Has it occurred to anyone that we were all played

Why on earth would they want to make it easy to leave *Yogadatti" your words about "being talked to like naughty children" sound like post-hoc rationalisation to me.

Good for you Yogadatti; you must be beside yourself with joy.

We are naughty children! 50% of the population is also below average intelligence and needs guidance.

I am glad we are out of the EU. I think it was awful and always have. Being talked to like naughty children by them...we have dared to vote out , so now the EU are going to punish us. It's pathetic....well, sorry I for one don't like that attitude and never will.

Exactly Luckygirl

Given what he was asking was right against the way the EU works, I think Cameron actually got a better result than we could have hoped. You can't stay in the EU and not have free movement, it is one of the basic rules. It should have been IN with the chance to work on the EU from the inside. Nobody (not even Boris) expected the OUT vote. Now we are stuffed.

Jess: when we spoke to the people on the remain stand at South well (all Tories by the way), they said 'they're not politicians, they're journalists'.It didn't dawn on us at the time the effect this would have on the result.

Time one of the editors was charged with inciting racial hatred and sent to prison for a wee while perhaps.
When out campaigning several people said to me "all politicians lie". I think after this campaign the numbers that are convinced of this has increased. There was a Guardian article on the way that Gove and Johnson have brought their irresponsible and unethical practices from journalism into politics.
Not sure that Johnson is lined up to be next PM as there are a lot of Tories that were in favour of Remain or who are not worried about their investments, pensions, etc. It will be interesting to watch.

Could have told you from very beginning that NHS would get nothing that would make any difference to getting more doctors and more nurses. And NHS is staffed by doctors, nurses etc from EU and worldwide countries - so what if many of them leave? Be hardly anyone left!
Also the £350 million pounds for the NHS was emblazoned on the leave bus - if that was a product in a shop which said it did something it didn't, you would get your money back!

It is difficult to know what we could ever do about press bias - not just in the run up to an election or referendum but all the time. Freedom of the press is considered to be very important in a democracy.

Although we don't have paid for political ads like they do in America, commercial TV channels can still promote a political agenda - like the Channel 5 program about a Romanian immigrant claiming benefits in Britain to build a house in Romania - this programme was broadcast at a time when it could help whip up anti-immigrant feelings and provoke people to vote Leave.

The BBC is regulated and is supposed to be even handed but this meant that for every bit of factual information from the Remain camp, they had to spend as much time broadcasting lies from Farage et al. No distinction was made between fact and opinion. It was as if an "expert" telling us that the earth is round always had to be balanced by equal time and respect for a flat-earth theorist. We were not well served by the media.

I agree, Tegan, that the press should have had to assume a neutral stance. It shouldn't have been impossible. After all, the BBC has to make some attempt at balance and impartiality, and the press could have made an attempt to do the same.

Never going to happen, of course, whilst people like Murdoch own huge chunks of the media. The campaign mounted by The Sun served his interests, not the nation's, as the EU didn't cower before him the way Downing Street does. He more or less said so himself! I don't read the Telegraph but sometimes find myself tempted to look at the Mail online, though I always wish I hadn't. It isn't good for the blood pressure.

Our votes are our voice.

money- you could be right there, I dont know. I hope not.

Top of a pecking order of something that a person does not want to be in, is of no use at all.

"I wanted us to have a voice again"

We had a voice, now we don't.

"I want more money to be spent on health and education"

You can whistle for that. They're a bunch of right wing fanatics, if any money goes anywhere it'll go on tax cuts for the Tories.

"It seems to me that membership of the EU is based on a pecking order"

We were at the top of the pecking order, that's how we got all the concessions and opt-outs.

Having just seen the headlines in most newspapers (all positive stuff) does anyone agree that the newspapers should not have encouraged people to vote one way or another for an issue so important (and irreversible). I know we have a free press but it is a free press that prints lies.

Thanks for the link, Nellie. I didn't know David Dimbleby was in the Bullingdon club but it does explain quite a lot about the BBC's supposedly neutral political stance.

This is what happend when you leave politics to the cronies of the Bullingdon club.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09/21/bullingdon-club-five-things-we-know_n_8169064.html

To be fair, Margaret, we're not all like that (nor are there any 'no go' areas).

Did you see that Brexit man on Newsnight. Swastika on his arm, ENGLAND tattooed on his neck. He wanted to start sending the immigrants home straight away. His face was red with the effort of holding in his anger.
No wonder the immigrants fear for their life and their businesses. If it continues like this I will never go back again.
The whole atmosphere is spoilt now, and the EU would be better without the UK. They are waiting till Clause 50 has been invoked and then the door will bang shut!

What infuriates me is that the country's future has been damaged (forever, I suspect) due to the ambitions of two politicians.

Cameron's, for agreeing to the referendum to appease the right wing of his own party, and Johnson's because he has always longed to become the PM. Cameron then bailed out, washing his hands of the mess he created, and Johnson seems to realise that the Leave vote was a pyrrhic victory as far as Britain's future is concerned. Still, he's going to be the next PM, so what the hell?

Yes, of course we were played. Aren't we always? But if more people had listened to the warnings, instead of sneering as if it was a crime to be "an expert", we might not be in this horrible situation.

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contradictory.

I,ve got 2 pc 1 with google search and 1 with Gransnet.

I'm not thick because I voted to remain.

It must be that I'm just too old.

No PRINTMISS, because to listen to all the grumblings you mention and listen to the arguments on all sides, weigh them up and put in checks and balances for a fair outcome is democracy.

An IN or OUT question on a rainy Thursday in June is NOT democracy.

Was anything said about that front page article showing the Queen asking why we should be in the EU? I was shocked to see it but went away the next day so don't know if anything was said about it? The press have been so one sided throughout the campaign: if only the Independent hadn't gone online.

It was fought because UKIP came first in our elections just 2 yeas ago and put the wind up Cameron. And he made a long string of completely stupid, weak decisions. And then Boris Johnson piled in and became a clone of Farage with better slogans.
Oh and there was a nasty lying set of newspapers that fanned the fears of immigration and peddled an endless stream of misinformation about the EU.
There were plenty of experts outside the world of politics who said clearly that it would be a bad idea to vote Leave.

I Agree Nonnie and I think they ought to apologise and drop the referendum - they don't have to act it.
If they can't/won't do that they ought at least to apologise for playing with our futures for personal ambition.

yggdrasil - I think your post makes this difficult decision sound like a political point-scoring game - it is a good deal more important than that.