[ben_w]

Loss of sovereignty in particular was a fictional concern in regards to the EU, given the structure of the EU and the relatively high power of the UK within it. The degree to which the EU should be made more democratic is precisely the degree to which it remains exactly what leave campaigners said they wanted to replace it with: a traditional boring free trade agreement in the hands of negotiators appointed by the governments of the member states.

"High" migration likewise had nothing much to do with EU membership, as the government demonstrated precisely by following Brexit with, as you say, record high immigration.

One of the other famous big concerns Leave campaigners had was the cost, which famously became the £350 million a week on the side of a bus. This number was even called out as a falsehood at the time, but it was believed by enough to make a difference.

Remainers were unable to convince the majority that the benefits of EU membership was worth the cost, financial or otherwise, regardless.

[mytailorisrich]

It is patently false that the loss of sovereignty is fictional. There is a loss of sovereignty by definition when the EU is a political entity with the power to enact laws. The issue is even being raised with a (growing) part of public opinion throughout Europe, and it continues today in the UK with, for instance the ECHR.

It is also patently false that immigration had nothing to do with EU membership. The surge of immigration from Eastern Europe was caused by EU membership (although initially the UK government could have imposed limits) and it also highlighted loss of sovereignty as there was nothing the government could do about it because of EU law.

Now, of course the government still controlled, and controls, immigration from outside the EU and they demonstrated that they were in fact in favour of high immigration despite what they said. This is a major cause of people voting for Reform UK instead of the Conservatives as already mentioned several times. That's why I have been saying that the result of this year's general election is a continuation of the issues at play since the Brexit referendum and even before that.

I am quite shocked by the obtuse reactions in this thread. This is still the very narrow-minded view that "we are correct they are wrong" that led to the Brexit referendum's result. Effectively, "we" are smart and correct and "they" are stupid and racist, without any attempts to try to understand the other side's point of view (which does not mean agreeing with it).

As an ironic side note, this is what "diversity" and "neurodiversity" in the workplace is all about: Bringing diverse points of view and listening to them instead of locking ourselves in our certitudes.

[chimprich]

> It is patently false that the loss of sovereignty is fictional.

It is not "patently" false. That is an absolutist view of the type you are complaining about. UK law still had priority: demonstrated by the fact that the UK was able to withdraw from the agreement.

> This is still the very narrow-minded view that "we are correct they are wrong"

You seem outraged by this; why? Why shouldn't we think that we were correct and you were wrong? Presumably you thought you were right and we were wrong.

Anyway, the empirical evidence since suggests that we were correct and you were wrong. Most of the predictions made by Remainers turned out to be correct. Can you accept that?

> Effectively, "we" are smart and correct and "they" are stupid and racist

No one in this thread has claimed this. The official campaign never said this. You are attacking a strawman.

[ben_w]

> There is a loss of sovereignty by definition when the EU is a political entity with the power to enact laws

If you claim that a power granted by the member states themselves, who agree to it specifically as a mechanism to enable decision making, is a "loss" of sovereignty, then democracy — all forms of it, direct or representative — also meets this description.

> and it also highlighted loss of sovereignty as there was nothing the government could do about it because of EU law.

Except for all the ways they could.

In addition to "not actively campaign to be allowed to join the treaty in the first place" (which the UK did, FOM was part of the 1957 Treaty of Rome before the UK joined), "not actively campaign for the EU to get bigger" (which the UK did), "change the rules of the EU" (which the UK did), "not join the Schengen area" (the UK did not join Schengen), and "leave EU" (which the UK did), member states also have the power to specify the rules for anything longer than a typical tourist trip in most of the west would otherwise allow anyway.

See https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A... for the pre-UK state of this rule.

See Chapter III, Article 7, section 1 for what (I think) is the current state: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02...

This would have been a lot easier if the UK hadn't been horrified by the idea of national ID cards that the rest of the continent seems fine with.

What really stopped the UK government from doing anything much about migration — and the reason why they were really "high migration" — is the economic need for all the migrants to do all the work that the UK industries rely on but can't get locals to do for whatever reason.

This is specifically why the UK government did not impose limits to legal immigration routes and instead made empty slogans about stopping boats that didn't even constitute a rounding error compared to everything else.

> This is still the very narrow-minded view that "we are correct they are wrong" that led to the Brexit referendum's result.

I do not group all Leavers into one single category.

Unfortunately, my experience has been that the only thing Leavers have in common is the narrow-minded view that all other Leavers had the same reason for voting Leave as they themselves had. None I've encountered have been willing to engage with the observation that what they want isn't compatible with what other Leavers wanted, and when confronted with unambiguous evidence of this call each other names and denounce that alternative as "not true Brexit".

Some may call this "stupid", but not me. I think it is an unfortunate aspect of the human mind when it comes to politics, a place in which all teams are fallible and none are exempt.

Even at the time of the campaign, I was of the opinion that any who listened to the speeches by Daniel Hannan and was thereby convinced to vote Leave, was neither a fool nor a racist — he has a silver tongue, his words were not those of racism or malice.

On the other hand, those who saw Nigel Farage stand in front of his "Breaking Point" posters and thought "yes, this speaks to me"… well, one way in which I'd agree with UKIP MP Douglas Carswell is that he called the poster "morally indefensible": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Point_(UKIP_poster)

> Effectively, "we" are smart and correct and "they" are stupid and racist, without any attempts to try to understand the other side's point of view (which does not mean agreeing with it).

From my POV, that describes every Leaver I've ever tried to discuss this with, both before and after the referendum. There was one who said "Brexit will be fine because the EU will give us a good deal", and when I said "no", rather than try to engage or find out why I thought that, replied by shouting "that proves we should leave"; on another occasion, someone else present expressed — as a concern — the belief that Brexit would make Cambridge shrink, his reply was to shout "good"; and after the referendum, he didn't understand why I stopped talking to him and moved out of the country even though I'd already been openly talking of this before the referendum — he was a Cambridge graduate who several times boasted of being in the international maths olympiad, logic goes out of the window when politics gets into the human brain.

Those Leavers who continue to discuss Brexit seem unable to understand why, despite winning the referendum, they didn't get what they thought they were voting for — when those of us who voted Remain knew that what we voted against was in the same general space as the vague incoherent mess that actually happened.

I am willing to believe that those who thought they were getting low immigration would be upset when all the other considerations got in their way; just as those who were promised no change to trading conditions were upset to discover that the EU does in fact have an external border after all and despite claims to the contrary.