I have never seen optimists turn into pessimists so quickly. I have a lot to say on this topic, but for the most part I will say this: Racism is fear, people are afraid and that is powerful, you can't attack fear with insults and anger because that only makes it grow. I don't watch the news on the TV any more because it is depressing, so much emphasis on humanities worst. If we stop reinforcing fear in peoples minds, and instead reinforce the good sides of tolerance and multiculturalism then fewer people will be afraid. If people are not afraid, then they can vote more with their mind then their fear. Don't hate racists, pity their fear and help them. Optimism cannot die because it lost the first battle, the world will keep on spinning, pessimism will get us and our discussion no where.
Remember that when you use blanket terms like this you are tarring every single person who voted to leave with that brush. As expected, the usual doom and gloom stories being trotted out today, accompanied by lots of people on social media pouring out vitriol for Leave voters. I'm quite thick-skinned so that sort of thing doesn't bother me personally, but please take a moment to think before popping onto Facebook and alienating people you consider friends. EDIT: On the plus side, at least we got rid of David Cameron, right? EDIT2: Also looks like a no-confidence motion was just tabled against Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the main opposition party too.
I am kinda surprised. Didn't think this would happen. Now I want to make clear that I don't know all that many facts, and it is just my generalizing feeling speaking, but when I hear about this then my thoughts, too, go like this: "Omg the xenophobic drama right wing party wins, poor UK". There are probably other reasons to leave and it's unfair to generalize like that, but nevertheless it is what I think first when I read "UK leaves EU". Considering how the vote was nearly 50:50 even only a few % of xenophobes made the difference. Sad day. The UK seems pretty split by itself about this. Nobody really wins when the population of a country is split 50:50 about such a big issue. You country might have paid a very high price for that. Well, I guess now we can sit back, get some popcorn from amazon.co.uk, and watch the drama. Maybe you leave-voters were right somehow and the UK will profit from this. Good luck.
Ok yeah, I'm very bitter and reactionary today. But let's look at this sh!t: It took like an hour to backpeddle on extra funding of the NHS. We're putting people who want to dismantle and sell the Service in FULL control again, they're not going to put any extra money into it. We're going to lose a LOT of EU funding for creative industries, and leave a lot of human rights / LGBT laws in the hands of a far more right wing version of the Conservatives. The whole Referendum is a powerplay for politics in a broken system run by rich lads. The UK games scene relies a LOT on EU funding, and more multi-national indie devs are considering leaving. We rely a lot on the freedom to bring in outside talent. I can't be happy that Cameron resigned, because while I SHOULD be, it's under the dumbest circumstances. I can at least be happy Scotland showed out in force for common sense, but still mad that the scottish voter turnout was so low - could have swayed it. People I consider my friends are having to consider the real threat of having to leave, as a LOT of students here I am close friends with are Spanish / Swedish / Italian. National pride is stupid.
Classified by others according to their opinion/interest. Do you need other people to tell you what is right and what is wrong, or what is worse? Don't forget that politicians can only make laws, they can't change the meaning of words, people's moral nor the nature of the universe.
To be fair, if I were a man with a little spending money, I'd actually buy into the British Pound Sterling right now, it's the worse its been in 30 years, which means it literally cannot get any worse on the market than it is now, it can only go up from here. Pro-Tip: Anything on the market, whose value has tanked hard, but is literally unsinkable, is a surefire way to make a x4 profit or more. Since the Pound is literally tied to a country and prolific worldwide imperial nation, it's value surely cannot reach 0 and remain there as it goes out of business, to remain as bad as it is pretty much requires reaching Italy levels of failure, it will easily rebound. Just saying. *Note* I am not responsible for money invested, the above statement holds no warranty, I cannot guarantee if Britain actually reaches Italy levels of failure and never recovers, it just seems unlikely. Always invest at your own risk.
Nice little picture. While the margins were small, a win is still a win. It will be interesting to see who gets elected in the near future. Measuring voting process: In an ideal voting systems a range of 2/3 majority would be best. Anything less would be considered a tyranny of the majority. Greater than 2/3 would be voter suppression, false information and rigging of elections. These are some of the more common explanations when analyzing voting polls. Comments: Some of the comments here that the vote was based on racism and xenophobic tendencies is shocking. Many are painting pictures that truckloads of racists stormed the polls before closing in order to rig the vote. While a tyranny of the majority was likely at play, I doubt its from this part of the vote. Even so, everybody is still supposed to be represented equally in the voting process. This includes the racists and xenophobes. If you believe this is a crime, create a class action law suit against the truckdriver who organized the racist brigade. Otherwise, don't use this as your main argument because there are plenty of others things you could have mentioned to display your dissatisfaction.
This is not a win, not in any way. Everyone loses here. When it's 52/48 or like the scotland referendum, 55/45, it's a signal that you need people to -above everything else- talk. It's not a signal that one side is more right. Brexit isn't a racist thing, by the way. That's a complete misread of the situation. People are afraid and uncertain. Tranditional politicians don't seem to do anything (keyword being "seem") and populists offer easy solutions. People vote out of protest, not out of the best solution. EDIT; This is gold: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigel-farage-wants-second-referendum-7985017
If only 2% of them were trash voting for trashy reasons, and as many have said, old timers who will never live long enough to suffer the consequence of their decision, then it is sort of stupid that this could have just been prevented in the first place. I feel the same about American politics. What motivation, does a 74 year old senator, who's sat in office for 30 years, have to benefit anyone save himself? Bribery Charges, pfft, he's dead in likely 5 years, what harm is a little house arrest going to do, he's rich and getting richer. Makes crummy laws that tosses the country down the craphole, he'll be dead by time China collects their debt. I don't know what one does about it, but I agree to some extent that it's crummy, for the old and already well off folk, to make long-term decisions which they will enjoy watching from the cozy view inside their coffin. If things get awful, do we dig them up and rough up the corpses a bit, just outta spite? Doesn't feel like there is a real "solution" to that qualm.
Well I'm not sure that having a country where only 18 year olds can vote would be very good either. A right to vote should not be based on how long you have left to live, otherwise you might consider those with medial problems to also be invalid, and anyone who is planning on moving to another country within the "allowed to vote" range. Older people are classically conservative, conservatives are classically anti-EU. Their vote should be no surprise to anyone, theirs was a guaranteed vote to leave. Old people scare easily too, and watch a lot of news channels in their retirement. What we have is a vote that screws both sides. Voting on a MASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIVLY complex issue with a simple binary in-out, leaving both sides to assume the other is a stereotype because there was no haggling on specific issues that could be made. We also have our voting system all about getting past that 50% mark, which screws the other 49% of people. It's likely that both sides only had a very small minority that agreed fully one way or the other and the majority of voters agreed strongly with one or two issues, not matter how right or wrong they could conceivably be. We got fucked by our own politicians by presenting the public with a overly simplistic vote that had drastic consequences in both directions when we have a Indirect democracy of some sort for a reason. We literally elected people to decide this for us, MP's and stuff, and they (The mythical they.) said screw that, let the public decide in the WORST way possible. I have been on the fence for the whole thing, leaned leave when my postal vote came around and did the stuff. But even still, we both got screwed. But at least I can enjoy the hype train in R/The_Donald, as they seem to be having some fun at least. (It's like watching a runaway train while standing on the tracks!) So yeah... good luck all current and future Britons and Irish! May we live in uneventful times!
So our friend Boris Johnsol already retracted his statement on EU payments. Immigration won't immediately change. The Status Quo is maintained and negotiations can take 2 years but easily can take 10. (how long it took for the UK-canada negotiations) The PM resigns with no intent to start Brexit now. Congrats. You've all been lied to. So much better than the EU.
Racism is pretty universally-defined, sorry. I see your argument a lot from people who make arguably-racist statements. Try to avoid that particular pitfall, aye? My facts remain. Hating people on the colour of their skin or because of where they're from is racism. Hating someone for their opinion on economics is something else entirely. Economics can ruin someone's life. Deal with it.
