I'm not really sure what your point is here. Politicians, as tragic as they are, can't change peoples minds, yet we should rely on them to change peoples minds? Remainers, outside of politicians, did all we could to try and change minds. But it was never going to happen whilst any objection was simply filed under project fear(now project reality).

I do agree on this point though, Cameron has more responsibility for brexit than any other politician with maybe the exception of johnson and farage. He is a weasel of the highest order.

A lot has to happen to make the above true, seems a stretch to assume had some politicians been more actively positive about the EU during the years prior to the referendum Leave would have been absolutely blown out of the water with no chance, maybe no chance of ever existing, given as we all agree, on the influence of Murdoch et al.

Its a bold claim that needs a lot of work.

It's drivel, lets face it. A massive reach to somehow lay the blame on remainers for not fighting hard enough.

Project Fear wouldn't even be a thing if such a claim were true.

The point is that on aggregate hearts and minds are won over long periods of time by arguments and actions.

Letting them get set for decades and then trying to change them quickly is awful politcs. Especially when it's all about price with lots of name calling.

Ok so let never bother to even try, Do **** all and hope for the best. Still we get to blame the other side which is nice.

I disagree that is what politics is about. ymmv

but you may be right. Maybe arguing for what we want, tackling murdoch/etc, arguing for immigration, tackling inequality etc etc wouldn't help at all. I cant prove it would help - maybe it would be worse.

Ahh, in that case we definitely have a fundamental disagreement. Can you point to discontent with the EU prior to 2015? Maybe i'm completely in the wrong here but I don't recall any anti-EU sentiment before the right wing press started pushing it. am I wrong here?

2015?

I dont know what to say. I must have grown up in a different timeline

I'd start with the A's but B's work better. Bruges, Bastards, Benn

How about starting with the A's, because the B's make no sense.

If it helps
Bruges was Thatcher's famous speach
Bastards were John's majors 'colleagues'
and Benn was Tony

The same thatcher who championed EU membership?
The same john major who just called the current government corrupt?
Ahh, that Benn. thanks for pointing out the obvious.

Yep. Those

I'm sorry I can't provide an essay on the history of the last 30+ years

For some it goes back to the first referendum and even de gaulle.

And you accuse me of mis representing what you say.

Its an infinity between, hey chez if you are going to claim X leads to leave having no chance, you need to put some bones on X and prove it more robustly and there is no point so lets not bother trying.

Me asking you to show your work at how you arrive at a given opinion is nowhere close to saying lets not bother trying. Sad.

Again saying that Leave could have no chance at all is a bold claim and needs work to establish. That is all.

What is weirder is that just a few posts before this I was arguing that a more effective leave campaign could have won so therefore am of course arguing that bothering is worthwhile.

never said 'no chance'

your turn oaf

Excellent now extrapolate to a few generations of effort instead of waiting until it was like russian roulette. You might even find you agreed with what I said.

No serious chance = no chance seems fair to me.

You cant win without a serious chance, which effectively is the same as no chance.

Again with the oaf, your hypocrisy is merely tedious.

lol ok that's really silly

Boris did his part in 2013 when he told sky news he wold vote to stay in the EU fwiw.

And here we predictably are again.

You cant back up your claim so its name calling time, even though this is the behaviour you pretend to hate the most.

Yeah okay mate.

You're right there was always a chance. My bad when I said absolutely no chance whatsover. What was I thinking.

Jesus

You can change no chance for no "serious" chance in everything I post and it has absolutely no bearing on the point I am making.

If you want to argue X would remove reduce Leaves chance from win to not serious, you still have to show a lot more work.

To repeat, I am not saying not bother.

ok so hopefully we can move on from the nonsense that 'no serious chance' means 'no chance at all'

I will add 'imo' to the rest. As you agree that bothering would help then I assume you agree to some signifcant extent. If you actually disagree then please say so and maybe we can argue about something.

One point I would make is that a referendum could have been held on a treaty change (or similar) as with many other countries. Then you either win which helps greatly or live to fight another day if you lose. An in/out referendum may have been completely avoided which would make "no chance" of losing it a real possibilty.

Status Quo is often never actively promoted and defended versus campaigns to change it, that is fairly standard.

Even if politicians had been more vocal or what ever I dont think you ever remove the "serious" chance from Leave, but the problem we are now going to have is defining what we mean by "serious" chance, given its such a woolly unspecific phrase.

Again to me and I would suspect most others saying no serious chance is akin to saying very outside chance/big dog at best.

If you google some say 'serious chance' is 20%

I did not know that (or care). I was happy to be woolly as I obviously just mean it would have been far better imo. An opinion I'm fairly sure you basically share as you think bothering would have been worthwhile,

One thing worth pointing out is that bookies gave Leave no serious chance.

So you argued that Leave would not have a serious chance, e.g. somewhat less than 20% but still got upset with me saying no chance.

Ok.

No I was being wolly but holy cow 20% is nowhere near no chance.

If scientists said there's was a 10% chance of runaway climate change if we didn't do something drastic then there will be many who think that means no chance. I'm horrified at the idea that you might be one of them (less horrified as i dont believe you really believe that)