good_1da

Cliff notes on the thread:
Hot mess
Inside a dumpster fire
Inside a train wreck

Two completely different things...
EU is a political project which we have withdrawn from. Europe is a continent in the northern hemisphere which the UK is still very much a part of.
Britain will continue to trade and cooperate with other countries including those in the EU. Nobody is banging on about imperialism and empire, except ardent remainers who use it as a tactic of negative framing.
I will try to make this my last post.

The Leave side of the argument was concerned with the bigger picture. The EU was on a path to ever closer union. The crises in the Eurozone had expedited this process. The EU was now encouraging the Eurozone to integrate further - as most member states accepted that it must.
And the EU does not recognise itself as a union with multiple currencies. Britain was no longer at the inner core and was moving at a different speed and to a different destination to other members. The UK was becoming an increasingly marginal and peripheral player. As demonstrated by David Cameron's failed attempts to get substantive treaty changes back in 2016. And also demonstrated that change from within was unlikely.
Given this reality, Leavers came to the conclusion that a withdrawal from the EU was necessary. With the EU no longer having a say in UK Law-making and a return to a bilateral relationship.
As I say, a Remainer saying, "I have a strong attachment to the EU, and I believe in the European project" is not wrong, its just a different perspective. And not one I personally share.
I will make this my last post also.

Why is the idea of UK laws being made in the UK so strange to you?
We have our own Parliaments and Assemblies for the purpose of law-making, why do we need another layer of bureaucracy?
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA, etc, do perfectly fine, they don't have other countries playing a role in their law-making yet they still have trade agreements and cooperate with other countries.

You *know* government spending is hopelessly inefficient and yet you want more of that?? Don’t know how that logically makes sense at all. 
 
 
 
 

In the words of writer Dominic Sandbrook (who voted remain)...
"As for my fellow Remainers - well, where do you start? Snobbish, sneering, risibly prey to conspiracy theories, many ardent Remainers made complete fools of themselves. They didn’t try to understand their fellow Britons, and refused to accept defeat with good grace. And if they had succeeded in subverting the referendum, as they hoped, they would have dealt our democracy a very heavy blow."

I used the word 'presume' rather than another because I was just trying to soften the language and dial down the rhetoric a bit.
I didn't want everyone getting annoyed at each other. I appreciate your considered responses to the thread.

The UK rejected a form of governance I profoundly dislike. That is the fundamental benefit for me. I just believe that government at all levels should be as directly elected as possible. Maintaining the important connection between the people and those who represent them. And, that we must have a chance to unelect our representatives when they don't meet our expectations.
IMHO the EU does not meet these criteria. Most obvious example, the EU Commission President and the Commissioners are not directly elected even though they have powers to propose legislation that can be binding in every country.  And, there is no direct way to vote them out.
In the UK, we already have many types of democratic and directly elected government...
UK Parliament (House of Commons, House of Lords) Scottish Parliament National Assembly for Wales Northern Ireland Assembly  Combined Authority Majors/Metro Majors Executive Mayors  Councillors on Local Councils Police and Crime Commissioners  That is a hell of a lot of layers. With endless debating and investigative work of committees to scrutinise decisions. It’s not perfect, but it is about as transparent and representative as it gets. IMO it is quite enough government for any nation. 
I am not trying to convince Andrew or anyone else of the merits of Leaving the EU or the strategic reasons why people voted Tory in 2019. I am simply pointing out that the negative framing of leavers (e.g led by crooks, or racists harking back to empire) is typical of a long-standing class condescension by the liberal intelligentsia. 
It is also a convenient way for these liberal elites to avoid addressing real world challenges and the role their interests play in them. e.g UK population growth (expected to reach 71+ million by 2030). 

You propose a star chamber of 'excellent minds' to make the right decisions on our behalf.  To me this such a scary concept. It's the road totalitarianism.
At what pont will the 'excellent minds' decide regular people can't be trusted with any decisions?
Who would decide what an 'excellent mind' was or is? Who would watch over these superiour beings with their 'excellent minds?' 
What a chilling, Orwellian, nightmarish, dystopian world that would be.

You propose a star chamber of 'excellent minds' to make the right decisions on our behalf.  To me this such a scary concept. It's the road totalitarianism.
At what pont will the 'excellent minds' decide regular people can't be trusted with any decisions?
Who would decide what an 'excellent mind' was or is? Who would watch over these superiour beings with their 'excellent minds?' 
What a chilling, Orwellian, nightmarish, dystopian world that would be.

I can't agree with this point. Sure, for investors in Build-to-Let tower blocks in London or Manchester its been a profitable few decades. Indeed Tony Blair and his family have done very well acquiring Buy-to-Lets in Greater Manchester. But the majority of the country booming during the Blair-Brown era, really??? It ended with a massive financial crisis.
The fact is, many UK towns have been on there knees for decades...high poverty rates, low life expectancy...cultural wastelands.  Watch 'I, Daniel Blake' or a documentary series like 'The Mighty Redcar' to get a truer picture of the Britain that many experience on a daily basis. The closure of the giant SSI Steel plant effected many I know. 3000+ jobs lost because EU state aid rules prevented it from being saved. IMHO EU-city-centric thinking was never going to address the problems and a reboot was necessary.
I'm guessing you wanted the status quo. But was that really an option? The EU is ever changing. Integration, fiscal and political 
ever deepening. EU politicians like Guy Verhofstadt have written essays about total political integration being the final destination. Eventually local parliaments become museums, nation flags packed away, our diverse languages, cultures and traditions homogenised. The very things that make Europe special gone forever.
That's the advantage to me of leaving the EU. To avoid the ghost of Christmas future. Bring democracy home. All future decisions taken by the people we elect. Democracy directly accountable and as local as possible. Note, all the Conservative MPs elected in NE in 2019 were local born people. The NE grew tired of Labour parachuting lawyers into safe Labour seats. For me, leaving the EU was just the start in pursuing a fairer less London-city-centric country.
And, the cheapest and probably most useful to the rest of the World is the Oxford one. Which I assume was developed by people born in the UK, EU and the rest of the world.