Why in the argument that “Brexiteers didn’t know what they were voting for” not being

[Burney]

1. I'm just saying I prefer representative democracy to direct democracy, Ash. I don't know enough about most policy issues to make an informed decision, I'd rather just elect an MP to make those decisions for me.

2. I take your point about the Levellers, though. Though if I remember the Putney debates correctly, they wanted one man (but not woman) one vote and annual parliaments. Again, they wanted to elect MPs, not have plebiscites on everything.

3. The lifestyle I had between c.1994 and c.2007 was all because of the EU. The first GB free sound system (Spiral Tribe) left for France and Spain c.1992 because of the Criminal Justice Act and started a free party scene. They didn't have free festivals in Europe but the Spirals started them - Teknivals. More and more English rigs (sound systems) came out and more and more natives started joining in, getting their own rigs and starting to live in vehicles. Before long we had 40-50k people coming to Teknivals in France. We had free sound systems from all over Europe, many with a mix of nationalities. That was my adult life, mate.

And I'm afraid it was inseparable from Brussels. (A bit like I couldn't have been a squatter before that without a govt and the City of London to pay my giro.)

We felt European, we felt united. For the first time ever - because of the lack of lyrics in tekno music - we had a properly united pan-European youth counter-culture movement/lifestyle. And it wouldn't have happened without the EU.

I was a Euro-raver then. Yes, I was British (which gave you a certain kudos coming from the country which started it all, which was nice.) But I was European first and foremost. It would never have happened if we'd needed the visas that are being talked about. You needed to be able to jump on a bus/train/plane or drive to Dover or Calais at the drop of a hat.

I'm not saying I support the EU machine and the technocracy. And I know in the real world the EZ will never get the full fiscal and political union it needs to make it work.

But had you asked any of us Teknival Euro-ravers back then if we could unite Europe into one country, we'd have all said yes.

As I say, I know this could never happen in the real world, but I'm just trying to explain how we felt. We all felt me had far more in common with each other than with most people from our respective countries.

It was a beautiful feeling, Ash. I can't really describe it and we didn't think about the politics of it all, just out-witting the local fuzz. But I guess we saw no difference between a govt in Brussels and the one in GB which had criminalised our lifestyle and thrown us out of the country.

If you'd said to us that the EU machine was the price we had to pay - that it was the undemocratic EU or no more Tekkies and the end to our friendships - then we'd have chosen the teknivals and EU every day of the week.

If you wanna waste five mins watching a montage vid of what we were doing (set to Moby, not Tekno music), have a look here:

https://vimeo.com/35344156

As I say, we didn't think about the politics but felt we were all citizens of the same of the same country. While we'd talk about how the rave laws were changing in various countries, I don't think any of us ever mentioned Brussels/the EU once in 2 decades. As I say, we weren't political. We just wanted to find a field, put up the rigs and get munted for the next 1-3 weeks before moving on and doing it again.

I know we can never have a proper, single European country but if I could vote for one, I would. Because that's what my adult life, in it's pathetic, hedonistic way, was devoted to.

Also, I can think of few things more antithetical to the idea of British democratic history than your meek, forelock-tugging acceptance that our ruling classes know what's best for us. Fúck that! Where would democracy be if everyone had always thought like that?

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

Also, I can think of few things more antithetical to the idea of British democratic history than your meek, forelock-tugging acceptance that our ruling classes know what's best for us. Fúck that! Where would democracy be if everyone had always thought like that?

Don't know where you got that idea from, B. I've continually made the case that the radicals of all social classes have had to fight tooth and nail for reform since about the C13th. I'm just saying two things.

1. That I prefer representative democracy to direct democracy - MPs to plebiscites.
2. That for about 2 decades there were a group of us from many European countries who didn't give a flying fück about politics but felt part of one pan-European tribe, who felt we were all members of the same nation, Europe (or European Teknival free raver new age traveller land) and would have loved to have had one country (though with different "states" in the Indian, Aus or US sense) but where we had one govt, one fiscal and monetary system, one foreign policy (domestic policy would work better at state level given the differences between Napoleonic and GB justice for example), one army etc. We didn't think about sovereignty, though that may have had something to do with a lifestyle that us masters of our own (squatted) field where the state and their police stayed outside and we became a self-policing society with no crime and little violence.

I would suggest that it was the very fact that we refused to tug our forelock to anyone that meant we didn't have to worry about things like sovereignty.

Sorry. But do I think the average MP and economics professor had a better understanding of the economic realities Brexit could entail than the average voter? Yes I do.

Do I know what sort of machines the NHS need to fix heart attacks? No. But I expect our experts at the Health Min to, and I expect our MP's select committees to scruntinise their decisions and the MPs and Lords to debate and amend their legislation.

I don't think the decision should be made by a referendum where some voters will believe that shouldn't buy German (even if they happened to be the best) while others would try and stop them being used on foreign patients before British ones.

I fail to see how preferring representative democracy to plebiscites equates with forelock tugging.

Put it this way. So many of my ex-raver mates have so addled their brains with ketamine and so believe they are anarchists that they believe any conspiracy theory bull****. (For example they tell me that the Rothschilds own every national bank in the world, and won't believe me when I tell them that we nationalised ours after the war, or that we set up the BoE 103 years before Nat Rothschild came to GB or that Iran and Iraq are hardly going to let a Jew have the power to switch their money supply off.)

So my glw had been reading their posts pre-Brexit about TTIP and started to worry. So I just said "well write to our MP" {Meg Hillier, Hackney, who's a bloody good constituency MP - chair of the Public Accounts committee now, I think - who'd got written ministerial answers for a few of my questions and been generally very helpful.}

So she did, and got an intelligent reply about they way they and their sister Euro lefty parties would scrutinise it and make sure that we'd get it rejected if it really was gonna **** us over - all we needed was one country out of 28 where the left were in charge and if we weren't all happy, we'd get them to veto it. Put her mind at rest.

Would I rather they were dealing with it than letting my mates vote - people who think the minimum wage must be "neo-liberal" cause Blair done it and everything Blair did was "neo-liberal". You try to show that the state intervening to make sure that workers get a higher wage than the supply and demand equilibrium for the price of labour is the antithesis of "neo-liberalism" and they won't believe you because that doesn't fit with what "Jeremy" says.

If you knew as many fückwits as I do, you'd be wary of letting them have a vote on every single issue.

This is not forelock tugging. We live in a multi-party democracy where we can throw our MPs and govt out. We can choose to vote for the party that seems to closest reflect our views. But we can leave them to deal with the specifics unless we want to take an active interest on a specific issue and hassle them all the time about it.

I don't say that we should accept that the ruling classes know what's best for us. FFS we've had to fight them to come round to our PoV on most major social reform issues. But I'd rather live in a multi-party representative democracy (some form of PR would be nice - eg multi-member constituencies with STV) than allow everyone to have a vote on every issue.

Having MPs has been the British way since 1265, and permanently since 1689. Our MPs cut the head off a king in 1649. We had to go through two elections in 1910 (of MPs, not plebiscites) to get the People's Budget passed and then the Parliament Act to stop the aristocratic ruling class keeping their veto. That is the British way.

Having plebiscites to simply confirm the diktats of the ruling class (as used by Boney and Adolf and attempted and failed by Cameron) is the foreign way.

If we can choose our MPs from a wide selection every 4-5 years what's the problem with letting them spend all the time examining these things while we get off our heads or watch the football?

I fail to see where I'm tugging my forelock.

[Ash]

We live in a multi-party democracy where we can throw our MPs and govt out. We can choose to vote for the party that seems to closest reflect our views. But we can leave them to deal with the specifics unless we want to take an active interest on a specific issue and hassle them all the time about it.

I don't think anyone here is arguing against representative democracy as a general model, but as Berni said, when all the main parties support the EU and a majority of the population don't, then those representatives have failed. Eventually they would have risked being voted out in favour of a single-issue party so they called the referendum expecting to defeat the idea but failed.

As the EU assume more and more power (and I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that this is what it intends to do) over local MPs and national governments then throwing out those MPs will make less and less difference.

The forelock-tugging that Berni is teasing you about would presumably be the 'my MP knows best' line that you are sticking to. I already gave you a pretty damned important example of where these people clearly don't know best but you had nothing to say about that, and prefer to cite your years of glorious hedonism as a reason to support the status quo.

And the detail of the Levellers programme, as well as the lack of the notion of women's equality in the 17th century, obfuscates my point about the democratic principles at stake.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

I, too, regard representative democracy as generally preferable. However, as I pointed out earlier, this referendum came about because our representatives wilfully refused to represent their constituents' feelings about the EU.
Voters were presented with no meaningful opportunity to express their feelings, since all the major parties were pro-EU. Where representative democracy fails to represent, the clamour for direct democracy will inevitably grow until it becomes deafening.
In the end, the referendum came about because voters were flocking to the one party who gave them a chance of saying no to the EU. That pressure forced Cameron against his will to offer a referendum. Inevitably, such was the frustration of a populace so long denied any say on the question of our country's place in the EU that 20 years of anger resolved itself into an outright rejection of those who had silenced them.
In that sense, the referendum was absolutely in the tradition of our democracy because it was forced by peaceful democratic pressure on a governing parliamentary party. This was a truly revolutionary and democratic moment where the people of England (and Wales, I guess) rose up and reminded their supposed betters who was boss.

We should have let them all vote Ukip if they cared so much. We know that some Leavers want all immigration stopped while others wanted continued single market access. These are mutually exclusive. We know that some genuinely believed they were getting £350m a week for the NHS, while others really thought Turkey could join without us being able to veto it. We know that in the post-vote racist attacks both Poles and Pakistanis were attacked being told that they should fück off as we've voted out, and I assume there must be many like my sis-in-law (Cornish, where there's no immigrants and massive EU subsidies, and who has no concern about sovereignty beyond Cornwall not having to share a constituency with Devon) who simply voted out "to stick two fingers up to the lot of them." There were also those who were basically trying to vote against a modern globally-integrated economy as though we can somehow turn the clock back without raising costs and prices to ridiculously high levels.

Truly revolutionary. We also know that the latest polls since the pound collapsed show a majority now wish they'd remained. Give people the chance to vote "fück you all" and some will without even thinking why, let alone what the consequences will be.

As you are probably well aware, not everyone is as well read or as educated or as concerned as you are.

All this was, B, was yet another example of a Tory civil war that's been going on since the Corn Law repeal of 1846 via the free trade/imperial preference debates and then the EEC vc Commonwealth between the inward and outward looking wings of the party. That in itself is not truly revolutionary. The difference is that this time, we settled it by a plebiscite which became a personality contest between the leaders of the two wings and that everyone had a vote, including women and the poor.

As I say, you have cared about this, researched this, understood the concepts and made as informed decision as possible. My point is that the same is not true of millions of others whose vote was {rightly} worth just as much as mine or yours. I'm afraid I don't see a lot of people using their one chance to stick two fingers up to the govt as truly revolutionary. {I think it stupid of Cameron to have given them the chance or at least not considered the possibility.}

Cutting the head off a king, yes. Throwing out a king and forcing his successor to accept permanent parliaments and the right of parl to choose the monarch, yes. Passing the Great Reform Act ending the monarch's control of parl through his pocket boroughs, yes. The consequent emancipation of slaves becoming the first society in history to consider every single human a non-enslaveabe insider, yes. Peel putting the interests of the workers and free trade above those of his own party composed mostly of the landed interest, yes. Voting twice in a year to get the People's Budget and then end the Lords' veto, yes. Even voting for a Lab landslide after WW2, yes.

Having a vote on the Tory civil war where one side could say "Do you not like how things are in the modern world? Would you like to stick two fingers up to it? We have a magic bean that will give you whatever you want" and enough gullible fückwits to determine the outcome going "oh good. I like sticking two fingers up and I love magic beans" was truly revolutionary? No. Not in my book.

Look, I can see where you're coming from and completely understand why you'd see it like that. But for every Berni who cared passionately about it there were many who just wanted to say "**** you" whether to the politicians, or foreigners, or the modern, globalised economy (which won't go away, will it?) or just the world in general.

Decapitating a monarch is truly revolutionary. Drawing a big cock and balls on a ballot paper (as many effectively did) isn't. Not in my book, anyway.

But then, as I've explained, I'm completely biased the other way as a direct result of how I spent most of my adult life between the LSE at 18-21 and doing that OU history degree c.2008

So I would say all this, wouldn't I?

[Tony C]

The same people who said this wouldn't happen are the same people trying to educate us on what happens next and pushing for the government to not pursue it.

I've thought for the last few years that us exiting the EU would be the best play to make...it is doomed to fail and I'd rather not be dragged down with them.

Financially we will be far better off
Welfare and standards of living will improve
Unemployment levels will fall dramatically
Britain will be great again

Very exciting times ahead.....

Don't listen to the clowns trying to convince you of otherwise....mostly furious lefties annoyed that their +50 year globalisation scheme has been halted by us and Trump. Fair play to them....they played the long game..I think the problem was they used their social justice ace waaaaaay to early. Should've hung onto that one a bit longer.

Mind you I'm the guy who wanted Trump to win badly and thinks he will go down as of the greatest presidents of all time....when he's finished Americans will wishing they could have him for a third term!!

Theresa, Trump and Putin....3 of the finiest minds to rule the world....taiwanese are also most welcome imo

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

I don't think anyone here is arguing against representative democracy as a general model, but as Berni said, when all the main parties support the EU and a majority of the population don't, then those representatives have failed. Eventually they would have risked being voted out in favour of a single-issue party so they called the referendum expecting to defeat the idea but failed.

As the EU assume more and more power (and I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that this is what it intends to do) over local MPs and national governments then throwing out those MPs will make less and less difference.

The forelock-tugging that Berni is teasing you about would presumably be the 'my MP knows best' line that you are sticking to. I already gave you a pretty damned important example of where these people clearly don't know best but you had nothing to say about that, and prefer to cite your years of glorious hedonism as a reason to support the status quo.

And the detail of the Levellers programme, as well as the lack of the notion of women's equality in the 17th century, obfuscates my point about the democratic principles at stake.

Look, if I wanted to take your side I could make a bloody good case. {The reason I explained my headonism was to try to explain why it would go against everything I've stood for and done.}

In Sept 1914, when germany thought they'd win the war in weeks, they planned the peace terms they'd impose. It was called (surprisingly) the September Programme.

Among all the annexations, it includes the clause:

"Germany would create a Mitteleuropa economic association, ostensibly egalitarian but actually dominated by Germany. Members would include the new buffer states."

Sounds suspiciously like what they're doing now, no?

See the full terms here (it's very short, about ten points of the length of the one above.

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

Or Krugman and others blaming Germany for causing the crisis by keeping their real wage growth vastly below the EZ and OECD average, using the single currency to protect them from a rising DM. You can see the graph, an/or read another article on it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/up...isis.html?_r=0

So yes, I could make just as good a case for leaving as any Brexiteer.

I was simply trying to say why I didn't care about things like that when I was living in and travelling around Europe all those years.

As Stiglitz says (and everyone knows) there's no solution to the EZ without full fiscal union and that will never be accepted by Germany so the whole thing is doomed. I know this.

But I could never effectively stick two fingers up to all those mates I made who put me up when I barely knew them, looked after my truck when I came back home and became many of the best mates I'll ever make.

Even if it is all fücking wrong and the Germans have effectively won WW1 and started implementing the 1914 Sept Prog in the year we commemorate those 360k who gave their lives at the Somme to prevent such an outcome.

As a WW1 junkie, it makes my blood boil.

But I can't change who I am, Ash. I can't unlive those best years of my life.

Even if the wånkers deliberately started a war that killed 17m people just so they could take over Europe and "create a Mitteleuropa economic association, ostensibly egalitarian but actually dominated by Germany. Members would include the new buffer states." which they are now doing by deliberately keeping real wage growth far, far lower than everyone else and getting the poor in the rest of the EZ to pay for it by being unable to devalue their currencies.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

The same people who said this wouldn't happen are the same people trying to educate us on what happens next and pushing for the government to not pursue it.

I've thought for the last few years that us exiting the EU would be the best play to make...it is doomed to fail and I'd rather not be dragged down with them.

Financially we will be far better off
Welfare and standards of living will improve
Unemployment levels will fall dramatically
Britain will be great again

Very exciting times ahead.....

Don't listen to the clowns trying to convince you of otherwise....mostly furious lefties annoyed that their +50 year globalisation scheme has been halted by us and Trump. Fair play to them....they played the long game..I think the problem was they used their social justice ace waaaaaay to early. Should've hung onto that one a bit longer.

Mind you I'm the guy who wanted Trump to win badly and thinks he will go down as of the greatest presidents of all time....when he's finished Americans will wishing they could have him for a third term!!

Theresa, Trump and Putin....3 of the finiest minds to rule the world....taiwanese are also most welcome imo

Unemployment will not fall. When Blair created the Monetary Policy Committee in 1997, its brief was to keep inflation down by stopping upward wage pressure by keeping around 2m unemployed.

This has continued under successive govts.

It was about 1.9m in 1997, fell to c.1.5m before the crash, rose above 2m after and is now back down to a little over 1.5m

So unemployment has basically stayed constant as the MPC intend. During that time, the UK population has gone up from 58m to 64m.

So we've had 6m immigrants come in and no change to the number of unemployed.

No matter how many foreigners we throw out, the MPC will ensure that the least able 2m stay unemployed to stop inflation. Fact. It's in their fücking founding charter.