Brexit.

[Milltown Row2]

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.

We live in a blame cultural society.... Remainers will want to say I told you this would happen and the Leavers looking for other reasons as to why I may not work... Nobody willing to take charge and work through a difficult period.... I think with Cameron stepping down it would have effected the markets also...

We won't actually know how this will pan out for another year or so....

[Franko]

So MR2's going with No.7!

[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

Farage-esque semantics.

Well of course! That's my point, that most political statements are said in such a way that they're meaningless when you look into it.

Anyway, I wish the result had been different. But it wasn't, and regardless of what legal right you have, refusal to accept it sets a very dangerous precedent, and isn't something I'd support

[armaghniac]

We won't actually know how this will pan out for another year or so....

About 5 times that period we may have some indication.....

Well of course! That's my point, that most political statements are said in such a way that they're meaningless when you look into it.

This is the old "they're all at it" fallacy. There isn't a symmetry here, whatever way you look at it.

Anyway, I wish the result had been different. But it wasn't, and regardless of what legal right you have, refusal to accept it sets a very dangerous precedent, and isn't something I'd support

They won't refuse to accept it, or at least not quite that way. Something like a 60% opinion poll for Scottish Independence and noises from Nicola might lead to them calling another referendum to "save the UK" or something like that. People will reconsider to "Save the UK", not because they were eejits in the first place.
Oddly enough this one might have the opposite ratio between Scotland and England!

[seafoid]

Leadsom vs May

Leadsom is dangerous. She would be closer to trump than to anyone civilised

[Rossfan]

A bit like Hitler v Himmler.

[Minder]

Leadsom vs May

Leadsom is dangerous. She would be closer to trump than to anyone civilised

What are you basing that on ?

[armaghniac]

A bit like Hitler v Himmler.

Except they haven't a ball between them, so maybe more like Goebbels.

[seafoid]

Leadsom vs May

Leadsom is dangerous. She would be closer to trump than to anyone civilised

What are you basing that on ?

What Private Eye say about her. She is rabidly neoliberal

[macdanger2]

they posted a thing on Facebook there with a phone in from talkback. Some guy phoned in and was irate that when people saw palettes with graffiti saying foreigners out on them that they thought it meant all foreigners out.

What he said it actually meant was foreigner murders, paedophiles, rapists and in general criminals out but they just hadn't the space to say it lol. All true rest were ok.You couldn't make it up.

the leave thing reminds me a lot about the 11 plus thing over here. Ok let's stop this. Right we've stopped it. Ok what do we do. Ah I'm not sure really. Sums up politics and cheap point scoring in general that takes place in it.

I don't mind homegrown murderers, paedos and rapists but those foreign murderers, paedos and rapists really piss me off

[bennydorano]

Leadsom vs May

Leadsom is dangerous. She would be closer to trump than to anyone civilised

What are you basing that on ?

What Private Eye say about her. She is rabidly neoliberal

Really is your favourite spake this neoliberal malarkey.

[T Fearon]

Apparently Cork fans were taunting Linfield fans at Turners Cross tonight with "You're only here for the passport!" 😂

[seafoid]

Nordies all have the right to Irish citizenship so Brexit wouldn't necessarily have to apply to the 6 counties as long as London keeps the credit card working.

[haranguerer]

Well of course! That's my point, that most political statements are said in such a way that they're meaningless when you look into it.

This is the old "they're all at it" fallacy. There isn't a symmetry here, whatever way you look at it.

Anyway, I wish the result had been different. But it wasn't, and regardless of what legal right you have, refusal to accept it sets a very dangerous precedent, and isn't something I'd support

They won't refuse to accept it, or at least not quite that way. Something like a 60% opinion poll for Scottish Independence and noises from Nicola might lead to them calling another referendum to "save the UK" or something like that. People will reconsider to "Save the UK", not because they were eejits in the first place.
Oddly enough this one might have the opposite ratio between Scotland and England!

So what you're saying is they will refuse to accept it but the semantics will be different ...
But of course they're not all at it, no symmetry etc...

Whether they are or not, you've certainly just made it seem like they are and contradicted yourself in subsequent paragraphs into the bargain

[Milltown Row2]

So MR2's going with No.7!

So you don't believe a resignation destabilises the market to a degree?? Generally it goes back to a level once someone os in place, but we have a strange thing in that both labour and the Tories are locked in in fighting (more than usual) and leadership battles
...

Should the market continue to drop after the governments settle themselves down then yeah brexit is working against it