European Union Referendum

[Laker]

Again, a second referendum wouldn't be understood. Many leavers feel that the decision has been made to leave the EU, that's the democratic will of the people, so why do some MPs have the right to hold it back?

I keep hearing/reading that many leavers don't want a hard Brexit. Don't they? Practically all those I've spoken to do. And if that question was going to cause such angst as to warrant a second referendum then why was the hard/soft Brexit question not put forward first time round?

In a general election, the winning party forms a government and does what it wants (pretty much). The losers, or supporters of the losers, can complain but they can't do a lot about it. Some leavers would say that same principle applies here so to "drag out" the process feels like it goes against democratic will.

I dunno, I guess I'm more concerned with the bureaucracy of the whole thing and the desire from some remainers not to want to deliver Brexit, regardless of what they actually say publicly.

 

[mowgli]

Labour should be crapping themselves right now as Stoke had an electorate of 67% who voted to leave, how on earth does Corbyn think they can keep the seat? UKIP are not going away and Nuttall must be rubbing his hands in glee.

 

[MJA]

Again, a second referendum wouldn't be understood. Many leavers feel that the decision has been made to leave the EU, that's the democratic will of the people, so why do some MPs have the right to hold it back?

I think things are becoming clearer to people now the talk of soft and hard brexits and what each entails is out in the public domain. And why should a 2nd referendum not be run because it wouldn't be understood when the first one was run under the same thing. Not many people I spoke to in the run up to the referendum could give any real understanding for either argument yet still went ahead and voted one way or the other. Maybe there should have been an extra choice of 'don't have a fucking clue what you politicians are banging on about so can't make a decision' - I am sure that would have run close.

I keep hearing/reading that many leavers don't want a hard Brexit. Don't they? Practically all those I've spoken to do. And if that question was going to cause such angst as to warrant a second referendum then why was the hard/soft Brexit question not put forward first time round?

Most I have spoken to since voting leave have actually said that if they knew then what they know now, they would have voted remain. Regarding the hard/soft side of things, I can't see how pushing for a hard leave in the run up to the referendum would have helped the leave campaigns cause. The fact that we have only found out the leavers are wanting to go down the hard leave route following the result would suggest they knew that it would have created more bad than good for their campaign.

In a general election, the winning party forms a government and does what it wants (pretty much). The losers, or supporters of the losers, can complain but they can't do a lot about it. Some leavers would say that same principle applies here so to "drag out" the process feels like it goes against democratic will.

But with regards to the EU referendum, there is a secondary factor to leaving which wasn't particularly made clear to the voting public before they made their decision. Also the result of a general election is not permanent in the sense that there will be another election in a matter of years whereas there is a good chance that there will be no way back into the EU if this all goes pear shaped. Therefore surely it is only right to ensure that every person has had the right to vote on every factor before this decision goes through

I dunno, I guess I'm more concerned with the bureaucracy of the whole thing and the desire from some remainers not to want to deliver Brexit, regardless of what they actually say publicly.

I am sure there are some out there who are hoping that things such as the supreme court judgement today will delay the entire process of leaving. However, I think most remainers are happy to accept the democratic result but now want to ensure that the process is completed in a manner that meets the needs of the entire UK and not just certain people in powerful places

 

[MJA]

Labour should be crapping themselves right now as Stoke had an electorate of 67% who voted to leave, how on earth does Corbyn think they can keep the seat? UKIP are not going away and Nuttall must be rubbing his hands in glee.

That 67% includes my mother who voted leave because Cameron was backing remain and she didn't like him. Her vote in no way related to the EU, she just saw it as a way of getting him to resign. Wonder how many others voted like this, not just in Stoke (which has it's fair share of Neanderthals with their right wing views) but also around the country

 

[Super_horns]

From what I understand most of the MPs were for Brexit so really all this will mean is that the date of leaving the EU just moves back a bit which I guess won't please some.

I might be totally wrong of course so please feel free to correct me!

 

[Abertawe]

Labour should now be demanding the NHS, vat reduction & other promises that were banded about should be included in any leave. Ideal opportunity to show up the tories & ukip in a manner that can be summed up in headlines..

 

[johnnytodd]

Labour trying to fuck the country up again by delaying things, even the Lib Dems who got less votes than Jimmy Saville in the last election think they should be heard, cry arse shitbags.

Quicker we shut these dole heads and pc pricks up, the better the country will be.

You lost deal with it.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

The government’s Brexit bill passes by 498 votes to 114.

National hero.

 

[silkyman]

That White Paper is a pisstake. Six months to come up with something and it's a smear of shit. The country is in the hands of morons.

This line is particularly fucking abysmal as it just shows up another lie.

"Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that."

So we have regained parliamentary sovereignty for our already sovereign parliament...

It also claims that we get 14 weeks of holiday a year, lists our exports to Serbia and Montenegro which stopped being 'a thing' just over a decade ago barely mentions immigration or key U.K. industries and is full of waffle and words like 'could' and 'might'.

Even the opening statement from Theresa Mayhem is barely in English.

As twitter has commented, if they can't produce a white paper on leaving in six months, how the fuck are they going to negotiate the entire shebang in two years?

Not sure what else you would expect from a document timestamped at 4.17 on Thursday morning, like a student hastily pulling an all-nighter to get his coursework done.

 

[johnnytodd]

That White Paper is a pisstake. Six months to come up with something and it's a smear of shit. The country is in the hands of morons.

This line is particularly fucking abysmal as it just shows up another lie.

"Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that."

So we have regained parliamentary sovereignty for our already sovereign parliament...

It also claims that we get 14 weeks of holiday a year, lists our exports to Serbia and Montenegro which stopped being 'a thing' just over a decade ago barely mentions immigration or key U.K. industries and is full of waffle and words like 'could' and 'might'.

Even the opening statement from Theresa Mayhem is barely in English.

As twitter has commented, if they can't produce a white paper on leaving in six months, how the fuck are they going to negotiate the entire shebang in two years?

Not sure what else you would expect from a document timestamped at 4.17 on Thursday morning, like a student hastily pulling an all-nighter to get his coursework done.

Twitter for Prime Minister then Silky is it.........you bad Texan !

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

14 weeks holiday though. Theresa May: champion of the workers.

 

[silkyman]

Twitter for Prime Minister then Silky is it.........you bad Texan !

Is that even in English?

 

[MJA]

Is that even in English?

We are an independent nation, we shall talk however we like

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

I've no qualms about the result of the vote (I, like probably everyone else, expected a large majority of MPs to vote in favour) but it's surely a rather sad indictment of the Tory party that only dear old Ken defied the whip in order to vote against. I'm rather miffed that rather a lot of MPs (some of them representing Labour, rather than the Conservatives, of course) were quite content to vote against their own conscience and the wishes of their constituents (yes, I'm looking at you Anne Milton, you useless fuck) to gaily plunge the UK into the unknown. Oh well, it's all a matter of public record I suppose...

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

ffs Alty https://www.theguardian.com/busines...d-threatens-craft-beer-revolution-say-brewers

 

[Captain Scumbag]

This line is particularly fucking abysmal as it just shows up another lie.

"Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that."

So we have regained parliamentary sovereignty for our already sovereign parliament...

Parliament remained ultimately sovereign because it retained the power to repeal previously introduced legislation, including that which limits the application of parliamentary sovereignty (e.g. European Communities Act 1972, Human Right Act 1998). Moreover, it obviously has the power to introduce new legislation, thereby giving political, legal and constitutional force to the decision to leave the EU.

That doesn’t mean decision-making powers across a wide range of policy areas weren’t ceded to EU bodies. They were. That there remained an undo button – i.e. a parliamentary route out of that constitutional/legal arrangement – doesn’t make the various EU-sceptic grumbles about that arrangement imaginary. They were/are perfectly valid concerns about Parliament’s (self-inflicted) impotence, ones that for many years politicians seemed uninterested in addressing. The "remained sovereign but it didn’t always seem like it" point you so object to sums it up rather well.

I’m not sure where the lie is. It was never Leave's argument that parliamentary sovereignty had been lost irrevocably. The basic argument was that (1) the extant settlement places unacceptable limits on the application of parliamentary sovereignty, and (2) undoing that requires us to leave the EU.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

ffs Alty https://www.theguardian.com/busines...d-threatens-craft-beer-revolution-say-brewers

Great! A few less craft beer wankers to deal with the next time my wife drags me to Wetherspoon's.

Brexit: the gift that keeps giving.

P.S. Alty’s disappointment will be temporary. He is, as you know, undergoing a slow metamorphosis into a black-hearted conservative. At some point this will involve him ditching gimmicky beer for a proper tipple like 16 year old Lagavulin.

 

[.V.]

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...om-dream-of-britain-as-a-global-trading-giant

 

[Alty]

ffs Alty https://www.theguardian.com/busines...d-threatens-craft-beer-revolution-say-brewers

Fair play. Nothing had even come close to shaking my confidence in the Brexit vote until this. For one fleeting moment I thought, "what have I done?". And then logic set in. I've already seen British beers in trendy beer bars in Copenhagen, Barcelona and San Sebastian. This will surely make British breweries all the more competitive in the export market, giving them more cash to buy whatever ingredients they like.

And even for those smaller breweries that don't export, nowt wrong with getting back to marris otter and goldings rather than relying on German malts or Czech/American hops. Rediscovering your own heritage is not to be sniffed at.

As for you Scumbag...it's obvious I'm on a slow drift to becoming a Tory voter. But don't rub it in, eh? I know that the first time I come back having put an X next to Giles St Farquar's name on the ballot paper I'm going to be in tears despite knowing it was the correct and adult thing to do. Don't make it harder than it has to be, though.

 

[Alty]

That White Paper is a pisstake. Six months to come up with something and it's a smear of shit. The country is in the hands of morons.

This line is particularly fucking abysmal as it just shows up another lie.

"Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that."

So we have regained parliamentary sovereignty for our already sovereign parliament...

It also claims that we get 14 weeks of holiday a year, lists our exports to Serbia and Montenegro which stopped being 'a thing' just over a decade ago barely mentions immigration or key U.K. industries and is full of waffle and words like 'could' and 'might'.

Even the opening statement from Theresa Mayhem is barely in English.

As twitter has commented, if they can't produce a white paper on leaving in six months, how the fuck are they going to negotiate the entire shebang in two years?

Not sure what else you would expect from a document timestamped at 4.17 on Thursday morning, like a student hastily pulling an all-nighter to get his coursework done.

I don't know why I get sucked in to this, but having posted virtually nothing in recent months, I find myself in optimistic mood.

What do you think is the Government's motivation here?

Do you actually think the drafting of a white paper the Government originally hoped was unnecessary is analogous with a 2-year negotiation with the Commission and member states on our nation's future?

 

[Benji]

#proud of our brave MPs today

 

[silkyman]

I don't know why I get sucked in to this, but having posted virtually nothing in recent months, I find myself in optimistic mood.

What do you think is the Government's motivation here?

Do you actually think the drafting of a white paper the Government originally hoped was unnecessary is analogous with a 2-year negotiation with the Commission and member states on our nation's future?

I was hoping they might have actually produced something that didn't look like it was written by a twelve year old, to be honest. Did you actually read any of it? Did it fill you with hope and promise that these people will be able to manage the future of this country?

Still. They've got their unaccountable brexit now. They can do whatever the fuck they like. 52% of the population apparently voted for 'Whatever the fuck Theresa May and her mates pull out of their arse'.

Based on an advisory vote that the Leave campaign have admitted wouldn't have been won without that £350m lie (and then the MPs involved voted against).

Add in some nice threats to the House of Lords today, 'do what we say or be disbanded.' and it's clear that this isn't democracy. This is bullshit.

 

[Gladders]

The majority voted for brexit, MPs have gone with the majority, get over it

 

[silkyman]

Did the majority vote for a hard brexit, cobbled together by Theresa May and her hand-picked cronies?

Cos that wasn't on my fucking ballot paper.

 

[shane]

Labour should now be demanding the NHS, vat reduction & other promises that were banded about should be included in any leave. Ideal opportunity to show up the tories & ukip in a manner that can be summed up in headlines..

Genuine question: why didn't this happen?

 

[Captain Scumbag]

Genuine question: why didn't this happen?

Lots of reasons, but mainly because Jeremy Corbyn is immeasurably more sensible than Abertawe and various other people making/endorsing a similar point of view.

Brexit is a profound and complex constitutional change. Parliament forswore its power to decide on the basic in/out question when it passed the European Union Referendum Act (2015). The voting public was asked to decide. The decision was to leave. Parliament’s post-referendum role is to scrutinise the process of withdrawal (the how of Brexit, if you will). This is a very important task. The parliamentary time allocated should be used judiciously, not wasted on aimless whinging about VAT or some other minor point of economic policy.

Labour will have plenty of opportunity, pre-Brexit and post-Brexit, to speak its brains about underfunding of the NHS. Brexit is a big constitutional issue that transcends that sort of thing, and the priority right now is making it work. Jeremy Corbyn, for all his faults, understands this. For this and various other reasons, I believe history will remember him kindly.

Also, it’s stupid to hold the government (especially Mrs May) accountable for Vote Leave’s misleading statistics, especially on NHS funding. The £350 million claim was a lie (Dominic Cummings knew that perfectly well – read Tim Shipman’s book for proof) but it was a bad/dishonest economic argument made by one faction of one side in a referendum campaign chock-full of bad/dishonest economic arguments, not a manifesto pledge written by someone seeking election. The difference shouldn’t be hard to understand.

 

[MJA]

Did the majority vote for a hard brexit, cobbled together by Theresa May and her hand-picked cronies?

Cos that wasn't on my fucking ballot paper.

This is the thing that is as annoying as anything. Yes a majority voted to leave was there even talk of how we would leave in the canvassing? No, and this was purely because the leave campaign knew that talk of a hard brexit would affect their campaign negatively. Instead they decided their best approach was to throw a load of lies around to suck people in.

Another thing we weren't told is that should the leave campaign win, we would all receive a free ticket to the Theresa May Show

 

[Abertawe]

Lots of reasons, but mainly because Jeremy Corbyn is immeasurably more sensible than Abertawe and various other people making/endorsing a similar point of view.

Brexit is a profound and complex constitutional change. Parliament forswore its power to decide on the basic in/out question when it passed the European Union Referendum Act (2015). The voting public was asked to decide. The decision was to leave. Parliament’s post-referendum role is to scrutinise the process of withdrawal (the how of Brexit, if you will). This is a very important task. The parliamentary time allocated should be used judiciously, not wasted on aimless whinging about VAT or some other minor point of economic policy.

Labour will have plenty of opportunity, pre-Brexit and post-Brexit, to speak its brains about underfunding of the NHS. Brexit is a big constitutional issue that transcends that sort of thing, and the priority right now is making it work. Jeremy Corbyn, for all his faults, understands this. For this and various other reasons, I believe history will remember him kindly.

Also, it’s stupid to hold the government (especially Mrs May) accountable for Vote Leave’s misleading statistics, especially on NHS funding. The £350 million claim was a lie (Dominic Cummings knew that perfectly well – read Tim Shipman’s book for proof) but it was a bad/dishonest economic argument made by one faction of one side in a referendum campaign chock-full of bad/dishonest economic arguments, not a manifesto pledge written by someone seeking election. The difference shouldn’t be hard to understand.

What? I'm as Brexit as they come. Minor point of economic policy it may be but it creates snappy headlines that would sit well with the 48% that voted remain. It's politics, the idea is to smear your opponent. The £350m claim is strongly associated to leave therefor it's the perfect opportunity to throw mud at the people presiding over leave and since when has mud had to be true for it to stick in politics? The ''how of brexit" will be fundamental in deciding the next election and the electorate will make their decision in the main by headlines and tags. Labour would be stupid not to hold the government accountable to the tags associated to the leave campaign.

Making brexit work as you put it isn't giving carte blanche for Teresa May to do whatever she wants. Corbyn didn't act more vehemently because it would've been pointless and the PR disaster ensuing from "attempting to block brexit" would open up the Labour heartlands to UKIP thus decimating the party. Far better to leave it to the Lords where any attempted challenge will stand a solid chance of being successful.

#HoityToityFail

 

[mowgli]

This is the thing that is as annoying as anything. Yes a majority voted to leave was there even talk of how we would leave in the canvassing? No, and this was purely because the leave campaign knew that talk of a hard brexit would affect their campaign negatively. Instead they decided their best approach was to throw a load of lies around to suck people in.

Another thing we weren't told is that should the leave campaign win, we would all receive a free ticket to the Theresa May Show

Cameron repeatedly said if we voted to leave The EU we would have to leave the single market and so did Osbourne.

 

[MJA]

Cameron repeatedly said if we voted to leave The EU we would have to leave the single market and so did Osbourne.

They were both part of the remain campaign though