Let's Get Political!

[Bogus Dave]

Revisionist nonsense.

Saw all these on reddit thread yesterday, saw no pro-leave justification. Be surprised if I see any on here

[Reg Smeeton]

But its the will of the people.

Disappointingly weak majority that.

The only ref which could be slightly justified would be May's deal or no deal..... but Parliament can decide on that.

[RedRag]

I can understand the leavers' argument that to have a further referendum would involve a "betrayal" of the referendum outcome.  I believed it was a "once in a generation" opportunity and I believe that was the majority understanding.

Farage made it clear before the referendum that the leave campaign would be continued if it lost by 52:48.  That seems fair in a free country.  And for Remain too, of course.

Since then, we have had a democratic parliamentary election.  The result, completely uncontemplated by most electors, is a Conservative government dependent on a confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP.

Add to that the intransigence of some leaver MPs (such as the ERG) who are apparently unwilling to compromise over the draft Withdrawal Agreement and we have a situation where a further referendum could be deemed by Parlaiment to be the best solution to unblock the parliamentary impasse.

A free vote coming from our sovereign Parliament could NEVER be "undemocratic".  To challenge that would be to challenge "democracy".  In particular, it is the ERG Tory zealots' unwillingness to compromise on anything but a maniacal "pure" Brexit, that risks frustrating the much more varied "Will" once expressed by the 17m.

Still, if that "Will" is unchanged, what's the problem?  If it has changed then it can hardly be democratic to force through an earlier but abandoned "Will".

[jayohaitchenn]

Saw all these on reddit thread yesterday, saw no pro-leave justification. Be surprised if I see any on here

There won't be any on here as the usual suspects don't actually read anyone else's posts. They just spout their vitriol and nonsense and then huff off till the next day.

[horlock07]

I can understand the leavers' argument that to have a further referendum would involve a "betrayal" of the referendum outcome.  I believed it was a "once in a generation" opportunity and I believe that was the majority understanding.

Farage made it clear before the referendum that the leave campaign would be continued if it lost by 52:48.  That seems fair in a free country.  And for Remain too, of course.

Since then, we have had a democratic parliamentary election.  The result, completely uncontemplated by most electors, is a Conservative government dependent on a confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP.

Add to that the intransigence of some leaver MPs (such as the ERG) who are apparently unwilling to compromise over the draft Withdrawal Agreement and we have a situation where a further referendum could be deemed by Parlaiment to be the best solution to unblock the parliamentary impasse.

A free vote coming from our sovereign Parliament could NEVER be "undemocratic".  To challenge that would be to challenge "democracy".  In particular, it is the ERG Tory zealots' unwillingness to compromise on anything but a maniacal "pure" Brexit, that risks frustrating the much more varied "Will" once expressed by the 17m.

Still, if that "Will" is unchanged, what's the problem?  If it has changed then it can hardly be undemocratic to force through an earlier but abandoned "Will".

The thing is much is made of parliament ignoring the will of the people, rather ignoring the fact that the government has done nothing except Brexit since 2016, the country is dying on its arse because of this, it is not going to get any better post March 2019...

As for the democracy argument, musing for a while... What would cause ‘irreparable damage’ to democracy?

lying to people?
removing rights?
hiding vital information?
calling them names?
chronic incompetence?
uninformed MPs?
shunning scrutiny?
imposing your unpopular version of Brexit?

Or

giving people a vote?

 

[Reg Smeeton]

Since then, we have had a democratic parliamentary election.  The result, completely uncontemplated by most electors, is a Conservative government dependent on a confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP.

In which both Labour and Tories, both had a manifesto pledge to respect the referendum result to leave the EU, and had 82% of the vote.  Therefore, if Parliament can't decide how to leave the EU and needs the advice of a plebicite, the question asked should only be about the terms of leaving.

[RobertT]

Sorry you feel that way, genuinely.  But I have tried in recent posts on this thread to stick to the facts...those being that CU & SM membership are not inextricably linked to EU membership (ask Turkey or Norway).  I am simply challenging the stance put forward by some that the vote in 2016 to leave the EU was also a vote to leave the SM & CU.  It was not, either legally - or in any other sense.

Time to step back from the fray, I agree.  This is going nowhere.

I agree with you on the technicalities.  What was evident during the "debate" was that we'd done an alarmingly poor job of educating the UK population on the various European political and trade related structures going back to before the original vote to join.  How can you hope to have a populace that is behind something when all they have heard for 40 years is a bunch of sound bites designed to support a political battle on the home front, from both sides.

Take the Army question for example, which to be fair was raised more after the vote.  People right now are of the belief that not being a member of the EU would take that off the agenda, but out current Govt. is actively supporting such a move, not to create a single EU funded Army, but in fact to create a partnership like NATO.  That hasn't stopped some people talking about it as if Germany will be able to conscript UK citizens to bid it's will in some future war.

The reality is people, on the whole, just don't understand how the thing works, or that the the thing isn't even every thing.  We belong to a variety of different bodies.

Despite all that though, I think if you outline all of the information, you'd still be a generation or two away from people actively supporting the idea of being in the "club".

Assume we were not members of any of it right now.  Would people actively vote to join if they had all the information?  I don't think so.  I think a proportion of the Leave vote would be never over their dead bodies, some would be actively against it and some of the remain vote would be against joining something that has end goals they don't align too, even if it meant passing up some economic benefits and a small proportion would actively seek membership.  The countries view of nationhood is too entrenched and we still have the Second World War too close in our rear view mirror.  We think that people want to invade, that we fought to to hold on to something that would be given away - the reality of course being we fought a mad man who held horrific views on how the world should look.  The idea of nations is still quite young, and we haven't worked though it yet.  Some of the EU is more open to the idea -for starters, they've changed countries in their lifetime, they travel between borders more readily - Northern Italy feels a bit like Germany for example, continental Europe is more regional.  There is still nervousness, hence the slow progress the EU actually makes towards full integration.

Overall, we joined for the wrong reasons, we will leave for the wrong reasons.  We should take a few years to work out what we want as a "country" and then move in the right direction.  I hope my view becomes more mainstream, I doubt it in my life time though.  A couple of centuries from now, what we know as out country will be a footnote in history, just like the Kingdom of Wessex.

[RedRag]

In which both Labour and Tories, both had a manifesto pledge to respect the referendum result to leave the EU, and had 82% of the vote.  Therefore, if Parliament can't decide how to leave the EU and needs the advice of a plebicite, the question asked should only be about the terms of leaving.

It's a fair point Reg but we elect MPs who vote according to conscience and judgement.  Manifesto pledges are broken by parties.  Sometimes a party trying to honour a pledge fails to force an MP to vote in a certain way.

What will happen will happen.  British democracy may work in mysterious ways, just like Russian bots but a vote to remain in a further referendum would still be democratic.  As will any other outcome.

[horlock07]

In which both Labour and Tories, both had a manifesto pledge to respect the referendum result to leave the EU, and had 82% of the vote.  Therefore, if Parliament can't decide how to leave the EU and needs the advice of a plebicite, the question asked should only be about the terms of leaving.

As Labour were not elected at the election, I am not sure to what extent they can be held to pledges in their manifesto, Magic Grandpa makes much that policy is set by members at conference....

[horlock07]

Taken from... https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/12/13/across-the-world-anglophilia-is-giving-way-to-anglobemusement? which is an interesting read in itself....

The second thing is the amateurism. Britain was thought to have a Rolls-Royce government. This reputation was so solid that the EU's Brexit negotiators initially wondered if the incompetence of their British counterparts was a clever ruse to lull foreigners into a false sense of security. No longer: it turns out that the Rolls-Royce is more of a Morris Minor. European politicians puzzle over how a fellow member of their tribe could begin the Brexit talks without a plan, or appoint an addlepated popinjay such as David Davis to act as chief negotiator.

[RobertT]

An EU admin trade off - we've been running a low cost government in recent decades because we don't need to employ as many civil servants given that the EU takes care of things like trade deals.  It's an area where costs of Govt. are likely to increase post exit.  That seem like an oxymoron given the waste you see in Govt., but it is a reality that the EU took up quite a bit of the admin work we would previously have held in house.  Like needing to set-up a department tasked with administering the "Visa Waiver" process that will need to be put in place for EU travellers, if we want to have the same offered to us by EU countries, which seems likely given the flow of tourism.

[horlock07]

An EU admin trade off - we've been running a low cost government in recent decades because we don't need to employ as many civil servants given that the EU takes care of things like trade deals.  It's an area where costs of Govt. are likely to increase post exit.  That seem like an oxymoron given the waste you see in Govt., but it is a reality that the EU took up quite a bit of the admin work we would previously have held in house.  Like needing to set-up a department tasked with administering the "Visa Waiver" process that will need to be put in place for EU travellers, if we want to have the same offered to us by EU countries, which seems likely given the flow of tourism.

Yet we employ c.420,000 civil servants, but that bureaucratic EU employ c. 32,000?

I apologise that this is the Guardian but its a decent summary of what the guy said and its better than trawling through pages of it!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/18/ivan-rogers-brexit-bombshell-digested-home-truths

[BambooToTheFuture]

The countries view of nationhood is too entrenched and we still have the Second World War too close in our rear view mirror.  We think that people want to invade, that we fought to to hold on to something that would be given away - the reality of course being we fought a mad man who held horrific views on how the world should look.

Overall, we joined for the wrong reasons, we will leave for the wrong reasons.  I hope my view becomes more mainstream, I doubt it in my life time though.  A couple of centuries from now, what we know as out country will be a footnote in history, just like the Kingdom of Wessex.

Totally agree with the comments on a nationhood entrenched and WII etc. Germany have managed to largely put it behind them, with huge remorse and continued apology. They still moved on though. Why can't we as a collective?

In regard to "join for wrong, leave for wrong". It does seem as if we love to make bad decisions based on the protective nature of our nationhood.

People shouldn't really be worried about "losing their identities", we just happen to be living in a time where we are at a geographical and political cusp of change. It's difficult, it's understandable but it shouldn't be feared. Mapping has continually changed throughout history. We shouldn't think we are immune to any changes to our own map in the near future but people do get offended, by essentially an imaginary line (the word I was hunting for was territorial not offended). Many do it all the time, even with our own houses and gardens "that's my 1ft of garden you've put your fence on". It transposes into our own UK towns, counties, regions, countries and even the North/South divide. The fear of course, is by taking away a sense of belonging to something; your "roots" per se.

As stated above, it is all but a line on a map that causes so much pain, division, battle and anger. The UK is fast becoming an overprotective parent and should heed the economic dangers of not allowing itself to breathe.

[BambooToTheFuture]

Taken from... https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/12/13/across-the-world-anglophilia-is-giving-way-to-anglobemusement? which is an interesting read in itself....

The second thing is the amateurism. Britain was thought to have a Rolls-Royce government. This reputation was so solid that the EU's Brexit negotiators initially wondered if the incompetence of their British counterparts was a clever ruse to lull foreigners into a false sense of security. No longer: it turns out that the Rolls-Royce is more of a Morris Minor. European politicians puzzle over how a fellow member of their tribe could begin the Brexit talks without a plan, or appoint an addlepated popinjay such as David Davis to act as chief negotiator.

Aah popinjay! One of my favourites.

[Reg Smeeton]

It's a fair point Reg but we elect MPs who vote according to conscience and judgement.  Manifesto pledges are broken by parties.  Sometimes a party trying to honour a pledge fails to force an MP to vote in a certain way.

What will happen will happen.  British democracy may work in mysterious ways, just like Russian bots but a vote to remain in a further referendum would still be democratic.  As will any other outcome.

Our democracy is flawed, but it's the only one we have, and it's better than the alternatives sought by those on the right.

A bit like Dunkirk, everything will work out fine though, similar to local Tory leader Renard, HMG is making contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit, civil breakdown in April. Williamson is going to mobilise 3500 troops.