Independent: Ask a stupid question: Brexit and the history of referendums

The biggest question that emerged at last week’s conference on referendums at New York University was how to understand what people meant when they voted. [...]

Another finding was that dissatisfaction with the government was not significantly correlated with Brexit voting: the British referendum at least does not seem to have been hijacked as a protest vote against the incumbent government.  [...]

Vaizey traced the causes of the Brexit vote from David Cameron’s decision to pull out of the EPP, the EU-wide grouping of centre-right parties, when he ran as leader. The appetite for a referendum was whetted by the supposed betrayal of the promise of one on the Lisbon Treaty (Eurosceptics paid no attention, Vaizey said, to the “small print” of Cameron’s promise: “...unless it has already been ratified”). Plus there was the “relentless blaming of the EU for absolutely everything that went wrong”.

However, Vaizey said that he didn’t think that ultimately a referendum could have been avoided. He drew a parallel with Scotland, where he said that if London had stood against agitation for devolution and then for an independence referendum, it would only have increased the “pressure-cooker” effect. 

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The Guardian: Gordon Brown: We need a Brexit deal that heals the north-south divide

Remarkable new evidence from a study by the academic Philip McCann, The UK Regional-National Economic Problem, shows that while economic output per head, measured by gross value added, is near £43,000 a year in London – and as high as £135,000 in inner west London – almost half the UK population lives, in regions where output per head is below £22,325.

Indeed the regional divide is so vast that, at £13,500 per person, economic output in Gwent, Wales, is a tenth that of one of the wealthiest part of London; and in the Tees and Welsh valleys it has now fallen below that of Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia.

Of course, in both the north and south we are all better off than 100 years ago, but the divide in income, jobs and pay is increasing faster than ever. Average household incomes in Wales, Northern Ireland and the northern regions of England are around 60% of those in Greater London. Last year, when jobs rose by 277,000 in London they rose by only 1,000 in the north-west and fell by 40,000 in the north-east. In London 10% of workers are officially low paid. In the north the figure is 25%. [...]

All this leaves us with a United Kingdom that is united in name only. Britain now has the most extreme inter-regional inequalities of any country in western Europe, yet the biggest concentration of political power in a centre that is singularly ill equipped to narrow the divide. Quite simply, our London-centric constitution has failed to unlock the potential, unleash the enterprise, or even meet the needs and aspirations of, our northern regions.

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Nautilus Magazine: How Your Brain Decides Without You

We form our beliefs based on what comes to us from the world through the window of perception, but then those beliefs act like a lens, focusing on what they want to see. In a New York University psychology laboratory earlier this year, a group of subjects watched a 45-second video clip of a violent struggle between a police officer and an unarmed civilian.3 It was ambiguous as to whether the officer, in trying to handcuff the person resisting arrest, behaved improperly. Before seeing the video, the subjects were asked to express how much identification they felt with police officers as a group. The subjects, whose eye movements were being discretely monitored, were then asked to assign culpability. Not surprisingly, people who identified less strongly with police were more likely to call for stronger punishment. But that was only for people who often looked at the police officer during the video. For those who did not look as much at the officer, their punishment decision was the same whether they identified with police or not. [...]

A recent study by Kara Federmeier and colleagues hints that something similar goes on in our formation of memories.5 They considered the example of someone with a mistaken belief about a political candidate’s policy stance, like when most people incorrectly thought Michael Dukakis, not George Bush, had declared he would be the “education president.” Studying subjects’ brain activity via EEG, they found that people’s “memory signals” were much the same toward the incorrect information as they were toward the things they correctly remembered. Their interpretation of the event had hardened into truth. [...]

None of which bodes well for the idea that policy or other debates can be solved by simply giving people accurate information. As research by Yale University law and psychology professor Dan Kahan has suggested, polarization does not happen with debates like climate change because one side is thinking more analytically, while the other wallows in unreasoned ignorance or heuristic biases.9 Rather, those subjects who tested highest on measures like “cognitive reflection” and scientific literacy were also most likely to display what he calls “ideologically motivated cognition.” They were paying the most attention, seeing the duck they knew was there.

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Vox: 6 questions about Washington, DC, statehood you were too disenfranchised to ask

This November, residents of Washington, DC, will vote on whether the District should become the 51st state.

The initiative is very likely to pass, given that statehood polls very well in DC. But it also very likely won't go into effect: The results aren't legally binding, and the referendum would require congressional approval — something that's almost certainly not going to happen.

Still, DC's lack of statehood affects every single law, even the budget, passed by the DC Council and voters. It also means the roughly 650,000 people living in DC — more than the population of Vermont or Wyoming — don't have full congressional representation, since only states get voting representatives in the US House and Senate.

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The Guardian: ‘I hate this beard. By God, I hate it’: Iraqi men celebrate their freedom by shaving

Isis implemented numerous absurd policies, often claiming their strict rules to be rooted in Islam. These included bans on smoking, watching football and wearing clothes with logos, as well as enforcing compulsory beards for men. [...]

As the Iraqi security forces proceed through Mosul, meeting resistance as they liberate Isis-controlled areas, civilians flee to secured Iraqi internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in order to avoid further conflict. For most of the men in the camps, this freedom means the chance to shave their scruffy, unkempt beards.

To provide for the needs of the IDPs, four young hairdressers from nearby Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan have travelled to the Hassanshama camp, sponsored by the Kurdish media group Rudaw. “I have come here as a volunteer,” says Dyar Stayl, a 25-year-old barber who runs his own shop. “This was illegal in Mosul and we are here to help.”

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