Brexit...

[StevO]

10 minutes ago, Formby said:

Politicians lying to get votes is hardly news. Political parties failing to deliver on campaign promises is hardly news. Do general election campaigns or presidential campaigns get rerun on the basis of the lies and misinformation? Should Trump / Clinton have been rerun after the Russian interference? All that is being claimed here is that Leave were more adept at spreading lies and misinformation than Remain. The corollary of that is hard to gauge, though, as there are no stats out there (that I have seen, anyway) that put a figure on the number of people duped into voting Leave, as opposed to those people too scared to vote Leave because of Project Fear. Maybe everyone who voted Remain was fully cognisant of the issues, maybe not. To argue that the referendum should not have counted because you believe people were voting for lies throws up all sorts of questions about democracy itself - how we police political campaigns, being the most prominent.    

It’s not just lies, they told lies in the public arena, that’s expected. It’s a deeper issue than that, it’s paying a company to illegally harvest peoples data (yes, it’s illegal) and then use this data to target select groups of people with false adverts (not just lies about their plans, but actual specific lies in the form or adverts or competitions or promotions that are attached directly to the information they illegally harvested) to stoke up their fear and use that to gain some swing votes. It’s not like a PM candidate standing on stage saying they will creat a million new jobs. Maybe I don’t explain so well how underhanded these tactics are, I don’t see how anyone can see what was done as acceptable. 
 

Also, there were also grounds for the Trump/Clinton election to be void. These actions haven’t been done before, so there is no previous response to go off. 

[StevO]

2 minutes ago, RPG said:

I am not saying that anyone 'can' break the law but where do you draw the line? False promises - writing off student debt, 4 day working week etc? If given as an assurance either verbally or in a written manifesto, doesn't a subsequent failure to deliver constitute fraud - which is a crime? Should the General Election be declared void?

If I can offer a simple analogy in footballing terms, it is like you believe that a game should be replayed because a couple of defensive players didn't retreat 10 yards before a free kick was taken. Probably a booking is in order but replaying the game? - Never!

It’s not false promises though, it’s all done from illegal activity. You seem to just group it in with not following through on manifesto promises. It’s not broken promises though. This isn’t even given assurances. Nothing was done with leave.eu name on it, if it was it would be a little different. All I can say is do a bit of research and if you still think it’s ok you need to have a long hard think about your own morals and what you’ll do for a victory. 
 

Your football analogy is not even close. It’s like finding out where half the teams parents are and telling the players if they don’t win the game a bunch of Turkish rapists will come and abduct their mothers. 

[StevO]

Just now, RPG said:

In many ways I admire your idealism. But please let me ask you one question.

If Remain had 'employed' Cambridge Analytica to use what you call dirty tricks and the result had been 52/48 in favour of Remain, would you still be so up in arms? Would you still be so idealistic?

And that is the difference between us I think.We have to accept that a certain amount of skulduggery takes place from both sides and be man enough to accept defeat if we lose.

Do I have to remind you I’m a leave voter? So I “won” in the referendum. It’s what they did that started to change my mind. I didn’t vote to win like this. So yes, regardless of who did it I’d be upset,

skulduggery of this level hasn’t happened here before, sure they both did plenty. But only one side broke the law doing it. 

[pete0]

21 minutes ago, RPG said:

If I can offer a simple analogy in footballing terms, it is like you believe that a game should be replayed because a couple of defensive players didn't retreat 10 yards before a free kick was taken. Probably a booking is in order but replaying the game? - Never!

They broke the law though. Football wise you'd be relegated and stripped of your titles. 

37 minutes ago, Formby said:

Politicians lying to get votes is hardly news. Political parties failing to deliver on campaign promises is hardly news. Do general election campaigns or presidential campaigns get rerun on the basis of the lies and misinformation? Should Trump / Clinton have been rerun after the Russian interference? All that is being claimed here is that Leave were more adept at spreading lies and misinformation than Remain. The corollary of that is hard to gauge, though, as there are no stats out there (that I have seen, anyway) that put a figure on the number of people duped into voting Leave, as opposed to those people too scared to vote Leave because of Project Fear. Maybe everyone who voted Remain was fully cognisant of the issues, maybe not. To argue that the referendum should not have counted because you believe people were voting for lies throws up all sorts of questions about democracy itself - how we police political campaigns, being the most prominent.    

They should be held accountable and prosecuted. Just because they've gotten away for so long doesn't justify it more so as they've now overstepped the line completely by breaking the law. 

Personally I think they should be done for inciting racism as well as the propaganda in general being treason. 

33 minutes ago, RPG said:

Because we trust the electorate there is no need for a second referendum is there! In fact, forcing a second referendum on them is tantamount to telling the electorate that we didn't trust them first time isn't it!

It looks like it may all be about to play out in the end game now anyway. As many of us said as much as 3 years ago, nothing will be resolved with EU until the very last minute. Now that Varadkar and Johnson agree that there is a pathway to a deal and Barnier has received the green light to commence intensive negotiations, I think both sides realise that there is a deal to be done before 31/10/19 and that there will be compromises on both sides to achieve it.

Once that happens this thread either needs closing down or renaming imho.

Firstly, the decision was made by many people being duped so how can you trust the decision. Don't bother answering that because you've already bubbled on it. 

Secondly, we don't trust it, and that's why we run things the way we do. The way Churchill says it should be. 

Do you not find your pic hypocritical considering he opposes a the public making democratic decisions? 

I don't think you know what imho stands for. You're far from humble! 

[StevO]

3 minutes ago, RPG said:

Thanks for the reminder. I'll be honest, I had forgotten.

Did only one side break the law? I think that remains to be seen but, yes or no, I trust the electorate to see through such activity.

Yes, only one side broke the law. There is no inquiry into whether remain broke the law. 

[StevO]

6 minutes ago, RPG said:

Well, there we shall just have to disagree. Your feelings and mine on the effects of Cambridge Analytica to the actual result are polar opposites and, I suspect, always will be, because, as stated earlier, I trust the electorate to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Even Diane Abbott fairly recently acknowledged that if there was a second referendum that Leave would still win. Not that there will be a second referendum of course!

If Cambridge Analytica didn’t effect the result why would Dominic Cummings say “we couldn’t have done it without AggregateIQ”?

[StevO]

4 minutes ago, RPG said:

I didn't ask if there was only one enquiry. I asked, do we know for absolute certainty, that Remain didn't break the law?

Come on, you being serious now? We haven’t had 100% proof that both sides haven’t broken the law so it might have happened? 
Until my sister recently had a baby I didn’t have 100% proof she wasn’t my brother. 

[pete0]

8 minutes ago, RPG said:

I do trust the electorate and I dispute your assertion that people were duped to the extent that they changed their vote.

With regard to the football analogy, it would depend on how serious the offence was and the effect it had on the result - and even then, the result getting changed after the final whistle would not be likely.

I think that we disagree on the impact of Cambridge Analytica on people's voting intentions and, since that has to be a subjective opinion, we will likely never agree.

StevO changed his vote so there's nothing to dispute, its a fact people have changed their mind now they are more informed. (Not that he was duped, more that he was appalled at the Leave campaign which is an even stronger reason and without doubt many others will feel the same). 

They broke the law. Not just the result would be changed but also the club would be stripped of their titles and the league adjusted to strip all their results away. The club would be relegated or even expelled all together. 

Again, not subjective. It's a fact. Cambridge Analytica wouldn't have been paid so much if what they did had no impact. 

[StevO]

6 minutes ago, RPG said:

I do trust the electorate and I dispute your assertion that people were duped to the extent that they changed their vote.

With regard to the football analogy, it would depend on how serious the offence was and the effect it had on the result - and even then, the result getting changed after the final whistle would not be likely.

I think that we disagree on the impact of Cambridge Analytica on people's voting intentions and, since that has to be a subjective opinion, we will likely never agree.

Actually you must not know what they have done, or read anything in my posts. They didn’t target anyone to change their votes, they targeted only non voters and people on the fence. 
 

Juventus were recently stripped of their title, in fact one of them was given to Inter. Maybe that could be a possibility for breaking the rules. 

[StevO]

Hey Pete, isn’t it weird that we agree on something?!

[pete0]

1 minute ago, StevO said:

Hey Pete, isn’t it weird that we agree on something?!

Very! Ha. I might have to start arguing leave to get the status quo back before there's a temporal rift. 

[johnh]

2 hours ago, pete0 said:

To be democratic people would have to be more informed and left to make the decision rather than stoked with fear. 

Leave winning is closer to those in Africa, forget which country Zimbabwe maybe, practically voting with a gun to their head, they still had a choice but is it really democratic? Just instead of a gun it was mental manipulation in Leaves case. 

Is it democratic if people don't know what they're voting for/understand the actual consequences. Not that you can blame them all, they were lied to from the off. We're currently 2 years down the line and still have no idea what full consequence of leaving will be. 

Pete, you must think that every voter reads the Party manifesto from cover to cover in a GE.  They don't.  They form an opinion and vote the way they think is best.  The Remainers had no clue what they were voting for either.  You seem to have believed Project Fear (lies) even more than Leavers did.

[Palfy]

7 hours ago, RPG said:

Sorry I get under your skin so much. I assure you it is not mutual.

Try a Snickers bar - see if it makes you feel better Pal.

I didn't expect to be liked as a Leave advocate on a predominantly Remain thread, but there seems no problem in having polite dialogue with everyone else Pal. So, in that regard, you are the odd one out.

But do please continue with the insults if you wish. It only shows you up further. I have always preferred polite dialogue but you seem to only like that when you think everyone is marching to the beat of your drum. Not going to happen Pal.

I will offer you some news which might please your prejudices though Pal. I will be away on a 3 week family holiday commencing next Tuesday and will have far better things to do than laugh at your comments - mostly, I will be laying on a beach in Malaysia and enjoying a hard earned break.

there is a God after all, and please don’t rush back we’re all enjoy the break as well. 

[StevO]

15 minutes ago, RPG said:

Are you really, 100% certain that a top down enquiry into Remain wouldn't unearth a single transgression? Really?

My point is that one has been proven, the other hasn’t even been suggested. So how could you possibly use that as any sort of reasoning? 
Charles Manson killed plenty of people, but you don’t know if I did or not, therefore Manson’s guilt isn’t absolute. Ridiculous!

[StevO]

13 minutes ago, RPG said:

I have no idea why I was contacted, being both expat and disenfranchised. But I was. My feelings as a Leave voter (if I had had a vote) were made clear. So, your theory doesn't quite stand up in practice.

How did Juve bounce back? Champions again!

It’s not a theory, let alone mine, it’s a fact. There is no longer any denial that this happened. It’s what Cambridge Analytica/AggregateIQ did for a living. 

[StevO]

2 minutes ago, RPG said:

See you again when we are out of EU Pal.

But never fear, I may make an occasional appearance as I just know how much you will miss our badinage.

Did the Snickers work?

You not here to get involved in Everton talk? Being an Everton forum?

[pete0]

25 minutes ago, johnh said:

Pete, you must think that every voter reads the Party manifesto from cover to cover in a GE.  They don't.  They form an opinion and vote the way they think is best.  The Remainers had no clue what they were voting for either.  You seem to have believed Project Fear (lies) even more than Leavers did.

Leave aren't close in anything they campaigned on though. It's not been easy, and we're not gonna be better off. 

Had they campaigned more on the lines of us being worse off at the cost of keeping people out I'd acknowledge the result more. But they never they manipulated our EU contributions and incited xenophobia. 

I didn't believe them, and as an advice for open borders was always gonna vote remain. But one thing that threw me over the edge, that I found absolutely appalling was this billboard by my work. 

Rare I'm shocked but it bewilders me that the men behind it haven't been prosecuted. 

[MikeO]

51 minutes ago, RPG said:

And as I have said before, for every SteveO there is at least one Piers Morgan! Net effect on the result? - Zero or as near zero (either way) as makes no difference!

That's a climb-down, there were ten yesterday.

[MikeO]

6 hours ago, MikeO said:

It appeared well after your initial reply when you edited it in, as I've already pointed out; and it's a link to an extreme right wing site so I wouldn't believe a word of what they say, there's no corroborative evidence anywhere as far as I can see. If you can provide some then great.

[MikeO]

4 hours ago, johnh said:

I always thought that the claim of being the largest vote in democratic history related to the number of votes for 'Leave'.  17.4m votes is the largest number of votes for anything, in history. 

True enough but a binary choice is inevitably going to bring out bigger numbers on both sides, without checking it's quite likely that remain's 16,141,241 votes is the second biggest vote in history.

3 hours ago, RPG said:

I have seen that too John but it just goes to show how people are not interested in facts, rather the spin they can put on them.

You were the one who used the term, "largest democratic exercise in the electoral history of our country" so there is the unarguable spin for all to see, you made no mention whatsoever of numbers until John offered you a way out. I simply posted facts on the number of votes cast and turn-outs.

There was only one of us "spinning" Rusty and he was in Dubai, not Devon.

Enjoy your holiday.

[Palfy]

52 minutes ago, StevO said:

You not here to get involved in Everton talk? Being an Everton forum?

Steve why did you have to give him the excuse to hang around. 
I’ll be honest with you if anyone shares pleasantries with that wanker then I’ll be the one going else where, he’s not an Everton supporter since he’s come back he’s made two posts at best on Everton, he just wants to spout his shit on Brexit, and he’s using this forum to get his fix because no one else wants him. 

[MikeO]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50019069

[MikeO]

3 minutes ago, RPG said:

Ten is at least one isn't it?

You really are grasping at straws aren't you. No response to my other posts yet either, you're in a house built on sand and no amount of prevarication or deflection is going to change that sadly.

[MikeO]

1 minute ago, RPG said:

Just for you MikeO

For the fourth time you link the same extremist site and for the fourth time I'll ignore it because it's toxic; I'll just ask (again) for you to back that up by linking a reputable source. You don't seem to understand what I'm saying which is odd because you're plainly not daft; an article under the headline "Disloyalty, Betrayal and Traitors" doesn't give me the impression of trustworthiness. Ken may indeed have said it but you've yet to offer any proof despite endless requests.

Linking the "Daily Globe" for a fifth time won't help to convince me by the way so please try another tack.

[MikeO]

1 minute ago, RPG said:

Which kind of gives the lie to your statement above, doesn't it!

How so?

[MikeO]

1 minute ago, RPG said:

Mike you are deflecting because you know you have been caught out.

Fact: You stated that I didn't mention numbers u til Johnh brought numbets up.

Fact: Yes I did and I have proven it.

Fact: Your statement was wrong.

Where?

[MikeO]

1 minute ago, RPG said:

The link THAT I REFER to is not the Daily Globe. It is the Financial Times where the numbers quote was sourced. Mike, you are wrong here, bang to rights mate.

These are two separate issues, the Kenneth Clark "quote" is from the daily globe (which I will continue to ignore until you provide evidence to back it up, might as well be the Beano) and the numbers the FT got wrong by your oft stated assertion, "largest democratic exercise in the electoral history of our country" (no numbers mentioned). There is a debate to be had about the second issue I admit but to suggest I have been "found out" is infantile.

[MikeO]

6 minutes ago, RPG said:

According to the FT link I provided, it was the biggest single democratic exercise by number in the electoral history of UK. Pay the subs and read it.

Quite amusing you suggest I pay the subs and read it when you can no longer access it as your free access has expired.

[Palfy]

19 minutes ago, MikeO said:

For the fourth time you link the same extremist site and for the fourth time I'll ignore it because it's toxic; I'll just ask (again) for you to back that up by linking a reputable source. You don't seem to understand what I'm saying which is odd because you're plainly not daft; an article under the headline "Disloyalty, Betrayal and Traitors" doesn't give me the impression of trustworthiness. Ken may indeed have said it but you've yet to offer any proof despite endless requests.

Linking the "Daily Globe" for a fifth time won't help to convince me by the way so please try another tack.

That’s is because he’s a far right facist why would any decent person like at there sites. 

[MikeO]

1 minute ago, RPG said:

Forget Clark for the time being. You stated that I did not mention numbers until Johnh got involved.

That has been proven to be an inaccurate statement by you hasn't it!

No because you didn't mention it and I had no access so I didn't see it. It was only after John's intervention that things became clear, to that point you had constantly said, "largest democratic exercise in the electoral history of our country" without any mention of the caveat that John introduced.

It was indeed the biggest number of votes for anything in UK history and remain was (I've now checked the numbers) the second biggest number of votes cast in UK history.

And why forget Clark?