It was said that Brexit got more coverage than Bremain... it seems that's true to the extent that we mean newspapers according to several sources... one of which is… but there seems several reporting the same story.. although there IS reason to question the conclusions of this study.. read on if you wish..
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/may/23/study-confirms-that-the-national-press-is-biased-in-favour-of-brexit
But the main point made by several people here was that Brexiters were ill-informed.. just to say then that IF Brexit got more coverage in terms of media articles then we can hardly then say that people were ill-informed... logic.. they had info.. just that there remains a question over the efficacy and accuracy of that info.. In fact most of it was NOT info… it was opinion.. what would or could happen after Brexit was UNKNOWN.. they could guess and scaremonger each other.. but it was essentially an unknown.. very important to remember that..
The article says that most of the coverage was in papers like the Times, and the least coverage was in papers like the Sun.. the article says that the Times had the most balanced presentation...as in it covered both sides fairly.. Personally I ONLY read the Times and I do so for that reason.. I like to see both sides.. but not everyone does… and we know that Not all papers are alike.. it seems some were more in favour of Brexit sure.. in fact if we believe the article MOST of the papers were pro Brexit.... with some notable exceptions… there are two important aspects to this… but again this dispels the myth that it was the common man or populist vote that one... as most of the papers covering Brexit were the *better* quality papers that the common man doesn’t read…
So allegedly the majority of the news coverage was pro Brexit.. one could hardly say people were ill-informed though.. as the issues were covered...on radio, tv and in the papers.. re the papers albeit a bit more pro-Brexit... but to believe this was ALL scaremongering and about immigration.. well it defies logic as these articles did cover all the issues and people were informed about those issues.. This brings me to a big difference between Trump and Brexit.. the papers, so it seems were pro-Brexit in general...the news is very far from supportive of Trump there.. so the papers, supposedly representing the common people, (not quite as I have explained!!) are on the side of Brexit.. but that’s not so with Trump.. so populist? or just a true reflection of what the people believe.. and not just the mythical uneducated ill-informed.. people of all class, and political persuasion. The papers there allegedly represent other than the common man… as the papers are pretty much against Trump.. so a direct similarity would be if the papers there were all PRO Trump.. then we could say that THEY influenced the vote.. that’s not what happened but it’s what is being claimed here re Brexit.. that the papers allegedly influenced the common man and thus the populist vote.
Which brings me to another anomaly.. IF it was the populist vote, aka the common working class man... HOW come it was mainly conservatives who were in the lead of the Brexit campaign? See .. the theory and hype don't add up... If we are to believe it was the uneducated well they don’t Conservative… Conservatives tend to be middle class… richer…not the common man
I maintain that the BBC was pretty fair too.. whenever I heard a debate both sides were included... ..personally that's where I heard the debates and as I say I found it MOST informative.. both sides were represented AND where one side, for example the Bremainers made false claims the Brexiters pointed out the errors... esp where most of the Bremainers argument was about scaremongering.. oh dear what will happen, our economy will crash, etc etc.. so info was there…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/24/dont-blame-bbc-for-brexit-false-balance
If you look at the claims re ill-informed.. many are connected with the EU...most focus on a predicted, (aka scaremongering) crash in the UK economy.. now that isn't fact.. it's scaremongering of the same magnitude as the Brexiters who allegedly went on about immigration. but this wasn't the ONLY reason people voted the way they did.. it was much more...
My own feeling re ill-informed.. based on down on the ground discussions, was that there was info out there.. just people were choosing not to access it… that seems pretty much borne out by the main article… people weren’t interested in accessing info.. and we all felt that both sides lied… now is that anyone’s fault? Is it just human nature? What can you do? Referendums are seeking the will of the people… and there will be all kinds of people including those who don’t take the trouble to find out.. but it wasn’t like ONLY the common man voted or that they were somehow more numerous. Britland is a relatively well educated land.. with a high percentage who have a degree, and of those who don’t have degree level there are many, if not most who have qualifications just under degree level… level 3,4, 5 etc.. it’s relatively rare that someone in the last 30 years or so has no qualifications…so un-educated masses? NO.
As I was happy to explain it's a myth that Brits voted Brexit purely or even largely because of immigration.. sorry those who believe that.. you have been fed over-simplistic hype there.. and there is little real comparison between Brexit and Trump.... Trump makes wild promises he can't keep. Brexit is based on the premise that we can rule ourselves, that the EU hampered our ability to trade outside the EU and tied us into deals that were not necessarily helpful to our economy.. not to mention the amount of money we paid in daily to the EU machine.. So no comparison between Trump’s unrealistic ranting… we were just tired of being ruled by EU laws... which were onerous and prohibitive. we will be free to decide our own rules.. as America is....there's a world of difference between Trump hype money will come pouring in and we will be free to make our own laws again..
I have many friends who are American as we know.. but really we should ask themselves in this.. when Americans think and speak about Brexit.. WHOSE interests are they thinking of? Is it their own? America wanted UK to stay in EU because it served American purposes..e.g. they felt that Brit influence kept Europe stable which in turn helped America.. or they believed it served American purposes anyway. Were Americans really thinking about or caring about good old Britland in their enthusiasm over staying in EU? Americans really wanted to make sure we were ok? hmm? ANyway as we can see we ARE ok so the scaremongering pre Brexit seems to have been misinformation
Below is an interesting site… mixed stuff in there.. critical of the campaign.. BUT on both sides.. and this is kinda what I said.. if Brexiters were ill-informed so were Bremainers… so it would be wholly misleading and incorrect to suggest Brexiters were ill-informed.. cos so were Bremainers. And that’s certainly what I found down here on the ground.. in asking what people were going to vote most just said Bremain because they didn’t know what might happen if we left.. hardly sounds like they were well informed!!. That’s not to say that some did take the trouble to get informed…just no good claiming wide-sweeping things like Brexiters were ill-informed and uneducated… it’s just not so. ALL were ill-informed if anything.
It’s kinda odd that the report says, “The Society are arguing that the EU debate was in stark contrast to the Scottish independence referendum, which featured a ‘vibrant, well-informed, grassroots conversation that left a lasting legacy of on-going public participation in politics and public life’. One wonders if they only said that because they were happy with the outcome of that Scot referendum… Cos if you ask many Scots they would say that the Scottish referendum was bias and that it was based on lies intended to hoodwink the scots… so many of the Scots people think it was NOT well run.. perhaps we should sit back on this one and reflect.. the losing side will often make such claims as that people were ill informed.. as I said if that’s so it was on both sides…and the article agrees… And it sure wasn’t just the common man who voted Brexit .anyway.. we know that .many older people did and many many conservatives..
In the interests of honesty and integrity.. I did see some articles that claimed the outcome was education related… but there’s little proof and when you think about it.. HOW would they know this unless they ask? There’s no way to prove education status from votes.. If I vote Brexit.. how will they know what qualifications I Have? There’s no way… they could look at the last census.. to see if I had recorded what quals I had… but that was a goodly while ago…10 years or so? And I never recorded mine… many others didn’t…. there’s NO way… of tying the two together..
SO to conclude… if people were ill-informed.. this was so both sides..we could debate that.. the reasons behind it and whether people were just not that interested in reading and listening to the debates and info out there.. human nature etc… but it was not just those who voted Brexit.. draw from that what you will but it’s certainly thought provoking.. Info was out there tho… and those who wanted to accessed it…. Tv, especially BBC gave fairly good info… it’s not like BBC is some preferential service that only a privileged few access…if people chose not to access this pretty accessible media then what can you say? I think at the end it was the will of the people to leave EU.. is this a populist vote? Well no, not according to the criteria that the common man somehow takes over… in this we know that wasn’t the case.. it was mostly older people who voted Brexit…. And they weren’t defined by class… or political persuasion.. so conservatives were VERY into Brexit…traditionally the better educated, which tend to be from the other than working class vote conservative….I could say more.. I would say more… but I am not sure there’s any point as I am not sure people are really all that interested… I’ve observed you can tell someone something.. but they seem to completely ignore that… and say what they said originally, even though it’s been pretty much overturned… so I guess the conclusion is.. what’s the point.. I’ve done all I can do… people will continue to believe what they believe regardless…
It's late evening in Britain.
Benedict Arnold 