost any entity thought to be speaking for those with power and money. Contra many pundits, Miliband was right that the centre of gravity has swung against free markets. Even among the world of Thatcherite small businesses and entrepreneurs opinion is deeply hostile to the way in which banks and public company executive pay work. Over and over again outside London people would rant about how they had not/barely recovered from this recession ‘while the politicians and bankers and businessmen in London all keep raking in the money and us mugs on PAYE are paying for the bailouts, now they’re saying we’ve just got to put up with the EU being crap or else we’ll be unemployed, I don’t buy it, they’ve been wrong about everything else…’ All those amazed at why so little attention was paid to ‘the experts’ did not, and still do not, appreciate that these ‘experts’ are seen by most people of all political views as having botched financial regulation, made a load of rubbish predictions, then forced everybody else outside London to pay for the mess while they got richer and dodged responsibility. They are right. This is exactly what happened."
.............and in 2018 we now get Carrillion going bust with public contracts on hold and loads of small suppliers probably bankrupted by it but the people who ran it into the ground walking off with bonuses......
If something doesn't change I can't help but think that eventually it isn't going to end well.
Ghibli said:
The trouble with the remain campaign was that it couldn't offer something that we haven't already got and could only show what the leave campaign will actually get or not get as the case may be.
Who would buy a lottery ticket knowing that the prize would be what they already had.
The trouble started for Remain when not a single one of you could come out and praise the EU. You all started by saying the EU needed serious reforms, but that if we all just voted remain, we'd magically fix them after giving the EU endorsement it never had.Who would buy a lottery ticket knowing that the prize would be what they already had.
This also comes back to what the UK was in the EU , and that was basically a drag anchor desperate to try and stop the movement towards where the EU wanted to go.
When not a single one of you come out and said not only is the current state fabulous for the country, but we need to be even more involved and less of an anchor, then God knows why you expected to win with such a lame endorsement. The blaming of the big red bus is highly comical, but then if you are looking for excuses to vote again, I guess it was going to be the first target.
Robertj21a said:
frisbee said:
You do realise he is basically a salesman for the City of London? Anything governments or companies say about job losses or gains is going to be shrouded in ulterior motives.
I take it that you don't know who is being referred to ? - (hint) it's a She not a He.Deptford Draylons said:
Ghibli said:
The trouble with the remain campaign was that it couldn't offer something that we haven't already got and could only show what the leave campaign will actually get or not get as the case may be.
Who would buy a lottery ticket knowing that the prize would be what they already had.
The trouble started for Remain when not a single one of you could come out and praise the EU. You all started by saying the EU needed serious reforms, but that if we all just voted remain, we'd magically fix them after giving the EU endorsement it never had.Who would buy a lottery ticket knowing that the prize would be what they already had.
This also comes back to what the UK was in the EU , and that was basically a drag anchor desperate to try and stop the movement towards where the EU wanted to go.
When not a single one of you come out and said not only is the current state fabulous for the country, but we need to be even more involved and less of an anchor, then God knows why you expected to win with such a lame endorsement. The blaming of the big red bus is highly comical, but then if you are looking for excuses to vote again, I guess it was going to be the first target.
For the record, it wasn't me running the remain campaign.
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