[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Mick

No. Being optimistic and wanting the Country to succeed when we leave should be the priority now. Going over old arguments as to staying in the EU, that boat has sailed. Talk of being in the single market, customs union, this is not leaving tbe EU.

I and millions of people took part in a huge democratic process. There was two options. The option I voted for, won. I’m not interested in the arguments as to why people voted the way they did, the rules before the vote, were the same and both sides used questionable tactics. Both sides told porkies to get their side more votes.

So a democratic process took place, one result was final and it should be enacted because if we don’t then let’s just piss all over the graves of all those people who fought and died, for the right to a free, stable democracy.

I'm afraid the rest of your post and your final paragraph don't mesh at all. A free and stable democracy is not one where dissent is disallowed, and is not one where people aren't allowed to question the legality and methods of campaigns.

The result of that one vote is final, the situation following is not set in aspic. Should circumstances change democracy demands that the country is permitted to change course.

I also disagree on your definition of leaving the European Union and, in a free, stable democracy, it is absolutely my right to do so.

I'm not into authoritarianism whether based on a referendum result or not - I'd hope your knowledge of history would show you that that's a bad idea. It is your demands in your post that are disrespecting democracy. Those who fought in the Second World War would be very, very aware of what happens when a referendum is considered irreversible.

---------- Post added at 14:02 ---------- Previous post was at 13:48 ----------

Originally Posted by Mick

There are no credible sources, don’t care how expertly opinionated some group or professional or someone may be, they don’t have a bloody clue, no one does.

All I know is that people who were alive decades before the EU existed came to be, they have some experience in what life was like before the EU. They say we managed then and I’m sure we will manage again.

There are plenty of credible sources though there is plenty of cynicism about them, especially from one point of view, due to that virtually none of them say what those on one side of the debate want to hear. There is a very Trumpian tendency now to seize upon the slightest inaccuracy from experts and try and use it, whether legitimately or by mischaracterising it, to completely discredit everything they say - see recent climate change research.

Are the various companies that make their money through forecasts about the future some kind of illuminati trying to subvert democracy? They make money either way, if anything many are likely to make more money should the UK's economy go completely pearshaped.

Experts were among those ridiculing the comprehensively and legitimately discredited nonsense spouted during the campaign.

The last paragraph is crazy. People who were alive in the early 70s have absolutely no relevant experience to how the post-EU world will be in the late 2010s and the time after because the world of the 2010s bears very little resemblance to the one of the early 70s and before.

If it's fine for us to just 'manage' rather than prosper perhaps we should start looking at the whole thing again? I personally would rather my daughter did more than just 'manage'. YMMV.

---------- Post added at 14:03 ---------- Previous post was at 14:02 ----------

Originally Posted by pip08456

Treasury minister changes mind on brexit. Seems like things won't be as bad as some predict.


http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics...exit-1-5232380

Yes. Liz Truss. A true intellectual powerhouse.



---------- Post added at 14:47 ---------- Previous post was at 14:03 ----------

This does make me think, though. Let's have some conspiratorial fun and look at our free, stable democracy in the context of that referendum. This is extremely long, so I've 'spoilered' it.

Spoiler: 

We all know that the Government saw fit to send us a load of nonsense through the post pre-referendum.

How many people hear know that the group that owns The Sun registered as an official Leave campaigning group the week before the referendum?

How many people know Vote Leave, having maxed out their own spending, gave £625,000 to a one-man organisation run by a 23 year old fashion student which was promptly spent with a basically unknown company with virtually zero advertising presence in Western Canada, Aggregate IQ, along with half of Vote Leave's own spending and money from the DUP with cash they received from unknown sources as anonymous donations are allowed in Northern Ireland but not in Great Britain? The cash is believed to have come from the extra £2 million Vote Leave raised but didn't actually spend 'officially', much as the 'BeLeave' campaign, the 23 year old fashion student and Vote Leave volunteer's funding was. Veterans for Britain also received a hundred grand from Vote Leave.

Now, despite all parties involved claiming that there was no co-ordination within the spending, as that would be a breach of election law, mysteriously both BeLeave and Veterans for Britain also spent their cash at Aggregate IQ, this obscure web marketing company based in British Columbia, Canada. The Electoral Commission actually believed this absurdity.

Aggregate IQ, incidentally, is based in British Columbia at the same address and telephone number as a company briefly listed by Cambridge Analytica, the previously virtually unknown big data weaponisation service owned by Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon, among others, as an overseas office under the name SCL Canada.

Cambridge Analytica are noteworthy for being heavily involved in the 2016 US presidential election and are accordingly under investigation as there are many unanswered questions regarding how they came by their raw data and what they did with it. They are on record as claiming credit for 'weaponisation' of big data, having a staff heavily comprised of ex-defence staff, many experts in 'information warfare' and claiming involvement in a number of election campaigns.

But ignoring this is essential to not showing disrespect to those who gave their lives fighting for a 'free, stable democracy'. Ya.

Let's discuss some of the funders of campaigns too. Crispen Odey - hedge fund manager, nearly 900 grand, he lost a lot more when the economy failed to immediately crash.

Just think about that for a moment. In our 'free, stable democracy' a man gave 900k to a political campaign in the hope that it would crash the economy and he could make money.

Aaron Banks - £2.1m in donations, £6m in loans. The leaks of the Panama Papers documents showed him to have various involvements in off-shore tax havens. The kinds of operations that would get more problematic with the EU's Anti-Tax Aviodance Directive, which becomes law in 2019.

There's a fair amount more mileage in this but, sadly, I only have a limited lunch break - I'm not a multi-millionaire that can throw millions at 'free, stable' democratic votes to try and ensure my tax liabilities don't go up or to try and make a mint crashing an economy.

Now onto the sudden rush for a Brexit with no deal with the European Union. Let's talk about the Legatum Institute, an organisation that most definitely has the ear of prominent members of our Government:

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/issue-1454/hp-sauce

In their place have come the hardmen and women of the Tory right. Toby Baxendale, who helped run Andrea Leadsom’s Tory leadership campaign, is a trustee. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, is a senior fellow, along with Tim Montgomerie, founder of Conservative Home, who recently accused the BBC of “looking unpatriotic” when it reported that the French were poaching jobs from post-Brexit Britain.

Right-wing ministers have welcomed Legatum’s “expertise”. It’s not just Johnson who entertains its gurus. Shanker Singham, Legatum’s director of economic policy, has advised David Davis and Liam Fox. Although the media describe Singham as a “former US trade negotiator”, a former US trade official told the Times: “He didn’t negotiate anything.” To imply that he was an authority on trade deals was “a bit of a stretch”.

Although Montgomerie plays the patriotic card, no organisation could be further from Britain than the Legatum Institute. It is funded by a foundation registered in Bermuda and controlled by a company in the Cayman Islands. Behind it stands Christopher Chandler, a remarkably shy billionaire from New Zealand.

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Right-wing ministers
In their place have come the hardmen and women of the Tory right. Toby Baxendale, who helped run Andrea Leadsom’s Tory leadership campaign, is a trustee. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, is a senior fellow, along with Tim Montgomerie, founder of Conservative Home, who recently accused the BBC of “looking unpatriotic” when it reported that the French were poaching jobs from post-Brexit Britain.

Right-wing ministers have welcomed Legatum’s “expertise”. It’s not just Johnson who entertains its gurus. Shanker Singham, Legatum’s director of economic policy, has advised David Davis and Liam Fox. Although the media describe Singham as a “former US trade negotiator”, a former US trade official told the Times: “He didn’t negotiate anything.” To imply that he was an authority on trade deals was “a bit of a stretch”.

Although Montgomerie plays the patriotic card, no organisation could be further from Britain than the Legatum Institute. It is funded by a foundation registered in Bermuda and controlled by a company in the Cayman Islands. Behind it stands Christopher Chandler, a remarkably shy billionaire from New Zealand.

If any of this is untrue I am sure that law suits will be hitting Private Eye. Unlike, say, Guido Fawkes and his blog they don't operate under the umbrella of an off-shore company to dodge the UK's libel laws.

Senior members of our Government are having their ears bent by an off-shore, opaque organisation owned by a man with a track record of buying distressed assets within distressed economies and I'm supposed to shrug my shoulders for fear of disrespecting a 'free, stable democracy'?

I think it's fair to say that that referendum was a long way from what would be expected of a 'free, stable democracy'. The Electoral Commission has since embarked on a campaign of covering its backside and trying to ignore how out of date its powers are in the modern world.

Those of us who voted to leave were, comprehensively, had. It would, no question, have influenced how people voted. Whether it would've changed the result I don't know but there is no way that anyone could hold it up as a shining example of democracy in a modern, first world country.