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Originally Posted by JNW1
Appreciate you like the idea of another referendum but even if we had one and the vote went your way what proportion of the UK population do you think genuinely believes in the EU vision of an ever greater political union, etc?
Even in the 2016 referendum I'd venture to suggest a lot of those who voted Remain did so more because they were concerned about the potential economic impact of leaving rather being pro-EU (and I understand that completely as I was very close to being in that category myself). However, if we had another referendum - and sufficient people switched from Leave to Remain to change the result - do you think those people would be changing their minds because they'd suddenly become pro-EU or because they'd decided the economic risks of leaving weren't worth it? Very likely the latter IMO which is hardly a ringing endorsement of the EU and all it stands for; we'd be staying in because it was expedient, not because most of the UK population support the EU (they clearly don't and a further referendum which produced a Remain vote wouldn't change that in my view).
Obviously pro-EU Remainers wouldn't care about the reasons why they won just so long as they did but from an EU perspective why would you want a member of your club who clearly doesn't believe in or share your vision? Guess the answer is that member is a big net contributor to the club's budget and that's reason enough to want to keep them....
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I completely agree. A pretty low proportion of the UK population share the EU goal of ever closer integration. I’m one of those myself. If we had been outside the EU in 2016 with a referendum on whether to join or keep the status quo, I would have opted for the latter.
I voted Remain in 2016 as I doubted that we would be able to negotiate a good exit, and leaving without that would either be a pointless gesture with no major change, or produce a major economic shock. Neither option had any appeal.
Had Europe been on the verge of collapse, that would be the point to negotiate an exit, while they’re on the back foot. Doing it at a time like this was always destined to fail.
Voting Remain in 2016 wasn’t an endorsement of Junker and friends, but choosing the least disruptive and costly option.