No it wasn't but I think Reg is correct that that is what most of us thought we were voting on. I certainly did. And this "half-in, half-out, shake it all about" thing looks like politicians trying to sidestep a result they don't agree with
But what actually was promised bar some generality about leaving the EU. Despite the best efforts of our PM, many ministers and their friends in the media the result gives no mandate, for example, to leave the CU or SM, in fact many of the prominent leave campaigners (Johnson, Hannan for example) made explicit reference to leaving the EU not being a vote to leave the SM and CU stating that we would be foolish to do so, yet now two years on we have May et al suggesting that 'will of the people' is explicitly a vote to leave these organisations, as I said earlier she is arguing that the electorate voted explicitly for a question that was never actually asked of them.
As for it not happening, despite the best efforts to lay the blame squarely at the feet of the judiciary, the Lords, anyone who voted remain and most significantly the EU (something that will no doubt continue for the next 40 years) the blame lies in the hands of those who campaigned for the leave vote and then have shown themselves entirely incapable for delivering on their promise.
Its all very well for Rees-Mogg, Gove, Johnson (and a plethora of vociferous leave voters) to bitch and bicker about things and blame others for the fact that utopia is drifting away, yet no one has come up with anything resembling a workable solution to deliver on what was promised. So far your leaders (she is nowt to do with me!) have collapsed on the payments issue (as the EU merely applied the regulations which were already in place pre-referendum and any basic research would have made perfectly clear) meaning that my daughter will still be paying for this when she is in her 60's. No one can come up with a real world example that works for the Irish Border, despite it being blindingly obvious to anyone who spent 5 minutes considering the practicalities of what was being promised that a customs union by definition needs a hard border and if we were to leave said union a hard border would follow (setting aside the complete lack of appreciation of this on the leave side pre-June 2016, this has been an issue in the public domain for over a year now, and still the great minds on the leave side cannot answer it and just keep booting it down the road). And we have not even got to Gibraltar yet, that's when the fun is going to really start! Its abundantly clear that Mogg etc are leaving May in power as otherwise they would have to take an iota of responsibility for this and they are too cowardly to do so, likewise their supporters are also very loath apparently to bring them to account as that might meaning admitting that they have been sold a hospital pass.
Turning to the legalities, a particularly peculiar situation has arisen. The Referendum Bill was flawed if you are a leaver as it never allowed any legal process for the result to be delivered (despite the best efforts of many to rewrite what it actually says), likewise the triggering of A50 was potentially flawed legally, now if I were a leaver I would wonder whether this was simple ineptitude upon the part of the government and their undoubtedly highly paid lawyers, or something more sinister to handicap the whole process - possibly the government holding back a get out of jail free card just in case. One thing that has been gloriously ironic has been seeing so many hard line right wingers trying to suggest that the law should not be interpreted as it is written, these often being the same who are very keen on authoritarian methods of government!
Its a complete shambles and all it appears to have done is shown the UK to be a somewhat unpleasant, unwelcoming and incredibly inept country, led by idiots who managed to swing a vote by embracing longstanding issues within part of the electorate through a particularly unpleasant line of campaigning (interesting that Project Fear is often laid at the feet of the remain side as some manner of insult, when we consider the altogether more unpleasant project fear of the leave side, for example Turkey joining - shown to be total nonsense!, Farages Nazi posters - one thing that has become clear is that the leave campaign was considerably more professional than the remain one, and they did not decide to go down that line as viciously as they did without being aware that it would appeal to a lot of voters - possibly informed by the work of CA etc)
P.S - as you might have gathered I posted this on another forum yesterday and frankly could not be arsed to repeat it all again and copied and pasted instead!
