Hey! Many of them are my grandchildren, they only discovered me after 2016 mind

The result implemented was not on the ballot, voters thought leaving would still keep SM membership. The result was so undemocratic the Electoral Commission determined if it had had legal compulsion on Parliament to implement it then it would have been declared void and need to be re-run.

A thorough investigation would really be a good idea. But suppose it finds there was Russian interference: what then? What’s the next step?

Contact me child. I can help.

Looking for a backdoor in? Look no further.

Having one of me

Seek and ye shall find, I am to route to restoration.

The EU ref may have been 'free' but it certainly wasn't fair, given all the interference by paid for (allegedly with the support of Russia) Facebook ads, as mentioned in thread.

Politicians moved on because many of them found one of me

The question becomes unclear when there are multiple possible answers with differing consequences. That and the illegsiities committed by the leave campaigns (budget overspend, illegal data use, lies). Then what you have is not democracy.

A gerrymandered franchise excluding 5 million of the people likely to be most affected by loss of FOM certainly does make the outcome undemocratic, though.

No, not at all. In this case there is clear evidence that democracy was subverted. Nothing to do with ‘dislike’.

Now you’re making things up I think.

The real scandal isn’t that some groups were hit harder than others. It’s that Brexit created multiple groups of losers — and then encouraged them to fight each other instead of demanding their rights back.

The challenge of democracy is that not all adult citizens can reliably select the better candidates for controlling national government or for national government.

Have you missed the vast disinformation campaigns around the world? Not everyone is as educated as others or have time to read & think for themselves & many can be persuaded to vote against their own good/benefit by Russian bot farms, billionaire tech bros & press owners when working all hours.

Exactly. When people parrot “farmers / old people / Cornwall / Kent etc voted for it” they’re falling for the brexit propaganda and shoring up the lie that it was either democratic or that whole groups or areas voted for it when they didn’t.

Keep yelling at voters if you like. But don’t pretend that absolves the strategists who knew exactly what they were breaking — and did it anyway.

Voters made a choice. Campaign leaders made a calculation. Confusing the two protects those who turned social division into a political weapon.

Anger aimed only at voters is convenient. It avoids naming the people who made careers, money, and power from Brexit — and then walked away from the damage.

Blaming Leave voters alone is emotionally satisfying — and politically useless. Brexit didn’t happen by accident. It was designed, targeted, and aggressively marketed by people who understood exactly who would lose.

You might want to be angry with Leave voters. Many showed a failure of empathy. But focusing only there lets the real architects off the hook: the organisers, funders, and strategists who knowingly sold harm.

No one is saying the votes don't count. My point is that others were also to blame. If you ignore the forces on the electorate, the future of the UK is bleak. Foreign millionaires and foreign governments setting our path. We should learn from Brexit and protect ourselves.

People want you to believe that Brexit is 100% the responsibility of leave voters, because if you can be persuaded to believe that, you’ll still be happy to think you’re living in a functioning democracy.

“Were you sold EU Citizenship between 1992 and 2020?” “You could be owned thousands of pounds in compensation.” “Contact us today for no obligation advice”

Democracy relies on an informed and educated electorate. In countries where the media is controlled by the government, an election proves nothing (even if it were free and fair, which it rarely is).

The insistence that Brexit is solely the fault of Leave voters isn’t neutral. It’s a narrative designed to stop you questioning whether consent was manufactured — and whether democracy was hollowed out in the process.

If Brexit was just “what the people wanted,” why were its consequences hidden, its promises abandoned, and its damage denied — while no one in power faced meaningful responsibility?

Democracy doesn’t fail because people vote. It fails when voters are misled, choices are distorted, and accountability disappears afterwards — then we’re told this is what democracy looks like.

Blaming Brexit entirely on “the voters” is comforting. It lets institutions, governments, newspapers and donors off the hook — and preserves the illusion that the system worked as intended.

People want you to believe Brexit is 100% the fault of Leave voters. Because if you accept that story, you don’t have to ask harder questions about power, media, money, or whether this is still a functioning democracy.

People want you to believe that Brexit is 100% the responsibility of leave voters, because if you can be persuaded to believe that, you’ll still be happy to think you’re living in a functioning democracy.

People want you to believe that Brexit is 100% the responsibility of leave voters, because if you can be persuaded to believe that, you’ll still be happy to think you’re living in a functioning democracy.

Probably? Definitely. And it is fantastic value for money for the Putin-like figures. £8m went a long way to buying Brexit. £9m just went to Farage’s latest political project to divide and weaken the UK via a Reform government. Putin gets practically nothing for that money around Pokrovsk.

True or a misdirection?

And Theresa May is the one who sent the letter. Johnson is then one who let it happen.

Ten years on and it is vividly clear that many interests in Russia, the US and elsewhere would patiently, persistently and aggressively campaign to weaken the EU and/or the UK at every opportunity. The UK had too many gullible and low-information voters.

Fascinating and a must-read.

What, not the policians who lied about it? Possibly the external forces that wanted it to weaken Europe? The tabloids/press/media who pushed it? Social media that acted as a disinformation tool? www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-poli...

That is classic dictator play. Pit groups against each other on multiple topics - Brexit, immigration, the economy, nation states and as they all fight each other - take control. It hasn’t worked in UK yet but Trump is succeeding in the US. DO NOT LET FARAGE DO IT HERE.

They are to blame, but there are others too, like foreign owned newspapers, foreign governments (e.g. Russia) and the owners of companies like Cambridge Analytica.

Oh there are many more than the 17.4 million to blame. In fact those might just be the unwitting victims; the useful idiots who enabled it. You’re focused in the wrong place. I wonder why.

One of my quiet contributions since Brexit has been refusing to let the conversation about European mobility die. When politicians moved on, I kept talking — about real lives, real losses, and real possibilities beyond the slogans.

Oh I don’t agree with this at all. We’ve played a vital role in keeping mobility high on the agenda and in ensuring UK gov sees the imperative for change. bsky.app/profile/nial...

I talk positively about Freedom of Movement in Europe just because it isn’t popular to do so and not everyone is willing to.

The loudest voices attacking Freedom of Movement often aren’t “concerned citizens”. They’re amplification nodes — pushing confusion, resentment, and myths to stop people realising how much they lost.

Being elected to the Council of European Movement UK was a highlight for me in 2025 It means I can contribute to the strategy that will help us one day regain our rightful place in Europe; back at the beating heart of the EU. #VoicesofLostFOM #SaveFOM

Looks like an anti-Labour journalist’s opinion of the Labour Party possibly targeted at an audience that is anti-England. I’m not surprised you picked up on this. It was probably written for you.

I’d be focused more on the people who prey on those susceptible or suggestible voters.