Poll

The UK and the EU

Stay
8 (72.7%)
Leave
2 (18.2%)
Don't give a portugal
0 (0%)
I'm safely outside the European world of influence
1 (9.1%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Author Topic: The British EU Referendum  (Read 16181 times)

Jubal

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #30 on: May 13, 2016, 11:01:09 PM »
I'm going to refrain from too much angryposting here, but an update on the campaign:

Basically the polls seem to be tied, but there's a big gap between online and phone polling - online polls push towards leave, phone polls towards remain. It's hard to tell what this means; traditionally phone polls have been marginally more accurate, but it may show that there's a "quiet Brexit" group who will be less likely to admit it when asked but will push a button for it in the more anonymous online setting. The biggest question is really how wavering voters will go, as (particularly with the polls so close) the wavering voters greatly outnumber the margins of victory in most polls; the usual thing in referenda is that waverers tend to break towards the status quo when they get into the polling booth (see for example the No vote in the Scotland referendum), but of course it's hard to say whether that'll happen here.

We also have a Cameron VS Farage ITV debate coming up, which reportedly Vote Leave are mad about as they're worried Farage will screw up their campaign (though apparently they'd have preferred to put Gove up against the PM, and I suspect that Farage will do better than Gove would on account of, well, not being Michael Gove).

I guess my expectation, to stick my neck out and make a prediction is that it will be pretty narrow, I don't think either side will get above 55% of non-abstainers and I'd be surprised if the winner got a better result than about 48-52 in their favour. If I was asked to put absolute numbers, I think that Cameron's frankly  armadilloty tactics will just about sneak him over the line  51-49 in favour of staying. That said, if either side does really run away with it unexpectedly, it'll be Leave I think. It's hard for the status-quo campaign (and whilst Remain didn't have to position itself as a purely status-quo campaign, it did and that's where we are) to produce surges in referenda in the way that Leave could if a suitable news event happens.
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Clockwork

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #31 on: May 14, 2016, 02:27:10 AM »
Ah I get what you were saying penty. Nah, you can benefit from corruption without actively engaging in it yourself.


Who cares if there's EU skepticism if we remain? If we remain the EU won't need any incentive to try and keep us. I mean, we literally couldn't have another referendum, we'll be stuck there.


Anyone else think the stay campaign has been ridiculously intrusive? Every other youtube vid has a bloody stay or 'how the eu has helped britain' advert besides the fact that none of the things they say are backed up by anything and that it uses misleading statistics - portugal off, get out of my face. If I wanted that content; I'd look for it. Facebook has had asshats on both sides and discussion on both sides and I've seen more than a few people switch sides during the last month or so.


Cameron vs Farage... Reckon Farage will have a tougher time winning this one, last time those two had a tv debate Cameron severely underestimated Farage. Don't think he'll do that again.


My expectation as I may have mentioned is that Stay is going to win by a significant amount. I don't think it'll be that close and I reckon the polls are only used to fuel media hype.
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Jubal

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #32 on: May 14, 2016, 11:43:28 AM »
...you may want to turn off following me on FB for the next month if you haven't already, mate :P

It's not true that we literally couldn't have another referendum. I mean we probably won't, but if the EU was seen to be worsening any part of our membership terms post-referendum then that would be the excuse the Tory right needed to launch a coup and take out Cameron and Osborne. And given that most of the press is heavily anti-EU, a defeat for Leave coupled with worsened terms could really boost Eurosceptics like UKIP at future elections.

Honestly I thought Farage was crap in the election TV debates, but then he was just pumping out a pretty singular message about immigration that I personally think is bollocks. He needs to avoid insulting the audience this time though, that didn't look good. I will stay that Farage performed well against Clegg in their previous EU debate though; the risk for Remain is that Cameron gets backed into a corner of making "high economics" arguments that don't resonate with people, whereas Farage zeroes in better on how he claims Leaving will help people's individual families. That was/is a problem that Clegg had really badly (which is to be expected, the man's a former EU trade commissioner, his head's just not in the right place to connect closely with people's concerns over Europe). The worry for Leave is I think that Farage goes overboard on immigration and tinfoil-hat comments about how everything's rigged against him, whilst Cameron presents himself as a reasonable moderate. I doubt the debate will shift many votes though; I think they'll be quite evenly matched, Cameron isn't quick enough on his feet to really wipe the floor with Farage, whilst Farage mostly appeals to people who are already going to vote to leave anyway.

Personally I'd like to see people like Alan Johnson and Tim Farron doing more talking for Remain, I think they both come over as slightly more normal than Cameron and Osborne. Remain does rather lack a Boris-like larger than life personality which I think may be a weakness, though Boris hasn't done himself many favours in the Leave campaign as it's too obvious he's just there for career purposes.
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Clockwork

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #33 on: May 14, 2016, 09:03:39 PM »
You know already that even if I disagree with you I still respect what you're saying. Even if I don't understand it and it takes me 5 or 6 forum posts to get it I'm still thinking you know what you're talking about and I'm just being dumb. You're mainly the discussion I'm talking about rather than the asshats. Applies to everyone here btw, even if my post sounds accusatory as I re-read them, it's not meant to I'm usually just trying to get you to explain something without using the words 'I have no idea what that means'.


Quote
It's not true that we literally couldn't have another referendum
Yeah, okay English is a bitch, but you know what I mean, we can't without losing so much face that it wouldn't be worth it.


The Tories don't wholly want to leave afaik, they have a fair few europhiles among them.


As an aside but slightly relevant, Boris is a really, really smart guy and I think it's way too easy to forget that he doesn't want or try to act as a politician all the time. Yeah he's possibly sneaky as portugal and maybe his moves are calculated as much as him wanting to do something because he feels it's right, but I'm (possibly naively, I'll admit) the half which believes that actually, he knows even more than he lets on, he's more connected than he lets on and actually wants a better Britain.


I think you're right on about the debate though.
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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #34 on: May 14, 2016, 09:46:28 PM »
Polls make this easier to understand.

Clockwork

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #35 on: May 14, 2016, 10:32:08 PM »
armadillo guys, TV has just made me aware of a sudden realisation.


If we leave we'll never win Eurovision again we'll never win Eurovision. Vote stay is the only option now.
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Jubal

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #36 on: May 15, 2016, 08:47:11 PM »
Re the poll: nobody is safely outside the European world of influence. We Europeans get literally bloody everywhere. :P

Colossus: aye, likewise I do find it really interesting and useful to be able to debate with you, more an advance warning as I'm imagining my FB will get quite in-your-face pro-EU in the next bit!

Anyway, onto the substance - the issue for the Tories is that the parliamentary party are far, far more Europhile than the membership. Hardly any constituency parties have actually backed Remain. So basically the parliamentary party are likely to back Cameron, but if Cameron falls, and particularly if he falls with the party feeling bruised about the EU, the rank and file members will be very, very likely to go for a Eurosceptic.

As for Boris: I don't think he'd necessarily back Leave if he thought it would totally collapse Britain, but also he's basically only converted to Leave in the last few months, he's said a lot of very pro-Remain things previously to that and there's nothing obvious that's changed except that his leadership ambitions have potentially received a boost as he's now obviously the leader of the party's Brexit faction. I suspect he doesn't care, and maybe doesn't think it matters much, whether we're in or out. Anyhow, today he went full Godwin's Law and decided to claim that the EU, Hitler, and Napoleon all basically had the same objective of centralising Europe and re-creating the Roman Empire. Whilst his comments have been a bit overhyped even in the original they were frankly pretty armadilloty campaigning and showed a terrifyingly poor grasp of history (or, given that I'm sure Boris knows his history, a worrying willingness to screw around with inconvenient things like facts). I think it was a misstep in any case, I don't think any of the stuff going on at the moment is going to boost or dent Leave or Remain's polling figures much.
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Glaurung

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #37 on: May 16, 2016, 10:59:33 PM »
I ran across this analysis of the Vote Leave case for Brexit. It's from "Another Angry Voice", a left-wing blog that those following me on Facebook will probably already be familiar with - right-wing readers might find the language a touch abrasive. Nevertheless, I think it's worth reading.

Meanwhile, I hadn't spotted the poll on this thread until now; I have voted. I agree with Jubal: a lot of the world is too highly connected these days for many people to be unaffected by the outcome of the referendum. For example, if you have friends who are non-British Europeans living in the UK (or, vice versa, Brits living elsewhere in the EU), you have quite an interest in the outcome.

comrade_general

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #38 on: May 16, 2016, 11:13:53 PM »
The poll choices aren't to be taken that seriously guys. :P

Glaurung

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #39 on: May 16, 2016, 11:16:43 PM »
Point taken, CG. Alas I, and a lot of others, are likely to take anything about the referendum quite seriously for some time to come.

Jubal

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #40 on: May 18, 2016, 04:04:46 PM »
Also, you're aware that posting anything in a thread with Glaurung and I involved is pretty much asking for it to be overanalysed until it bleeds. :P

Meanwhile, in the last few days there've been some pretty strong polls for Remain, including one with a double-digit lead. Turnout factors still seem to favour Leave though, with the Out camp being very much more fired up. Boris, meanwhile, is playing the "establishment stitch-up" card heavily (which is probably one of Leave's more effective ones now to keep turnout up, though it annoys me intensely), which is leading to more tension with the Prime Minister (and a rebuke from previous Tory leadership candidate Michael Heseltine).
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DeepCandle Games

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #41 on: June 23, 2016, 12:53:40 PM »
imo I think leaving just generally seems like a better idea. since Greece's economy happened I've always had it in my mind that Europe is a ship that's sinking fast.
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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #42 on: June 23, 2016, 01:17:38 PM »
Oh for portugal's sake. Now you've done it BK!


DeepCandle Games

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #43 on: June 23, 2016, 01:24:25 PM »
please don't whip me!
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Jubal

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Re: The British EU Referendum
« Reply #44 on: June 23, 2016, 01:36:15 PM »
Y'all just clearly want the UK to fail so I have to move to the US or Australia :P

Anyway, I've done my last leaflets and cast my vote for Remain. Now we wait and see!
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