Paul the Wolf
Score Predictions Competition Organiser
Well Paul, in reference to your first point I do feel somewhat free to make a judgement on an individual poster and the trend I see on the Caf.
I feel well positioned to make the judgement, it’s only my opinion but I’m actually talking to the person and judging his own words, in that sense I think it’s absolutely fair game.
I think projecting judgements and opinion onto almost 17.5 million people is not quite the same though, which is my entire point. The broadbrush and frankly smugly superior tone taken by that poster and other posters is in my opinion distasteful and simplistic to the point of ignorance, which is ironic given the intellectual high ground they believe they occupy.
As for the rest of your post I probably couldn’t agree more, I was vehemently opposed to Brexit as I was to the Scottish referendum. As someone from NI I’m very proud to be linked to the UK and Europe, I considered being European as much a part of my identity as British or Irish, it was bitterly disappointing to see that at odds with 17.5 million people. That’s not even getting started on what I felt was very strong, continual, evidence that we would be financially and institutionally worse off.
I’ll happily lay blame at the Governments feet, the ref was a vanity project of a disasterous PM, left to be managed by possibly an even worse one.
What I have realised is that blaming voters for having a different opinion borne out of a completely different outlook and experience than my own is totally unfair, going farther to patronise and belittle 17.5 million people is something else entirely and hardly helpful in bridging the divide.
I have been called all sorts of names by brexiters and some remainers , the brexiters have mainly disappeared, they were always in a minority on here , if I remember correctly a poll at the time of the referendum around 72% of posters voted remain on here. But I have never blocked or reported anyone on here, although I suspect some posters think I did.
It is an emotional subject and some people see their futures being changed by people who on the whole did not consider what the outcome could be, I doubt if anyone knows everything about the EU but clearly some know a lot more than others.
At this moment the government are spinning a load of blatant lies again, a slightly different set from pre-referendum. There are still many people who believe these because they want to believe them. This is really sad imo. Things that cannot possibly happen is not a matter of opinion and people are frustrated that despite this people still believe that they can be achieved.
Just the border issue in Ireland, for one amongst many, was a major obstacle to Brexit both before the referendum and still is. There are only two solutions and neither is going to suit one side nor the other.