Lincoln Imp
Well-known member
- Feb 2, 2009
- 5,964
With respect, you're missing the point that you are responding to. We know that the question was a binary one between leave and stay. We know that Osborn and others exaggerated the immediate effect. But crucially we know (or we should) that the very basis of much Leave campaigning was a blizzard of fundamental untruths riding on the back of a febrile public mood. The impression was given that a clear vision of the leaving process and the ultimate destination was laid out in front of us, that the EU would agree to almost everything we wanted, that they needed us more than we needed them and that trade deals would be easy for 'Global Britain'.
A single official Leave campaign leaflet, on the table in front of me, distributed during the week of the referendum, claims that... food will be 17 per cent cheaper, the average family will be £200 a month better off, wages will rise and NHS waiting lists will get shorter. Remaining, we were told, would risk the EU taking over the British army and Turkey joining the EU (no veto apparently).
On the campaign trail, the famous £350m bus claim was made - Brexiteers don't like it being brought up but that was a claim, according to the director of the Leave campaign, that was (a) a lie and (b) sufficient to push Leave over the line.
If anyone should know, he would.
We're faced with uncertainty. Even the cabinet is divided - between those who want No Deal (Hunt etc), those who want a softer Norway deal (Gove etc), the single person happy with the May deal (May) and finally those who feel the decision should be put to the people (Hammond etc).
If that last group prevails it would be a very different referendum to the last one, held in different circumstances and with vastly more informed voters. Heaven knows, the past two and a half years provide evidence that the people haven't been ignored. Consulting them again would be an extension of democracy, not a demolition of it.
