We are not a country accustomed to, or we'll prepared for, referendums on complex subjects (I don't know of any that are except Switzerland, which is built on them). If the question were posed again tomorrow, the results might be significantly different.
I don't think we'd necessarily benefit from a massive u-turn, but I think many leave supporters are disgruntled at what it has now been revealed they were convinced to vote for.
So maybe riots, but also quite possibly not, and not necessarily (as it was put elsewhere in the thread) because people are just rolling over and taking it...
As a rule, the British don't like to riot. You typically get one or two stand-out riots a decade, but they're rarely for political reasons. (The Poll Tax riots were an exception.)
I can imagine a lot of people threatening riots and outright civil war, but the British right isn't organised enough to do much except march around being loud and annoying and picking a few fights with foreigners.
It certainly isn't intelligent enough, or well-armed enough, to have any hope of winning an actual civil war.
That's the point. I'd like to see if that happens. I'd bet that nothing violent would happen and if that's the case I see a sad, sad future for all the current democracies in the world.
The only case worse would there being riots, and the government rolling in and declaring some form of martial law while no other nation lends a hand or steps in to sanction the ruing government.
This would prove that either a) the citizens of most western nations will no longer fight for things they believe in, or b) they can no longer fight for what they believe in and no one will aid in defense of the values that western people hold. That's a scary state of affairs.
In my opinion either of those outcomes prove it's ok for any ruling class to bully around the majority and that no one, not even in the international community, will provide them any faults for doing so.
No it will not. Perhaps if it was high turn out and a clear majority but 48/52 is very close and ignoring the result would likely anger leave voters who were overwhelmingly older people. Hardly the type to riot.
I don't think we'd necessarily benefit from a massive u-turn, but I think many leave supporters are disgruntled at what it has now been revealed they were convinced to vote for.
So maybe riots, but also quite possibly not, and not necessarily (as it was put elsewhere in the thread) because people are just rolling over and taking it...