Depends what the meaning of “won” is, doesn’t it?

Winning on a key issue in a democracy ought to mean getting the support of a substantial majority of the total citizen body. For an important issue like leaving the EU, that might have been the affirmative support of (say) 60% of the electorate — 26 Million votes, instead of the only 16 Million achieved. (Joining the EU in the first place should also have been subject to a similar vote, of course).

Back of the envelope, something like 16 Million voters would have had to be Remain-voting immigrants (and disenfranchised) for the 16 Million Leave voters to have achieved that kind of decisive win. Blaming the immigrants — invited in by the UK government, not Brussels — does not seem to be viable.

It seems that many of the 28% of UK voters who chose to sit on their hands had the view that Westminster and Brussels were Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Looking at the chaos of Boris’s “government”, they certainly had a point.

It has become en vogue of late to not truly understand the real position of the opposition on charged issues. It is far more common to see, at least, strawmen erected, and at worst, outright demonization of what is inarguably a reasonable and understandable position.

Pro-lifers calling pro-choicers “baby murderers”, and pro-choicers accusing pro-lifers of wanting to control women’s reproductive choices and their bodies like we’re living in “A Handmaiden’s Tale” would be good examples.

A pro-lifer would do well to apply an ideological Turing Test to the “baby murderer” label, and discover that, while you might disagree with their reasoning for advocating abortion, that their desire to keep it legal is not because they want to “murder babies”.

In reality, the debate really just boils down to a very simple question: at what point does a fertilized zygote become a “human being” worthy of legal protection from being destroyed?

The thing that I see very commonly is that each side doesn’t understand the other side’s position, at all, and honestly, you’ve got no business debating against a position that you don’t understand.

I see a lot of it in the left’s talking points about what they call “COVID conspiracists”. They are constantly claiming inconsistency in what they see coming from the “conspiracist” side, but there really isn’t – they just don’t understand the argument, and so cannot see the consistency in it.

Ideological Turing Tests for all. It’s not hard. All you have to do is be able to elaborate your opposition’s true position by mock-arguing their position in such a way that the opposition would think you were on their side. If you can’t do this, you’re arguing against a strawman that isn’t actually the position that the opposition is advocating, and so you’re wasting your time and theirs, and simply contributing to the propagation of biases.

Labour flooded the UK with immigrants in order to fundamentally alter the political culture, and the result was a close Brexit vote. If only the natives had voted, Brexit would have won more decisively.

Why does anyone think it’s legitimate for the ruling class to manufacture a new, more compliant electorate?

What I find intriguing about the Brexit situation is the parallel to US Independence. Some historians have estimated that, back in the 1770s, about 1/3 of the residents of the Colonies wanted independence from London; about 1/3 wanted to remain subjects of the Crown; and about 1/3 simply wanted to keep their heads down. Rather similar to the UK split over Brexit.

Clearly, the concept of “democracy” has some flaws. Mark Steyn has a view that what matters is intensity, not numbers. How many people really want to make transgendered bathrooms a big issue? Yet elected representative fall over themselves to declare their support. As you point out, Albion, in most cases those “elected” representatives have the affirmative support of only a minority — sometimes a small minority — of the people; yet they make decisions for everyone.

Perhaps Confirmation Bias leads us to give the democratic process too much respect. In reality, it is a severely dysfunctional system.

You are correct that there was a chunk of people who did not vote in the Brexit Referendum for whatever reason, though I cannot agree with your reasoning or imaginings it was emotional: it cost Britain £8 Billion a year as a ‘membership fee’ to be in the EU with remarkably little benefit other than pages of legislation how we should live — and this from an organisation that had not had its accounts signed off for more than 20 years. In short, no-one knew where all the money went. At times it smacked of a dictatorship and for all the many faults of Brits, being ruled from Berlin was not one of them (and yes, the EU is essentially there to aid Germany, as were the original treaties on which the EU/EEC was built.) The Referendum had the largest ever turn-out of an election in the UK and the assumption was, according to the politicians and media, it was a forgone conclusion Britain would elect to remain. Even Mrs May campaigned enthusiastically for us to stay, and then — such are the quirks of power — found herself having to negotiate the withdrawal. Perhaps that was why she took her time to come up with a very watered down get-out clause, having consulted Angela in Berlin at length. But then again, it was probably emotional.

Certainly the vast machinery of the Civil Service was behind us remaining. More, Eire had already voted to Leave the EU but were told they would have to vote again, which then resulted in a Remain vote. So the implication was we would only go and do the same, so why bother? The outcome was regarded as settled however long it took.

Why did so many not vote, yet so many vote to Leave of those who went to vote? I am not sure it was all emotional as you put it. After all, perhaps by your reckoning every revolution then has been emotional, and for that matter every civil war. It comes as shock to think that so much upheaval and bloodshed was only one of emotions, yet so many decisions by governments and its numerous agencies aren’t. What a curious world in which those who ‘lead’ are without any passion, though I can believe they are often without heart.

As for France being Britain’s girlfriend I almost spat my Yorkshire Pudding out over that one. Thank you for the laugh. (Incidentally, a Yorkshireman does not eat his Yorkshire Pudding with his RosBif but separately. We like our separations!)

True, not everyone voted in the Referendum and yes, the government did not set any margins beforehand. One supposes that under our democratic way that if only ten people had turned up to vote and six said one way or another then that was a done deal, but then every election in the UK is a first past the post which is why MPs sometimes win their seat in the Commons with much less than 20 per cent of the electorate being bothered to turn out and actually make a mark on the ballot paper.

My OP was not to specifically go back over the whys and wherefores of the Brexit vote, but to point out that the notion of ‘National Unity’ is false because there are opposing, and entrenched, viewpoints that cannot be reconciled with broad statements of ‘unity.’ Thus Leavers and Remainers are divided, emotionally or not, because slogans alone don’t bridge the gap.

One last point: A Remainer (and lefty) friend was complaining the other week that his much-needed medication was not available ‘because of Brexit.’ The fact that the whole drawn out Covid-business and the resulting breakdown in the supply chain (not least of which are fewer drivers and workers along the way as businesses were obliged to close) was ignored. His emotional ‘because of Brexit’ was enough in his mind. You will be glad to know that a way was found for him to get his medication, and for now his anti-Brexit stance has been put away. Until next time.

Brexit might be a good example of the limitations of the hypothesis that Confirmation Bias is the big problem facing humanity.

How individual Brits saw Brexit was an emotional issue, not a rational one. Some looked back to those far-off days when Britannia Ruled The Waves; others looked across the Channel to their French girlfriend. Because Brexit was fundamentally a personal emotional issue for everyone, no-one was ever going to be convinced to change his view because of rational arguments. Indeed, those rational arguments were mostly rationalizations of emotionally-based convictions.

The facts of that fast-receding election are clear: 37% of Brits voted to Leave the EU; 35% voted to Remain; 28% chose not to vote — many apparently thinking that the choice between Brussels and Westminster was like choosing between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

If there was any Confirmation Bias, it was in Leavers then asserting that this narrow plurality — hardly an overwhelming democratic mandate — was a command to others to change their strongly-held personal beliefs. Shades of One Man, One Vote, One Time!

Perhaps if there had been an overwhelming democratic mandate (say, the affirmative votes of 80% of the electorate for Leave), the Brexit vote would have impacted the emotional views of both the Leavers and those whose view could best be described as “a plague on both their houses”. We will never know.

Leavers may have wished to treat their narrow plurality as the end of the issue. But that would be like expecting Conservative Party members to renounce permanently their Tory party loyalty because Labour happened to win an election. Emotions run too deep for that!

It should be no surprise that losing an election did not change Remainers’ minds, any more than losing the US Civil War did not change Southerners loyalty to their States.

Very, very glad to find this blog still active, stopping by at least 2 years after the last time.

I also wish to never see you published on the Unz Review, a site that has taken a rather dislikable trajectory in the last one year or so.

Let me give you an example. I voted, as did the majority of people in my country, for Brexit several years ago. It is a moot point if it has fully been delivered yet but I have heard since various ‘Remainers’ arguing we need a government of national unity. As I pointed out to some lefty friends we can never have that: one’s nation is either in the EU or is not. So how, I asked them, would we enjoy unity in such a world? Does this mean I surrender my view, or they do? As they are adamant that the EU is a kind, caring, sharing organisation (not my view) then how I am persuaded to change? They won’t change: they see the Leavers as evil spawn of the devil. That would be me, then.

I can cite numerous cases of corruption, heavy-handedness, malfeasance and to me, incompetence at a very high price over in Brussels. All I can hear is ‘It isn’t working’ and ‘we are all better off together.’ Emotional statements aren’t always the best persuaders.

Of course the amusing thing is these people would not be calling for ‘national unity’ if they had won. It would be assumed as winners, and righteousness in their view thus prevails, then the matter would be closed and unity somehow exist. They can now call for another referendum as we have, apparently, ‘all changed our minds’ but as I haven’t, then it isn’t all. They would, I am sure, if they won a second referendum and it went to a return to the EU, never allow a third.

In this I can see the division between the two sides can never be closed.

Bingo.

I’m sure there was a self-help book back in the day entitled How to get anything you want through negotiation that covered the same ground. I recall a few features discussing how to
negotiate your way out of a mugging.

Trouble today is that we are both getting mugged by the Left and getting bombarded by these negotiation techniques on how it is good for us.