The Brexit aftermath thread

[Nigel Tufnel]

I know Brexit is divisive but it should never come to this!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-death-threats

When will it stop?

It's only just starting, Pann

[Acidbaron]

It's only just starting, Pann

Wonder what else people expected it to become when you paint of opposition as enemies of the nation.
After a decade of turning the EU into the biggest threat.

Not to mention how is this even a shock after the initial increase in hate crimes after the brexit vote won.

[Pann]

It's only just starting, Pann

Yay! Great! We'll have more morons threatening to kill people over things they don't understand!

[Slant]

I know Brexit is divisive but it should never come to this!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-death-threats

When will it stop?

Well, for us at least it stopped after we lost two world wars and had 4 nations bash our heads in. Literally. Good luck!

[Kallisto]

Yay! Great! We'll have more morons threatening to kill people over things they don't understand!

Unfortunately it won't stop at just threats. I mean we could easily say the murder of Jo Cox was the start of it. Essentially I think the only way it's going to stop is if Slant becomes on how Dribbles tries to pretend what Germans are and takes over Germany and attack. Essentially an outside enemy.

But thankfully the chances of that happening are about the same as someone being hit by lightning, a meterorite, survivng and being told they won the $500 million lottery all in an hour of each other.

[Nigel Tufnel]

Wonder what else people expected it to become when you paint of opposition as enemies of the nation.
After a decade of turning the EU into the biggest threat.

Not to mention how is this even a shock after the initial increase in hate crimes after the brexit vote won.

Yes. It feels as if something substantial is unfolding now and, I agree, I don't feel any surprise at this.

Not specifically just in relation to the UK, though. The rough beast is slouching its way across the world as a whole.

Yay! Great! We'll have more morons threatening to kill people over things they don't understand!

You’re genuinely surprised by this?

Also, take your statement to its logical conclusion: there should never have been a referendum. No?

[Pann]

Unfortunately it won't stop at just threats. I mean we could easily say the murder of Jo Cox was the start of it. Essentially I think the only way it's going to stop is if Slant becomes on how Dribbles tries to pretend what Germans are and takes over Germany and attack. Essentially an outside enemy.

But thankfully the chances of that happening are about the same as someone being hit by lightning, a meterorite, survivng and being told they won the $500 million lottery all in an hour of each other.

Just the other day you were saying that leave voters deserved to spat at in their faces and you also said that the country had bowed to nationalists (leave voters I assume) whose views should be eradicated "By force if necessary".

You know what they say about people in glass houses???

[Noradin]

I wonder why you never been banned. You really straddle the border of nation bashing.

He is constantly bashing 28 nations. (Yes, 28, him claiming to be British is the worst offense of them all.)

[Pann]

You’re genuinely surprised by this?

Also, take your statement to its logical conclusion: there should never have been a referendum. No?

No.

I think that it was inevitable that the EU question would have to be addressed at some point however I am not sure that a referendum was the right way to go about it but that is all water under the bridge now. However the threat of violence to people or property should never be a reason to not to allow a democratic vote.

[dribbles]

He is constantly bashing 28 nations. (Yes, 28, him claiming to be British is the worst offense of them all.)

The only thing constantly bashing 28 nations to smithereens is the EU, I am a defender of nations, remainers in support of the EU are the ultimate nation bashers.

Please get your facts right.

[Noradin]

We have Merkel saying that creative solutions are possible,[].

Not exactly.
She said "reopening the withdrawal agreement is not on the table. One must be creative(/productive), one must listen to each other".
(Die Mehrheit der Abgeordneten im britischen Unterhaus hatte May vorige Woche den Auftrag gegeben, den ungeliebten Ausstiegsvertrag neu zu verhandeln. May versprach tiefgreifende und juristisch wasserdichte Änderungen. Merkel sagte zu dieser Forderung: "Das steht nicht auf der Tagesordnung." Stattdessen betonte sie: "Da muss man kreativ sein, da muss man aufeinander hören.")
As in: 'No renegotiation of the WA, the UK side should start to listen and start to think so they can come up with something productive for once.'--just more polite.

As usual, the English translation of the German speech is designed to maximise interest in the reporting, not to accurately inform people of what she actually said.
Apparently, journalists feel secure in the knowledge that people will take their word for it that their "translation" is accurate.

[Noradin]

Hmm, well I'd still translate it as an interest on the German side to enter negotiations. "Listen to each other" suggests that we are back to talking with each other after all. And I did not say renegotiate the backstop in particular; there is also the option of making changes to the political declaration.

No, not really.
What she calls for is for the British side to be productive ("kreativ") not for them to find "creative solutions".
"Kreativ" can mean "creative" but in this case it means "productive".

She explicitly stated several times in that speech that there would be no renegotiation of the WA.

"One should start listening to each other" is a German way to politely tell the other side to listen; it only appears to be directed at the own side as well, but that is just to make it sound more polite. (Instead of using "you" and making it a command it is formulated as a self-evident universal truth that should be apparent to everyone. And yes, that means "polite" does not mean "nice" in this context, as this way of telling them is kind of insulting in its own way. It subtly implies they are uncommonly stupid, incompetent, and out of their dept.)

Maybe we should ask Slant to make an independet translation of the relevant parts of her speech and comment on them?
I have had a lot of contact with the German language, but he is the one who constantly lives there and uses German daily.

[Noradin]

Aha, OK I guess that's where my German fails me because in direct translation it does read "listen to each other". But you are right that creative here was probably mistranslated (create something new, as in to produce, rather than the more nuanced English use; that's what happens when you translate things to English, if I had translated Kreativ to Greek in my mind, I'd have come up with productive as well).

Yes, the devil is in the detail.
German, especially spoken German is very good at conveying additional messages in the Grammar, Context and practically untranslatable particles in the sentence instead of bluntly exchanging one word for another. It makes it very hard to translate accurately without additional commentary.

German sentences are two-dimensional so to say. You are constantly having two conversations at once; one about the topic, and one a commentary about the knowledge participants have about the topic at any point. Sometimes the real point of the sentence is hidden in the commentary.
Eg.: The speech in question could be summarized as: Merkel telling the UK side to ackowledge the real world for once.
Obviously, it went straight over their heads.
(And this is why German is hard, and fun.)

[Slant]

Just the other day you were saying that leave voters deserved to spat at in their faces and you also said that the country had bowed to nationalists (leave voters I assume) whose views should be eradicated "By force if necessary".

You know what they say about people in glass houses???

So, people are complicated. You only realise this now?

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm, well I'd still translate it as an interest on the German side to enter negotiations. "Listen to each other" suggests that we are back to talking with each other after all. And I did not say renegotiate the backstop in particular; there is also the option of making changes to the political declaration.

No. LISTEN TO EACH OTHER. When we say NO it means NO. LISTEN TO ME!

Get it?

[Crispin]

The only thing constantly bashing 28 nations to smithereens is the EU, I am a defender of nations, remainers in support of the EU are the ultimate nation bashers.

Please get your facts right.

Always pathetic when posters try to present their opinion as a fact.

[Slant]

Aha, OK I guess that's where my German fails me because in direct translation it does read "listen to each other". But you are right that creative here was probably mistranslated (create something new, as in to produce, rather than the more nuanced English use; that's what happens when you translate things to English, if I had translated Kreativ to Greek in my mind, I'd have come up with productive as well).

Meh, it's not like I expect anything at this point. As I said, the EU is actively working to apportion funds to Ireland to deal with No Deal and the Tories are clearly spinning this as the EU being unreasonable. Which has historically been the British line for any state that did not cave to their demands anyway so perhaps they don't know the difference.

Noradin's interpretation is pretty accurate. I'm not a big fan of super dissecting, but she explicitely rejected reopening the WA (literally, it's not part of the agenda). When she asks for creativity, to me it seemed she meant being creative about dealing with the situation as it is, rather than changing the situation. And clearly everyone on the side of the EU is frustrated with the British ignoring what the EU is saying. From day one, Brexit in the UK has suffered massively from the UK not paying attention, not to experts, not to friends, not to politicians and certainly not to the opposing side at the negotiation table. This is just a diplomatic way of expressing that frustration and we don't need to take it much further than that.

[Slant]

Meanwhile on the topic of how German dominated the EU is, the Parliament rejected yet another company merger that both France and Germany actively campaigned for.

In before someone claims this is a sign of the evil EU fascism.

[Nigel Tufnel]

No.

I think that it was inevitable that the EU question would have to be addressed at some point however I am not sure that a referendum was the right way to go about it but that is all water under the bridge now. However the threat of violence to people or property should never be a reason to not to allow a democratic vote.

Yes, I agree - potential violence is one of the reasons being given for not having a second referendum!

The referendum was flawed and democratic process as a whole in the UK is broken. Paraphrasing David Lammy: the campaign was won by Leave on false promises and lies. Vote Leave and Leave.EU both broke the law. Russian interference is beyond reasonable doubt. Impact assessments hidden. Votes resisted and blocked. Party politics, party politics and yet more party politics. Self-serving, arrogant politicians in hock to the right wing media.

Nope, I hold little respect either for the result of the first referendum or the manner in which the UK's 'democracy' is functioning still.

[Pann]

Yes, I agree - potential violence is one of the reasons being given for not having a second referendum!

The referendum was flawed and democratic process as a whole in the UK is broken. Paraphrasing David Lammy: the campaign was won by Leave on false promises and lies. Vote Leave and Leave.EU both broke the law. Russian interference is beyond reasonable doubt. Impact assessments hidden. Votes resisted and blocked. Party politics, party politics and yet more party politics. Self-serving, arrogant politicians in hock to the right wing media.

Nope, I hold little respect either for the result of the first referendum or the manner in which the UK's 'democracy' is functioning still.

The potential for violence has been given as reason for not holding a second ref. by some commentators however they are idiots - don't be one of them.

It's all well and good pointing to rule breaking by the leave campaigns however none of it would cause the referendum to be overturned and whilst there might well have been grounds that ref. should have been re-run it is likely that the result would have been the same and in all honesty the point where a re-run would have been possible has long since passed.

There is evidence of pro-Brexit tweets and social media posts originating from Russian but it would be reaching to say that this had influenced the result. Until the investigation into Aaron Banks and Leave.EU has been concluded it is not possible to state one way or the other whether Russia did actually interfere in the referendum. I would also point out that at this time the allegations against Banks are unproven and he remains innocent until proven guilty.

The non-existent but detailed impact assessments happened long after the referendum. And let's not forget that one of the big criticisms against the remain campaign was that they over-egged the impact of a vote to leave and post referendum forecasts from numerous financial institutions regarding most Brexit scenarios have been widely reported so I don't think that it is fair to say that negative news was hidden from voters. I would argue that the availability of financial forecasts that detail the negatives of Brexit, but are in general poorly understood by most readers, have done little to inform the UK population as to the possible ramifications of Brexit.

The government and parliament as a whole have acted exceedingly poorly since the ref. result however I do believe that this is a reason to abandon democracy.

[Nigel Tufnel]

The potential for violence has been given as reason for not holding a second ref. by some commentators however they are idiots - don't be one of them.

Yes, I know, I was pointing out the irony. However, the people giving this as a reason aren’t ‘commentators’, they’re Conservative politicians. IDS, Hunt, May etc. All have said we should respect the result of the first referendum on the basis that there might be violence if there’s a second vote.

It's all well and good pointing to rule breaking by the leave campaigns however none of it would cause the referendum to be overturned

That’s not actually strictly true. No-one knows what would happen if Leave.EU / Banks were found guilty and what the ramifications would be, either legal or with respect to influencing popular opinion.

How about:

Professor Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, at the university, said: “My professional opinion is that it is very likely that the excessive spending by Vote Leave altered the result of the referendum.

“A swing of just 634,751 people would have been enough to secure victory for Remain.
“Given the scale of the online advertising achieved with the excess spending, combined with conservative estimates on voter modelling, I estimate that Vote Leave converted the voting intentions of over 800,000 voters in the final days of the campaign as a result of the overspend.

The study:

https://www.ukineuchallenge.com/wp-c...NAL-Signed.pdf

and whilst there might well have been grounds that ref. should have been re-run it is likely that the result would have been the same and in all honesty the point where a re-run would have been possible has long since passed.

I agree that a second referendum is becoming less likely, however, this is just your opinion, Pann. It is not fact. There are still scenarios left in which a second referendum may happen. Delay to Brexit, snap GE, Corbyn flip-flops, Labour campaign on a second ref ticket, Labour win, second ref, Remain win.

A sign of a mature democracy is the ability to change its mind.

There is evidence of pro-Brexit tweets and social media posts originating from Russian but it would be reaching to say that this had influenced the result.

So, you think disinformation plays no part influencing how people vote?

Until the investigation into Aaron Banks and Leave.EU has been concluded it is not possible to state one way or the other whether Russia did actually interfere in the referendum. I would also point out that at this time the allegations against Banks are unproven and he remains innocent until proven guilty.

As pointed out above they’ve already been found guilty of data protection violations. See what happens with the NCA investigation. However, if you’re asking me to give Banks the benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty and all that, while at the same time as the UK crashes out of the EU you’re definitely onto a loser.

The non-existent but detailed impact assessments happened long after the referendum.

Yes, and they should have been released to MPs so as to further the standard of debate. The government was found in contempt! Again, this is not the workings of a democratic process I respect.

And let's not forget that one of the big criticisms against the remain campaign was that they over-egged the impact of a vote to leave and post referendum forecasts from numerous financial institutions regarding most Brexit scenarios have been widely reported so I don't think that it is fair to say that negative news was hidden from voters. I would argue that the availability of financial forecasts that detail the negatives of Brexit, but are in general poorly understood by most readers, have done little to inform the UK population as to the possible ramifications of Brexit.

There has been numerous debate about this and there’s no point rehashing it. It’s simply comes down to which ‘experts’ you choose to put your faith in.

https://voxeu.org/article/300-millio...st-brexit-vote

Output loss due to the Brexit vote amounts to about 2% of GDP, or £35 billion

The government and parliament as a whole have acted exceedingly poorly since the ref. result however I do believe that this is a reason to abandon democracy.

Referendums: the favourite form of plebiscitary democracy of Mussolini and Hitler.

No… I have little faith in our democratic process. No matter how many times you tell me I should, the answer will still be the same.