Brexit: In or Out

"they are one of the demographics that don't ever vote" - oh dear!

Well to be fair IDS said, last night, something along the lines of ".. surprising how large the council estate turnout has been....".

Now whether or not it's true, and if so what it did or didn't mean for the referendum, I'm not going to get into.  But he did say it.

OK, just for the sake of discussion, let's go along with "council house occupants" don't vote. Can you explain who "and the like" are? I can't recall ever hearing of this demographic before.

Yes I can explain. Other people who don't usually vote. 

Morgan Stanley moving 2000 jobs out the UK already  ...     

Happy Independence Day everyone 

Same to you.........try again

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/morgan-stanley-brexit-eu-referendum-jobs-dublin-frankfurt-a7100911.html

Tony Blair does deserve a good deal of the responsibility for this, having created the key conditions that seem to have led to it, but it wasn't only him.

It's worth remembering that it was Labour who partly caused this by allowing unrestricted immigration of people from the eastern European states as they joined the EU. By ten years after that decision views against immigration had shifted substantially.

It's also worth remembering that it was a Labour government that agreed to the Treaty of Lisbon that increased EU control over domestic affairs in 2007. This treaty incorporated the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union into EU law and made the EU courts supreme over the UK Supreme Court in many areas of social policy, resulting in a large increase in cases going there instead of remaining within UK power to decide and consequent reduction in UK sovereignty.

It's very likely that this could have been avoided if Tony Blair's Labour government had acted differently and not fomented so much longer term unhappiness about the EU while in power and/or had held a referendum to give the British people a chance to decide something less substantial than take or leave the whole EU membership instead of just parts of it.

Meanwhile the Coalition government kicked the issue down the road and also contributed to all or nothing instead of accepting a partial rejection choice that might have avoided this, with Cameron then committing to a full in-out referendum instead of something partial in the run up to the last general election.

Governments can deny people choice but the consequences can be the build up of discontent that seems to have been expressed in this vote and which could have been avoided. Other EU leaders might perhaps have given Cameron something other than a mostly failed negotiation earlier this year as well, had they truly taken this possibility seriously. Immigration flexibility agreed then instead of rejected might well have been enough to swing this away from exit. Too late now though I assume that responsible parties in say the Polish government are thoroughly kicking themselves for screwing up so badly back then.