ChaosEngine, on 24 Jun 2016 - 08:54 AM, said:
Fucking idiots. A campaign based on racism, fear and ignorance.
It was based on democracy and independence. People didn't like Merkel telling them what to do. It's not that 51% of the country's racist...
Unfortunately... no.. it wasn't really.
There was a LOT of fear mongering and dishonesty (for example, see £350m/week BS) on both sides, with a health dose of 'immigrants are the problem' thrown in... it was not a campaign based on facts or balanced arguments.
The population has been primed for this for some time too; the press is very right leaning and for the last 10 or more years we've had a near constant narrative of "EU is the enemy!", "Immigrants are terrible!" and the image of the plucky Brit vs the big bad EU... and for many people this will have driven their desire to leave.
So while 51% of the country isn't racist, a proportion is (reports of a guy standing outside a school with a high Muslim population making victory signs at the parents, or the terrorist who murdered the MP last week) and some where pushed in that direction by news stories for years, combined with fear campaigns about countries joining the EU which implied there were about to join and that 4 million people would becoming to the UK right away.
(We also had the fun of the 'leave' campaign using images of people who weren't in favour of leave to prop up their side... in one case the person in question took to facebook to point out it was used without his permission, and that he was 'just about in' and got utterly torn to pieces in the comments... not the people who misused his image, no, that was fine, but his saying otherwise? tear him down!)
There was, in this mess of bullshit, good reasons on both sides to vote either way, I've had good and productive discussion with people at work on the subject who could state their case without racism entering in to it, but that was rarely heard - both sides tried to BS their way to the result they wanted.
And then we have cockwombles who've said today "I voted leave, but I didn't think we'd leave, so I didn't think my vote would matter and now I'm really worried"... one such person having been interviewed on the BBC.. which is basically "I normally vote Labour but I voted Tory because I feared an Labour + SNP coalition" all over again. Don't get me wrong, I won't have a go at someone for voting "out", but jesus Christ how thick do you have to be to do that?!?
So lets not try and make out this was some high class debate; it was nasty and it will have left lasting scars across communities and families... in one case one family has lost their mother because of the nastiness which has been brought up. (Despite the 'revolution without a shot fired' quote attributed to Farage...)