United Kingdom Referendum on European Union Membership

[ChrisDR68]

Even as a Brixiter it feels a bit unreal today.

Only for a brief few days in early June did I think Leave could win when several opinion polls showed large Brexit leads.

By the weekend that had changed and continued to change during this week so I was confident that Remain would win the day in the end.

As early as the Newcastle and Sunderland results it looked promising for Leave and apart for results in Scotland and London the results were a consistent Brexit majority in most polling areas.

As Janet Daly said on Dateline London following President Obama's intervention and the subsequent negative reaction to it by British voters "history shows that the British are a resilient lot and refuse to be bullied".

Not understanding that character trait of the British people was one of the main errors of the Cameron and Osborne campaign strategy.

And so it proved last night

You really think Obama had anything do with the result?

Yep I've talked to several people who said that that was the moment they decided to vote Leave. Obama's intervention went down like a lead balloon with many people here.

[Green Line]

The thing that really gets me is the dishonesty and fear mongering over Northern Ireland. There is absolutely not going to be border checkpoints set up. Absolutely no way. The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

[Crumpets]

The thing that really gets me is the dishonesty and fear mongering over Northern Ireland. There is absolutely not going to be border checkpoints set up. Absolutely no way. The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

I don't get it. What was the point of leaving the EU if not to impose ridiculous border restrictions?

[Green Line]

The thing that really gets me is the dishonesty and fear mongering over Northern Ireland. There is absolutely not going to be border checkpoints set up. Absolutely no way. The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

I don't get it. What was the point of leaving the EU if not to impose ridiculous border restrictions?

There will be border restrictions, but not between Northern Ireland and the Republic!  This has been stressed over and over again but the Bremainers willfully ignored it to stir up fear.

[MaxQue]

The thing that really gets me is the dishonesty and fear mongering over Northern Ireland. There is absolutely not going to be border checkpoints set up. Absolutely no way. The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

The Unionists won't accept that condition at all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

This may be the single stupidest thing I have read on this forum all year. Good God.

[Green Line]

The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

This may be the single stupidest thing I have read on this forum all year. Good God.

No, Ive seen worse.  Maybe a passport wasnt the best idea, but there will be a way.

Either way, there won't be border controls between Ireland and NI. Guaranteed.

[ObserverIE]

The thing that really gets me is the dishonesty and fear mongering over Northern Ireland. There is absolutely not going to be border checkpoints set up. Absolutely no way. The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

There are going to have to be custom checks and a whole world of possible extra paperwork for what have become two highly-integrated economies over the last twenty years. The alternative is that the UK (or what's left of it) takes on EEA membership, which requires accepting freedom of movement, which is precisely what the Leave voters were rearing up against.

Passport controls at Stranraer might be more feasible than trying to seal off a 300-mile border but it's going to p*ss off the No Popery brigade who were the vast majority of the Leave vote in Northern Ireland (notice how more demographically Protestant but predominantly suburban middle-class constituencies like North Down, South Antrim, Belfast East and Lagan Valley voted Remain or were close, while the rural evangelicals in North Antrim and the working-class loyalist paramilitary followers in Belfast North voted Leave to a man).

[ObserverIE]

Even as a Brixiter it feels a bit unreal today.

Only for a brief few days in early June did I think Leave could win when several opinion polls showed large Brexit leads.

By the weekend that had changed and continued to change during this week so I was confident that Remain would win the day in the end.

As early as the Newcastle and Sunderland results it looked promising for Leave and apart for results in Scotland and London the results were a consistent Brexit majority in most polling areas.

As Janet Daly said on Dateline London following President Obama's intervention and the subsequent negative reaction to it by British voters "history shows that the British are a resilient lot and refuse to be bullied".

Not understanding that character trait of the British people was one of the main errors of the Cameron and Osborne campaign strategy.

And so it proved last night

You really think Obama had anything do with the result?

Yep I've talked to several people who said that that was the moment they decided to vote Leave. Obama's intervention went down like a lead balloon with many people here.

How big a factor was him being an uppity "half-Kenyan" ((c) Boris Johnson) with these type of voters?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Hey! One Bright side.... Lambeth was the most REMAIN council in the whole UK. Why is Kate Hoey still at Vauxhall?

Anyway I admit I called this - like the UK GE last year - completely wrong. In both cases I underestimated the conservatism of the UK (read: English and Welsh) electorate. However, I'm enjoying the assumption that Labour now have a huge problem in places like Doncaster, Barnsley, Bolsover, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hull and so on and but the Tories - soon to be under the management of the Vote Leave campaign - aren't in trouble at all in St Albans, Guildford, Bath and Oxfordshire. In both cases neither are likely to be in much trouble but the asymmetry is interesting.

[rob in cal]

  Anything special about the London areas that voted in the 70% and on up range for remain?

[ag]

The thing that really gets me is the dishonesty and fear mongering over Northern Ireland. There is absolutely not going to be border checkpoints set up. Absolutely no way. The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

I don't get it. What was the point of leaving the EU if not to impose ridiculous border restrictions?

There will be border restrictions, but not between Northern Ireland and the Republic!  This has been stressed over and over again but the Bremainers willfully ignored it to stir up fear.

You have an agreement on this from the Irish?

[ag]

The most likely thing to happen is  there will be a passport required to travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

This may be the single stupidest thing I have read on this forum all year. Good God.

No, Ive seen worse.  Maybe a passport wasnt the best idea, but there will be a way.

Either way, there won't be border controls between Ireland and NI. Guaranteed.

Guaranteed by whom?

The only way I can see how a London government can "guarantee" it at this point, is by ceding Ulster to Ireland. Anything else will require negotiating. And while I do believe that the net result will be some sort of a free travel agreement, it will not come costless. In fact, it is going to be one of the major trump cards in the hands of EU negotiators.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Some areas of Irish-UK relations - such as the legal status of citizens of one jurisdiction in the other - are dealt under pre-EU or extra-EU legislation such as the Ireland Act, 1949. Others, however, are dependent on EU guarantees. Many provisions of the Good Friday Agreement were written with the assumption that EU laws would apply and that both states would remain members. This means that, yes, border posts could come up again should the UK fail to get into the EEA.

The thing that worries me about the border is how worried are the Brexiteers among immigration really?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Hey! One Bright side.... Lambeth was the most REMAIN council in the whole UK. Why is Kate Hoey still at Vauxhall?

Anyway I admit I called this - like the UK GE last year - completely wrong. In both cases I underestimated the conservatism of the UK (read: English and Welsh) electorate. However, I'm enjoying the assumption that Labour now have a huge problem in places like Doncaster, Barnsley, Bolsover, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hull and so on and but the Tories - soon to be under the management of the Vote Leave campaign - aren't in trouble at all in St Albans, Guildford, Bath and Oxfordshire. In both cases neither are likely to be in much trouble but the asymmetry is interesting.

I'm pretty sure Labour having issues there will be part of a self fulfilling prophecy.

[ag]

LibDems should run in the next election on Europe.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

LibDems should run in the next election on Europe.

That wouldn't be a terrible move. It is noteworthy that, in 2001, the LibDems performed quite well in Richmond and Kingston. I imagine that left-oriented strategic voters in Tory-held targets were strongly in favor of Remain so they should be willing to back the LibDems.

[Hnv1]

LibDems should run in the next election on Europe.

To what end? Vote for us and we'll stop the exit? Can't see that going down too well, now that Brexit is decided I don't see a single issue libdem can run on

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

It depends. On the one hand, there could be an acceptance (if begrudgingly so) of the result by the bobos and a Remain focused campaign will make them look like huge sore losers; but on the other there could be a huge backlash if the next few weeks are poorly handled.

[ag]

LibDems should run in the next election on Europe.

To what end? Vote for us and we'll stop the exit? Can't see that going down too well, now that Brexit is decided I don't see a single issue libdem can run on

Punish the parties that led us into this mess. They lost trust. We will negotiate European cooperation.

[dax00]

The thing is: there's only a little mess now, because the Remain side insisted that there would be.

On a lighter note, have a look at this:

[Simfan34]

LibDems should run in the next election on Europe.

To what end? Vote for us and we'll stop the exit? Can't see that going down too well, now that Brexit is decided I don't see a single issue libdem can run on

I actually have a question relating to this very point.

Imagine a snap election is held in the near future. Assume it is more or less a single-issue election on how to manage Brexit, that I was/am firmly in the Remain camp, and  that the options are a Conservative Party led by Boris Johnson or similar (as "similar" as one can be to Boris ) in regards to their stance on an actual Brexit being ultimately unclear, the Lib Dems with a Tim Farron pledging to "still make the case for Britain’s future with Europe, as millions of people voted for it" (as he said today), and a Labour either still led by Corbyn, or by a more vocally pro-EU figure?

For whom I vote? Would it not best to vote for the Tories, given Boris' apparent belief that the referendum could be used as a bargaining tool to extract more concessions for Brussels, rather than a Labour led by someone more likely to simply fold over and accept Brussels' terms, or by a Corbyn whose... well I can't really say what they'd be. I don't know.

I mean, my views on the referendum are clear: this is a terrible result, and the Leave side ran a fact-free, Trump-esque campaign. But it would seem that the party least likely to treat the result as binding-- aside from a hypothetical pro-EU Lib-Lab coalition that took its election as a mandate to nullify the referendum result-- are the Conservatives. I'm genuinely unsure.

[Mehmentum]

LibDems should run in the next election on Europe.

To what end? Vote for us and we'll stop the exit? Can't see that going down too well, now that Brexit is decided I don't see a single issue libdem can run on

I imagine such a position would be very popular with some voters.  Even if that number is 20% of the electorate, that's a lot more than what the LibDems are currently getting.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In both cases neither are likely to be in much trouble but the asymmetry is interesting.

It's because the one fits into a media narrative (largely driven by what many would like to see happen) while the other doesn't.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Funny how Shetland and Eilean were the 2 places to vote against the EU in 1975.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975

Interesting that the patterns in England and Wales are much the same this time as back then... with the very significant exceptions of London (relatively much more pro EU now) and the various agricultural districts (relatively much less pro EU now).