Brexit.

[Hereiam]

Energy is going to be the cause of the next world war. Look at Russia who have the largest reserves of natural gas and the western powers hate that this is the fact. You have to look at the next 50 -100 yrs which the British government is doing, if there is peace in the middle east and they are making alot of money and become really powerful then they can hold Britain etc to ransom over energy deals. (hasn't this happened before) At the minute the oil in Iraq is being stole from under the peoples noses because they have leaders who have been but there by Britain/America.

[muppet]

Energy is going to be the cause of the next world war. Look at Russia who have the largest reserves of natural gas and the western powers hate that this is the fact. You have to look at the next 50 -100 yrs which the British government is doing, if there is peace in the middle east and they are making alot of money and become really powerful then they can hold Britain etc to ransom over energy deals. (hasn't this happened before) At the minute the oil in Iraq is being stole from under the peoples noses because they have leaders who have been but there by Britain/America.

Gove, Farage and BoJo were taking the long view?

Please explain.....

[haranguerer]

Cheap oil and exploitation by Yankee big business ( who of course fund the Yankee politicians).

How does keeping it in turmoil make it cheaper? And how much does it cost to keep it in turmoil?

Yeah I think this theory has been over played.
Stability and extra trading partners would contribute as equally to world economic stability as continually fueling wars which are counterproductive long term.

Not if you are one of the worlds biggest arms exporter it doesn't.

So they deliberately spend billions f**king these places up as a means of keeping oil prices down (although the economics on that would appear to even a cursory glance to be suspect) while giving them a market for their weapons, is that about it?

[Franko]

Haranguerer and macdanger, do you live in the 6 co's?

No

I thought as much, given the flippant nature of your 'you must accept the vote' statements.

Well, you clearly thought wrong, given that I do.

And the irony of you labelling our saying democracy should be accepted and respected as 'flippant' is delightful 

You're clearly suggesting that we don't accept the vote. What do we do?

How can a vote based on total lies be described as truly democratic?  I wish I knew what could be done from here but there has to be a political way to soften the blow - possibly some sort of Brexit 'lite' that could be negotiated to placate the idiots (and I mean idiots) who voted leave but at the same time respecting the 'democratic' will.

Well, I say we need to respect democracy, and you say you don't know what to do, so until you do, I think we should go with my suggestion.

Also, just out of interest - can you give me the specific examples of the 'total lies' the Leave side told?

If you need me to do this, you clearly haven't been following events too closely.  With that, I hope you'll forgive me if I disagree with your suggestion.

Yes, its probably best that you extricate yourself from your ridiculous position.

As ridiculous as you trying to suggest that you don't know the lies that the leave side told?  Doubtful.

[haranguerer]

Well, there was no lie told re the NHS - I do know that much, and I imagine thats the feather in your cap of Leave lies.

'lets spend it on the NHS instead' is merely a suggestion, not a promise. Its misleading, as there was never any chance of it being spent in the NHS, but a 'total lie'? No. While on a grander scale, its fairly typical of the sort of misleading statements thrown round at election time. So given that you want to dismiss a vote as in your opinion its based on falsehoods like the above, where exactly are you going to draw the line?

[armaghniac]

Well, there was no lie told re the NHS - I do know that much, and I imagine thats the feather in your cap of Leave lies.

'lets spend it on the NHS instead' is merely a suggestion, not a promise. Its misleading, as there was never any chance of it being spent in the NHS, but a 'total lie'? No. While on a grander scale, its fairly typical of the sort of misleading statements thrown round at election time. So given that you want to dismiss a vote as in your opinion its based on falsehoods like the above, where exactly are you going to draw the line?

Leave lied.

- they said that you could have a complete Single market without accepting any other conditions (immigration, contribution to budget)
- they continually used gross, rather than net, values for EU payments
- they continually used total immigration rather than EU immigration and continually conflated things like social security numbers issued with people actually staying for a long period. There are a lot of East Europeans who come and then leave again, non EU immigrants are much more likely to stay.
- they continually downplayed the negative effects of the withdrawal
- they claimed Britain was in a strong position, no mention of giant balance of payments deficit and still high public finances deficit.
- add to that some very suspect claims about people using NHS etc when young immigrants don't much, like young people everywhere.

you could go on and on. 

[haranguerer]

Well, there was no lie told re the NHS - I do know that much, and I imagine thats the feather in your cap of Leave lies.

'lets spend it on the NHS instead' is merely a suggestion, not a promise. Its misleading, as there was never any chance of it being spent in the NHS, but a 'total lie'? No. While on a grander scale, its fairly typical of the sort of misleading statements thrown round at election time. So given that you want to dismiss a vote as in your opinion its based on falsehoods like the above, where exactly are you going to draw the line?

Leave lied.

- they said that you could have a complete Single market without accepting any other conditions (immigration, contribution to budget) Noone knew what UK could get if voted leave - we still don't know, its negotiation stage, and everyones playing hardball re no free market
- they continually used gross, rather than net, values for EU payments 'We give EU x...' were they correct? Not mentioning what get back is not a lie
- they continually used total immigration rather than EU immigration and continually conflated things like social security numbers issued with people actually staying for a long period. There are a lot of East Europeans who come and then leave again, non EU immigrants are much more likely to stay. Wheres the lie?
- they continually downplayed the negative effects of the withdrawal How is that a lie? No one knows what they are for sure yet
- they claimed Britain was in a strong position, no mention of giant balance of payments deficit and still high public finances deficit. Opinion, not a lie
- add to that some very suspect claims about people using NHS etc when young immigrants don't much, like young people everywhere. Too vague to know what you're on about

you could go on and on. Do, but actually present a concise statement used by 'leave' that can be proved to be a lie (and theres bound to be some!), not vague utterances such as the above

[haranguerer]

Interestingly, I just came across this (while trying to help armaghniac with some leave lies  ) - I assume this - not necessarily invoking Article 50 - is an about turn, or have I just missed it??

http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_newdeal

We do not necessarily have to use Article 50 - we may agree with the EU another path that is in both our interests.

[johnneycool]

Cheap oil and exploitation by Yankee big business ( who of course fund the Yankee politicians).

How does keeping it in turmoil make it cheaper? And how much does it cost to keep it in turmoil?

Yeah I think this theory has been over played.
Stability and extra trading partners would contribute as equally to world economic stability as continually fueling wars which are counterproductive long term.

Not if you are one of the worlds biggest arms exporter it doesn't.

So they deliberately spend billions f**king these places up as a means of keeping oil prices down (although the economics on that would appear to even a cursory glance to be suspect) while giving them a market for their weapons, is that about it?

Well the reason Saddam first invaded Kuwait was they were deliberately keeping it low and that was f**king Iraq up. He invaded and was turfed out, but in the meantime every oil rich state was buying arms off the Americans, French and Brits to beat the band.

Remember the Arab spring?
Where was Dave Cameron and a Trade delegation (of Arms dealers) of UK Business men? Yip, in the Middle East peddling their wares to the unelected heads of various states.

[armaghniac]

- they said that you could have a complete Single market without accepting any other conditions (immigration, contribution to budget) Noone knew what UK could get if voted leave - we still don't know, its negotiation stage, and everyones playing hardball re no free market

Yeah right, in any negotiation you are going to get everything you want.

you could go on and on. Do, but actually present a concise statement used by 'leave' that can be proved to be a lie (and theres bound to be some!), not vague utterances such as the above

This is a straight lie, the UK does not send this amount to the EU each week.

[seafoid]

Brexit is a delusion.
the EU needs reform. the UK is better driving that from the inside.
I think free movement is stupid when there is no growth

[Minder]

Interesting to see how the Tory leadership vote goes

A Leaver v A Remainer

[Franko]

http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/8-of-the-most-misleading-promises-of-the-vote-leave-campaign-ranked-in-order-of-preposterousness--WyxD59VO3Nb

Interestingly, this doesn't mention one of the biggest lies... that Turkey were going to join the EU and there was nothing that could be done to stop it.  Britain, like all other member states has a veto over any new member joining.

As to where I'd draw the line... round about here.  As I said before, this is not an election, it's a referendum.  It's a gauge of opinion with no legal standing wrt to the outcomes after the result becomes known.  I'd draw the line at blindly accepting the result of said referendum when (IMO) a huge percentage of the votes were garnered by peddling myths to the voters.

[armaghniac]

Handy excuses for why it's not Leave's fault if Brexit goes bad
http://on.ft.com/29xf2u5

As the UK moves steadily towards its date with Brexit one can already sense the efforts of the Leave campaigners trying to dodge blame for any of the shocks ahead. Rather than own the result, leading advocates are building up alibis in case the outcome is less fabulous than they assured voters it would be. Here then is your cut-out-and-keep guide for Leavers on why things went wrong, just in case they do.

1) The civil service let us down by not planning for Brexit. I can't believe the government didn't have contingency plans for the fact that the Leave campaign didn't have any. What kind of government leaves important issues like the future of the country to people like us? All we said is that we wanted to leave; why does that make figuring out where to go our job? It was the government's responsibility to deliver on our promises. If they fail to do so, it can hardly be our fault.

2) No one at the wheel. When we said we wanted to take back control, we obviously meant that figuratively. It didn't mean we don't want to delegate.

3) Angry Remain campaigners talked down the country. This panicked us into an economic downturn which would undoubtedly have been avoided if they had not insisted on pointing out news which appeared to suggest they were right. Their selfish inability to admit they were wrong ensured that they were proved right, at great cost to the country.

4) The lefty media. By reporting daily on the sterling sell-off instead of hushing it up, the metropolitan elite in the mainstream media let down the public by telling them things they are better off not knowing. This also alerted currency speculators to things they would not otherwise have noticed. The media failed in its moral duty not to report unwelcome news.

5) George Osborne spooked markets. By not appearing in the first days after the vote to reassure markets, the chancellor let Britain down.

6) Mark Carney spooked markets. By making too many regular appearances designed to calm nerves, the governor of the Bank of England let Britain down. Did we mention he used to work for Goldman Sachs

7) David Cameron should never have resigned. The Leave campaign always made clear that it wanted him to stay on to lead the exit negotiations even though his last negotiations were a catastrophic failure and in spite of our warnings that he had absolutely no credibility any more.

Blame Boris. He left the detailed plans for how to manage Brexit on the bus.

9) Blame Boris some more. We had thought that the lean and hungry sharp-suited Boris Johnson was the man to lead our country but it turned out that we confused him with someone else and that the real Boris Johnson was in fact a large blond bumbler with no idea.

10) Greedy bankers. The ordinary decent citizens of this country were let down by greedy bankers, who put their own welfare ahead of that of people they had never met at the other end of the country. There was no way we could have known they would be seduced abroad by the lure of higher profits and salaries.

11) The French. We thought they'd be more British about this, accept the democratic outcome and work with us to make the best of it. Instead of being British about this; they insisted on being all French and spent the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme plotting ways to steal lucrative business from London.

12) The Germans. We really thought they would help us more this time. We've always been able to count on Angela Merkel in the past.

13) Cowardly employers. Craven businesses failed to show faith in the country by continuing to hire people to do jobs they no longer needed.

14) Foreigners let Britain down. Refusing to accept the democratic vote of the British people, foreigners moved their investment elsewhere, thereby failing to all pull together to make the best of it.

15) Immigrants. Are you thinking what we're thinking?

16) Experts. We needed better experts than those we are fed up listening to.

17) We are all in this together now. So it's as much their fault as ours.

18) We weren't supposed to win. It never occurred to us that Remain would be so incompetent. Remain should have run a better campaign.

[Franko]

Well, there was no lie told re the NHS - I do know that much, and I imagine thats the feather in your cap of Leave lies.

'lets spend it on the NHS instead' is merely a suggestion, not a promise. Its misleading, as there was never any chance of it being spent in the NHS, but a 'total lie'? No. While on a grander scale, its fairly typical of the sort of misleading statements thrown round at election time. So given that you want to dismiss a vote as in your opinion its based on falsehoods like the above, where exactly are you going to draw the line?

Leave lied.

- they said that you could have a complete Single market without accepting any other conditions (immigration, contribution to budget) Noone knew what UK could get if voted leave - we still don't know, its negotiation stage, and everyones playing hardball re no free market
- they continually used gross, rather than net, values for EU payments 'We give EU x...' were they correct? Not mentioning what get back is not a lie
- they continually used total immigration rather than EU immigration and continually conflated things like social security numbers issued with people actually staying for a long period. There are a lot of East Europeans who come and then leave again, non EU immigrants are much more likely to stay. Wheres the lie?
- they continually downplayed the negative effects of the withdrawal How is that a lie? No one knows what they are for sure yet
- they claimed Britain was in a strong position, no mention of giant balance of payments deficit and still high public finances deficit. Opinion, not a lie
- add to that some very suspect claims about people using NHS etc when young immigrants don't much, like young people everywhere. Too vague to know what you're on about

you could go on and on. Do, but actually present a concise statement used by 'leave' that can be proved to be a lie (and theres bound to be some!), not vague utterances such as the above

Farage-esque semantics.