Democracy Doesn't Work

[SANTAN]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22382098

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, Jacksgranda said:

Probably because prior to 2016 those who opposed/questioned/were ambivalent to EU membership had nowhere to express their concerns, as all the major parties were in favour of retaining our membership (albeit with dissenters within their ranks).

They had when they were asked by a pollster.

[coprolite]

13 hours ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

Again, naive. Some form of UKIP/Brexit party have been around electorally since the mid 90's.

Leave has polled as high as 56% way back in 2010 and 2012.

 

 

13 hours ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

We could always just go by actual polls m80.

 

1 hour ago, The Skelpit Lug said:

If you think the question of EU membership wasn't a live political issue until five years ago, then your research skills are suspect.

There's some truth to what Pep is saying here. Although the proportion of people wanting out of europe has been quite significant since the 70s, the amount people cared about it was low until the referendum. 

Europe might have been important to people with an interest in politics but they are quite sparse. 

Here's a graph i found. 

I've seen similar elsewhere which basically argues that the above variation is mainly caused by media coverage. Not reflected, as the media like to pretend. 

[Jacksgranda]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

They had when they were asked by a pollster.

They don't poll the whole country.

I've never been polled about my voting intentions or political concerns.

[welshbairn]

Just now, Jacksgranda said:

They don't poll the whole country.

I've never been polled about my voting intentions or political concerns.

They aim for a representative sample, it would be a bit pricey to poll 68 million people.

[Gordon EF]

6 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

https://qz.com/1725402/only-5-percent-of-brits-cared-about-the-eu-before-brexit/

There's a real danger in figures like these. Just because the majority didn't think EU membership was one of the most important political issues didn't mean people never cared about it or had an opinion on it.

Personally, I think it's far more likely that there was always a large but fairly latent opposition, or at least ambivalence, towards EU membership that built up into outright and vocal opposition once the issue was actually placed front and centre of British politics.

[coprolite]

51 minutes ago, strichener said:

It was one of the main issues during John Major's government.  Eurosceptics were emboldened after with the government at the time only having a majority of 18 suffered a defeat on the second reading.

It was, but it was electoral poison because the demos didn't care about it. The difference with now is that it was the obsession of the political class only and alienated supporters who couldn't see the relevance to their lives. The tory press had yet to perfect the xenophobic scare story and relied on shite about bendy cucumbers and those dastardly germans making us put meat in sausages. 

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

There's a real danger in figures like these. Just because the majority didn't think EU membership was one of the most important political issues didn't mean people never cared about it or had an opinion on it.

Personally, I think it's far more likely that there was always a large but fairly latent opposition, or at least ambivalence, towards EU membership that built up into outright and vocal opposition once the issue was actually placed front and centre of British politics.

The Murdoch press especially ran a 30 year long campaign against the EU because it resisted his attempts at broadcasting monopolies. I think people found it easier to say they were anti EU than anti immigrant, thus the switch.

[coprolite]

 

12 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

There's a real danger in figures like these. Just because the majority didn't think EU membership was one of the most important political issues didn't mean people never cared about it or had an opinion on it.

Personally, I think it's far more likely that there was always a large but fairly latent opposition, or at least ambivalence, towards EU membership that built up into outright and vocal opposition once the issue was actually placed front and centre of British politics.

I'm not sure why you think that that's a danger in these figures.

In conjunction with the % opposition figures quoted earlier in the thread, what you say is exactly what the graphs imply. 

The interesting question is why something like this comes to the front of people's minds. Is it just some sort of random process, like political brownian motion? Is it because of underlying conditions that make a given issue relevant? Is there some conscious agency driving the agenda change? 

[Gordon EF]

8 minutes ago, coprolite said:

 

I'm not sure why you think that that's a danger in these figures.

In conjunction with the % opposition figures quoted earlier in the thread, what you say is exactly what the graphs imply. 

The interesting question is why something like this comes to the front of people's minds. Is it just some sort of random process, like political brownian motion? Is it because of underlying conditions that make a given issue relevant? Is there some conscious agency driving the agenda change? 

I just mean that it's incredibly easy to misinterpret figures like these.

You'll see stats like these continually used to push the narrative that people don't care about an issue at all. It's the same for Scottish independence. A poll will show that only a minority prioritise the issue of independence / the union above health, education, the economy, etc and people insinuate that it's therefore not an important issue.

Issues like the EU or independence especially don't exist in a vacuum. Most people who have an opinion on independence probably see either independence or the continuation of the union as a means to an end regarding the economy, health, education, etc. So independence is a connected issue to all of these things. It's the same with Brexit.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Gordon EF

[Wee-Bey]

28 minutes ago, coprolite said:

 

 

There's some truth to what Pep is saying here. Although the proportion of people wanting out of europe has been quite significant since the 70s, the amount people cared about it was low until the referendum. 

Europe might have been important to people with an interest in politics but they are quite sparse. 

Here's a graph i found. 

I've seen similar elsewhere which basically argues that the above variation is mainly caused by media coverage. Not reflected, as the media like to pretend. 

The massive drop off of 'immigration' at the same time as the massive rise of 'brexit/eu' here is pretty telling no ?

[Gordon EF]

2 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

The massive drop off of 'immigration' at the same time as the massive rise of 'brexit/eu' here is pretty telling no ?

Exactly. You could look at that graph and say people stopped caring about the economy in 2008. They didn't. They just called it "the financial crisis" instead.

[coprolite]

Just now, Gordon EF said:

The danger is in misinterpretation. You'll see stats like these continually used to push the narrative that people don't care about an issue at all. It's the same for Scottish independence. A poll will show that only a minority prioritise the issue of independence / the union above health, education, the economy, etc and people insinuate that it's therefore not an important issue.

Issues like the EU or independence especially don't exist in a vacuum. Most people who have an opinion on independence probably see either independence or the continuation of the union as a means to an end regarding the economy, health, education, etc. So independence is a connected issue to all of these things. It's the same with Brexit.

With you now.

I guess there's a danger that any information could be misused in that way, but i see your point. 

[Gordon EF]

5 minutes ago, coprolite said:

With you now.

I guess there's a danger that any information could be misused in that way, but i see your point. 

True. One graph or stat can rarely be used to give the whole picture. But these kinds of stats are particularly easy to misinterpret as these issues are so interconnected, meaning there's so many other relevant variables that can't be shown.

[strichener]

50 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

https://qz.com/1725402/only-5-percent-of-brits-cared-about-the-eu-before-brexit/

Interesting selection of dates.  This would look decidedly different if it went back another 15 years.

[coprolite]

14 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

The massive drop off of 'immigration' at the same time as the massive rise of 'brexit/eu' here is pretty telling no ?

Yes it is.

One thing it says to me that a lot of people who thought the EU was less important than brown neighbours were persuaded that leaving the EU would mean no more immigration. 

What does that shift say to you? 

[Wee-Bey]

I would agree that the EU, or leaving it was a pretty minor issue in Scotland outside of the farming and fishing communities. 

Clearly not so in England though over the past 2 decades, where entwined as it is with 'concerns about immigration', it's caused massive rifts in the tory party, support in local elections for far right parties, and Brexit/Ukip parties comfortably coming 2nd or 3rd in European elections.

I think that opinions here are clouded by the fact we had a hegemonic  Europhile Labour party for a good chunk of the start of the century, who also enjoyed a certain level of media support from Murdoch. 

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, strichener said:

Interesting selection of dates.  This would look decidedly different if it went back another 15 years.

It shows that the referendum wasn't a response to a rising groundswell of hostility to the EU, it was to bring to an end the civil war in the Tory party and the threat of UKIP poaching their votes.

[Wee-Bey]

3 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Yes it is.

One thing it says to me that a lot of people who thought the EU was less important than brown neighbours were persuaded that leaving the EU would mean no more immigration. 

What does that shift say to you ?

That leaving the Eu and immigration are so closely linked that having them as separate options on that poll is slightly misleading.

[welshbairn]

5 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

That leaving the Eu and immigration are so closely linked that having them as separate options on that poll is slightly misleading.

I wonder how that happened.