Quote Originally Posted by Ash View Post
Well, I don't consider myself as smug but I am more than disappointed. The election campaigns were fought on the basis of 'Brexit is settled', and saw UKIP's vote collapse to nothing, from a fairly substantial national share, and to the benefit of the two main parties. Over 80% of people voted for parties who said they would leave the single market.

Now the election is over, May's battering is being used as an excuse for the dominant political and media classes to do what they've wanted ever since the referendum - to stop Brexit. The electorate at large hasn't voted against Brexit in this election (even though some people will have done), they have voted on all the basis of various reasons.

If this scenario plays out as we imagine, the majority who voted Leave will have been betrayed. UKIP will be back in five years when Britain is still subject to undemocratic and unnacountable external rule, still has no control over its borders, and still subsidises other countries from which it gets little (except cheap labour which is good for the wealthy and bad for the less wealthy).
The argument has to be that the will of the people was expressed at the referendum. If that was true before the election it is just as true now. I would also agree that any Brexit that involves remaining in the single market and retaining freedom of movement is an absolute betrayal of that vote. Nobody in their right can honestly think that those voting leave were voting for that. Its a joke.

There are more complex, longer term issues in there around cheap labour, the drift of skills and capital towards the areas of economic strength within the EU and away from those areas requiring development. The potential for widening an east-west divide within the Union that already exists.....

I have already heard plenty of references to a 'jobs Brexit', an 'economic Brexit', a 'Brexit that works for Britain'. As you say , this is politician-speak for the political establishment devising a brexit that works for them.