So look forward to a better future. Perhaps joining, perhaps SM, but respecting Europe's rights and sovereignty. No more #hackingEurope, no more #ExtrawurstGroßbritannien Bon app. Ends - ThreadSky

nialloconghaile.bsky.social • 53 days ago

So look forward to a better future.

Perhaps joining, perhaps SM, but respecting Europe's rights and sovereignty. No more #hackingEurope, no more #ExtrawurstGroßbritannien

Bon app.

Ends

Comments

nialloconghaile.bsky.social•53 days ago

PS feel free to share this thread, if you liked it. Sharing is the only way to get traction of Bluesky

https://bsky.app/profile/nialloconghaile.bsky.social/post/3lfezf3s2qc2r

msbluewednesday.bsky.social•53 days ago

‘What kind of people’?
People who wanted to believe it, of course.

Then, just to put the frighteners on people, send them targeted Facebook ads to tip them over the edge.

Sadly we can’t fix stupid & stubborn.
“The EU wants to kill our cuppa” anyone? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44966969

ali-jr.bsky.social•53 days ago

There’s no excusing Brexit, but the rest of Europe needs to realize their Brexit moment could be here in a heartbeat if the right conditions arise, take NL, if wasn’t for PR voting system, wilders would be PM with 100% power, and we’d all be judging them like we do UK.

nialloconghaile.bsky.social•53 days ago

Sure. But the UK electorate was aware of the system, indeed consciously chose it. Remainers needed a super majority to prevent Brexit.

As it was, they were beaten in seven national votes consecutively, under three systems.

ali-jr.bsky.social•53 days ago

I think you would struggle to find people in the UK electorate that were aware that they voted 7 times intentionally either for /against Brexit, obviously the referendum was clear, 2019 fair enough, not sure the other 5 occasions

vadkakukk.bsky.social•52 days ago

Also, the UK's first-past-the-post voting system means that a government almost always wins with a minority of the total votes.

vadkakukk.bsky.social•52 days ago

Sorry, I see that you've already acknowledged that. But this does mean that a minority of fools can hold the rest of the country to ransom.

jmolofsson.bsky.social•53 days ago

Yeah!
The rest of Europe needs to realize that.

Thing is that I see most of the rest of Europe being very much aware. We've had Farage-like figures in Austria since the 1990s, we've seen Berlusconi in Italy, LePen in France, Glistrup in Denmark and Orbán in Hungary.

Just the British didn't.

vadkakukk.bsky.social•52 days ago

I think this is an important point.

There was a lot of misinformation around and people voted to leave for a whole lot of different stupid reasons. Some as a protest against the government. Some didn't pay any attention to the real arguments and had no idea what the EU was until afterwards.

vadkakukk.bsky.social•52 days ago

But, *all* people can be manipulated in one way or another.

After something like this you mentally divide the country into the smart ones and the dumb ones.

vadkakukk.bsky.social•52 days ago

But, after a while, you look around at 'team smart' and realise that a lot of them are also susceptible to certain types of misinformation. And they can also refuse to change their mind when something they believed in turns out to be a total lie.

vadkakukk.bsky.social•52 days ago

It can't be a coincidence that multiple countries appear to have a majority of stupid people all at the same time.

With this massive network to spread misinformation around the world in an instant, it can happen anywhere.

ali-jr.bsky.social•52 days ago

Absolutely, I know plenty about of decent people that voted for Brexit and are not stupid, but they also had no idea what they where taking about when it came to the EU, or at least, that leaving it would be damaging.

kathylove.bsky.social•53 days ago

Indeed, PR is far more representative than FPTP, and one benefit of that is that parties with more extreme views tend to be contained by the (usually large) majorities who did not vote for them.

kresten2.bsky.social•49 days ago

In the Netherlands 23% of the vote doesn’t give you absolute power, it doesn’t necessarily give you any power at all.

That is because NL is a democracy.

Also as far as I know, Wilders doesn’t even want to leave the EU.

So no Brexit moment, not even close.

ali-jr.bsky.social•48 days ago

Yeah of course, because NL has PR voting system, that’s entirely my point, if they had first passed post 23% wouldn’t be so far off forming a government with 100% power, starmer in UK has huge majority on 30% of vote from just 20% of electorate.

ali-jr.bsky.social•48 days ago

And as for Wilders and their ilk, none of them are talking about leaving the EU, since brexit…..it wasn’t always that way.

kresten2.bsky.social•48 days ago

But they don’t. So they are nothing like the UK and as I said even Wilders doesn’t want to leave the EU.

The UK is rather unique.

ali-jr.bsky.social•48 days ago

Since brexit, wilders doesn’t want to leave the EU, but he was in favor of it before.

UK is a tragedy because Brexit happened, and was facilitated by the unstable political system, but populism is a risk throughout Europe, unexpected things can (and will happen) happen, that’s all I’m saying

the-nah-whal.bsky.social•31 days ago

Still the best summary of the sheer entitlement of Brits. https://youtu.be/qg94XHbXrHM

ediparolev.bsky.social•51 days ago

I reckon one of the main reasons for Brexit was that most of the establishment, along with their media, expected Remain to win

And because we were repeatedly told that Remain would win, many people didn’t take the referendum seriously or get involved in the campaign - I include myself in that group

nialloconghaile.bsky.social•51 days ago

Sure. But votes have consequences, and the fact people trreated Europe as a joke is hard to forgive.

francoisgmr.bsky.social•50 days ago

So true. I was living abroad at the time, but happened to be in London on 23.06.16, leaving on the 24th. In the run up, watching BBC Breakfast etc, you’d have thought it was all a big joke. The cabbie who took me to Heathrow couldn’t stop saying he’d voted Leave “for a laugh”. I was besides myself.

viviennesoton.bsky.social•50 days ago

One of my husband’s old university friends was so upset he kept asking people how they voted, including waiters in restaurants. He asked another university friend over dinner how he had voted and why - ‘Just fancied a change’.
I thought he was going to kill him!

nialloconghaile.bsky.social•50 days ago

I recall talking to a British contact in France, who voted leave because "the EU has made Britain poorer than India".

alang64.bsky.social•50 days ago

I know someone else who did that, he thought it would be a bit of fun.

jmolofsson.bsky.social•50 days ago

I can't fathom how that (consultative!) referendum still take up all mental energy, instead of how Tories and Labour executed the process in Parliament.

gillo.bsky.social•47 days ago

Let's face it, even the Brexiters thought they'd lose - the faces of Gove and Johnson the day after showed that.

NO BLOODY PLAN AT ALL.

Even the worst Leave voters had a right to expect they had some sort of a plan.

nmwilkinson.bsky.social•46 days ago

Nah they don't it was super obvious

gillo.bsky.social•46 days ago

To well-informed Remainers it was. Dozy Quitters, though? They trusted the indefensible.

nmwilkinson.bsky.social•46 days ago

D'oh

notjobloggs.bsky.social•45 days ago

So what was in May’s mind when she said in her first speech after being made leader “Brexit means Brexit”? Rhetorical question.

jwils60.bsky.social•44 days ago

We were told we'd still be in the Single Market.
I voted Remain as I'm a pro European first and foremost.
Remember a vote for Brexit was a vote for the Single Market..that didn't happen.
And only a small % of population and electorate voted Brexit.
In Scotland the vote was Remain.

gillo.bsky.social•44 days ago

My constituency in Middle England voted Remain. We were still shafted.

gillo.bsky.social•45 days ago

Very little at all. She was another lukewarm "Remainer" who rushed enthusiastically to demolish the country.

ediparolev.bsky.social•45 days ago

Teaching us a lesson, probably.

kresten2.bsky.social•50 days ago

Actions (lack of action) have consequences. Also to the UK.

dpaxorales.bsky.social•50 days ago

so true: enough people did not believe 'leave' could win, or that if it did, trusted that the all-powerful establishment they despise would not allow it to happen; others thought - rather dimwittedly - they had been given an opportunity to vote cameron out.

brainburnnow.bsky.social•50 days ago

Huh? You say they "rather dimwittedly" thought voting leave would get rid of Cameron?

Yet, they were 100% correct - Cameron quit pretty much the second that the result dropped, didn't he?

Still cutting your nose off to spite your face, but they did achieve their stated goal.

dpaxorales.bsky.social•50 days ago

not thinking through the full range of consequences is dimwitted, sorry.

brainburnnow.bsky.social•50 days ago

That's fair.

They got what they wanted, but at a price they likely wouldn't have been willing to pay if it'd been obvious to them upfront.

ali-jr.bsky.social•53 days ago

100% with you on the closing sentiments

nialloconghaile.bsky.social•53 days ago

Thanks Ali! I'm with you guys too.

geoffschrecker.bsky.social•53 days ago

As you point out, those who voted for Brexit have no excuse, they were clearly told that they were being lied to by millions of us. I feel particularly angry as I spent hours explaining the complications that would be caused for Ireland.

nialloconghaile.bsky.social•53 days ago

There is no excuse. Time for us all to accept that Brexit has happened, it's finished, and you owe the referendum nothing.

tamarainportugal.bsky.social•53 days ago

There is/was no excuse - but those who have subsequently woken up to the truth need to be embraced by pro-Europeans and not still vilified for their former naivety/stupidity.

jmolofsson.bsky.social•53 days ago

They shouldn't be vilified.
Unless they blame Someone Else. Like me, for instance!

tamarainportugal.bsky.social•53 days ago

Humility is going to be a vital key to the UK turning a corner (eventually) and repentant/regretful Leavers will possess this.

tamarainportugal.bsky.social•53 days ago

Still vilifying regretful Leavers keeps the narrative cemented in 2016 where Brexiters want to keep it. Empowerment comes from the humility of changed minds.

danzern.bsky.social•50 days ago

It is time to envision a better path that can lead you towards a remarkable future. Enjoy:
https://www.wattpad.com/1509765434-a-step-beyond-the-road-you-carry-on%0D

spikeyscabiosa.bsky.social•30 days ago

Trouble is Niall, it feels like this sort of argument lumps all the UK electorate into one homogeneous blob deserving of ‘collective punishment’. Over 1/3 of electorate didn’t vote, of the rest the majority was slim. People like me who saw the lies keep being ignored by politicians of all stripes 😡

nialloconghaile.bsky.social•30 days ago

We have no way to have a different relationship with different parts of the electorate. That's just a fact.

I am sorry about this outcome, but change has to come from the UK. (and it will)

spikeyscabiosa.bsky.social•30 days ago

Well, I hope you’re right and that comes before I’m dead. But it still pisses me off mightily that Starmer’s government, like Tories are currently intent on totally ignoring folk like me. I’m doubtful I’ll vote Labour again - they just seem too Conservative, at least in their comms.

kresten2.bsky.social•29 days ago

Labour, at least its leadership, is a hard Brexit party.

They are not a part of the solution but a part of the problem.

kresten2.bsky.social•29 days ago

The EU deals with 3rd country governments not individual citizens.

There is no punishment.

Brexit was and still is a 100% UK problem. The solution starts in the UK although the EU and its MSs will of course be the final arbiter.

spikeyscabiosa.bsky.social•29 days ago

I wasn’t accusing the EU. I was saying it felt like some commentators use some arguments to make the whole UK electorate ‘blameworthy’ for Brexit. That’s what feels like ‘collective punishment’. Many more people DIDN’T vote for it than did. That majority has been and still is being totally ignored.

neil0659.bsky.social•53 days ago

The sooner we accept all of what you say above, the sooner we can Rejoin.

Arguing with the rules will always be counter-productive. Especially when the country is shrinking economically.

But, no doubt, many will.
[Sighs heavily]

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