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by stranded22 858 days ago
The UK DOES NOT WANT TO LEAVE THE ECHR.

Select people in the government want to, not the whole of UK.

4 comments

To tack onto this I don't think most people in the UK understand what the ECHR does and why leaving the EU didn't alter our obligations under the ECHR.

The media carries a lot of responsibility for that but not all of it - nearly every person in the UK carries a little box with access to a huge chunk of the sum total of all human knowledge, they just choose to not to use it.

If that sounds elitist or arrogant it's because I've about reached my limit with ignorant people refusing to understand the world is messy and complex.

It doesn't sound elitist or arrogant - quite the opposite. It just assumes that people know what's true and what's not up front, and know when the media is telling them the truth. Their little box doesn't only tell them true things.
Good clarification.

Personally I just hope we can remove those “select people” from office before they can actually carry out their plan.

You can’t remove the administrative state. It’ll be happy to sustain the illusion of “democracy” for you by throwing a few of its representatives under the bus every now and again, but in the end all of the candidates you get to vote for are 100% acceptable to the administrative state and are anointed by it.
The coverage I heard on the BBC and NPR in the States about Brexit and UK public sentiment was a complete inversion of reality. I'm reluctant to believe anyone telling me what the UK wants.
Nobody really knows what public sentiment is in the UK, because nobody is asking. They're all just telling the people what they 'want'.

The sample sizes for any polls are tiny, and the areas/people that are sampled are not comprehensive.

It's fairly likely that the people (or a majority of) want the Tories out, as all sides are suggesting that and it's about the only consensus we see.

Brexit was such a mess of misinformation and rushed voting, on something that the majority of people had no idea 'what' they were really voting for, that it should never have been taken as binding - and it probably wouldn't have been if the remain vote won.

At this point, it's unclear if the UK will start to even recover in the next 5 years, or just keep getting worse.

I think it is more correct to use 'UK' (or any other country) just for government and its institutions than for the body of its citizens.
I think the post you're replying to is rightfully observing that that semantic ambiguity creates harm, by equating the position of a country's government to the position of a country's people. Being more specific and saying "a faction within the UK government wants to..." seems like a better framing for any discussion.
A minor quibble. The UK is a 'state', not a 'country'.

It comprises of countries: Scotland, England, Wales, and a small chunk of Ireland.

As recognized by the rest of the world, the United Kingdom actually is a country.

Internally may be different, but technically it is a country.

A political union of four member countries — but still recognized as a country.

International football being one exception to this.