1) I agree. I'm calling out Leavers' hypocrisy for rubbishing the Home Office and Treasury when they don't give results they agree with, yet complain they don't get to use them themselves. Either they're impartial and can be trusted, or are partisan and therefore not trustworthy when Leave use them either.
All leavers or some leavers hypocrisy?
I suggested civil servants are supposed to be politically neutral – I do not confirm that they actually are! Too many viewings of the Civil Service Instruction Film aka Yes, Minister colour my judgement.
2) Remain at least were warning about the effects of Leave. This became "Project Fear", apparently.
It became project fear in the same way that the single bedroom subsidy became the bedroom tax. Because underneath the spin-doctor title that is what it was. Produce as many damning statistics (suitably interpreted) as you can to scare people into voting remain. It failed. Spectacularly for unreal, out-of-touch, silver spooned Cameron and co.
3) Accusing someone of hypocrisy does not require me to accept any of their positions. If someone keeps banging on about personal responsibility, they should take it themselves when something is their fault.
Agreed. But, as I say about ‘that awful woman’ in Oldham?, such people exist. It needs to be acknowledged that we are not developing a population with strong thinking skills (or debating skills given many threads on this forum). Blame parents, teachers, the media, whatever you like, but there lots of people out there who do not think, at all, about any issues, ever. Their behaviour and any likely consequence are wholly disconnected – read the many threads about ‘fare dodged, got caught, and now it’s completely ruined my life’!
The problem is, what appears to be far too common a view, that ‘all leavers are dumb, voted without thinking, now regret it, and we remainers can brow-beat them into changing their minds’ argument. Or simply not deliver any meaningful exit by underhand and subterfuge in forthcoming negotiations.
Some leavers undoubtedly voted without thinking. Some remainers likewise. Be that along party lines or remain/leave lines or personality lines or whatever. That is the same at a general election or a local election.
Conversely I’m pretty sure some leave (and remain) voters did think about the issues and came up with a considered, balanced (from their own perspective), opinion that they do, in fact, think it better to leave (or remain).
Polarisation of the debate – here, or in the media, or parliament, will not help us all move forward and come up with a reasonable solution - which needs to be acceptable to the majority. Not the majority that voted exit but the majority that straddle the middle ground on the leave/remain spectrum. Soft exit or soft remain if you like. Forget the extremists at either end. But, at the end of the day we have, as a nation (setting aside what consitutes nation re Scotland etc), voted for an exit of some kind. Or at least voted to advise Parliament of our desire to exit. Now it is up to Parliament / The Government to heed those views or reap the whirlwind of ignoring that advisory vote.
Me, I prefer democracy to any of the alternatives, and do not like to see the way the remain camp is trying to undermine democracy. And yes, the leave camp would be behaving exactly the same had they lost. As is evidenced by setting up the on-line poll ahead of the (clearly unexpected) leave majority to demand a rerun of the referendum.
How is my argument rubbish? You've yet to explain how it wasn't the responsibility of Leave MPs and Lords to come up with a plan.
It's very telling that you and RailOps are refusing to accept that your side screwed up. Anyone who understands how the British constitution works (and has a basic sense of responsibility) understands that it is not the responsibility of the executive (the government) to plan for things being proposed by dissenting members of the legislature (e.g. the opposition, Leavers etc.).
Loving the way you guys keep saying I'm digging whilst refusing to answer the question though. Playground bully tactics at their most incompetent. If you want to show me up, show me a coherent plan that everyone voted for. Simple as that.
I disagree. It
is the responsibility of the executive to plan for things being proposed by dissenting members. Or at least have some considered thoughts on the matter in order to respond to the issues. The IRA / Sinn Fein had a particular outcome in mind. The executive had to deal with those dissenting members. We now have a (working reasonably well) solution.
If you leave all the thinking to the ‘dumb leavers’ you will get a dumb result. Best for the ‘clever’ remainers to step in and suggest a solution which they are reasonably happy with whilst accommodating the leavers expressed desire. Or trample all over them because by the next election 'exit' will be a spent force and it will be back to traditional party lines, which means remain and no exit. Perhaps. Depends how good the politicians and their advisors are at driving the agenda and persuading the lumpy prols.
- for instance any of the following would've been sensible things IMO:
