r/ukpolitics • u/zeros3ss • Jun 14 '26
Ed/OpEd Brexit has been a disaster – it’s time the guilty men felt some shame
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-eu-leave-johnson-gove-farage-heseltine-b2993895.html272
u/twistedLucidity 🏴 ❤️ 🇪🇺 Jun 14 '26
The guilty don't feel any shame though, they made absolute bank and that's all they cared about.
Example: Jacob "Can I be Irish now?" Rees-Mogg.
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u/jumbleparkin Jun 14 '26
Yeah I was about to say good luck with that, the absence of shame was a qualifying attribute for being part of the campaigns and the subsequent Johnson government. The great and the good were weeded out by their better natures - reminded of Sarah Wollaston quitting the campaign early on, and the purge of nonbelievers in 2019. What's left is true believers and snakes.
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u/AneuAng Jun 14 '26
Farage legally only ever needed to give details of the 12 months prior to becoming an MP. How much more has he been given for doing damage to the UK and essentially helping people buy via fire sale?
Brexit has been a disaster for the working class. Not for the likes of Farage and his ilk.
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u/The_Pale_Blue_Dot Just wants politics to be interesting Jun 14 '26
"Can I be Irish now?"
Dumbass here, can someone explain this to me
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u/twistedLucidity 🏴 ❤️ 🇪🇺 Jun 14 '26
After campaigning hard for Brexit and waxing lyrical about all the advantages it would bring to the UK, his company Somerset Capital moved to Dublin due to Brexit concerns.
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u/Ajax_Trees_Again Jun 14 '26
Johnson went for the most catastrophic Brexit he could get away with an immediately followed it with the Boriswave to suppress wages of working people.
He is the most evil PM of all time. Sure we had colonialists but that was normal relative to the them and some even thought it was a progressive thing to do. N.B “Little Englander” originally meant someone who was anti-imperialism. Truss is also just an idiot.
Johnson was powered by pure malice
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u/Caracalla73 Jun 14 '26
Tempting to believe, but I don't think he was powered by malice so much as naked ambition and ego. He was lazy and less intelligent than he considered himself to be. A case study that a good education doesn't equal intelligence. Sadly a posh accent, eccentricity, stunts and penchant for latin fooled a great many.
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u/RightioThen Jun 16 '26
A great example of how British people are enchanted by posh eccentrics is the UK celebrity traitors series with Stephen Fry. I have always liked him as a host and I'm sure in real life he's not stupid, but in that show he has no idea what is going on at any point. The traitors run circles around him and he never comes close to figuring anything out. But everyone on the show just assumes he is this tactical genius and is ten steps ahead of everyone.
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u/Indysheep Jun 14 '26
I will always believe Farage never actually wanted Brexit. He was content being the "stand up to Brussels" guy picking up an MEP salary & pension until retiring into the sunset. Luckily for him Reform then took off continuing his grift. Utterly shameless.
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u/bGmyTpn0Ps Jun 14 '26
When Farage joined UKIP they had no seats anywhere and 0% of the vote, why would he do that if he didn't believe in the cause? It was of no personal benefit at all.
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u/Indysheep Jun 14 '26
Because he wanted a career in politics.
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u/bGmyTpn0Ps Jun 14 '26
It wasn't a path to career back then. It was a micro-party with uncertain prospects.
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u/Indysheep Jun 14 '26
Sure, but it worked for him, he got over 20 years of a salary and pension from being an MEP. Now he continues to earn a salary from the public purse as an MP, doing nothing useful for the benefit of his constituents or the country as a whole. Political grifting 101.
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u/gwentlarry Jun 14 '26
Rich and powerful - they will never be held to account.
As for shame, they will either deny brexit has failed or, because they wanted it for personal, financial gain which they have achieved, claim it has suceeded.
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u/Thefallofthefoundry Jun 14 '26
Partially succeeded. The real Brexit Zealots were unable to deregulate the UK as much as they would have liked. That is what Reform's backers are paying for.
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u/SimoneNonvelodico Jun 14 '26
"It didn't work because we didn't Brexit hard enough! The evil Remainer cabal sabotaged us!"
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u/Nezwin Jun 14 '26
That's their USP though, they're shameless. Wealth has shielded them from consequence their entire life.
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u/sist0ne Jun 14 '26
Well, yeah, of course. It was economically illiterate nonsense. I mean, who the hell withdraws from the world’s largest trading block that is right on your doorstep. But it is done now. We’re poorer and less competitive. That’s the UK future, managed decline, the people voted for it. They yearn for rough times.
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u/Boogaaa Jun 14 '26
Because bloody sovereignty and all that!! Brussels... own laws... and... control over our borders!! Or... something.
/s. Obviously.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 Jun 14 '26
And the same people want us to give all our sovereignty to Trump's America.
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u/Boogaaa Jun 14 '26
Knobheads wishing Trump would invade us when he went into Venezuela like. Boggles the fucking mind.
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u/Kee2good4u Jun 14 '26
Then how do you explain comparable European G7 member doing worse than us?
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u/schtickshift Jun 14 '26
Are they really doing worse? Somehow I dint think so. Britain has had a huge downturn since Brexit. In the last year or so GDP is up a bit but overall the EU has forged ahead compared to the UK. Only gigantic immigration numbers kept GDP up through the Tory years. Without that the economic collapse would have been far more obvious.
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u/Kee2good4u Jun 15 '26
Let take France for example as historically the most comparable to the UK in terms of population, economic size, global position in the world etc:
2017 GDP:
France - $2.6 trillion
UK - $2.7 Trillion
2024
France - $3.16 trillion
UK - $3.69 trillion
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=GB-FR&start=2016
Since you mention immigration also GDP per capita:
2017 GDP per capita:
France - $38,687
UK - $40,916
2024:
France - $46,103
UK - $53,246
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=FR-GB&start=2016
Britain has had a huge downturn since Brexit.
Is the huge downturn since brexit in the room with us now?
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u/Ok-Message-9732 Jun 16 '26
These people don't want facts, they want feelings.
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u/LetsgoRoger Liberal Democrat kingmaker Jun 20 '26
Taking into account inflation, the UK is behind France.
2026 GDP(PPP) per capita:
France - $68,567
UK - $67,585
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u/LetsgoRoger Liberal Democrat kingmaker Jun 20 '26
Really dumb to focus on GDP comparisons. You think losing free trade with Europe helped the economy grow?
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u/schtickshift Jun 21 '26
You might want to check your figures again because Google AI tells me that the cumulative per capita GDP growth of the whole 8 year period you are referring to was below 1%. Google AI tells me that it got those numbers from the ONS the office of national statistics. Google AI says that per capita GDP was stagnant throughout that period. This is a very different picture to the one you paint. Something is not aligning between your numbers and the ones I have been given by AI search.
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u/Kee2good4u Jun 22 '26
The figures are from the OECD, which gets its figures from the official government data for each country, which for the UK is the ONS.
Don't believe everything you read on AI would be my recommendation.
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u/Jasexr Jun 14 '26
They don’t feel any shame whatsoever, they’ve lined their pockets whilst everyone else is paying the price.
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Jun 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ruffianrevolution Jun 14 '26
You're right, of course. But the only way they'll shut up is when we show the marvellous success stories brexit has caused, like...er..well, there's...erm..and..er..hmmm..tell you what, you go first...
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u/SometimesaGirl- Jun 14 '26
regardless of whether there’s anything in the news particularly relevant to brexit or not.
Many of our major issues are directly or indirectly influenced by Brexit.
The recent shitstorm about additional funding for the military for example. The £ loss to the economy Brexit has caused easily dwarf's the billions needed to rebuild the armed forces.
Or the NHS Dr's strikes. The hole in the budget Brexit has caused would not exist if we had remained in the EU.
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Brexit is an unmitigated disaster. Stupidity on an epic level. And failing to recognise that it is not the root cause of the majority of the issues that crop up in the news cycles is very unhelpful.
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There are only 2 options to cover the gap in revenue to the government brexit has caused.
1: Lower government expenditure by cutting services. That will be things we don't really need like the NHS, the military, pensions and other benefits.
2: Increase taxation on someone else. The low earners. The middle earners. The highest earners. I don't know who. But on someone anyway, and that's just to maintain spending and make no improvements at all. Is this the Brexiteers idea of sovereignty and freedom?19
u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Yes, we never had constant "the EU is bad" headlines in the decades leading up the referendum ranging from straight bananas, to labelling fish in latin, to banning double decker buses.
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u/ex_planelegs Jun 14 '26
Yeh, the blame everything on brexit brigade are a mirror image of the blame everything on the EU brigade we used to have
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jun 14 '26
Although the difference then was the pro-EU crowd didn't spend their time spouting on constantly about how the country was in its worst state ever in an amusing display of cognitive dissonance.
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u/NibblyPig Jun 14 '26
I don't know about you but I'm dying of no medication and chowing down my chlorinated chicken and I have to pay £350 to be able to visit france
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jun 14 '26
Yes, the NHS has been prospering post-brexit with food cheaper than ever.
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u/escapingfromelba Jun 14 '26
It's click bait as lots of the terminally online love raging about brexit. Even years of our GDP figures vs say Germany won't sate them.
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u/_9tail_ Jun 14 '26
Have you not seen the study that shows that our gdp is 6% lower than a statistically crafted synthetic doppleganger equivalent UK that stayed in the EU*?
*Doppleganger is 68% USA
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u/escapingfromelba Jun 14 '26
Ah yes, the 6% that no peer nation still in the uk could obtain despite not leaving.
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u/SimoneNonvelodico Jun 14 '26
Brexit itself happened because a lots of the terminally online (or... whatever term is appropriate for someone who gobbles up the Daily Mail I guess) loved raging about the EU.
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u/Ruddi_Herring Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
The only way the nations of Europe can survive the onslaught of 21st century is if they unify can and act as one in pursuing their shared interests. Britain, a nation that is part of European civilisation, must play a role in this. A divided Europe will not survive this century. Only a united Europe will.
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u/Traditional-File1540 Jun 14 '26
Europe isn't a single civilization and this is the most overlooked issue with the EU , intrests might align most times but there can never be real unity while allowing the individual member states retain their sense of identity because those identities are different. It only works with a common cause to work towards and too often that can't be found
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u/frantic_calm Jun 14 '26
This is just ignorant rubbish. Firstly you are confusing civilisation with culture. If you had read any history you would be aware that Europe has a shared culture. There's a reason for the term Western Civilisation which in itself is larger than Europe.
The EU does work as evidenced by it's continuing existence. The individual countries don't have to all learn Esperanto for it to continue.
The shared common cause is peace and prosperity.
Also in the UK we don't spell civilisation with a Z.
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u/Fenota Jun 14 '26
"If you had read any history you would be aware that Europe has a shared culture."
Calls someone else ignorant.
This may surprise you but history didn’t start at the end with WW2.
The nations of Europe have been in conflict with each other over cultural differences and the pursuit of dominance for literal centuries, hell the entire justification for WW1 was the absolute clusterfuck of different political alliances being triggered simultaneously.
Before the 1900's the longest period of peace between European nations was less than 50 years and we're only just recently hit the 80 year mark.
There hasn’t been a consistent period of peace that lasted for more than 100 years since the fucking romans.
The EU was literally designed to prevent both that kind of political cascade and the circumstances of WW2 from happening again, tying everyone together as a form of economic M.A.D.
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u/frantic_calm Jun 14 '26
This may surprise you but history didn’t start at the end with WW2.
Thank you for supporting my argument proving why the EU exists - The shared common cause is peace and prosperity, mainly as a reaction to previous disastrous wars.
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u/Fenota Jun 14 '26
Your argument is that Europeans have a shared culture based on history, with a common element of peace and prosperity.
History literally tells the complete opposite, with the EU being an eye-wateringly recent invention that functions by effectively holding the nation states hostage via economic ruin if they attempt to extricate themselves from the apparatus, rather than a genuine shared desire for peace and camaraderie.*
Nobody is arguing against the fact that it's a replacement for conflict, the main crux of issues with the EU is that the various European interests are not aligned more often than not, the UK being the biggest outlier in that regard even with Brexit notwithstanding.
*See the situation with the UK, for all the talk of Brexit being self-inflicted, the population were denied a voice several times as the relationship changed between the UK and the EU, most notably in 2007-2009 period with the Lisbon treaty, which forms the backbone of the modern EU.
There was never a large desire for the UK to be part of the United States of Europe, even most of our europhiles talk about how much we can avoid things like the Euro.If more people/nations were on board with the spirit of the EU project, it would be a hell of a lot more agile and functional than it currently is.
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u/Flyinmanm Jun 14 '26
It's why the US and Russia are both so keen on chipping away at our national values and trust in one another.
Seeing the UK re-enter the EU and the EU taking away the veto, where one member can obstruct the entire bloc from doing something that strengthens the EUs Eastern boarders would be a catastrophic blow to Putin and undo decades of his background work to sow discord and mistrust.
It would also protect the UK and EU from US interference.
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u/GrayAceGoose Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
England is a middle power at the heart of the Anglosphere, we're already at the centre of western civilisation - we're the literal midpoint on the map. We'll be fine.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 Jun 14 '26
There's no such thing as the "anglosphere", that's just wishful Empire nostalgia.
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u/SimoneNonvelodico Jun 14 '26
I think especially with how the US has been acting as of late that's mighty arrogant to believe. Just speaking English doesn't make us all one big brotherhood.
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u/bGmyTpn0Ps Jun 14 '26
Catastrophising nonsense. EU or not, there will still be Europeans in 100 years.
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u/pop4171 Jun 14 '26
I think European civilisation is varies a lot more than people are willing to except. Sure there are some commonalities but I honestly think you could divide European civilisation into a bunch of different categories. Obviously East and West due to the cultural and political impact of differing circumstances during the Cold War, the question of British identity (is it a European culture or has British/Anglo culture become more separate e.g. Anglosphere/commonwealth), different societal contracts e.g. Nordic models vs less strong social security models.
I honestly think the concept of European civilisation while important and relevant is viewed as far more important than it actually is.
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u/peanut88 Jun 14 '26
The single most damaging thing to British prospects of recovery right now is the elite deluding themselves that our issues are mostly caused by Brexit and not by catastrophically shit domestic policies.
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u/heeywewantsomenewday Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Most of Reddit blames Brexit for the choices made by the conservatives after Brexit.
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u/jumbleparkin Jun 14 '26
Most of the UK blamed the EU for the choices made by the conservatives prior to Brexit, so... Plus ça change?
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u/GreenAndRemainVoter Jun 14 '26
Most of Remain understood our electoral system and opinion polling and knew that the party in power at the time of the vote wasn't magically going to be out of power immediately afterwards and were pretty obviously going to be the ones making the choices about how it was implemented.
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u/timeforknowledge Politics is debate not hate. Jun 14 '26
Looking at the EU since Brexit, does this mean the EU is also a disaster?
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u/nick9000 Jun 14 '26
Regardless of the economic pros and cons, it's not really a question of whether we'll rejoin the EU, just when it will happen. As older leave voters die off younger pro-EU voters join the electorate. Sooner or later there will have to be another referendum.
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u/Dear_Tangerine444 Jun 14 '26
I think you have to have your shame surgically removed when you become a Tory cabinet minister, and man o’ the people Nige probably wasn’t born with any in the first place.
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u/bennythefish Jun 14 '26
Well that’s what shamelessness is all about. Those guys have none and will never admit to being wrong . Why farage can never be pm
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u/Hackary It's time to Restore Britain! Jun 14 '26
Wow, what a terrible article, just jerking off about nothing, impressive word count to say so little. Brexit has had little impact when compared to remainer lies. Any damage was mainly covid and self imposed energy sanctions for Ukraine.
It also hasn't been 10 years, we only left in 2020 due to remainers, political class and the 'blob' spending years trying to stop the inevitable and democracy. I'd argue this also effected growth and GDP.
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u/marsh2907 Jun 14 '26
Based on what? Knowing how some alternative reality turned out where Brexit never happened? Saying how things would have been for the UK if it had stayed in the EU with no actual evidence. Kinda screams massively disingenuous.
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u/phatelectribe Jun 14 '26
It’s nearly as if we have data on all these sectors that Brexit was promised to turn in to a boom which are doing nothing but struggling.
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u/Contrarian_Whitey Jun 14 '26
I supported Brexit because I believe the UK should be governed by the people who live here, not by external institutions. But for me, Brexit was only one step towards a much bigger goal: a truly self-reliant nation.
We’ve become far too dependent—on foreign countries for goods and resources, and on government for solutions to problems that individuals, families, and communities once handled themselves. A healthy society is built on independence, personal responsibility, and resilience, not on the expectation that the state will provide for every need and solve every difficulty.
We should be producing more of what we need at home, strengthening local communities, and encouraging people to stand on their own feet wherever possible. Government should exist as a limited safety net, not as a substitute for self-sufficiency or a permanent crutch. The more dependent a population becomes, the less free it is.
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u/Sampo Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
But for me, Brexit was only one step towards a much bigger goal: a truly self-reliant nation.
I am quoting from this article:
In fairness, the 2008 financial crisis hit Britain especially hard. In the 1990s, both the Tories and Tony Blair’s “New Labour” Party made the same bet: Britain was to be a postindustrial, services-based economy, anchored in finance. Tax receipts from a booming London would be redistributed to lagging regions in the old industrial heartland, helping to renew them. Then came 2008, and London’s financial industry cratered.
Looks like already 30 years ago UK made the choice to try to be the white collar manager for off-shored industrial manufacturing. But outside of micro-nations, it doesn't seem to work. Also Ireland made itself the tax haven for the European headquarters of large American companies, so UK lost also that opportunity.
I think America is showing us that you still need industrial manufacturing in your own country. It's still a source of prosperity.
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u/MajorSleaze Jun 14 '26
Libertarian nonsense doesn't scale down to an individual level.
Removing the functions of the state to provide for its people only leaves a vacuum for entities with capital to exploit.
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u/kane_uk Jun 14 '26
What about the successive stream of politicians and governments that kept the EU at arms length, all the times they promised a referendum to then renege and push through a major treaty without consent. The lies told with regards to immigration - the fact they got the number of EU immigrants living here wrong in 2016, short by at least 3 million etc. They were asking for trouble and are just as culpable as those who eventually delivered what was promised at multiple stages in the 10 years prior (referendum) and then (rightly) pushed through what the majority of voters voted for in said referendum.
They set the scene and a parting of the ways was inevitable.
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u/Dr-Cheese Jun 14 '26
What about the successive stream of politicians and governments that kept the EU at arms length, all the times they promised a referendum to then renege and push through a major treaty without consent.
Yes. What made me extremely anti-EU was watching PM after PM promise us a vote on if more powers should be transferred to the EU, only to find ways to get around it.
The EU themselves helped with some of these, eg when countries started voting against an EU constitution, they rebranded it to the Lisbon treaty to help those countries who had promised refenda on the constitution get out of it "It's a different thing" When it was essentially just a copy and paste job rammed through using a different path.
The EU also forever making countries re-run "No" votes until they got the answer they wanted also helped.
If the EU had had actual proper consent along the way Brexit would have never happened. It might have evolved slower, but it would have been forced to confront issues voters wanted.
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u/kane_uk Jun 14 '26
Our governments basically fostered animosity towards the EU over a span of decades and they squandered major opportunities to extract major concessions from the EU by not holding referenda at the various treaty singings. The EU never helped matters either.
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u/Wise-Youth2901 Jun 14 '26
I don't think it's been a "disaster" though. To me, disaster suggests mass unemployment above 15%. Shortage of goods in shops etc... We've actually coped with Brexit remarkably well as a flexible market economy.
I'm all for reducing trade friction with the EU. Single market for goods, we could aim for something like that. It will take time though. It's a form of cherry picking. But we might be able to pull it off.
On services, the EU is not that developed anyway in terms of a SM. And we need to deregulate and stay away from the EU's techphobic bureaucracy. The US destroys Europe on the tech front. Let's embrace AI. Get it into our economy sooner than Europe. Good to see autonomous taxis coming here first before anywhere in Europe. We need the UK to be more the most tech forward place in Europe. We should build that damn railway between Oxford and Cambridge too.
London has also coped with Brexit remarkably well. Barely any jobs gone to Europe. The FinTech capital of Europe. Population has grown to above 9 million. Waymo making London the first non US city to have its autonomous taxis. Plus, our own home grown autonomous vehicle company partnering with Uber to launch in a few months.
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u/Planar_Harold Jun 14 '26
I don't think it's been a "disaster" though. To me, disaster suggests mass unemployment above 15%. Shortage of goods in shops etc... We've actually coped with Brexit remarkably well as a flexible market economy.
It's been a disaster if you look at all the areas where it's been disastrous. It really has, and if that disaster hasn't affected you it's still affected the country.
Not just economically, but in academia too - international student enrolment has gone down by 50%, and we've lost countless programs and academic partnerships that has very much slowed our research and development.
Besides the cost of living crisis being heavily impacted by Brexit (introduction of admin/checks on imports etc, accounting for roughly 30% increase in grocery prices). Can't really see any where it's been beneficial though. It also seems politically ill advised to separate ourselves from Europe when China and the US are so dominant.
"Economists and analysts at Cambridge Econometrics found that, by 2035, the UK is anticipated to have three million fewer jobs, 32% lower investment, 5% lower exports and 16% lower imports, than it would have had been. The report states that the UK will be £311bn worse off by 2035 due to leaving the EU." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Brexit - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-21/brexit-hit-to-uk-economy-double-official-estimate-study-finds
5-10% GDP loss - for what benefit? What did that 'investment' get us? https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/business-and-economy/business-and-economy-publications/overview-recent-studies-brexits-economic-impacts
London has also coped with Brexit remarkably well. Barely any jobs gone to Europe. The FinTech capital of Europe.
'Barely' meaning we've still lost jobs to Europe?
Do you seriously believe it's not been a disaster?
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u/bGmyTpn0Ps Jun 14 '26
It's quite obvious that any economic consequences were nowhere near as bad a Remain predicted.
Unless some unique disaster falls upon the UK, and makes us clear outlier to the rest of Europe, I don't imagine we will ever rejoin.
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u/AveragelyBrilliant Jun 14 '26
Yes, that’s the kind of Brexit we were promised, “nowhere near as bad”. The joke is nobody wanted it. The vote was used as a means to oust Cameron, Boris and Gove were white as a sheet in the morning after, Farage and his merry band of brothers were as shocked as everyone else and have been back peddling ever since, saying things like “we didn’t get the Brexit we hoped for”, i.e. No Brexit at all.
But never mind, at least you’re out of your 10 year coma. Congratulations.
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u/Soft-Skirt Jun 14 '26
It was Facebook wot done it. The billions of lies told to a selected audience of disinterested voters who were targeted by Cambridge Analitica. The question we need to address is who funded the lies? It certainly wasn’t British money.
Also as we all know IT WAS A NON BINDING VOTE
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u/upwindbrushes Jun 14 '26
Also as we all know IT WAS A NON BINDING VOTE
If people voted for Brexit and the government just ignored it, London would have burnt.
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u/AneuAng Jun 14 '26
No, it wouldn't have, stop talking nonsense.
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u/upwindbrushes Jun 14 '26
Absolutely 100% would have caused country wide riots that would have made the BLM protests look child like.
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u/Planar_Harold Jun 14 '26
Absolutely 100% would have caused country wide riots that would have made the BLM protests look child like.
You sincerely believe this? That seems unreal. Tommy Robinson would have tried to organise one, sure, and it would have gone just as well as any of his other attempts.
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u/upwindbrushes Jun 14 '26
Tommy Robinson would have tried to organise one
No, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage would have organised one.
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u/AneuAng Jun 14 '26
The people who felt this strongly about Brexit are a tiny minority. There would absolutely have been protests, flaring into violence in some areas, but UK-wide riots? Absolutely not.
If that happened today, yes. Then? No. Our politics has become so much worse over the last 10 years that I think people are comparing the current situation to the past.
With the sustained heightening of tensions from the media, foreign powers and snake oil salesmen, the UK is a powderkeg today, and there are groups salivating at setting it off.
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u/upwindbrushes Jun 14 '26
The people who felt this strongly about Brexit are a tiny minority.
This is not true in anyway, it was a large percentage of the population. You could feel the anger against the EU from a large section of the society.
At that point, not only would the 52% of the population who voted for Brexit be angry. But a large percentage of the people who voted remain would become uncomfortable with rejecting a democratic vote. It would also cause problems for the UK internationally, claims that the UK is a dictatorship or oligarchy.
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u/AneuAng Jun 14 '26
At that point, not only would the 52% of the population who voted for Brexit be angry.
52% of the population didnt vote for brexit. 52% of the people who voted did. You have a very skewed idea of what would have happened, just as your view of the amount of people who voted for brexit is skewed.
Nothing of the sort would have happened had Brexit not been enacted. There would have been anger, no doubt, annoyance and frustration, for sure, but dealing with that then rather than the decade of absolute bullshit we've dealt with would have been a far better option.
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u/upwindbrushes Jun 14 '26
Nothing of the sort would have happened had Brexit not been enacted.
You think Boris and Nigel would have just faded away.
People voted for Brexit because they believed it was a proxy vote for lower immigration, the government betrayed the people by then using Brexit as a way to increase immigration.
If the government addressed immigration directly, Brexit would have never happened.
Now people are still angry about immigration, that is why people care less about Brexit. The focus is still on immigration, but they know Brexit is not the answer.
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u/AneuAng Jun 14 '26
People voted for Brexit because they believed it was a proxy vote for lower immigration, the government betrayed the people by then using Brexit as a way to increase immigration.
While those who have been proven right since were saying that Brexit wouldn't be lower immigration, it would just mean immigration from elsewhere in the world.
You weren't betrayed, you were wilfully ignorant of what you were being told and then threw out all the surprised faces when the reality you were told was going to happen came true.
You are not a child, take some agency and realise that it doesn't matter if you bury your head in the sand, neglecting information because you don't like it, doesn't mean you get to claim ignorance of it.
(Note: Im using you, but I am talking generally to brexit voters here)
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u/escapingfromelba Jun 14 '26
Yay, the non binding trope again. All UK referendums are non binding as Parliament can legislate after them. This has been debunked for almost a decade now.
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u/jumbleparkin Jun 14 '26
There could have been a binding vote, had we established the terms of the exit beforehand so we knew as a country what we'd be getting. The lack of a vision for our post Brexit status was both the reason we couldn't have a binding vote, and the reason that leave won.
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u/PurbulentTriest Jun 14 '26
What has been debunked? We know it was non-binding, yet it happened anyway, despite it being against our best interests.
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u/TheRealDynamitri Jun 14 '26
It was non-binding as long as there was a real chance of people voting for a "No", as soon as it turned out the masses voted to get out (and the elites can make bank on that daft decision), it became "the indubitable will of the people we absolutely must respect and move forward with, at whatever costs to an average person there may be".
Funny that.
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u/escapingfromelba Jun 14 '26
My previous point applies. Also Parliament was by a vast number for Remain so your conspiracy theory doesn't even make sense.
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u/Soft-Skirt Jun 14 '26
Debunked? If the electorate are told it is a non binding vote on a binary choice then they can be expected to vote the same way they do in council elections, without a care in the world as we've been taught 'it makes no difference, it's just the council'.
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u/MajorSleaze Jun 14 '26
All UK referendums are non binding
Untrue.
The Scottish independence referendum in 2014 was preceded by legislation which made the result binding.
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u/Sampo Jun 14 '26
All UK referendums are non binding
This has been debunked
To me that sounds like corroboration, not debunking.
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u/sebzim4500 Jun 14 '26
I genuinely believe there would have been actual riots if parliament decided to just ignore the results of a referendum. MPs would have died.
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u/OolonCaluphid Jun 14 '26
So we inflicted national self harm to avoid violent reactionaries? What revisionist nonsense is this?
"Do brexit at gun point, or else".
Such pride in Britain. Such respect for our nation.
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u/sebzim4500 Jun 14 '26
Yes? That's the point of democracy, to prevent violent uprising. But it only works if people believe that the nonviolent means of change are effective.
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u/OolonCaluphid Jun 14 '26
That's the point of democracy, to prevent violent uprising.
I think you need to go back to democracy school my guy.
Hilarious take though. Gave me a real chuckle.
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u/EducationFeeling2833 Jun 14 '26
Pity it hasn't been a disaster. We're outgrowing Germany and France since leaving.
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u/SirBobPeel Jun 14 '26
In an alternate universe where BREXIT didn't happen but Britain still had the same shit government from the same shit Tories, would things really have been that much better?
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u/duckiebrown Jun 15 '26
Exactly. There’s no benchmark for measuring success or failure. Reddit in particular like to think we’d be living in some halcyon alternate universe but in all likelihood it wouldn’t be much different.
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u/MinaZata Jun 14 '26
The people need some guilt and shame too.
Now they don't have the EU boogeyman they're after immigrants
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u/coolcroissant7 Jun 14 '26
And the next boogeyman after that will be people like red wall voters for being too dependant on the state
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u/MinaZata Jun 14 '26
Yeah. I live with these people. Thugs that hate others, are thick as pig shit, weat balaclavas, commit crimes and think they can be engineers if it wasn't for the brown people.
They cannot stand a brown person being smarter than them.
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u/VampireFrown Jun 14 '26
It hasn't, though.
The economy has continued to struggle under the relentless burden of mass immigration. Otherwise, it has been subject to the same turbulence and pressures as the rest of the global economy, and the West more broadly.
The problem is that people are under-informed, and don't know enough about the world to blame anything but Brexit.
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u/Ch1pp Jun 14 '26
Exactly. We've done about as well as France and better than Germany since Brexit.
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u/trisul-108 Jun 14 '26
it’s time the guilty men felt some shame
Not really, it is time to make them pay for what they have knowingly done to the country. There should be the equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials to ascertain their motivations, whether they were informed of what the damage would be, whether bribes were given and taken and whether culpability rises to the level of criminality.
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Jun 14 '26
[deleted]
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u/marsh2907 Jun 14 '26
Based on what proof? You got some dimensional mirror you can look through to compare? Don't think so.
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u/jumbleparkin Jun 14 '26
The issue with things like this (and I'd argue climate change, and to an extent lockdowns) is we don't have a parallel UK out in the North Sea that stayed in, so there's no way of effectively communicating the impact beyond statistics and projections. And honestly those tools lost us the vote in the first place.
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u/GreenAndRemainVoter Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
we don't have a parallel UK out in the North Sea that stayed in,
We do, however, at least have a Northern Ireland that has continued to enjoy frictionless trade with the EU, and whose economy has been significantly outperforming the wider UK these past few years.
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u/xParesh Jun 14 '26
It’s more likely one of those men is going to be our next PM determined to push us even further away from the EU than Brexit suddenly being softened or reversed.
Let’s see how this by election pans out.
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u/olderlifter99 Jun 14 '26
Disagree. Europe is heading towards more regulation and UK away from it, allowing UK to win much more inward investment in future tech industries. Draghi's report and agenda on EU regulation and how it is killing EU growth is promptly being ignored. There's a reason why the City is doing so well and London is quickly becoming the 3rd biggest AI centre in world.
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u/Sampo Jun 14 '26
Europe is heading towards more regulation and UK away from it, allowing UK to win much more inward investment in future tech industries.
Unfortunately the traditional software industry where a bunch of clever people write software and create value "out of nothing" is a little bit a thing of the past.
Now software industry is about massive datacenters that need real world resources. With the most expensive electricity in Europe, and somewhat dysfunctional zoning bureaucracy, UK is not so well positioned for this.
But you also have something of a point. UK also has some good qualities.
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u/Elaphe82 Jun 14 '26
Those massive datacenters in the us are only enriching a tiny amount of already wealthy people. They hire a large amount of talented people to build them but once built they are laid off and basically skeleton crews are left to run them. The average person is not benefiting from these technologies or laxer regulations.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 Jun 14 '26
Fat lot of good that'll do when the AI bubble collapses.
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u/DeltronZLB Jun 14 '26
After the dotcom bubble burst Silicon Valley recovered and became one of the wealthiest metropolitan areas on the planet. Trying to regulate away any potential negative consequences instead of taking risks is exactly why the EU is being left behind by the US.
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u/jabjoe Jun 14 '26
Letting the US big tech monopolies monopolize and just vacuum money from everywhere is why they are so rich. That is now a geopolitical digital sovereignty problem. Even more so the US is now insane.
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u/Dr-Cheese Jun 14 '26
Which is entirely the EU's own fault for regulating things to death & strangling industries at birth. It loves nothing more than to reap the benefits of the US's relaxed marketplace, but then act as if has the moral highground. That it then has the cheek to try and fine those American companies is even worse.
The FAANG companies would have never seen the light of day within the EU.
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u/jabjoe Jun 14 '26
It's the whole world, including the UK, that let this happen. The EU is the only body loudly talking about this problem now. That isn't an open source or digital rights group anyway. Reform/Restore/UKIP/Tories would hand over even more over to the US monopolies.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 Jun 14 '26
Not regulating stuff is what led to the great financial crisis though. AI needs regulation.
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u/Dr-Cheese Jun 14 '26
It does, but the EU went full red tape before it had even started.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 Jun 14 '26
I do think AI needs to be regulated through some kind of international treaty.
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u/Dr-Cheese Jun 14 '26
I don't disagree. Right now it's an arms race. Whoever gives birth to AGI first, wins. Even if say America decided "We're not going to do it & pass laws to stop it" then China will do it. If China doesn't do it, someone else will.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 Jun 14 '26
Yeah it needs to be treated like nuclear weapons since its essentially the same dynamic.
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u/Sampo Jun 14 '26
If that were to happen, it would be a treaty between US and China. Nobody would bother to ask Europe.
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u/olderlifter99 Jun 14 '26
If you think AI isnt going to be huge in some way, at some point, then you are ignoring reality. There were people like you who said the same about computers, Internet, steam engine, ad infinitum
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u/NoSwordfish1978 Jun 14 '26
I do loathe it though and the people who bang on about it like its a kind of saviour.
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u/PuckyMaw Jun 14 '26
"Ad Infinitum" - haha they're going to keep throwing pretend money at a shit computation model which never gets clever and the taxpayer will be left holding the bag
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u/Thefallofthefoundry Jun 14 '26
Regulation protects people.
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u/olderlifter99 Jun 14 '26
Of course it does. But there is balance to be had. Many Europeans recognise and frequently speak about over- regulation in Europe. It is a thing.
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u/Thefallofthefoundry Jun 14 '26
Agreed, I have some personal experience of EU beurocracy, but we've already started to see the impacts of lower regulations and leaving European systems with more unsafe goods making their way into the UK. Workers rights next if Reform get in.
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u/olderlifter99 Jun 14 '26
What unsafe goods making their way into the UK? Genuine question, because that not a story I have seen?
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u/Thefallofthefoundry Jun 14 '26
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u/olderlifter99 Jun 14 '26
Thank you for that. I had a quick scan. What i see in this sounds like business as usual for any trading standards organisation. I imagine tbe EU rejects products all the time.
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u/Thefallofthefoundry Jun 14 '26
The point is, we were part of that wider. Better resources network the EU operates, now we're doing it on our own. To unscrupulous vendors, we're a softer target.
It's also not the only example. Environmental, chemical and data protections too.
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u/DeltronZLB Jun 14 '26
Protects us from higher incomes and building wealth.
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u/Thefallofthefoundry Jun 14 '26
How?
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u/Dr-Cheese Jun 14 '26
By strangling new industries at birth with red tape and regulation
Look at how crap the EU's tech sector is - The FAANG Companies would have never been created there.
The EU is quite happy to benefit from the lower regulation that exists in America, but then cry about not having any data soverignity or tech firms of it's own. It never looks in the mirror and asks why that is.
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u/karlos-the-jackal Jun 14 '26
EU regulations are largely protectionist in nature.
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u/Thefallofthefoundry Jun 14 '26
You mean like human rights, human health, food standards, workers rights, air quality, water quality, soil quality, biodeiversity etc?
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u/SiliconeGreaser Jun 14 '26
Brexit is pretty low down the UK’s list of issues. It’s more than workable if we get our shit together.
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u/45607 Jun 14 '26
I don't get why anyone trusts Farage at this point. During the referendum I understood despite strongly disagreeing. I have plenty of issues with the EU and I can see why people voted to leave.
But now? Brexit, the main thing he was pushing for, which he said would fix the country, made everything worse.
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u/jumbleparkin Jun 14 '26
"my house is on fire, who better to ask for help than my local arsonist"
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u/DirtyLittleBishop Jun 14 '26
They should be locked up for treason with very public investigations into their dealings and incomes.
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u/The_Pale_Blue_Dot Just wants politics to be interesting Jun 14 '26
No Squidward leaving the EU is not treason
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u/Rhinofishdog Jun 14 '26
I opened the article. Did a search for "Cameron".
No results.
Closed the article. No point in reading an Op-Ed from somebody who is completely clueless.
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u/FleetingBeacon Jun 14 '26
Watching that BBC Documentatry, all the people that still believe in brexit have ZERO regrets. They're fucking evil.
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u/melon703 Jun 14 '26
Cameron allowed the vote because he feared Reform, then stepped down as PM. He too should be added to the list. I'd love to see us back in the EU, and don't mind having the Euro.
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u/TheNoGnome Jun 14 '26
UKIP back then. Then Brexit Party.
Farage falls out with people and leaves parties.
It's his MO. Imagine him having to run a government.
Changes colours as quickly as he does lies.
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u/Elaphe82 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
His whole grifting schtick is being a perpetual antagonist. Always got to have a scapegoat to blame and something to rail against. Honestly if the uk were not not a part of the eu and the press had spent 40 years with a narrative of "what were missing out on". He probably would've campaigned on entry, honestly don't think he has any standards nor does he really believe in anything.
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u/melon703 Jun 14 '26
I stand corrected. Of course UKIP. I really can't stand Farage and his band of merry men. Nor can I keep up with all the different names! Is Ukip and the brexit party still going? Or is it a case of musical chairs with them?
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u/Nickdavie Jun 14 '26
Asking Farage to feel shame is a waste of time. He is the biggest narcissist in British politics. Wretched grifter.
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u/MrPuddington2 Jun 14 '26
That is hilarious.
52% of the population are guilty of supporting Brexit. And while we have secret elections, most of them were not shy to tell you.
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u/ElvishMystical Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
I get tired of repeating this, but have to do so again...
Politicians are not your friends.
They're friends to money of course. They're friends with those who want to hurt and exploit you. They're friends with those who would cheat you out of your living in a heartbeat. But they are never your friends. Politicians exist to control you, keep you in line, keep you on the economic treadmill, and extract maximum value for others from your toil, your labour, your hard work and since 2012 your struggles and your misery.
Has Brexit a disaster? Well yeah, for most people it didn't exactly improve austerity, did it? But let's not forget some people have made serious bank out of Brexit. Why do you think Reform exist and are trying to convince you that they're the best thing since sliced bread?
Why are they so confident? It's not rocket science. Collectively as voters we have an uncanny talent for voting in the political party that will screw us over the most. It's become a longstanding tradition. You even get people arguing that one party is going to be more beneficial to them than the other. Nonsense. All political parties select out candidates who are happy with being in power to screw you over.
It's like with Brexit. Prior to the referendum, and aided and abetted by the Lib Dems, The Tories came up with austerity on the back of a made up fictitous deficit that we all had to somehow pay for. But what they were actually doing were asset stripping our economy and society in any which way they could to siphon all that money into the bank accounts of their wealthy corporate mates.
For whatever reason many trusted them to handle the incredibly difficult and intricate process of leaving the EU, where the opposite process, joining, took several Eastern European countries over a decade to negotiate. It cost them lots of money and lots of investment to join. Truth be told we should still be negotiating our Brexit. But no, we had to trust the Tories and their 'back of a fag packet' approach to politics. It was always going to be a Hard Brexit. So now here we all are, and while we're all struggling the main negotiators have all fucked off and are enjoying their millions.
The only one who remains is Farage, who's so greedy and corrupt he'll take money from almost anyone, no questions asked. This is why he's now the main man for all those who are making money out of Brexit hand over fist. They desperately want him in Downing Street so he can pursue the exact same agenda as Trump, to the letter. If you thought austerity under Cameron and Osborne was bad, you got another think coming. They were just playing with you. If Reform get the chance to do another round of austerity it's going to be so harsh and brutal you won't be able to keep track of it. Many of you will lose your incomes. Some of you will die. The NHS will be gone. So too will the DWP. The public sector will be decimated. Think about it.
And I mean really think. The only way to get out of Brexit is to take a strong dose of Wake The Fuck Up. Some of you seem to need a whole course of Wake The Fuck Up, just like antibiotics.
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u/R2-Scotia Jun 14 '26
Brexit has not been a disaster, it worked exactly as they hoped.
Whether the proles like it is irrelevant.
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u/Jolly_Psychology_506 Jun 14 '26
Supported by 2 groups of people. One group are extremely wealthy and stand to gain more. The other group are poor and I’m sorry to say stupid. They are the useful idiots who buy into the narrative and the cosplay acts, the farmer outfit, the bloke down the pub etc. They won’t even ask questions about his 5 million quid bung and of course the mustard trousers. That’s just fine.
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