European Union Referendum

[TheMinsterman]

I won’t dwell on the conflation of Europe and the EU (as moaning about that for 15-20 years has done fuck all to stop people doing it) but, seriously, what does ‘evaluate our relationship with Europe’ me

You posit a counterfactual in which Remain wins 52-48 and appear to suggest there should be some concessions to Brexity tossers like me – some generosity in victory in recognition of the closeness of the result. And, your implied point here, of course, is that Leavers should be doing that now instead of persisting with their unreasonable, dogmatic insistence that leaving the EU should actually mean withdrawing from the political institutions, systems and agreements that define it.

But what do you have in mind? People often preach the virtues of compromise and generosity when they’ve lost. It’s usually insincere. You’ve always struck me as a likeable chap. I’d like to believe you’re being sincere, but you’re giving me nothing to go on. And since I have something like 15-20 years of hearing pro-EU folk pay lip service to EU-sceptic concerns (e.g. every time UKIP surpassed expectation in EP elections) and then follow it up with the square root of fuck all, I’m pretty sceptical. Convince me.

Also, if we do entertain this rather charming idea that a narrow 52-48 win for Remain would have resulted in an improved respect for EU-sceptic concerns, what difference would that make vis-à-vis intra-EU politics? As I wrote on here before the referendum, the EU’s intended integrationist course is clear. Its unwillingness to deviate from that course is a well-documented historical fact. So even if you were to suggest, say, significant reforms to FoM (to assuage Leaver concerns about weak immigration control), do you think they’d budge on that?

It isn't so much that I think Leavers shouldn't persist with pushing for the elements of Brexit to which they proscribe, to whatever extent of "hard/softness" they so desire, it's that they ought to accept, considering the narrow margins involved, that the concerns and fears of those of who voted Remain are not inconsequential whines of a losing party unwilling to accept democracy but people who are genuinely terrified by the frankly farcical scenario unfolding before us.

I completely accept that my being so magnanimous isn't exactly reflective of the entire electorate on either side, but what I had in mind is essentially as I stated, a legitimate debate surrounding the terms with which we entered negotiations with the EU BEFORE triggering Article 50, instead of hastily triggering it and essentially winging it as we've gone along whilst the issue is still being hotly debated. I can only speak for myself and other "Remainers" I know but it isn't that we "lost", it's that we were never sold a coherent vision of Brexit, we still haven't been yet we jumped straight in and the entire thing is a shambles.

I can accept "losing", what I can't accept is seeing my entire working future effectively gambled with because the Tory party want to spend the negotiation period splintering into civil war and watching complete opportunists essentially play a Game of Thrones knowing full well they're wealthy enough to absorb the brutality of a complete fuck up as they're insulated in their ivory towers.

The lack of any real discussion, from a referendum where neither side was really selling a coherent vision means I've been left with a product I didn't ask for, with a troubleshooting guide written by engineers who can't even agree on how it should function whilst the people who filed the patent have fucked off and left me to watch my house burn down all whilst telling me to be grateful for the gift in the first place.

To me, it's much broader than what hypothetically I would have done if Remain had won so narrowly. The entire landscape of political dialogue is so inherently toxic these days, people get in the trenches, draw their battle lines, pick sides and devote themselves to a process of "othering" their opponents as untouchables. This complete inability to have an honest dialogue, with people we may disagree with, is just being encapsulated by Brexit.

In the hypothetical though, for example, I think we should have taken people's concerns much more seriously, there is too often a habit to flippantly brush off concerns surrounding immigration for example as inherently racist or xenophobic, instead of listening to people's worries we've invalidated them and effectively shamed them and turned them into pariahs. To not even entertain these concerns or look at ways through which to alleviate them within whatever the framework is, is wrong. The referendum has effectively contributed to the divisions already emerging, regardless of who won I think ignoring the concerns of the "losers" is a fundamentally ignorant and divisive means of moving forward, we need to have some level of unity to make this work, instead we have little to none.

You'll never convince every Remainer, but there are enough of us who are completely open to being sold a viable Brexit which doesn't appear to play fast and loose with our futures that you could certainly convince a much bigger majority that you have currently.

I consider you a perfectly reasonable and likeable chap, we don't necessarily agree on everything politically but I can happily sit down and discuss it with you without drawing conclusions about you before we even begin. There's too much division and open hostility that stifles real debate, I think the fact that we pursued Brexit without engaging in one, whilst accepting the result was to leave and that means losing some of the things I or other Remainers may wish to keep, is wrong.

 

[Johnnyt]

See this place is full of whining tramps still

grow some balls ffs

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

I think the murkiness of what Brexit means is a post-referendum invention more than anything else. The end to freedom of movement and Brussels-mandated legislation was the vision people on both sides were operating under the assumption of, with the best trade we could get thereafter. There was disagreement over how good that deal could be, but the mandate was clear enough. We only have a farce on our hands because the Tories are a party without principles, and as such are happy to have proceedings lead by Remainers who have no intention of delivering what the public want, only what they themselves can get away with.

 

[Benji]

Is stockpiling resources the Brexiter's vision, or part of the Remainer sabotage? It would have been nice if Brexiters had come up with something of their own. It really doesn't seem like Messrs Mogg, Johnson, Farage and Gove ever truly had public interest at heart. They just wanted to get theirs by way of lying to the public and can commend themselves on a job well done while the cash rolls in.

Still, if one is able to continue to be principled enough that they don't really want luxuries like food in lieu of having less foreigners and money then let's Brexit like fuck. We are a shit country anyway.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

We would be with that attitude. Thankfully EU bootlickers are outnumbered.

 

[Abertawe]

A pretty dumb decision. https://allianceforscience.cornell....oups-european-court-ruling-gene-edited-crops/

At least we can say yes and boost our food production no end. We could have pineapples growing in Grimsby for example - would be great.

 

[silkyman]

Brexiteers. Behold your prophet rendered speechless by one of the many things he knows the square root of fuck all about.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1023567403974840325

 

[Benji]

The will of the people is that we don't have vets, doctors or food, and rich people get richer. Why is that so hard for you thickos to understand?

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

All polling indicates will of the people is to remain.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Brexiteers. Behold your prophet rendered speechless by one of the many things he knows the square root of fuck all about.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1023567403974840325

Rendered speechless for approximately 0.5 seconds as he tries to understand how a shortfall of vets could stop us importing meat more cheaply (it couldn't). If you need more vets you either train more or you give quick and easy VISAs to qualified vets. It's not rocket science. The goal is to control immigration, not to halt it.

All polling indicates will of the people is to remain.

And we all know how reliable that is.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

Also, Danny Dyer. Political philosopher of our time.

 

[Dave-Vale]

The whole fiasco is an absolute disaster.

It would’ve been okay to vote leave if there had been a proper plan in place prior to the vote so that sensible folk could have looked at it and made the correct decision. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen and most people I know voted leave because they are a bit xenophobic and patriotic; they remember the good old days before the EU.. apparently.

This whole mess is why I voted to remain. That, and I didn’t really fancy being left alone on a small island with Tories like Johnson, Gove and the odious Rees-Mogg.

The worst thing is that it’s totally taken over any debate surrounding UK politics and as bad as it’s making the Tories look, I don’t think it’s currently helping towards ejecting them from power because it’s all anybody is focusing on which they’re using to their advantage.

It also wouldn’t surprise me if this was some sort of strategic ploy to totally destroy Corbyn due to the total failure of the mainstream media to bring him down, how convenient would it be to get him voted in and leave him to deal with the Brexit catastrophe and the fall out from that along with the mess they’ve made of the education system, public services, the NHS etc.. how easy would it be then for the Tory press gang make him look awful because he’s inherited total garbage? The whole political establishment would finally be able get rid of him a few years down the line and stop any sort of progression in its tracks.

 

[Fompous Part]

They ought to accept, considering the narrow margins involved, that the concerns and fears of those of who voted Remain are not inconsequential whines of a losing party unwilling to accept democracy but people who are genuinely terrified by the frankly farcical scenario unfolding before us.

How should I describe those who repeatedly call for a second referendum, or those who dismiss the 2016 vote as ‘advisory’ and call for it to be ignored altogether? Even with all the civility and good will in the world, I can’t describe those people as democrats. Obviously not all Remainers fit this description, but for those who do the ‘anti-democrat’ charge is a fair cop.

As for ‘inconsequential’, I depends what you mean.

If you make a substantive point about, say, the imposition of ‘third country’ controls and their effect on cross-border supply chains, I owe you better than “STFU, you cry-baby; you lost, get over it”. If that’s your gripe – if you’re fed up with concerns being deemed inconsequential if expressed by people on the losing side of a political contest – then that’s fair enough. That’s dumb and very annoying. No argument here.

But I think we're dancing around the trickier and more contentious issue here, which is the extent to which Remain concerns should be influencing policy and strategy.

One can lament the lack of detailed debate during the referendum campaign, but I think it’s fair to say that the fundamental Remain argument – i.e. that leaving would be bloody complicated as well as economically damaging – was made with sufficient frequency, clarity and force. Hell, it’s all we heard from you chaps for 4-6 months! A voting majority opted for Brexit anyway. Now they’re being told that either the result should be ignored, or that Brexit can only happen if they accept compromises so profoundly antithetical to what they voted for that agreeing to them would render the last 30 years of EU-scepticism a complete waste of time.

Ask yourself: would this be indulged in any other political context?

Imagine that Uncle Jeremy won the 2017 election with 40% of the popular vote. Now imagine my response was to insist that Jez shouldn’t renationalise the railways, give PQE a whirl, or implement any of the policies his supporters had in mind, because the result was close and millions of people who didn’t vote Labour are now ‘terrified’. How well would that have gone down? I suspect Mr Cobryn’s supporters would have laughed heartily and told me to fuck off. And, honestly, I wouldn’t think less of them for doing so.

Part of having an ‘honest’ debate is acknowledging that our politics is never going to be all jelly and ice cream and a nice chat, culminating with a compromise that everyone goes home happy with. Politics is a power struggle between people who disagree, and often those disagreements are rooted in irreconcilably different outlooks on life. And, to compound the problem, our politics has always been very adversarial. A ‘winner takes all’ ethos is entrenched in the design of the electoral system itself. Because of FPTP and less than brilliant voter turn-out, we are normally governed by people who don’t have a proper democratic mandate. And most of us are cool with that as long as we’re winning.

So you understand my scepticism, right? I expected to lose the referendum, and I expected to receive bugger all in concessions from Remainers in that event. I didn’t expect one inch of movement in that direction – not because all Remainers are especially dogmatic meanies but because that’s how our politics usually works. If you win, your first move isn’t to placate the people who are mad about losing. You give a fair hearing to informed, well-articulated concerns and perhaps allow them to have some bearing on policy, but you don’t do a strategic U-turn just to keep the other side happy.

Given the enormity of the concessions being sought, it’s reasonable to ask what concessions would be made if the positions were reversed, especially when people are positing that counterfactual for rhetorical effect. That’s why I asked. And, with respect, I don’t think you’ve fully grasped the nettle of the question.

It seems you’ve offered two things. The first is the promise of more respectful debate. It’s a nice thought, but your side not shouting "waycist" every time EU-sceptics moan about immigration would be an improvement in manners, not a meaningful concession on UK-EU policy. The second is a vague-sounding pledge to “look at ways through which to alleviate them [i.e. EU-sceptic concerns] within whatever the framework is”. Well, we know what the framework would be. Since the 52-48 Remain hypothetical would mean staying in the EU, the framework would be what we have now (and will have until we leave). For many Leave voters, that framework is the fundamental problem. Any attempt to 'alleviate' my concerns while working within the existing framework is not going to alleviate them in any substantial way. A meaningful concession would involve altering the framework.

Now, okay, I get we’re only discussing a hypothetical here. Believe me, I’m not asking you for a 5-year plan. I’m just genuinely unsure about what this conciliatory ‘Soft Remain’ would look like. If it makes it easier, leave aside for now the practicalities of getting the EU to agree and sign off on the changes. If you could just impose your will on the situation, what would you be willing to give up?

 

[Fompous Part]

P.S. Apologies for taking an age to reply. I put time aside on at least 3-4 occasions to write this unsatisfying guff, but each time I tried to log in the forum was down.

 

[TheMinsterman]

P.S. Apologies for taking an age to reply. I put time aside on at least 3-4 occasions to write this unsatisfying guff, but each time I tried to log in the forum was down.

No worries, glad of the reply. I shall endeavour to get one done later today.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

One can lament the lack of detailed debate during the referendum campaign, but I think it’s fair to say that the fundamental Remain argument – i.e. that leaving would be bloody complicated as well as economically damaging – was made with sufficient frequency, clarity and force. Hell, it’s all we heard from you chaps for 4-6 months! A voting majority opted for Brexit anyway. Now they’re being told that either the result should be ignored, or that Brexit can only happen if they accept compromises so profoundly antithetical to what they voted for that agreeing to them would render the last 30 years of EU-scepticism a complete waste of time.

Ask yourself: would this be indulged in any other political context?

Imagine that Uncle Jeremy won the 2017 election with 40% of the popular vote. Now imagine my response was to insist that Jez shouldn’t renationalise the railways, give PQE a whirl, or implement any of the policies his supporters had in mind, because the result was close and millions of people who didn’t vote Labour are now ‘terrified’. How well would that have gone down? I suspect Mr Cobryn’s supporters would have laughed heartily and told me to fuck off. And, honestly, I wouldn’t think less of them for doing so.

Part of having an ‘honest’ debate is acknowledging that our politics is never going to be all jelly and ice cream and a nice chat, culminating with a compromise that everyone goes home happy with. Politics is a power struggle between people who disagree, and often those disagreements are rooted in irreconcilably different outlooks on life. And, to compound the problem, our politics has always been very adversarial. A ‘winner takes all’ ethos is entrenched in the design of the electoral system itself. Because of FPTP and less than brilliant voter turn-out, we are normally governed by people who don’t have a proper democratic mandate. And most of us are cool with that as long as we’re winning.

Yes, a majority opted for Brexit, but they did so partly because of the assurances that they were given by the Leave campaign. That campaign suggested that there were no downsides to a Leave vote. You could have your cake (ingredients kept deliberately vague) and eat it. But what happens when the electorate discover they've been served a rather unappetising shit sandwich, rather than a delicious cake? It's not sufficient to lament the lack of detailed debate during the campaign because it ought to be central to the whole bloody premise of Brexit - what it actually entailed should have been hammered out eons ago by those pursuing the policy. The official Leave campaigns told us repeatedly that we would continue to have seamless trade with the EU, that planes would keep flying, that the nuclear industry wouldn't be affected, that the City would retain full access to EU markets etc so you ought to forgive Remainers if we're a bit concerned that, actually, all that stuff looks like it might not happen and that it's something we might have to just blithely accept to fulfil a Europhobe fantasy.

I agree about the adversarial nature of our politics. I almost replied to the FPTP discussion to say as much (ie that, as much as I'm an advocate of electoral reform, a transition to PR might prove difficult because our tradition is adversarial rather than consensual). But that surely means that one can anticipate opposition. And opposition can sometimes force the governing party to change tack - bad policies, or those deemed to be undeliverable, are often scuppered as a result of opposition pressure, and that's a good thing. Is Brexit deliverable? The government, with Brexiteers occupying the key Ministries, have had over two years to make it work, and have been found wanting. The trouble is not belligerent Remainers. It's the fact that the Conservative party, as well as the public at large, are irrevocably split on the issue. They're trying to resolve a decades old dispute in a couple of years which might determine whether our country sinks or swims. It's entirely unsatisfactory.

Frankly, there's no mandate for the sort of Brexit you desire. May went to the electorate on a hard Brexit platform. She failed to secure a majority. Polls suggest there's little appetite for a no deal scenario. I think you might be guilty of projecting your desires onto the many other people who voted for Brexit but I'm quite sure they didn't vote to make themselves poorer and I'm quite sure that most do not want Brexit at any cost.

And why isn't a second referendum on the outcome of negotiations in keeping with democracy? It seems to be an inherently democratic way of deciding whether what's been agreed upon is palatable to the country as a whole. Are people not permitted to change their minds?

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Frankly, there's no mandate for the sort of Brexit you desire. May went to the electorate on a hard Brexit platform. She failed to secure a majority. [...]

She didn't need a majority to secure that mandate, because Corbyn went to the electorate with a de facto hard Brexit platform also.

 

[Fompous Part]

A few points. Will try to keep them brief as I’m supposed to be working from home today and we’ve gone over this stuff a bunch of times before.

1. I have conceded approximately a billion times that a referendum doesn’t settle a matter ad infinitum. People can change their minds. I would just prefer it if people did so with some lived experience of Brexit (not just apocalyptic predictions) to draw upon. Also, the first referendum was held because a political party promised it, won an election and then made good on its promise. It would be nice if a second referendum came about through a similar process. There were parties who pledged a second referendum in GE2017. They did badly.

2. No one votes to be poorer insofar that no one sees penury as a desirable end in itself. But, in fact, people often support policies that would be economically disruptive, and they are undeterred by the prospect of being personally affected by the fall-out. This is usually because they’re willing to pay that price (or at least run the risk) in order to achieve something they value more than personal wealth or economic stability. People on the Left are very familiar with this political logic (if anything unites the heterodox and fissiparous Left, it’s a keenly disregard for economic stability in pursuit of ideological goals), but when Leave voters apply it it’s suddenly beyond the pale. Why?

3. Most Leave voters I know – friends, family, colleagues, fellow campaigners, strangers I met on the doorstep – knew they were voting for something radical. They didn’t think it would be a piece of piss, even though there were prominent people indulging in demagoguery and saying it would be. How representative is that sample? I dunno. All I would say is that it’s wrong (and quite inimical to more civilised debate) to assume Leave voters are a bunch of credulous dolts who swallowed the Vote Leave propaganda whole. I was arguing for Brexit 15 years before the term was coined; I was not duped by Nigel Farage or a slogan on the side of a fucking bus.

4. May, for all her faults and incompetence, won a larger percentage of the popular vote than Cameron did in 2015, than Blair did in 2001 and 2005, than Major did in 1992, than Thatcher did in 1983 and 1987, and so on. That this achievement didn’t translate into a 50-100 seat majority owes to the (vaguely pro-Brexit) Labour Party exceeding expectations and a significant decline in the minority party vote. There is very little psephological data supporting the premise that May’s pro-Brexit rhetoric lost her the majority. On every metric except seats (alas, the most important one!) the Tory vote increased significantly. And this was despite a campaign so comically awful that one could be forgiven for thinking that Team May was conspiring to lose. When the focus was on Brexit, May did fine. It was when the focus shifted away from Brexit (to things like police cuts, social care funding, etc.) that it started to go wrong. Well, that and her inability to do a passable impression of a human being on the campaign trail.

5. I do accept, grudgingly, that EU-sceptics used the referendum as a shortcut. It would have been better to first secure a strong, genuinely pro-Brexit government. Attempting to leave without that was naïve and it’s caused a constitutional crisis. The Brexit I want isn’t going to happen because the key people overseeing the negotiation and withdrawal process don’t want that Brexit, and never have. I thought the Tory Party would do better. I was wrong. I don’t imagine it’ll comfort you much if you're feeding on boiled grass in 12 months’ time, but for FWIW I do recognise the error.

6. But here’s the kicker: I don’t think another referendum would clean up the mess. If anything, it would just make the situation messier. So I think it’s incumbent on the people who want another vote to be precise about what they have in mind. What would we be voting on? Are we just re-running the first referendum? If so, what would a decisive “Remain” vote mean? Best out of three? Or will it be deemed that the people have finally spoken? Are we voting on the terms that are scheduled to be agreed in October? In that case, would a decisive “No” vote represent a rejection of those terms, or a rejection of Brexit entirely?

#BrevityFail

 

[silkyman]

The only thing Brexit has left to argue is 'the will of the people'. No one really believes that the UK will be better off now, do they?

So, a second referendum just shows that 'The Will of the People' has changed.

'The people' elected a government on the promise of a referendum.
'The people' narrowly voted to explore Brexit in an advisory election.*
'The people' elected a government to ensure Brexit was a success.

Brexit turns out to be a disaster.

'The people' tell the government, 'Nah. We're alright actually. Lets shelve the whole thing'.

Sure, brexiteers can rattle cages and shout from the rooftops about wanting another one. Fine. But at least the rest of the country gets to actually get on with life.

*The UK does not have a written constitution, so all changes to it need to be done by alterations to the law. That means parliament making the choice.

Now. After the election which said we should have a referendum, there was a debate in parliament to make the requirement of this referendum law. During that debate it was raised that, as in the Scottish Independence election of 2014, stakeholders such as EU nationals resident in the UK, UK nationals resident abroad for more than 15 years and people aged 16-18 should be allowed to have a vote - because these people had more to gain or lose from this decision. It was also raised that the overall electoral vote to alter the status quo should be more than 40% (it was eventually 37%)

These were all denied BECAUSE the vote was 'Advisory' and legally, MPs could just ignore it if it turned out to be a shitstorm.

If the changes to the bill that would have been needed so as not to make this vote advisory had happened, then there is absolutely no question that remain would have won.

 

[Laker]

There’s a hell of a lot of opinions and presumptions promoted as truths in the first half of that post Silkyman.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Brexit turns out to be a disaster.

'The people' tell the government, 'Nah. We're alright actually. Lets shelve the whole thing'.

That would require the vote to be held after Brexit, not before.

 

[Jockney]

The only thing Brexit has left to argue is 'the will of the people'. No one really believes that the UK will be better off now, do they?

So, a second referendum just shows that 'The Will of the People' has changed.

'The people' elected a government on the promise of a referendum.
'The people' narrowly voted to explore Brexit in an advisory election.*
'The people' elected a government to ensure Brexit was a success.

Brexit turns out to be a disaster.

'The people' tell the government, 'Nah. We're alright actually. Lets shelve the whole thing'.

Sure, brexiteers can rattle cages and shout from the rooftops about wanting another one. Fine. But at least the rest of the country gets to actually get on with life.

*The UK does not have a written constitution, so all changes to it need to be done by alterations to the law. That means parliament making the choice.

Now. After the election which said we should have a referendum, there was a debate in parliament to make the requirement of this referendum law. During that debate it was raised that, as in the Scottish Independence election of 2014, stakeholders such as EU nationals resident in the UK, UK nationals resident abroad for more than 15 years and people aged 16-18 should be allowed to have a vote - because these people had more to gain or lose from this decision. It was also raised that the overall electoral vote to alter the status quo should be more than 40% (it was eventually 37%)

These were all denied BECAUSE the vote was 'Advisory' and legally, MPs could just ignore it if it turned out to be a shitstorm.

If the changes to the bill that would have been needed so as not to make this vote advisory had happened, then there is absolutely no question that remain would have won.

Somewhere between 900k-2m expats living in the EU. I think even if they all voted, and crucially voted remain, the vote would still come up short -- certainly not enough to settle the matter, anyway.

I'd also bet a pretty penny on most of the 1.3m British expats in Australia either not caring enough to vote, or backing Leave, but that's just conjecture, like much of these arguments.

I'd be interested to hear the 2nd Referendum case from anyone with even an ounce of political imagination, rather than these enervating and wholly boring arguments about procedure from people who've lost the ability to tell a convincing story about the world.

 

[Fompous Part]

Have meant to ask for a while: what is your ‘hot take’ on all this Brexit business, Jockeroo? You are, like, literally the only regular here whose position I neither know nor feel I can safely infer without bothering to ask.

 

[Abertawe]

Have meant to ask for a while: what is your ‘hot take’ on all this Brexit business, Jockeroo? You are, like, literally the only regular here whose position I neither know nor feel I can safely infer without bothering to ask.

What's your take on the Bannon brokered corporate takeover? Sleep walking into a nightmare. Are you wish us that May must be backed?

 

[Abertawe]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1029429585920712705

 

[silkyman]

Somewhere between 900k-2m expats living in the EU. I think even if they all voted, and crucially voted remain, the vote would still come up short -- certainly not enough to settle the matter, anyway.

I'd also bet a pretty penny on most of the 1.3m British expats in Australia either not caring enough to vote, or backing Leave, but that's just conjecture, like much of these arguments.

I'd be interested to hear the 2nd Referendum case from anyone with even an ounce of political imagination, rather than these enervating and wholly boring arguments about procedure from people who've lost the ability to tell a convincing story about the world.

You could, and people have written books on this. I've been trying to handle one part at a time to stop it becoming a sprawling thread on the multitudinous reasons that people have for wanting a second referendum/vote on the final deal.

But the gerrymandering in relation to the 'advisory' nature of the vote is a pretty key element. And 'Oh, I'm sure the British ex-pats in Australia don't give a shit' doesn't really cut it. They were denied an opportunity to vote on something that could directly impact their family back home.

Key is the razor thin winning margin. And 2m votes in favour of remain certainly wouldn't come up short! The winning margin was less than 4%. 1.27 million. The EU Nationals living in the UK (3m) were excluded as were all UK expats abroad for more than 15 years and 16 & 17 year olds in the UK, all of which were discussed as being given a vote, and all of which were rejected BECAUSE the referendum was legally advisory. Those people add up to a damn sight more than 1.27m and demographically would be far more likely to vote remain than leave.

This is where someone usually mentions that leaflet that said that the government would implement what the vote decided. OK. If we accept that we can change the law in the middle of the campaign (as that's literally what that leaflet did, if we take it at face value) then isn't it fair that all of the reasoning and debate around that section of the EU referendum bill (i.e. advisory/binding) should have been revisited too?

And that's just on the franchise. If we take the supermajority and voter threshold concepts into account, then you're miles away from 'winning'.

Put simply, Leave only 'won' because the vote was advisory. Had any, let alone all, of the checks and balances that parliament would have demanded for a binding vote been in place, a mandate to make these vast changes to the UK would not have been won.

Then let's throw in the fact that both main Leave campaigns broke the law, one specifically spending a fortune to push targeted lies through facebook to swing voters. If this was in some African country, we'd be part of the international community demanding a revote.

Then we get to what was promised compared with what is being delivered. More than two years ago, the public were sold a vision of Brexit that is essentially impossible. The 'hard brexit' that is now apparently the only 'real' brexit was written off as a 'project fear lie' and leavers were given promises of 'the easiest deal in human history' that would only take a day or two to thrash out. Now the idea of the WTO is deemed a 'real' brexit, and anything less a betrayal. (Funny idea of voting to take back control. Who did you vote for at the WTO?)

Look at Nigel Farage now claiming that no one ever claimed that Brexit would make anyone better off, and the ERG group who are now trying to pull the strings, the way the biggest lies of the campaign were rowed back on the morning of the result.

Would leave have won if Boris Johnson had stood on TV and said 'And in just two short years, the Government will be making plans for food shortages, and stockpiling medicines, while considering cancelling police leave to combat civil unrest'.?

Whatever anyone voted for, it probably wasn't this. And those people who had been lulled into security with talk of Norway and Switzerland, or who had been PROMISED it would make their lives better are now staring down the barrel of nothing of the sort.

Whether it's by deception or rank incompetence or both, this is all going very badly.

To sum up: Brexit was a gerrymandered advisory vote that has been hijacked by a small number of disaster capitalists who hold some level of power in the Tory party. It was won by a knife-edge using illegal means to push lies, and now even it's biggest cheerleaders are reporting on how harmful it could eventually be.

You're right. I can't think of any possible reason at all why the general public should be given an 'are you sure' option.

After all. The only reason for a brexiter to be scared of a vote on the final deal, is because you are worried the final deal will be shit. If it was genuinely great, as we were all promised, then the second vote would sweep away all opposition. I'd even back it.

If you're so sure that Brexit is going to be so amazing, then bring on a full-on binding referendum, with all of the checks and balances. See if you can get the same result without the disenfranchising, illegal spending, and with a public who aren't going to believe whatever shit you paint on the side of a red bus.

 

[Jockney]

Have meant to ask for a while: what is your ‘hot take’ on all this Brexit business, Jockeroo? You are, like, literally the only regular here whose position I neither know nor feel I can safely infer without bothering to ask.

I voted remain but felt, and still feel, ambivalent about the EU for a number of reasons. I think the current negotiations are putting us on the road to disaster, but I also feel uneasy that it’s become a bit of fetish for weirdo lovers of liberal technocracy. I don’t want a part of any political project that is headed by the likes of Chukka Umuna and Jolyon Maugham.

 

[Fompous Part]

A few points for Silks:

Supermajority thresholds are electoral game-rigging. If it’s a binary choice question, why should one side have a significantly higher minimum threshold for winning? It’s like Everton insisting that losing to Liverpool shouldn’t count unless they lose by 2 or more goals. Hilarious that you endorse something so patently unfair and then have a whinge about perceived gerrymandering.

(Also, the time to argue for a supermajority threshold was when the EU Referendum Bill – that trivial piece of statute that was approved by MPs by a margin of 544 to 53 – was going through parliament, not two years after the referendum took place.)

16-17 year olds can’t vote in a UK general election. The age of enfranchisement has been set at 18 for almost 50 years, so not including the kids was not a cynical attempt at gerrymandering; it was just following a well-established convention in UK electoral law. Your assertion that 16-17 year olds have a bigger stake in the outcome is unsupported by reasoned argument. Why does it matter more for them? Because they'll have to live longer with the consequences? By that logic, don’t 12 year olds have an even bigger stake? What about 6 year olds? Unborn babies in the womb? One kick for Remain, two for Leave?

EU-nationals are excluded from UK general elections unless they have UK citizenship, so there was nothing unusual about that either. This is par for the course in any developed democracy. Voting wherever you're residing is not some sort of inalienable human right; voting is a privilege of citizenship. That’s how it should work. It would be nuts to do it any other way.

And UK-nationals who haven’t lived here for 15+ years? Yeah, they don’t get to vote in UK general elections either. Go to the Electoral Commission website and see.

We can argue the toss over the rights and wrongs of these, but the salient point is that these restrictions weren’t dreamed up just for the EU referendum. There was a precedent for all three, so I’d love to know from where you’ve pulled this idea these groups were only excluded because the referendum was ‘legally advisory’. Links, please.

In truth, the unusual and highly dubious choice would have been to remove these restrictions, not uphold them. Imagine it: a pro-Remain government extends the franchise to three usually-excluded groups, including two groups (kids and EU-nationals without UK citizenship) that would have voted heavily for Remain. What would that have looked like?

 

[Super_horns]

So after all this are we heading towards a "No deal"

What will that mean for the country?

 

[silkyman]

A few points for Silks:

Supermajority thresholds are electoral game-rigging. If it’s a binary choice question, why should one side have a significantly higher minimum threshold for winning? It’s like Everton insisting that losing to Liverpool shouldn’t count unless they lose by 2 or more goals. Hilarious that you endorse something so patently unfair and then have a whinge about perceived gerrymandering.

(Also, the time to argue for a supermajority threshold was when the EU Referendum Bill – that trivial piece of statute that was approved by MPs by a margin of 544 to 53 – was going through parliament, not two years after the referendum took place.)

16-17 year olds can’t vote in a UK general election. The age of enfranchisement has been set at 18 for almost 50 years, so not including the kids was not a cynical attempt at gerrymandering; it was just following a well-established convention in UK electoral law. Your assertion that 16-17 year olds have a bigger stake in the outcome is unsupported by reasoned argument. Why does it matter more for them? Because they'll have to live longer with the consequences? By that logic, don’t 12 year olds have an even bigger stake? What about 6 year olds? Unborn babies in the womb? One kick for Remain, two for Leave?

EU-nationals are excluded from UK general elections unless they have UK citizenship, so there was nothing unusual about that either. This is par for the course in any developed democracy. Voting wherever you're residing is not some sort of inalienable human right; voting is a privilege of citizenship. That’s how it should work. It would be nuts to do it any other way.

And UK-nationals who haven’t lived here for 15+ years? Yeah, they don’t get to vote in UK general elections either. Go to the Electoral Commission website and see.

We can argue the toss over the rights and wrongs of these, but the salient point is that these restrictions weren’t dreamed up just for the EU referendum. There was a precedent for all three, so I’d love to know from where you’ve pulled this idea these groups were only excluded because the referendum was ‘legally advisory’. Links, please.

In truth, the unusual and highly dubious choice would have been to remove these restrictions, not uphold them. Imagine it: a pro-Remain government extends the franchise to three usually-excluded groups, including two groups (kids and EU-nationals without UK citizenship) that would have voted heavily for Remain. What would that have looked like?

OK. All of this WAS debated during the debates for the EU Referendum bill and all of these issues, supermajorities, 16/17 year olds, EU Nationals, UK Nationals abroad were raised and all rejected BECAUSE it was advisory.

There is a reason that this was different to a general election. If you've lived in France for 16 years, then yeah, ok, who is in No 10 won't have a massive impact on your life. But if you moved there as part of the EU, with all of the rights and safety nets that involves, is it right that you should have absolutely no say in whether those rights are stripped away from you?

If you're French and moved to the UK as a part of the EU, pay your taxes to HMRC, have made a life here, then perhaps you should be allowed to vote in general elections, to be honest, but again, is it right that you should have absolutely no say in whether those rights are stripped away from you?

16 and 17 year olds had a vote in the Scottish Independence referendum, so there's a clear precedent there.

But the point is that this was never a binding vote, and if it had been, the rules would have been different.

And under those different rules, Leave would have lost.

Do you not agree that if they were allowed to change the rules to make it binding from advisory (because apparently we can change law via a leaflet in this country now. I look forward to NHS privatisation in the form of a pamphlet.) then the people who would have been allowed to vote had it been advisory from the start should have, you know, been allowed to vote?