So little England you couldn't find it with an electron microscope

[nineveh_uk]

I am sure that there are reasonable arguments that can be made in favour of the UK leaving the EU. They aren't arguments with which I'd agree - for all its manifest flaws, the EU is an institution I support in principle and think benefits the UK in practice - but I will acknowledge that they could be made.

The following is not a reasonable argument for leaving the EU:

There are secret plans to change the name of south-east England to "North France." It's already started. There used to be a sign at Exeter that said "Gateway to Devon", but now it says "Regional Capital".

Apparently Germany is plotting to rule us all, too. Call me sceptical, but it was my impression Angela Merkel had enough on her plate without plotting to invade Belgium.

Yes, I made the mistake with engaging with a local Brexit stand. Reasoned argument was not on the agenda. Straight up bigotry, conspiracy theory, and platitudes of "We should rule ourselves!" were.

I really, really don't want to go leafleting. And yet...

Comments

[legionseagle]

Given Chiantishire and the Costa del Crime, I think turnabout is fair play, tbh.

Also, are you aware that thanks to yet another of those meddling bits of red tape all new build European cars will have automatic accident notification telemetry from 2018? What a Europe, where you can't even drive off the road in a remote location and linger trapped in horrible agony for hours!

[nineveh_uk]

That's terrible! I demand my right as a proud Briton to be abandoned to die in a ditch.

[white_hart]

If "They're are" is a verbatim quote and not an unfelicitous autocorrect, I will have to add illiteracy to my list of reasons to uterly diskard the Leave campaign.

I have had emails inviting me to volunteer to leaflet, but apart from the total absence of the time/energy to do that I'm not convinced that anyone actually reads leaflets. I know I just put them straight in the recycling...

[nineveh_uk]

No, that was my using my proof-reading mojo for the week on the ROD report :-)

I have got a poster and some stickers, I suppose that is something. I can't leaflet next weekend anyway, so I'm going to leave it for a week and then see if they are crying out for people still.

[antisoppist]

We have only had people in the square leafletting to make people register to vote at all. The battle here is against apathy. It was the Leave people behind this and I nearly went to help last weekend but was too busy translating Swedes telling the international community to sit down and talk to each other and reach consensus on human rights and economic and social rights, where consensus means thinking about them the way Sweden does. There are worse things than being told what to do by Sweden. You know, like war and stuff.

[nineveh_uk]

I don't know if anyone has polled much on turnout, but it definitely worries me on the Remain side.

Perhaps the Swedish government should come up with a franchise system where countries get to run their own local Sweden along the original's tried and tested method? Mind you, I hear the Swedish church is having an expenses scandal, so perhaps you could get something on that to translate that would be less smug.

[antisoppist]

I meant it was the Remain people behind this but can't edit it now.

One of my worries is that on the day I will have a brainstorm and tick the wrong box.

[nineveh_uk]

Every time I vote I read the whole ballot paper very carefully, read the version I have marked over several times very carefully, and still worry a bit when I leave that I accidentally made a mistake.

[aella_irene]

Apparently my sister left her first election having nearly voted for the wrong party before she thought to read the whole party name instead of just part.

[nineveh_uk]

Eek! Party names are confusing, I sympathise with people who find themselves going "hang on, are they really called that?" Hence the particular nastiness of the Literal Democrats.

[littlered2]

I got a postal vote for this election (bizarrely. I asked for one for the London mayoral election and they put me down for this one as well) and despite the presence if only two boxes, was deeply concerned I might be having some sort of comprehension problem and have voted Leave by mistake.

[caulkhead]

Last time I was in Kensington, there appeared to have been an invasion of upscale French bakeries.

Doubtless it is all part of a sinister Plot, but I cannot regard it as a bad thing. Bad caulkhead, no biscuit.

[nineveh_uk]

I'm sure that admitting the odd Frog is all right as long as they know their place and don't try to tell us what to do.

[ankaret]

What?

No one tell this person about the existence of several places called Petty France. It would only encourage them.

Also, it occurs to me that if Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and the rest are that annoyed about unelected people in power, they could start at home with the House of Lords.

I would also be depressingly unsurprised if Leave happened. My parents keep complaining that all their friends are Leave, even the usually left-wing ones, and older people are more conscientious about going out and voting.

[nineveh_uk]

they could start at home with the House of Lords

Damn! Why didn't I think of that this morning?

I think they were the first IRL people I'd met for Leave, but then everyone at work wants to keep our research funding.

[sir_guinglain]

I enjoyed some solidarity with the Lib Dem councillors on their In stand in Woodstock today; but in Chipping Norton, Grassroots Out seemed to be doing fairly well.

[nineveh_uk]

I'd not come across Grassroots Out before. Not sure who these people were, lots of red, white and blue. Oh God, it's not encouraging.

[sir_guinglain]

They are the group (as you probably found out) backed by Farage and the various veteran Tory Eurosceptics like Bill Cash and Peter Bone, plus George Galloway.

I saw some of the repeat of the 1975 referendum results coverage, when Scotland was the Eurosceptic part and England was breaking at least 2:1 for Europe. The past is another country, etc...

[ironed_orchid]

The North France thing sounds like someone read a satire and took it seriously.

[nineveh_uk]

That feels disturbingly plausible.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

You think that's bad---think how I feel if I'm forced to engage with a Trump supporter...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's worse. *tea* and *chocolate biscuits* all round, I think.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Is that *foreign* tea???

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Er ... er ... er ... nope! Genuine Cornish tea! Or, maybe, St Helena tea! (which counts as British).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

St Helena tea it is!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

You win! Though I fear it is a Pyrrhic victory.

[snorkackcatcher]

There are secret plans to change the name of south-east England to "North France." It's already started. There used to be a sign at Exeter that said "Gateway to Devon", but now it says "Regional Capital".

O_O That is ... I got nothing.

There ought to be a sign: "Brexit Campaign. Twinned with Trump 2016."

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that at that point I lost my pretense at reasoned response and just said "I'm sorry, but that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard".

[ylla.livejournal.com]

But the north-west of France is already called Small Britain. You can't have it both ways!

[ylla.livejournal.com]

(Unless we're already called Large Brittany. Don't tell them that! Or maybe do, and see if their brains explode.)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Oh! The thousand-year conspiracy is revealed at last!

[ylla.livejournal.com]

The more I think about the Exeter thing the more confused I get, though - it's not even in the south-east! Unless the EU also has powers to rearrange English geography?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Well clearly making sense was not high on this person's list of priorities.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I will add "changing the names of regions of its members" to the list of "Powers I didn't know the EU had". The Vote Leave leaflet I received in the post recently was a mine of new and surprising information! (Apparently leaving the EU would allow us to make our own laws! There I was thinking we did plenty of that already.)

I have already sent off a postal vote for Remain, and am trying to be optimistic. I saw a local Brexit stand in town yesterday, though, who were probably peddling much of the same nonsense as your lot.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

As another person there informed me when I said that I thought it was unlikely, "It's called a Project. You'll see."

[azdak.livejournal.com]

What is wrong with the world??? Is it something in the water that's turned millions of people completely stupid? I can totally understand being fed up with the status quo - I am myself - but choosing to believe self-evident idiocies isn't an improvement!!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Insufficient environmental pollution, perhaps? After all, if the EU has encouraged cleaning up air/water it must be bad, and they are the living proof!

I am furious with complacent global political establishments that too often seem content with the worst aspects of the status quo, with the ones who aren't, but fail to act effectively to change it, and sympathise with an impression, at any level, of 'government by the politicians, for the politicians'. But for crying out loud, people, the answer is not to reject one kind of bullshit to guzzle down a worse!