Wasn't expecting that! It looked to be close, but I figured remain would win the day...

Going to get interesting. Best of luck over there!

-jk

Yeah. Ouch.

Makes me slightly more concerned than before about other unlikely political coups coming to fruition.

It sure sounds pretty bad. All I really know about it was from the John Oliver segment, but he sure made it seem like it wasn't a very good thing. Curious that Sky pushed the airing of that until after the vote.

"You're on your own. Awesome, wow! Do you have a clue what happens now?"

Seeing it live has been surreal, especially the speed of the impacts. Was up watching the financial markets tumble. Nikkei tripped the circuit breaker. The UK saw ~350 billion in value lost in a mater of hours before it reduced that loss a little later in the day. This is a bigger impact then the 2008 global recession, and amounts to ~40 years worth of UK contributions to the EU.

Scotland is already considering another attempt at independence to be able to join the EU, and Ireland may unify so that Northern Ireland can be part of the EU after the exit. The last death of an MP was in the early 90s from IRA terrorism, until the assassination of Jo Cox last week by a pro leave person. To see the level of toxicity in England rise to that level is frightening.

So much more, too, and very concerning what will happen to minority groups in England once the exit is final. Many of the protections people have there, especially in the LGBT community come from EU laws, not UK specific ones.

The parallels to what is going on in the US this election cycle honestly have me very worried now. And this also sadly helps prove time does not lead to progress in all cases. Hatred and fear of "the others" is growing in far too many places, and it's going to be those in the minority groups that suffer the most. It's tragic how effective the hatred is at getting voters to vote against their best interests.

Is that really true ? Same sex marriages for example are an EU thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Europe

I was under the impression that much of the protection for LGBT and other minority groups followed on from the European Commision on Human Rights, which isn't tied the the EU (though I believe signing up is a prerequisite of membership).

The fact that we hadn't had any MPs killed by nutters since the 1990s was only down to luck:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Pennington

I'm not convinced that Brexit had much to do with Jo Cox's death, he was just another nutter who happened to have picked a popular cause.

I'm hoping that it will go like this:

- Cameron resigns before pushing the button to begin exit negotiations
- they drag out the negotiations for the full two years
- the EU insist on much the same rules/cost as we have already (which seems likely)
- there is support for another referendum
- the idiots realise that the grass isn't greener after all and vote for remain

I'm deluding myself, aren't I

This seems to suggest that the UK is ahead of many of the rest of the EU when it comes to LGBT rights:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_European_Union#/media/File:LGBT_rights_in_the_EU.svg

(and yes I realise that doesn't address any transgender rights)

I may be mixing up a few things in my mind, especially with recent events over here.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/05/10/uk-slips-down-to-third-place-in-europes-lgbt-rights-rankings/
and
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/alex-appletonnorman/the-lgbt-community-is-bet_b_10449786.html
are worth reading.

I don't want to derail this too much though. The rammifications are going to impact pretty much everyone around the world in one way or another. I agree, this would be a wonderful turn of events and will be using this to fight off my cynicism:

That would be third place behind Malta, with a population of 440,000 and Belgium who scored a whole extra percentage point higher on their scoring scale than us. With all the other 26 EU nations below that

Yeah, we watched the results coming live, and were just aghast.

I'm seeing a lot of quotes today from people who say they voted Leave because they wanted to make some kind of a point or protest while still fully expecting that "Leave" wouldn't win, and that they now regret having voted that way. Those might have been cherry-picked by the news media, but I'm wondering if it's true at any level. Because come November in the US, we could be faced with a similar voting subgroup. Scary.

The most painful thing was seeing that, merely an hour after the voting concluded, one of the primary things that the "Leave" campaign was based around was admitted to be a lie. Interesting: In the US, our politicians would have doubled down on the lie but then quietly failed to deliver later.

And of course there's the point that the UK just now lost more money in the financial markets than they ever gave to the EU in the first place.

Something I haven't seen in news articles yet but I'm sure it must be in there... Another thing that the "Leave" campaign was based on was excessive EU regulations. The John Oliver segment mentioned rules related to a pillow and made fun of the ad. But even if UK leaves the EU, as I understand it, they still have to abide by those rules to be able to trade goods and services with the EU. The only difference now is that they won't have a vote in how the rules are made any more. Brilliant.

Am I reading this right? The "Leave" campaign made a bunch of promises about how leaving was going to do all these good things, and it's now immediately clear that none of them will come to fruition. The only thing left is the thing they called "Identity" which sounds like dog whistle for "bigotry". Sounds to me like they preyed upon the xenophobia and bigotry of certain segments of the population to push forward that particular agenda. UK folks, am I reading that right? Because if that's true, it doesn't bode well for us in November, since it's the same thing.

This is a perfect example of how fearmongering can gain the vote. Now I see new meaning in the classic FDR quote.

UK friends, I get the feeling that most of you on this BBS would have voted "Remain", but regardless of how you voted, I am thinking about you, and I am concerned for you, and I hope that things settle out to be a lot less dire than they look right now. You're strong and I know you can get through this.

Cross your fingers for us in November.

That's about the measure of it. And it is likely more daft than that.

The European countries that have the best open trade deals with the UK, like Norway for example, not only have to meet the various regulations for goods and services. They also have to take part in the open labour market, meaning EU citizens can live and work in their country, just like us in the UK.

Also, they have to pay into the EU, just like we do. Sure, they get a bit of a discount, but if I remember correctly Norway pays something like 75% per head of what we do. But they get no say in forming EU rules.



It isn't immediately clear now, it was immediately clear then, things like:

- we'll save £350m a week and use it for health care (there is no £350m a week, it is £190m a week and half of it already comes back to the UK in the form of regional grants to help poorer areas)
- we'll get control of our immigration controls, adopt a points based system like Australia (we already have full control of our non EU migrants, we already use a points system, see above for Norway and EU migrants)
- there are 26,000 words of regulations on cabbages (there are as far as anyone can tell, *zero words of regulations that specifically apply to cabbages)

The UK tabloids regularly run scare stories, that the editors must know to be lies, about what the EU is banning or stopping us doing this month. From "milk jugs to be banned" to "women forced to hand back sex toys".

This story shows the level of lies they publish:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/06/daily-chart-15

The same tabloids also run endless basically xenophobic stories, they especially love the "asylum tide/swarm" ones.

* weirdly this lie goes back the US in WWII, where there we some regulations on cabbage seeds, around 2,600 words. At some point later it got talked up to being 26,000 words. Then later it jumped to this side of the pond and became another lie about the EU http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35962999

From what you're saying, it sounds like the people voting "Leave" are the same people who believe tabloid headlines.

Yep, sounds like in November, we'll be up against essentially the same thing.

Another simple picture clarifying the issue. This isn't complicated. This isn't subtle.

http://twitter.com/LordAshcroft/status/746284427165184000/photo/1

If you did this same survey in the US and replaced "Leave/Stay" with "Trump/Clinton", it would be the same. Maybe even more starkly divided.

It is a dire time for Europe. I did not expect this outcome, and we're not facing a nice future - in the short term at least.

But, on an more optimistic note, it is in such times that best things can come.

Hopefully, UK citizens will join EU more convinced in the future, and, most importantly, a better European Union can now be redesigned, not as gray, faceless bureaucrats would do, but as Europeans would.

Italy has traditionally been a strong supporter of the European Union - the Citizens even more than the Governments -. Interestingly though, today's poll showed that 72% (!) of Italians believe that the EU is more responsible than the UK for Brexit. While I would have not voted for leaving the EU, I have to agree for once with the polls. Brexit is a wrong decision, but as beautiful as the idea of a United Europe is, I find the EU we built so far really hard to love.

Here are some typical UK tabloid front pages recently.

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t...amp;oe=57FC800B

Paints a picture...

-jk

Andy, looks like you and me both are from Brexit heartland! Essex, you really are full of the thickest shits in the universe.

As far as I can tell for 99% of brexiters the biggest issue was immigrants. I think it's safe to say that there will be next to no effect on migrant numbers due to us leaving the EU.

My own father in law was telling me yesterday that "we didn't fight two world wars to let the foreigners take over", of course the Daily Mail is gospel to him.

One of my kids wanted to know why she at 16 is old enough to smoke or get pregnant but isn't able to vote while her borderline senile grandfather (see above) is.

If I was younger and less firmly rooted I'd consider emigrating.

Wow.

And to think, after all that fearmongering that got Brexit to pass, departure from the EU will likely have no noticeable effect on immigration.

I'm reading reports of "foreigners" (many of whom are actually native-born citizens) getting harassed by brexiters, telling them to "go home" because "we voted you out". I guess they didn't know what they were actually voting for.

Now that the vote is done, the Daily Mail has an explainer on the downsides...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...alth-cover.html

Hezza on Newsnight last night made some good points, worth a watch if you get a chance.

I was talking to one of my brother in laws last night, regretting deeply the fact he voted out, bit late for that son!

I wonder how it came to this, then remember that by definition 50% of the population is at or below average intelligence...

I've met chimps smarter than that!

Oh well.

It's amusing in a sort of blackly schadenfreude manner that now that it's basically too late, both the Daily Mail and the Sun are explaining what's going to happen as a result of bailing on the EU to their readers, most of whom seem rather surprised. Almost as if they hadn't done their research beforehand then made an informed decision when they voted

pca

From what I can tell, it's not so much a lack of intelligence that was doing the work here, but a lack of information, exacerbated by blatant lies told by the Leave campaign. It'd be nice if citizens could see through those lies, and certainly racism, xenophobia, and economic anxiety contributed to some wishful thinking and lashing out at the wrong set of elites, but it's not reasonable to expect everyone who votes to be able to cut through the BS when so many politicians are so good at manufacturing it.

I'm still holding out hope that this hits some procedural / constitutional snag that keeps this from happening. Not that the EU doesn't have its problems, of course, but I think I'd take those over the problems that leaving is likely to create.

And rather conveniently Boris just walks away from the steaming pile of shit. What a complete muppet

You mean that haircut? You'd think his barber could give him something other than "10 year old doll boy."

I'd feel bad about the personal attack but he seems like an a-hole.

Here's hoping Scotland can salvage something from this wreck...

As a good Scot (my mother made me wear orange on St Pat's - a Magruder/MacGregor), I hope they find their way.

-jk

There isn't any upside for him to stay.

I guess, but if his convictions ran that deep you'd have thought he'd stay to at least attempt to get us out of this mess.

A very interesting few years ahead of us now.

He's the 2nd tier character in the movie who courts the power of the sleeping monster, but when it awakens he realizes how truly terrible the monster is and runs for his life, sacrificing the lead characters to get away.

I'd be happier if we had any lead characters. There's Nicola Sturgeon, who seems to be a good lead character, but unfortunately she isn't in our movie, she's in the one on the next screen over.

Peter