I don't tend to vote because of all the corruption and lies in politics, normally i can just ignore it as one useless person after another does nothing they promise, but the referendum was the first time I got involved as it was too important to ignore. I was surprised the politicians still got away with so much corruption and lies for such an important decision. With a lot of people unwilling or unable to educate themselves on the issues involved they were left with distorted tabloids and downright drivel from politicians to get their info. There should have been public service announcements on TV that just gave bitesize facts about the topic so at least some truth would be out there. When ever a politician lied, or bent the truth, an announcement should have come out to translate to real facts. That's the only way the referendum would have been an informed decision. Not saying it would have changed anything but it wouldn't have left such a soar taste.
But that is the whole problem. People don't trust the politicians nor the media nor the experts because there is so much money sloshing around and so many vested interests / agendas that they see everything as spin / lies / misleading whoever says it.
Not just here but all over the western world.
mistrust of politicians is nothing new. Generations have voiced their opinion on politicians lying / not doing what they said they would.
What is relatively new is the mistrust of media which is genuine because even the Beeb will "headline" their reports now and drop context from things when it suits. Brexit just highlighted that.
Mistrust of experts is very new (as in a decade or so) because there have been numerous accounts of research being funded by the very people who it supposed to be researching. vested interests. Like the scientist that was researching into the sugar tax policy that turned out to be receiving "funding" from a soft drinks manufacturer. Like economists that continually get their forecasts / predictions wrong because they can only see narrow fields of outcome.
There are so many "experts" contradicting each others these days that we are killing ourselves eating a certain food or drink one day and the next day we are told we were improving our life chances.
Look at the MMR debacle where an expert has scared a decent percentage of the past generation of parents into not letting their children receive the vaccination. My children did have it but people do not know who to believe.
Politicians have always lied and they continuously don't do what they said they would. What is another new thing is the way they spin and mislead. They sell something to you. Then they do something else and spin that they are doing exactly what they said they would.
So in this day and age of media calling their go-to experts and commentariat to suit, inviting one whacko on from the other side and if any that were invited to speak turn out to contradict the "accepted" viewpoint then they won;t be heard from again. It isn't balanced at all.
I'm not sure how you think there were no public service announcements or "bitesize" informative pieces. The screen media was nothing but that and is nothing but that. BBC "reality check" etc. People just do not believe what they are told anymore.
You must log in or register to see images
I'm not the biggest fan of Aaron Banks. I think he is a slimy smarmy toad. But he was not that far from the truth last week when he called Channel 4 a propaganda channel. BBC is not far behind.
What is for sure. This is not just another election where we say "politicians never do what they say." In those cases they have kaboodles of policy and they might only do a percentage of it. If Brexit doesn't happen now (and Chequers is not Brexit) then a vast swathe of the eligible voterbase will never vote again other than a second referendum (that is what it is, not a "people's vote".) It will be a lower turnout for decades because of it.
You may all say "great stuff, that will leave just liberal and left wing voters." That isn't a positive though in my eyes. It will just marginalise more and more people and even more extremist viewpoints, collectives and organisations (legal or not.)
You must log in or register to see images
As for me. I'm dusting of my Tory membership card ready to vote if given the chance. May is toast now one way or the other.
