Brexit: The DT Poll

[adhoc]

Well, I would admit I may over exagerate the situation and am paranoid about it, but you gotta admit most people are way too relaxed with their private information, no?

[Muirium]

Christ, how I hate that modern epidemic of asking questions in the format of: "statement, no?" I'm no grammar Nazi (hell, in most cases in writing I'm a descriptivist, not a prescriptivist) but that just breaks my reading.

Anyway, most people are lazy ignorant fools. Always have been, always will be. It's humanity's comfort zone! They'll peck whatever you care to give them.

[adhoc]

Can you explain why?

[Muirium]

Which thing and which part?

[adhoc]

Why is this sentence structure bothersome? English isn't my native tongue, it's one of the 4 languages I speak, so whenever I get a chance to improve on one of them, I'll take it. Especially from one of the natives.

[Muirium]

Although I'd like to lecture you about how bad that ",no?" trick is, I know I'm on the losing side of a battle inside the English language right now. It's everywhere! Seems to be the height of fashion for "millennials". Or so I hear older people than me complain. I've never really belonged to a "generation" myself. In Britain, there aren't clear lines. Just a huge number of baby boomers, and all their wildly differently aged kids!

Anywho, it's a gut thing. Whenever I read that structure, because I can't accept the tone it has when actually spoken, my inner voice reads along as a statement until tripping up on the comma-no-question mark combo. So I honestly don't even expect the question at the end. Then I'm cross and confused, and want to wander on up to the person in question and answer something quite besides their point, in something other than words.

I get like that about keyboards, too. It's a Scottish thing.

[adhoc]

Interesting. Thanks.

I'm for lingua franca, especially Europe needs it.

[Halvar]

It's about time for "isn't it?" to be phased out, n'est-ce pas? That sounded old-fashioned 30 years ago, vero?

[Muirium]

Yeah. It's a bit old mate, innit.

[seebart]

Well, I would admit I may over exagerate the situation and am paranoid about it...

This is your best single sentence in this entire thread sofar. Honest, not dickish like 50% of the rest...

but you gotta admit most people are way too relaxed with their private information, no?

Not here at DT.

[adhoc]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 75131.html

[seebart]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 75131.html

Exclusive: polling carried out for ‘The Independent’ shows that 55 per cent of UK voters intend to vote for Britain to leave the EU in the 23 June referendum

Interesting indeed, but the vote is not over yet!

[Muirium]

Cherry picking polls is for the hacks. Remain is the strong favourite. Here's the analyst I trust on the matter:


http://www.ncpolitics.uk/2016/06/brexit ... rite.html/

Matt Singh was the man who saw the error in the polls in England before last year's notorious election fail of theirs. (And I mean England. They actually got Scotland bang on, in that same election.) He's London's Nate Silver!

As for the DT poll: 45 have voted, and there's only 5 votes between the sides. The narrowest it's been yet.

[fohat]

Cherry picking polls is for the hacks.

I think that polls generally skew towards the noisemakers.

[jacobolus]

http://crookedtimber.org/2016/06/10/bre ... y-thought/

At the moment, I’m reading my way through David Miller’s new Strangers in our Midst and also getting very exercised about the UK’s Brexit referendum (to the point where I’m waking at night and worrying about it). My siblings and I have all benefited from the EU’s free movement rights, my children both have non-British EU partners, we think of ourselves as Europeans. So for me, the threat of Brexit is a threat of lost identity, of something that has been there all my adult life just disappearing overnight. And so I’m feeling pretty resentful towards my fellow citizens who might vote to cut that tie and thereby endanger the security and family life of millions of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens elsewhere in the EU.

One of Miller’s arguments is a familiar one about social trust, about how welfare states depend for their stability on such trust and that the increasing diversity that immigration brings tends to undermine support for redistributive programmes. This lack of trust gets expressed in anger about stories that immigrants are ahead in the queue for social housing, that they are a drain on health and education services, that they are getting “something for nothing”, and so forth. Needless to say, most of such stories are false. Nevertheless, there may be elements in the design of the UK’s welfare state and its relatively non-contributory character that fuel such anxieties.

Here’s the thing. Those voting for Brexit out of resentment against immigration are disproportionately the elderly poor whites who don’t pay much in but who benefit from those public services. A predictable consequence of them getting what they want is that the fiscal base for those services will be eroded and that either they will have to be cut or taxes will have to be increased. This is because those EU immigrants are, in fact, paying more in taxes than they are taking in services. (Actually, the UK is free-riding in a big way, as it never paid for the cost of educating and training those workers.)

When I take those political affiliation surveys, I always say I’m willing to pay higher taxes. But now the devil on my shoulder is saying “why should you pay higher taxes to replace the taxes that were paid by EU migrants? Those idiots have brought it on themselves, let them now suffer the consequences”. An ugly thought, but I’m guessing that if I’m having it then I’m not alone. The UK’s EU referendum has eroded social trust more than immigration per se ever did. It poses the question of what citizens owe to one another in pretty stark terms. If people could mitigate the need for higher taxes by accepting immigrants and they choose not to do so, why should their wealthier fellow citizens bear the cost of their choices?

Not that I endorse this logic, but people’s mix of xenophobia and poor reasoning is pretty damn frustrating sometimes.

[Muirium]

I want to believe in Brexit. It'll be so dull if the balance of the polls are right and it doesn't happen. Because I only give a shit about Scotland, and we're voting to Remain in the EU come what borders may!

[adhoc]

Cherry picking polls is for the hacks.

Here's the analyst I trust on the matter

Nice.

I just shared a news article that popped up on my news feed, that's all.

[jacobolus]

adhoc: you seem to lack the vaunted “google skills” you keep demanding of others (actually, in this case it’s not google skills, it’s “skim the linked page, and click the obvious link to the methodology” skills). Either that or you have no idea what “cherry pick” means.

“The latest set of averages is based on a combined sample of 26,362 people and the polling average (see this post for more details) is an aggregation of published opinion polls for the U.K.’s European Union membership referendum. Each poll is adjusted for the house effect of the polling company, with equal weight given to telephone and online polls. Pollsters are also weighted by their historical performance and other criteria, and more recent data is given greater weight. The most recent poll was conducted up to 9th June.”

If you want an even more complete explanation, see here http://www.ncpolitics.uk/2016/04/faq-th ... cast.html/

Mu: 25% chance of Brexit sounds scarily high to me.

[fohat]

Mu: 25% chance of Brexit sounds scarily high to me.

Yeah, me too. If it is just an opportunity for the malcontents to blow off some steam, then they can vent and let it be over.

Unlike in this country, when Trump goes down I have real fear that his angry hordes will go on a scorched earth rampage.

[Muirium]

That's the thing about this vote. It's all about the Tories. To anyone not into London politics: they are the Consevative Party, one of the oldest political organizations on earth, and England's natural party of government; ruling all Britain for many more years than they've ever been out of power, all these centuries. They may have a boring name, but they're actually the media's best friend because of their love of bloodsports. Nothing turns on a Tory better than a good knife fight over their leadership. That's what's going on here. The referendum is a hammer to knock out the anti-Europe wing of the Tory party. We voters are expected to shut up and vote fearfully, like the government and BBC are telling us. So that when the Remain vote comes, Cameron can stain the carpets of Number 10 with the blood of his pal Osborne's slaughtered rivals. Boris Johnson in place of honor!

Trouble is this was an immense strategic error. The Outers aren't going to fall silently. They have the Tory party membership on their side, and could well steal the party away from its bosses even if they suffer a tremendous beating in the referendum. The open Tory civil war of the 1990s has opened back up again.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk ... -civil-war

That means Brexit isn't off the agenda even if the public give it a monumental kicking. Because, dear chap, it's not our country. You see, this is Britain. Our government is truly none of our business! Yet English people honestly ask why me and half of Scotland want out.

[seebart]

Cameron now saying that a (Br)exit would lead to a "black hole" in UK retirement benefits and health system finances. Enough talk to get certain voters worried?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu- ... m-36509931

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/sozial ... 97166.html

[Muirium]

Project Fear has been dialled up to 11 for weeks now. Every day they have some figure like that, and another friendly foreign leader we're supposed to like (Obama, Kofi Annan, Gordon Brown) telling us don't leave. It's as professional as you'd expect from a government organised campaign with all the instruments of the state on board.

And yes it will be the difference between winning and losing for Remain. Sentiment, in England especially, is to hell with Europe. If people didn't think they were taking a risk, Leave would win handsomely.

[Muirium]

Regards cherry picking from the polls, here's the menu. Choose your narrative!



Note the way the polls behave differently when phone or online. The pollsters themselves have doubts about their online panels and so are hedging their bets by running phone polls too.

The difference?

Online polls are answered by large panels of volunteers. Their error margin should be nice and tight because of the sheer sample size. But they have a nasty habit of overstating Ukip (England's anti-EU party) even to the extent of forecasting a seat for them in Scotland. Not even close! Seems that these volunteers are biased towards Ukip voters.

Phone polls call random phone numbers (including cell numbers) and attempt to get answers from unsuspecting members of the public. The response rate is poor, so they're expensive and wind up with smaller sample sizes and therefore higher statistical error. But they seem better at screening out Ukip super fans.

In this contest, the two modes have deviated wildly from each other. The pollsters are having a right headache! But I reckon the phone polls are right in the balance, and that Remain still leads and will win in the final result across England as well as Scotland. Ho hum …

[seebart]

Hmm wonder if that's comprehensive enough, how about some more polls and more extensions.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3103d9be-2c9c ... e3c95.html

[Halvar]

So we have:

UKIP: Leave
Liberals: Remain
Greens: Remain
Labour: Remain
Tories: Remain

Obama: Remain
Clinton: Remain
Trump: Leave
Merkel: Remain
Hollande: Remain
Putin: silent
SNP: Remain, but Brexit could spark Scottish Independence movement again (I'm not sure about the chances of that...)

Even if their campaign is bad, maybe they're right?

[seebart]

So we have:

UKIP: Leave
Liberals: Remain
Greens: Remain
Labour: Remain
Tories: Remain

Obama: Remain
Clinton: Remain
Trump: Leave
Merkel: Remain
Hollande: Remain
Putin: silent
SNP: Remain, but Brexit could spark Scottish Independence movement again (I'm not sure about the chances of that...)

Even if their campaign is bad, maybe they're right?

This is certainly one situation where I'd say that's really difficult to say. Sure, it won't be easy if they leave but who knows how the general EU situation will evolve in the next 5-10 years?

[Muirium]

Both campaigns are bad. It's very much a "two Tories shouting" kind of contest. I get the sense most people here wished we never had the vote in the first place. It's not being framed as an honest question: Which do you prefer? Instead it's more of a: Do you want to jump off a bridge? If the answer is so obvious, why bother everyone even asking?

The SNP is absolutely for Remain. Their leader even represented the Remain side for one of the debates on English TV! Yes, independence supporters like me would like a split result. But you can hardly campaign on that.

Meanwhile, Boris:



And here's a nice wee bit on how Europe itself could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the referendum's aftermath:

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index. ... n-by-that/

Pro tip: don't be jubilant or cocky. It doesn't look good on you!

[andrewjoy]

Another thing to consider about a brexit, in all honesty whats the point ?

What tangible advantage does it give ?

Even if we leave , we still have to trade with europe , they will still be geographically close to the UK so they will be a major partner , we will have to make a trade deal with the EU and all that will do is cost loads and loads and loads of money.

There are trade deals and agreements now that work just fine , and all it costs each person in the UK is £2 a week. Just look at the value we get for that !

I see loads and loads of arguments about why the EU is bad and some of them are even right , but please brexit supporters give me one advantage of not being part of europe thats not , oh well the EU is bad so we should leave!

[Redmaus]

...

[webwit]

You'd get to be ruled by your own muppets instead of muppets you couldn't even vote for, or get rid of, if you wanted to.