[Silhouette]

The whole Brexit hoopla was filled with dishonesty and anti-intellectualism

Sadly, both official campaigns were the worst kind of politics, with a lot of negative campaigning, full of half-truths and sometimes outright lies, frequently trying to make voters fear consequences that were highly unlikely, and frequently more about personalities than policies. The same was true of many interventions by various foreign leaders, mostly advocating Remain but again often through negativity about Leave rather than a positive message; their rhetoric was also being walked back within moments of the actual result being known.

I've had a few interesting discussions with friends and friends-of-friends, before and since the referendum itself. I've heard views, often strong ones, for both decisions articulated based on reasonable principles and rational arguments. I've seen intelligent, well-informed people reach either conclusion. However, many of the issues that ultimately persuaded those people one way or the other were hardly mentioned by the official campaigns, both of which focussed on the short term and on the economy and immigration for the most part.

Something I've seen many people, voting either way, agree on is that we don't really know why people chose to vote the way they did, which was always going to put whoever was in government after the vote in a tricky position because they would have a mandate to do something but little other guidance on how to set out the details. For example, in my personal experience I've met plenty of people who value the collaborative arrangements with our European neighbours on issues like trade and freedom of movement and the scientific research we're talking about in this discussion, yet who strongly dislike the EU as an institution because of some other aspects of membership. So far, I'd say roughly half of those people voted each way in the actual referendum, based on which outcome they thought was most likely to achieve the middle of the road path they really wanted. However, I have no reliable way to determine whether this sentiment is just a small clique around my own social network, or whether actually most people who voted had similar views and the hardline pro-EU Remain and anti-immigrant Leave voters who are getting most of the press are small but vocal minorities.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Sadly, both official campaigns were the worst kind of politics

"they're both as bad as each other" in political discussion is a facile position, and usually an unhelpful one.

[Silhouette]

It also wasn't what I said.

Would you like to comment on the substance of my post, which was about how there was actually plenty of rational thinking and reasonable debate going on among the voters regardless of the official campaigns, and how the big problem now is how to set future policy since the result itself doesn't necessarily tell us very much about what the voters really wanted?

[SideburnsOfDoom]

That's odd, I thought you said they were "both ... the worst". I have no issue with the rest of your comment, so I will decline your kind invitation.

[Silhouette]

Ah, I think I understand now. My intent was to contrast the official campaigns (and advocacy from foreign leaders) with the discussions among real voters, not to contrast one official campaign with the other. Apologies if that wasn't clear.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

I agree that both official pro and con Brexit campaigns were ... not good. I just think that there is clear difference between them in terms of how bad they were.

In political opinions, particularly for US politics, you see a lot of ritualistic opening with words to the effect of "both sides are terrible", "they're both equally bad", which is facile even-handedness, and unhelpful when they're differing kinds and degrees of bad. Knocking it back as facile is also becoming a trope, though probably still a necessary one.