Well, they would have loved to stop migration and voted in droves for brexit for that. Cant have that though, democracy or not, can vote for any party, but cant have that result they all promise before the vote closes and never deliver once the vote is in.
MrBuddyCasino•45m ago
Almost as if democracy isn't real and all statecraft is driven by intra-elite conflicts.
foldr•39m ago
Britain leaving the EU purely because a majority voted for it in a popular vote is a pretty bad example to use in support of the claim that democracy isn't real. It's probably this sort of vague cynicism about democracy that led Cameron to call the referendum in the first place, only to discover that people can actually vote however they like!
lores•23m ago
Democracy requires an informed electorate. Just having the right to vote isn't enough.
logicchains•22m ago
No it doesn't, democracy means rule by all the people not rule by some educated elite.
spacedcowboy•15m ago
Two things:
- Education is not "elite", it's open to all.
- Informed is not "educated".
Forcing political speech to be truthful (or at least have a reasonable expectation of being truthful) with serious consequences (jail time) for knowingly lying would go a long way to counter the misinformation that caused Brexit.
lores•13m ago
"Educated" and "informed" aren't the same.
foldr•18m ago
It works better with an informed electorate. However, one of the reasons that voters don't bother informing themselves is the campaign of cynicism aimed at convincing them that all political parties are the same, that their vote doesn't matter, etc. etc. One might just as well say that an informed population requires democracy: why bother keeping track of national policy if you have no control over it?
In the days after the Brexit vote, it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence on Britain's membership of the EU. Lazy and cynical anti-democratic rhetoric just feeds into that cycle of ignorance and stupidity.
pjmlp•13m ago
Which is how autocracy governments get hold of countries without military action, it only needs enough patience and uninformed electorate to win the election.
They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship.
jen20•32m ago
Absurd to suggest that anyone voting for Brexit knew what they were voting for - by design of the pro-Brexit shysters.
nannal•31m ago
Not sure that's an argument that shines good light on brexit voters.
spacedcowboy•19m ago
To be fair (a) I don't think he was trying to do that, and (b) I'm struggling to think of an argument that would shine good light on brexit voters ?
Perhaps that they're wonderfully trusting people who believe whatever politicians that Gary down the pub thinks are the best ?
sscaryterry•7m ago
Brexit voters were plain gullible.
Nursie•13m ago
Actually that was by design of the anti-Brexit faction.
Before you get ranty at me - I voted remain. But your comment is revisionist. The pro-Brexit shysters were not in power. After the referendum, whichever way it went, the pro-Brexit people were not going to be given power, it was not an election.
They had no mandate to implement anything. Any plan they promised would have been irrelevant to the UK government and had no more force than you or I scribbling on a pub napkin.
You know who was in power, who was in a position to make a plan, arguably whose duty it was to make a contingency plan if the referendum went south?
The very pro-EU faction at the head of the Tory government. But they didn’t. They told the public they weren’t making a plan so that it didn’t look like a low-risk option that the country could go for and be OK. The lack of plan was no accident, it was a Remain-side tactic.
The Brexiteers were/are wrong, hateful, shysters in so many ways. But your ire in this specific case should be aimed squarely at David Cameron. The Brexit shysters just didn’t have any power, and Brexit voters voted without a plan because it was the choice they were given.
Retr0id•53m ago
Oops, looks like they'll need to roll out more "think of the children"-shaped propaganda first. Or maybe a terrorism scare?
GCHQ has done it's job of obfuscating it's existence pretty well, for most Brits to still think they've had any privacy at all for the last few decades.
p-e-w•13m ago
That’s tinfoil hat nonsense. Of course there is privacy, otherwise those agencies wouldn’t be constantly lobbying for more invasive surveillance powers. What would be the point of that, if they could already read everything?
HPsquared•14m ago
Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes. That's why Brexit was such a big upset, it bucked the trend (the management miscalculated, nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise).
cynicalsecurity•9m ago
Unless Brits are ready to rise up and topple their government, this poll means nothing.
lores•6m ago
Yes, you're entirely right. One further, I was at a talk from a law professor at a big uni once, where he had printed the entire text of the Medicare bill on a giant pile of paper. He explained that it had taken him, a professor, several months full-time to understand everything at stake; what chance has a representative to do so, let alone on every bill? What chance has a voter? What does it mean for democracy that no one with decision powers understands what they decide?
21asdffdsa12•1h ago
MrBuddyCasino•45m ago
foldr•39m ago
lores•23m ago
logicchains•22m ago
spacedcowboy•15m ago
- Education is not "elite", it's open to all.
- Informed is not "educated".
Forcing political speech to be truthful (or at least have a reasonable expectation of being truthful) with serious consequences (jail time) for knowingly lying would go a long way to counter the misinformation that caused Brexit.
lores•13m ago
foldr•18m ago
In the days after the Brexit vote, it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence on Britain's membership of the EU. Lazy and cynical anti-democratic rhetoric just feeds into that cycle of ignorance and stupidity.
pjmlp•13m ago
They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship.
jen20•32m ago
nannal•31m ago
spacedcowboy•19m ago
Perhaps that they're wonderfully trusting people who believe whatever politicians that Gary down the pub thinks are the best ?
sscaryterry•7m ago
Nursie•13m ago
Before you get ranty at me - I voted remain. But your comment is revisionist. The pro-Brexit shysters were not in power. After the referendum, whichever way it went, the pro-Brexit people were not going to be given power, it was not an election.
They had no mandate to implement anything. Any plan they promised would have been irrelevant to the UK government and had no more force than you or I scribbling on a pub napkin.
You know who was in power, who was in a position to make a plan, arguably whose duty it was to make a contingency plan if the referendum went south?
The very pro-EU faction at the head of the Tory government. But they didn’t. They told the public they weren’t making a plan so that it didn’t look like a low-risk option that the country could go for and be OK. The lack of plan was no accident, it was a Remain-side tactic.
The Brexiteers were/are wrong, hateful, shysters in so many ways. But your ire in this specific case should be aimed squarely at David Cameron. The Brexit shysters just didn’t have any power, and Brexit voters voted without a plan because it was the choice they were given.