People's Referendum March

Ali

Pall Mall to Parliament. 12.00 today

Ali

It is massive!

miss annie

It is buggering up trade for retailers and restaurants in the West End. No one can get near Piccadilly.

Ali

The whole of Whitehall was rammed

Arkady

It was huge. Much bigger than the organisers expected.

Scruffy

Rammed?

Ali

Very full of people

vetski

Utterly rammed - apparently the Met estimates 500,000. It was a brilliant day!

Scruffy

Do you both mean “crammed”, or is this a new usage of “rammed” of which I’m not aware?

vetski

'Rammed' to mean 'crowded' isn't a particularly new usage as far as I'm aware.

grenners

What will be the question on the ballot? Accept a rubbish deal, worse than being in the EU, or stay in the EU?

Ali

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=meaning+of+rammed&oq=meaning+of+rammed&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.9877j0j7&client=ms-android-wileyfox&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Ali

Today is the start of a big push back against brexit

Ali

https://www.peoples-vote.uk/too_big_to_ignore_at_least_100_000_people_march_on_parliament_to_demand_a_people_s_vote

miss annie

Chap & I were at a dinner outside London last weekend and out of eight people we were the only two Remainers. None of the Leave people regretted their decision and were all quite cross that people won't accept the democratic result. We had quite a lively debate. It's easy to ignore the fact that there is also a very strong pro Brext movement outside of big cities.

grenners

These people saying public opinion has changed are the same people who did not believe that the Brexit side would win the first time around.

HolbornFox

Similar numbers regarding Tommy Robinson best not mention that though.

Arkady

100,000 people marched for Tommy Robinson?

There was a small counter march yesterday. Saw a dozen EDL goons being tracked by the police.

grenners

If you don't report alternative opinions they obviously don't exist. People in their own media echo chamber were completely astonished by Brexit.

HolbornFox

I find it hard to believe that 100'000 people were there yesterday, then again it does create clicks and sends the Loony Lefties into salivation, much like painting anyone supporting TR as a thick thug.

The BBC website did not state that there were 100'000 people there, for balance.

Ali

It was probably more than 100,000 not sure how you get an accurate count.

The trouble with all this is that the UK decline will be a slow burn . Some industry will move especially when they have to invest in New platforms etc. Brexit voting North Wales won't be builfing next generation aircraft wings as we will outside all the Euro regulation and compliance system. Same for car manufacturers, pharma. etc. I just don't see any evidence that there is something that is going to replace all that lost tax and funding public services going forwards.

HolbornFox

I never said I disagree with you or that I am pro brexit, I actually worry more about what news is being buried behind the brexit / football / Trump agenda

grenners

Some people believe that staying in the EU will be a long slow death by 1,000 cuts. Others just want to be an Independent country. Most Brexit voters I know think there will be economic damage but it will be short term for long term gain. What is certainly damaging is the length this is taking without a clear vision from a weak PM.

Brodiej

I'd like a vote on the final deal. I voted remain, but was bizarrely quite pleased when leave won the vote. I made my vote on what made me angry, and I came to the conclusion that had nothing to do with being in the EU. That said, deciding your own future whatever that looks like is actually quite comforting to me. It could be a worse future, but I like that we have control. That was how I felt at polling day.

What is being delivered is basically something that will piss off 100% of the population, not 52% not 48%....all of us. So, when it comes to it, I'd like to vote on whether we do it, because I get the vibe it will be worse for everyone going down this route. For the life of me I don't know why they didn't just say, see you in 2019, if you want to have a chat you know where we are. Fearing the unknown is a big blocker against making decent decisions in my view.

grenners

Fair enough but surely that would not be as easy as a yes or no ballot paper. Voting no to a proposed deal is either staying in the EU or leaving with no deal? So there are 3 options? I look forward to that!

Papa

I've come round to the idea we should probably vote on the deal.

Initially, I thought 'please no more votes', but the ineptitude of both our government and its opposition and the dumb pig headedness of the EU (which can't understand that its attitude may be why people don't like it) has made me think we should probably put this deal to a vote, as we are likely to be stuck with it for a very long time.

Any vote shouldn't make the yes / no mistake of the referendum though, it would need to at least be:

Take the deal
Reject the deal - negotiate a better one and we stay until then
Reject the deal and we just bugger off (more likely to officially be branded the no deal option)

grenners

If the EU tactic is to effectively subvert democracy by playing a game which results in an unhappy situation where the UK is forced to stay for longer I think that may back fire. Surely people can see through that tactic. The whole idea of ignoring vast swathes of public opinion, refusing to compromise, created this mess in the first place. The EU is run by hardliners whos only mantra is more integration. Italy and the Viserad group are now fighing back. The EU may have got away with bullying others such as Greece but surely cannot expect to get away with it all the time. Maybe the deal won't be as bad as some expect.

joust

Its a bit mad to vote for something without knowing what you are exactly voting for.
Seems a bit daft. But thats what happened.

Ali

You must remember that the UK has unerlaterally decided to leave not the way around so I don't think that we can complain that much
It will be a shame and no doubt very damaging for the UK loosing single market and customs union because it can't except how compliance works
We also loose access to 88 free trade agreements. The only countries that are significant that the EU doesn't have trade deals with are China, US and India. There are lots of good reasons for that that we all know so why would the UK want to get involved with them either

If the leave side us do confident of a lot of significant benefits in leaving a peoples referendum should confirm we leave.

Ali

The people's referendum petition can be found here

https://www.peoples-vote.uk/petition?utm_campaign=obemail_115_ob&utm_medium=email&utm_source=in

Sign it all helps

Ali

As an example of what is likely to happen It seems the Brexit effect has already been hitting the motor manufacturing industry since the first referendum.

from the SMT

"investment in production continues post Brexit plummet:

2015: £2.5bn
2016: £1.6bn
2017: £1.1bn

2018 H1: £0.347bn

Apparently Honda in Swindon hold 36 hours stock of components as part of it just in time system of manufacturing. With out free borders they may have to have contingency of 9 days which involves building a warehouse the size of 42 football pitches.

I guess that is the price of "taking back control" but sounds to me that the death by a thousand cuts is much more likely to happen this side of the channel.