IanD

Yes of course they have -- they're both intelligent people capable of forming their own opinions. But this is a red herring -- nobody (including me) is claiming that the EU is perfect or doesn't have major structural problems in many areas, including employment, monetary policy and many others. But the big issue is whether we'll be any better off outside the EU than inside, and many people think the answer is no, we'll be worse off, especially with no deal -- regardless of how bad people think it is inside the EU (especially if they read certain papers), being outside with WTO would be worse. It might be unpleasant in the frying pan, but jumping into the fire is not a good idea... [and of course other people disagree with this view]

Indeed is is another view -- from a think tank who are in favour of leaving on WTO terms. I'd trust this just as much as an article from May about how her deal is brilliant and everyone should love it and vote for it. You can find as many views to prop up opinions on either side as you want, that's the wonder of the WWW and the state of debate on Brexit. The key point about the article I posted is that it was from a source which *is* strongly in favour of Brexit, was written before we got into the current toxic state of automatically trashing everyone else's opposing views (the information and opinions in it are still largely true, except where circumstances have changed -- which they haven't for WTO rules), and *still* concludes that a WTO Brexit would be an unmitigated disaster. It's easy to shrug off such a statement as tosh when it comes from remainers, it's much more difficult to do so when it comes from a champion of Brexit. My twentysomethings (and their friends) are totally p*ssed off with what they see as old voters f*cking up their future by harking back to "the good old days"...

Just to keep those who want a no-deal Brexit (after May's deal is defeated -- or not...) happy, here's a quote from The Leave Alliance -- you know, the one 100% in favour of Brexit: http://leavehq.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=128 If you don't want to read through the detailed analysis -- which has some revealing information, whichever side you're on -- it concludes: "One can say, unequivocally, that the UK could not survive as a trading nation by relying on the WTO Option. It would be an unmitigated disaster, and no responsible government should allow it. The option should be rejected." Before dismissing this as the usual Remoaner rubbish (obviously impossible, given the source...) I suggest people read it 😉

Whetever you do, don't go on the HNC or the Rochdale. Your boat will run aground and/or sink and you'll be eaten by bridge trolls who will crack open your bones and suck out the marrow, if you don't die in a sub-zero blizzard. There's only tripe black pudding and faggots to eat, the beer has a bigger head than Donald Trump, and the natives will mug you and throw your twitching corpse into the cut instead of saying "hello". All this assumes you can get anywhere because of the massive traffic jams on the cut caused by all those people who've heard otherwise 😉 P.S. Please ignore any other postings (mine included) saying how lovely it all is, these were all done by identity-stealing hackers who want you to fall into their cunning trap...

I tried playing squeezebox along with Pete Thompson's Bolinder a few times, that was a lot more difficult... 😉

"but hey you voted remain so what do you know eh?" Exactly what I've carefully avoided saying about leave voters like you... 😉 Fed up of trying to keep this factual instead of descending into the Brexit swamp of emotional insults, won't be replying again.

<sigh> that's right, let's descend to personal insults like a toddler, it's easier than discussing the real problem like a grown-up. I wasn't the one who started this... Are you suggesting that all the ills that beset the country today are Arthur Scargill's fault? I suspect some people might disagree, much of what's gone wrong with the UK happened after both him and Maggie were dead... P.S. Suggesting that people who voted remain are stupid is likely to rebound on you... 😉

Given that I was born and brought up in an area of Yorkshire that was devastated by government policies, probably more than you do... The Brexit voting trends were very clear, go and look at any map that shows where remain won and where leave won. There are always some exceptions, but generally metropolitan areas (and Scotland) voted remain and everywhere else voted leave.

The "London bubble" is certainly why the vote to leave came as such a nasty shock to a lot of people, when the commentators and pundits (and the government) had been confident that the vote would be to remain -- as it was in and around London (and in Scotland) but not in most areas outside this. It's also undoubtedly true that many people either voted to leave as a protest against the way they and their families have been treated by the government in the last ten years or so (and the bankers getting away with it all...) or because they were promised a Brexit unicorn that could never happen by certain elements of the press and some politicians -- and almost nobody spotted this protest vote coming. But when you dig into it most of the reasons they were (rightfully) feeling p*ssed off were nothing to do with the EU (or immigration), they were to do with globalisation, multinational corporations, the gig economy, the collapse of manufacturing, government policies favouring the rich and ignoring the working poor (when they weren't treating them as thieving benefit-scrounging scum) -- the EU was made into a scapegoat for all this by Boris and his mates, but the real fault was with the UK governments and their policies, and the way that the world has changed, not the EU -- which certainly isn't perfect, but equally certainly is not to blame for most of the things that people are fuming about and have been told are all the EUs fault, see the hundreds of bendy banana myths. All the problems of falling wages and rising prices, job and housing insecurity, and being treated like dirt won't be fixed by leaving the EU, if anything they'll be made worse because of the impact on the economy -- and yes this is the view of the majority of "experts" who were derided after predicting exactly the way that the leave negotiations with the EU would go (that we'd end up with a "bad" deal like we've got now) and have been proved right. "Taking back control" smacks of a fantasy throwback to the glorious days of the Empire when we ruled the world and did what we damn well wanted, and if this meant getting rich by sending in a gunboat or exploiting the natives, well that was their fault for not being British. In today's world if you're not a big country (USA, China, Russia) or part of a big trading bloc (EU) you're very much weaker when it comes to any kind of trade negotiations, since every country/bloc wants what is best for itself and the one with the biggest stick has the most clout -- and the UK on its own carries a pretty small stick, no matter what the Sun and Daily Mail would have us believe. Trump's first reaction to any agriculture trade deal with post-Brexit UK was "I'm not even talking unless you agree to take our chlorinated chicken, hormone-pumped beef and GM crops, they're good enough for Americans so they're good enough for you" -- that's how strong the UKs negotiating position will be, so good luck against Putin and Xi Jinping, they're both soft touches...

If May's bill gets voted down, another referendum is the most likely outcome -- MPs will move heaven and earth to block a no-deal Brexit. No point arguing more about this until after the vote on the bill next week, then we'll see what happens.,,

So you agree that if there was another referendum the vote would very likely be in favour of remain? At last, a Brexiteer who's honest about why they don't want another vote... 😉

Nope, YouGov predicted 49% leave and the actual result was 52% leave, this is a 3% error in the maths I was taught. Now they predict 55% remain; if they have the same error as last time, the result would be 52% remain. Just as valid as the "will of the people" -- in fact more so since we're now much better informed about Brexit -- except with the opposite result 😉

I'm not claiming infallibility. They got it wrong by 3%. Their current numbers have remain 5% ahead. If they have the same 3% error, remain is still 2% ahead. That's maths, not opinion. We had a vote then and got the result *you* wanted. The numbers -- what people say, not imaginary pie-in-the-sky -- say that public opinion has changed significantly since then as more facts about Brexit have emerged. The reason you don't want another vote is that you suspect that this time you wouldn't get the result *you* want. Tell me where I'm wrong...

Which means YouGov were within 3% of the actual result, which is *far* closer than any other poll predicted. Their most recent poll shows around 5% majority in favour of remain.

Actually, yes. Including things like the last election, and many other things. They're generally regarded worldwide as the most accurate polling organisation. They don't always get it right, but get it right more often than anyone else. Do you have any better suggestions -- chicken entrails, Tarot cards, tealeaves? I believe that the (ill-informed) majority vote 18 months ago was to leave. I believe the (better-informed) majority vote now would be to stay, based on actual information 😉