Why can't the British establishment understand the British Brexit voters?

[Suburbia]

When a referendum is voted on, it must go on. Whether you support the UK leaving the EU or not, it was voted on.

Who really dislikes it? The British left? The British center-right?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/15/theresa-may-loses-brexit-deal-vote-by-majority-of-230

[Former President tack50]

Pretty much this. I dislike Theresa May and want the UK to remain in the EU, but Brexit means Brexit.

May's deal is pretty much the best deal the UK is going to get. It's not perfect but at this point the options are either no deal Brexit (much worse) or remaining in the EU against the will of the British people.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Because the results are a Rosarch Test that everybody sees different things in.

[MasterJedi]

Overall shouldn't it be the will of the English voters? Either way Revoke Article 50, stay and just tell the English that they're better off and they should know better.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Pretty much this. I dislike Theresa May and want the UK to remain in the EU, but Brexit means Brexit.

May's deal is pretty much the best deal the UK is going to get. It's not perfect but at this point the options are either no deal Brexit (much worse) or remaining in the EU against the will of the British people.

The only way the UK could possibly remain in the EU is with a referendum which expresses the will of the British people in favour of remaining.

[Alabama_Indy10]

Leave means leave.

[DaWN]

Because things have significantly changed since June 2016, especially given the possibility of No Deal that was barely considered as a possibility then. If the government hadn't cocked up finding a post-withdrawal option so badly, I don't think respecting the result would even be as close to as big of a debate as it is.

Besides, very few people are calling for Brexit to be cancelled without a second vote, and if Remain won, that would become the will of the people, given it would be more recent.

[parochial boy]

Because things have significantly changed since June 2016, especially given the possibility of No Deal that was barely considered as a possibility then. If the government hadn't cocked up finding a post-withdrawal option so badly, I don't think respecting the result would even be as close to as big of a debate as it is.

Although given the claims that were made by the leave campaign at the time, the lack of clarity on what Brexit was ever supposed to mean, the vastly differing views on what the ideal deal was right from the beginning... You could have seen this coming from a mile away

[DaWN]

Because things have significantly changed since June 2016, especially given the possibility of No Deal that was barely considered as a possibility then. If the government hadn't cocked up finding a post-withdrawal option so badly, I don't think respecting the result would even be as close to as big of a debate as it is.

Although given the claims that were made by the leave campaign at the time, the lack of clarity on what Brexit was ever supposed to mean, the vastly differing views on what the ideal deal was right from the beginning... You could have seen this coming from a mile away

Well, quite, although nobody has ever accused the British voter of being forward-thinking and rational.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Can't you keep the subject of your witless concern-trolling to your own land?

[Former President tack50]

Overall shouldn't it be the will of the English voters? Either way Revoke Article 50, stay and just tell the English that they're better off and they should know better.

Breaking up the UK over Brexit seems like a bad idea IMO.

If you think Brexit is bad, Scotland-exit would be a million times worse (though at least the SNP had a detailed plan during indyref, while the Vote Leave people didn't)

Northern Ireland leaving and joining regular Ireland would also be harder than Brexit, but not as much as Scotland leaving the UK, the best parallel would be German reunification except Northern Ireland is a lot more developed than East Germany.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

(though at least the SNP had a detailed plan during indyref

No they didn't. It was wanky fanfic full of highly questionable statistics and alarmingly vague magic woo like 'transformative change' at all the difficult bits.

[LabourJersey]

Because the results are a Rosarch Test that everybody sees different things in.

Agreed--each group of Brexit voters had profoundly different ideas of what Brexit entailed, and the differences were so large that they couldn't be reconciled in a quick way

[afleitch]

Because those who voted for Brexit had no idea what they were voting for, clearly still don't and ultimately the country needs to be shielded from decisions made by people with a personal identity crisis.

[Blair]

Delivering Brexit means imposing an extreme set of hardships on the population that intrinsically goes against what Governments exist to do- we're downgrading our economic partnership with the largest bloc in the world, whilst scaling back vast police and law enforcement sharing, whilst also having to retool our government to deal with stuff we haven't touched in 40 years.

As someone who works in Parliament the amount of work, scrutiny and powers that we're having to approve is mind boggling, and would be hard enough without also having to actually negotiate with the EU. I haven't even mentioned the civil service, local government or business groups- all of who are are essentially sh**tting themselves whilst trying to work out what to actually do.

The people who support Brexit are not the ones who'd trust to run anything.

Chris Grayling, George Galloway, Boris Johnson, David Davis, Bill Cash, Peter Bone, Dennis Skinner, Kate Hoey, Lord Lamont, Michael Gove.

Some of them are fine parliamentarians, but god, there not people suited to executive, or political leadership. At all.

Because those who voted for Brexit had no idea what they were voting for, clearly still don't an ultimately the country needs to be shielded from decisions made people with a personal identity crisis.

This. It was a vote that was driven by a fear of immigration outside of the EU (The Turks), combined with populist promises (lets just give all the Money to the NHS!), bare face lies (Did I mention the Turks are coming!) and some sort of nostalgic promise of England (Yes England, not the UK. We won in 1940 didn't we?)

I doubt many international (or even UK) posters will have a Times subscription but AA Gill wrote about it brilliantly.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/aa-gill-argues-the-case-against-brexit-kmnp83zrt

[Antonio the Sixth]

Britain must leave the EU and must do so soon. Every day spent delaying it is only making things worse for everyone involved.

Now, the real, valid policy question is what we do after Brexit.