Was a single in-or-out vote the right way to decide the UK’s place in the EU?
In July 2017, a year after the referendum of 23 June 2016, an online Polis conversation asked whether people on different sides of Brexit agreed on anything. Most people who voted in it said they had voted to remain (155 of the 161 who answered), so it is not a cross-section of the country.
From a public Polis conversation in the United Kingdom, online, July 2017: “Can there be consensus on Brexit?”. People wrote statements and voted agree, disagree or pass on each other’s. These rows are the statements most voters agreed with, the ones that split voters most evenly, and the ones the fewest agreed with, out of 44 that at least 15 people voted on. Statements about the voters themselves, insults and unchecked factual claims are left out. Passes are not counted.
Most agreed
The Brexit vote wasn't really about the EU, but was rather a proxy vote on various issues. Unfortunately they weren't all the same issues.
The idea of sovereignty is badly defined. What does it matter if we gain the theoretical freedom from European institutions if we end up practically constrained by those institutions in any event?
Brexit will be a success as long as we all stay firm against the EU and don't let the government negotiate our sovereign rights and freedoms away.
1 agreed, 92 disagreed (1% agreed) · statement 26
The UK's borders are basically unprotected, thanks to the EU.
1 agreed, 96 disagreed (1% agreed) · statement 27
Where the groups agreed
Polis sorts voters into opinion groups by how they voted across the whole conversation. This one found 2: Group A (106 voters) and Group B (91 voters). These are the statements every group was most likely to agree with, ranked the way Polis ranks common ground: the chance of agreeing in each group, multiplied together. Under them is the statement the groups were furthest apart on.
The Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland border is a huge issue that isn't being given enough attention.
Group A85 agreed, 1 disagreed (99%)
Group B71 agreed, 3 disagreed (96%)
The Brexit vote wasn't really about the EU, but was rather a proxy vote on various issues. Unfortunately they weren't all the same issues.
Group A66 agreed, 1 disagreed (99%)
Group B56 agreed, 2 disagreed (97%)
A binary out/in vote where an ill-defined wishlist of lies & fantasies ran against a real flawed product of compromise was an awful idea
Written for the hearth so this question has a whole card on each side to argue with. No visitor wrote them, so the two parts only a person can fill are empty: what happened to you, and who on the other side called the case against fair.
Yes
Where this card stands
Yes. Membership was the question in front of the country, and a direct vote was the only answer everyone had to accept.
How sure, before and after the case against
The strongest case against it
An in-or-out vote couldn’t say which kind of leaving people wanted, so the result settled the word and left the content to the government.
What would change this card’s mind
If voters on the winning side disagreed so widely about what they had voted for that no single deal could win most of them.
“Argue with this card” opens the card on the front page with this card’s position as the case against you. You write where you stand and what would change your mind.