So
I generally avoided mentioning anything about the referendum, but given the result and all the reactions, I felt the need to do a post.
The UK voted out - not the result I expected, I pretty much expected the default remain, because leaving meant uncertainty.
The whole thing has been an epic mess, and I really wish both sides had behaved better and actually gotten points across. As it stands they both lied/threatened/didn't really make anything any clearer. (And made some really terrible choices, and used some things really inapproriately).
I would like to say that it is at least 'over' - but our politics is in turmoil at the moment (lots of mutterings on votes, leaders being ousted/standing down....) so it likely isn't over. I dearly hope however, that the pleas to redo the whole thing don't happen, because it would be even more of a mess, and remain could still lose again.
I'm....fed up with all the doom? And all the 'racist/xenophobic' stuff, it's just *sighs* (I will admit to having a giggle fit in the car the other day, because the most vocal leave supporters in my area? The Asian contingent, who were at that moment covering trees with their Leave banners in a last ditch statement, as someone on the radio gave the 'racist leave' argument).
I know the UKIP portion of the Leave campaign was massively coloured by all of that - and yes they are a bunch of unpleasant tossers (and I really really dislike Gove) - but people would not have been on the fence as much as they were if that had been the sole reason to vote leave. Not every leave voter voted that way for the reasons that are blanket being applied, and that view is splitting our country as much as anything else at the moment. It's such a mess, it really is.
(Please Brits - take a moment of joy in that, with Leave winning, UKIP may well officially be a defunct, dead party. Given their sole real policy happened without them being in charge.)
But, while Leave winning is not ideal, it is also not the end of the world. (Just the world as we know it now...) We get to keep all the equal rights etc that we have (it's written into UK law, so leaving the EU doesn't lose us the existing laws, though that's c 2 years off) - it's just a matter of what changes the future will bring.
I'm sorry that it has had a bit of a chain reaction, and that other countries have been affected by it in parts. It will be interesting to see what comes next, and I hope it's more positive in the end than people were outlining before. I really really hope we don't drag the EU down.
I also hope the various votes going on around the year go easier than this one has.
/And there ends my short political statement.
This entry was originally posted at http://weaselett.dreamwidth.org/21398.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
The UK voted out - not the result I expected, I pretty much expected the default remain, because leaving meant uncertainty.
The whole thing has been an epic mess, and I really wish both sides had behaved better and actually gotten points across. As it stands they both lied/threatened/didn't really make anything any clearer. (And made some really terrible choices, and used some things really inapproriately).
I would like to say that it is at least 'over' - but our politics is in turmoil at the moment (lots of mutterings on votes, leaders being ousted/standing down....) so it likely isn't over. I dearly hope however, that the pleas to redo the whole thing don't happen, because it would be even more of a mess, and remain could still lose again.
I'm....fed up with all the doom? And all the 'racist/xenophobic' stuff, it's just *sighs* (I will admit to having a giggle fit in the car the other day, because the most vocal leave supporters in my area? The Asian contingent, who were at that moment covering trees with their Leave banners in a last ditch statement, as someone on the radio gave the 'racist leave' argument).
I know the UKIP portion of the Leave campaign was massively coloured by all of that - and yes they are a bunch of unpleasant tossers (and I really really dislike Gove) - but people would not have been on the fence as much as they were if that had been the sole reason to vote leave. Not every leave voter voted that way for the reasons that are blanket being applied, and that view is splitting our country as much as anything else at the moment. It's such a mess, it really is.
(Please Brits - take a moment of joy in that, with Leave winning, UKIP may well officially be a defunct, dead party. Given their sole real policy happened without them being in charge.)
But, while Leave winning is not ideal, it is also not the end of the world. (Just the world as we know it now...) We get to keep all the equal rights etc that we have (it's written into UK law, so leaving the EU doesn't lose us the existing laws, though that's c 2 years off) - it's just a matter of what changes the future will bring.
I'm sorry that it has had a bit of a chain reaction, and that other countries have been affected by it in parts. It will be interesting to see what comes next, and I hope it's more positive in the end than people were outlining before. I really really hope we don't drag the EU down.
I also hope the various votes going on around the year go easier than this one has.
/And there ends my short political statement.
This entry was originally posted at http://weaselett.dreamwidth.org/21398.html. Please comment there using OpenID.