QOTW: How do you feel after the EU referendum?

[Mchotpoon]

How do I feel?
Ashamed, angry, disheartened and lighter of pocket
Ashamed because - like many of my fellow Scotland-dwellers - I voted to stay. Like Eddie Izzard says, it's not the British way to run and hide ... instead we stay and sort the darned thing out. (As, I believe from comments I've read, many of the Germans assumed we would). Further shame because I end up having to agree with the darned SNP.

Angry because it seems that (horrible generalisation coming) quite a few of the Leave folks are now dismayed because it turns out that Goove, Johnny boy and Fabbage had ... how do I put it ... been highly economical with the truth. Particularly in the "yes, we'll control immigration and give the NHS oodles of money" ... "ah actually, we can't and we won't".

Disheartened because we've rabbitted away rather than standing and fighting (as we should have goldarnit) and a number of companies (my current employer included) are now reconsidering investment in the UK because putting it in an EU country is financially better sense.

Lighter of pocket because those cretins have managed to tank the GBP just before I go on holiday - way to go guys!

The only upside for me is that it makes those reprobates in UKIP hopefully out of a job now... but that's small consolation.

Interesting comment piece here, so much so that Miguel de Icaza retweeted it.

Have to pipe up, UKIP out of a job! Sorry can't be more wrong. Farage has got check and mate! He got to tell EU to go jump, gets all the applause for getting UK out. Now UKIP lay waiting for for a battle they cannot loose, either free movement off the table - Farage takes credit, I did it. Or negotiation are a compromise (most likely)... Farage says I got us out and Tories mucked it all up vote UKIP in next election if not happy. UKIP \ Farage cannot loose English votes now. He causes carnage and gets EU backs up but has nothing to do with negotiations which he will claim victory for or criticise for not getting rid of free movement. UKIP just laying in wait for which battle cry will come for next election, knowing the right wing of politics is more active and mobilised than ever.

[CaptainAmerica]

How do I feel?

Hell, I'm Australian. Pretty much just waiting to see what happens.

[Wrinkly]

Ignorance won. I am ashamed to be part of Britain.

[FRISH]

I'm interested to see how it goes and whether in the long run we'll be better off. Also a bit disappointed that I don't think voters on both sides made as informed decisions as they should've, and also due to some opinions of others because things didn't go their way (such as bringing in the age argument for having the right to vote). I'm also a bit worried that the country will remain divided instead of coming together.

[excalibur2]

I'm interested to see how it goes and whether in the long run we'll be better off. Also a bit disappointed that I don't think voters on both sides made as informed decisions as they should've, and also due to some opinions of others because things didn't go their way (such as bringing in the age argument for having the right to vote). I'm also a bit worried that the country will remain divided instead of coming together.

Well IMHO I think the core voters on either side had made their mind up (maybe for years) to what they think of the EU but interesting to know:- were the undecided voters influenced by the debates on tv or newspapers.

[Marcvs]

At work we have had at least 6 incidents this week of being told to f*** off back to whatever cave we came from by people on the street. Its so bad that we won't leave the office alone - we go in groups and our company is looking at closing down or relocating .

[Gerrard]

Surprised that Leave had the majority; and even more surprised that virtually no-one made a plan on what to do if it did win! The Remain campaign was incompetent; the Leave campaign was criminal.

Astounded by the political implosion that is going on at the moment.

Disappointed in the EU's reaction as a whole in not recognising this feeling is underlying throughout several countries and will look to try to quash it rather than address the issues.

However, it has only been a week, which is nothing really. The immediate panic seems to have subsided, but the extra couple of months of uncertainty may or may not help as the dust settles. The next impact will be when a new PM has been chosen, and hopefully by then, they will have at least some notion of what their plan is. Personally, I hope for some sort of EEA agreement (Single market with free movement of people) akin to Norway. It won't be what a lot of the Leavers wanted (would be some though), but I think you would gain more Remain votes than you would lose Leave votes (if that makes sense). That was the problem with the Referendum as a whole, we could only vote to leave the EU, but it wasn't possible (or indeed practical I guess) to get the how far removed people wanted to be. It would be interesting to have seen if an option for the EEA instead and if that would have been a good enough comprimise for everyone.

[TooNice]

Going by a YouGov poll, there is an overall majority in favour for a Norway-style arrangement. However there are more leavers against than in favour, so it will depends on whether this is seen as a winner takes all referendum.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/...-poll-reveals/

[hellig]

Honestly it really does depend on where you live.
I live near areas with high immigration and I've seen local towns turn into no go areas at certain times of the day because of the way some of them act so saying foreign migration has been positive isn't completely true. There's also been a sharp increase in murders which were very rare and pretty much every time one is mentioned in the paper it's linked to a 'foreign name' from the EU.

Now I'm not saying they're all like this because I've got people from the EU who live near me who are lovely people and work a lot harder (they've said straight they work hard to afford everything etc) than the 'British' people on the same estate who pretty much all claim benefits and live a life of luxury.

If you live in major cities, especially London, multi cultural life is a different ball game and is all part of day to day life but if you go outside of this it just doesn't work as well because of the way non city communities work, something the government (and city dwellers) seems to forget

As to trade, personally I can't see it being a major issue whether we're in or out in the long term because we buy more from the EU than we sell to them (actually decreasing) so from a trade perspective it will hurt the EU just as much to not 'keep free trade'. Not to mention we can now trade anywhere without EU restrictions etc and set our own trade rates, from what I've seen we've already had several countries wanting to discuss trade deals with the UK since the Brexit announcement. Don't forget places like India and China are the growing economies and they LOVE British stuff supposedly, you very rarely hear them say that about the rest of the EU.

If the Government is any good they'll ensure good deals for major international companies employing foreign workers like MS/Google etc. But we do need to be able to set limits on how many come into this country, we can't maintain the current rate of expansion on the population, it's that simple. Ideally I'd like to see an Australian system employed where you can't come to work without already having a job lined up etc.

If I'm being completely honest I think the biggest problem we've got now is the government itself and the bloke in charge of the Bank of England. The 'leave' Conservatives (it really should be a leave person become PM now) are all stabbing each other in the back, Labour have a complete idiot for a leader who just doesn't understand he's a laughing stock and then we've got the Scottish PM trying to get her own little country again...
Now the bloke in charge (not even British) of the Bank of England is just not saying anything positive about the pound despite the shares going back up to close to what they were within a week so the value of the pound stays low.

you do realise that the non eu migration, is higher than the eu migration is?
so if you want to stop some of it, start there. But no politician wants to handle it, same goes for the negotiations, none of them has the balls.
Why there has not been made any runways for the airports around London. None of the parties has an interest nor knowledge in the industrial production, and that area will suffer! looks at the muddle of the steel industry. lets see if there is much left of the car production once they have to renew the lines.

[Corky34]

As for the 'NHS pledge", if I remember correctly the bus said: We send the EU £350million a week, let's fund our NHS instead.

Yet again, its saying we could spend the money on the NHS, not we will. Its down to the government to decide once were out.

This poster behind Boris says otherwise...

[Saracen]

.... It's almost unbelievable that 51.9% of the population that voted could stiff the rest of us this much.

....

As opposed to the 48.1% of the population stiffing the rest of us that much by staying, I suppose?

[Percy1983]

This poster behind Boris says otherwise...

Do I need to explain the difference between the terms 'Let's' and 'We Will'?

I admit its a bit ambiguous and many may have took things as promises/pledges, but as an educated person I knew they didn't have the power to change anything and only the power to change the options in front of the current and future governments.

[JGJones]

I accept the outcome - but I don't agree with it:

The referendum was badly organised and ill-informed. People voted mostly without all the full factual information.

Compare this with the Scottish independence referendum where they had debated for a few YEARS before doing it, there was plenty of information, the independence campaign had a fully detailed plan on how it would happen that was open to public so that everyone could discuss and this went on for a very long time before the actual vote itself.

In this case - we had 4 months from the announcement of the vote to the actual vote and barely any details. No plans for a Brexit. - thie blog describe the difference better really although is a bit of a read - https://medium.com/@kirstymhall/brexit-was-a-con-67532113a7c#.6fwfnivbi

2ndly - the lies and misleading statements from both Leave and Remain camp was both unhelpful and should have not been allowed. Full stop.

For example:

Leave campaign could be summed up as:

1) No EU fees! (it goes to NHS and it's £350 million a week - both of which aren't true)
2) No EU laws! (I'm yet to hear how this is a good thing to be honest. It's not perfect but it works mostly)
3) Complete border control! (let's hide the fact that we have 100% border control for non-EU immigration and this always have been higher than EU immigration)
4) Take back control! (I haven't a clue what this is supposed to mean?)

After a Brexit - it appears that they all still want access to the single market of EU. This mean:

1) EU fees
2) EU laws
3) Free movement of labour (Norway/Swiss model means Schengen area, no passport control)
4) Completely give up control. No votes, no veto. All EU laws related to the single market will be discussed and passed without any UK input (which we have as EU member with plenty of control)

So what exactly did the Leave was planning really??

Plus given that the Leave campaign was founded on playing up people's fear but aren't actually going to carry out any of them apart from the simple idea of "leave EU" and that's it - it meant it have misled many voters.

I'm not saying all Leave voters are "thick" and haven't a clue what they are voting for. Plenty know but at the same time it's fair to say that there are plenty that voted because they like the idea of "take back £350 million from EU and spend it on NHS instead!".

The Remain campaign had their own silly quotes such as one of the MP (was it Cameron?) quipping about World War 3. I mean...come on, that's silly.

The EU issue is absolutely massive and there are so much about it that most people doesn't really know much about or is flat out wrong about and we're asking to vote with limited information within limited timescale?

No - I consider that the Government have failed in its duty to ensure there is proper factual information for both sides of the debate and failed to ensure that it is as truthfully as possible and that there should have been a discussion on what is the actual plan for a Brexit etc etc so people know what to expect after a Brexit rather than a "I don't know" which is just...stupid.

Now we face the real possibility of the breakup of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland with Scotland breaking away. This also increase the small possibility of Northern Ireland breaking away too or a flare up of the Troubles. And then there's Gibraltar too which might break away too.

Some mentioned "Good, save english taxpayers money" for Scotland breaking away, but we have to remember that the remaining North Sea oil fields etc are all in Scottish waters - that's a huge source of revenue. We'll also have to pay billions to take out Trident from Scotland and relocate it.

Either way - this will reduce the GDP of what's left of UK a lot and this does have an impact including the military spending (smaller navy, air force, army the outcome). I'm sure Falkland Island is comfortable right now at the moment with that possible future! I'm sure people didn't vote for break up of UK into perhaps just England and Wales left over at the end.

This is a colossal cock-up by the Tories, not the population of UK.

(PS it's also interesting that for those who voted Leave, who tell the Remains to just accept the result and move on - I should point out that if UK truly was a democracy, then you should bear in mind that democracy is the freedom to change your mind. So far I have yet to hear of a real firm commitment to invoking the Article 50 of Lisbon Agreement but instead it is just being delayed back and back. First it was immediately, then to October and now it's end of the year. What's the bet it will get pushed back again because the cost is probably too high. And the referendum isn't legally binding - the Government could just ignore it or use it as advisory to push for reforms in EU to resolve some of the problems (Parliament is sovereign after all) even though it would be very bad politically, it can be done (and does happens in other democracies).

PS democracy also mean that anyone could form a RTEU (Return to EU) party similar to UKIP after a Brexit and we'll get a "pro-EU" version of Nigel Farage running this campaigning to take UK back into EU etc. That's democracy in action really and with near 50% of UK supporting that...

[Otherhand]

Still pretty sad about it, especially if Scotland leaves and thereby history loses Britain.

The elites we supposedly voted against, many of them the very definition of "unelected foreigners telling our government what to do", will be giddy with excitement about the coming carve-up of our resources so we've got to be ready to stop this. Anyone with a lot of money knows the way the wind was blowing: our electorate does not want the NHS sold off, it does not think privatised prisons are a good idea, it does not think deregulation of banks is a good idea, millions of us value the BBC (and I acknowledge that there are also millions who say they don't, but still...) and people of all political stripes had even been mooting the idea of renationalising the rail networks. They will not waste this opportunity to smash all of that if they can. After what we've just seen, take nothing for granted.

[Otherhand]

Do I need to explain the difference between the terms 'Let's' and 'We Will'?

I admit its a bit ambiguous and many may have took things as promises/pledges, but as an educated person I knew they didn't have the power to change anything and only the power to change the options in front of the current and future governments.

It's not ambiguous, Percy. Come on.

We had more of this kind of definitive shenanigans last week with Gove's PM bid, that he would spend "£100m more on the NHS". £100m more than *what*, he declined to say.

[wazzickle]

Do I need to explain the difference between the terms 'Let's' and 'We Will'?

I admit its a bit ambiguous and many may have took things as promises/pledges, but as an educated person I knew they didn't have the power to change anything and only the power to change the options in front of the current and future governments.

No, but you do need to understand that implying you'll do a thing, i.e. being responsible for putting that thought into people's heads, and then afterwards falling back on your cleverly worded message to say 'we didn't actually say that, actually, if you look at my words' is utterly cowardly and disreputable.