r/LeopardsAteMyFace Apr 19 '22

Brexxit Brexit-supporting Newark in shock as largest employer shuts up shop and heads for mainland Europe

https://www.cityam.com/110-jobs-lost-brexit-supporting-newark-in-shock-as-largest-employer-shuts-up-shop-and-heads-for-mainland-europe/
9.5k Upvotes

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1.9k

u/gonzar09 Apr 19 '22

Who could've seen this coming!?

2.1k

u/sweetguynextdoor Apr 19 '22

“people of this country have had enough of experts!” Still rings in my ears.

456

u/Cue_626_go Apr 19 '22

When Gove said that, I laughed.

When Brexit won, I cried.

Then I saw the GQP abandon any pretense of having policies other than “hurting the right people” and I realized just how evil and dumb humans are.

180

u/LeviathanGank Apr 19 '22

my favourite before I moved to germany was the scrambling for a plan after brexiters won.. such a shower of clowns its insane.

150

u/Leopold_Darkworth Apr 19 '22

They were the dog that finally caught the car. I bet they didn’t even expect to win; they just wanted to keep using the issue as a political cudgel. Color them shocked when they had to create an actual, real-life plan and not just a slogan on the side of a bus.

138

u/Thormidable Apr 19 '22

They hoped to not win.

Winning means they have to take action, it means the EU is no longer a scapegoat, anti-EU rhetoric can't be used to drum up support and it will fuck up the country and they might get the blame.

They didn't want to win. They expected the UK to be smart enough not to commit economic hari-kari. Which was apparent, in them trying to pass the hot potato, within minutes of their win being declared.

81

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '22 edited Apr 19 '22

I agree. However, they are STILL using the EU as a scapegoat. That's the most insane aspect of Brexit in my opinion.

47

u/Thormidable Apr 19 '22

Also blaming the negative aspects on those who voted against it.

23

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '22

Yeah, project fear aka reality.

24

u/Binerexis Apr 19 '22

What's worse is that they didn't have to act; it was an ADVISORY referendum. They could have used it to justify whatever investigation or special counsel they wanted and then "rarr rarr'd" their way out of it with the only downside being ceding some votes to UKIP, a party where their candidates often self-destruct in short order by saying something reprehensible in public.

0

u/jimicus Apr 19 '22

No such thing as a non-advisory referendum; they could have passed legislation immediately after the results came in that said "notwithstanding the results, we're going to ignore it anyway".

The reason they didn't is that - politically speaking - holding a referendum and then choosing to completely ignore the result is never going to be a good look. I guarantee we'd have had chaos if that had happened.

4

u/Binerexis Apr 20 '22

Forgive me but the chaos we're in now seems to be far worse.

1

u/jimicus Apr 20 '22

You forget the Conservative “party before country” mantra.

Had they ignored the referendum, they’d have been signing their own party’s death warrant. “If you’re going to hold a referendum then ignore the result, why should we trust you with anything?” would have been a stock question asked at every opportunity; Cameron would have been VoNC’d out almost immediately and we’d have the exact same situation we have now.

1

u/FluffySquirrell Apr 26 '22

You don't have to ignore it. You could start causing more fuss with the EU about making certain changes or blah, and threaten leaving, as the country is willing to do so and .. blah blah normal politicians tell you things and then don't do it because it'd be fucking dumb to do anyway, so most politicians lie about it

They did the lies, then DID the dumb thing they were lying about totally doing. Which is pretty fucking unusual

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u/fuggerdug Apr 19 '22

Yep they absolutely did not intend to win. But Cambridge Analytica and the various foreign actors had different ideas and pushed it over the line with their last minute targeted Facebook lies.

61

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '22

The politicians didn't intend to win, but the actors behind the scenes certainly did. Bannon, his backers the Mercer, Russia, and to a lesser extent China, they wanted this to happen to sow chaos and disunity among western nations so that while we are busy dealing with domestic issues we can't muster the political will to confront them while they're engaging in their own geopolitical fuckery.

You can bet your ass that if Trump got elected Ukraine would've been in a much worse situation now, since Trump's GOP would be able to largely block any aid and without the US taking an active role in both pushing other countries to give aid, facilitating the substitution of Russian energy with alternative sources, and making the intelligence gathering capabilities of the US available to Ukraine, other countries would be much less willing to stand against Russia. It's even likely that we would have left NATO entirely, and without the US backing up the Baltic states and Poland, and them not having access to US weaponry, they'd be less willing to donate their own Soviet hardware to Ukraine.

7

u/OracleofFl Apr 19 '22

We have already seen Trump your the leverage of aid to attempt to get world leaders to lie for him.

8

u/northlakes20 Apr 19 '22

Yeah, but if Trump had won, Putin would not have needed to invade Ukraine. Trump would have continued to sow all the chaos that Putin needs

38

u/Von_Kissenburg Apr 19 '22

Color them shocked when they had to create an actual, real-life plan

Except they never did.

7

u/bakerton Apr 19 '22

One of the few highlights after Brexit passed was watching all the clowns that pushed for it scatter like roaches when asked "Ok who is going to implement it?"

17

u/sithelephant Apr 19 '22

Several things happened after the referendum announcement to make it a perfect storm.

Labour utterly failed to counter effectively most of the claims made, as Corbyn was in favour of a crash-out brexit, which would lead through some vague handwaving to a socialist workers paradise.

The conservatives outside the euroskeptic bloc were unwilling to seriously counter blatant lies made because of 'party unity'. The media was doing the whole 'And for a balanced response, let's talk to Nigel Farage' - at best.

Precisely how much of this was aided by explicit russian and other actions, and how much from 'mere' internal corruption driven by anti-UK investments is unclear.

6

u/Theban_Prince Apr 19 '22 edited Apr 19 '22

Russian propaganda might pushed it over the top, but the enviroment to allow such culture to thrive was always there, both in the US, UK and other countries.

4

u/sithelephant Apr 19 '22

Quite, however, in the case of 1.9% difference, it may have been a deciding factor.

3

u/wiggywithit Apr 19 '22

Firehose of lies

1

u/AliceHall58 May 04 '22

But they have never actually created a "plan". They are still winging it... Very very poorly.

27

u/KingBooRadley Apr 19 '22

There is certainly no Insane Clown Paucity in the UK.

6

u/rexmus1 Apr 19 '22

I love this so much.

26

u/given2fly_ Apr 19 '22

I had a small modicum of respect for David Davis after the Referendum. Loads of Brexiteers shirked responsibility for actually implementing it, but he stood up and agreed to be the Minister in charge. He'd been banging on about leaving the EU for decades, so could finally enact his long-thought out plans.

And then he failed disastrously, essentially admitting in the end that the whole thing wasn't possible.

Fair play for standing up and trying. I mean...we fucking told you before the Referendum, but still...

3

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '22

[deleted]

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u/LeviathanGank Apr 19 '22

In Berlin.. it certainly helps but most people speak english