Brexit: Now What? Part II

[MCel58]

Parliament voted to delegate the decision to the voters. How many times did you hear the PM and other MPs spout, 'let the people decide'?

Actually that is the point they did not vote on that. They may have said that but they voted on the referendum act which did not say that. Politicians lie that is why you need to read the actual words written in parliamentary documents. You would think after years of things like TU legislation, poll tax legislation, welfare legislation etc that the U.K. public might have learnt the fundamental lesson of parliament is that the real detail is in the fine print not the sound bites from Politicians and the press. This is why it takes months to pass an act of parliament and a vote in both houses and Royal assent. It is also the only thing that the courts will look at as they are making their judgements on the law and the constitution which is the actual acts of parliament involved.

 

[Tolls]

Parliament voted to delegate the decision to the voters. How many times did you hear the PM and other MPs spout, 'let the people decide'?

And if the government cannot (or will not) put forward a path to leaving that does not involve crapping on the economy then Parliament is well within its rights to turn around and tell them "no", until they come up with something sensible.

Or do you think the vote meant "here you go, do what you want"?

Would you have been happy with a government taking a "yes" vote to mean "let's go all in on the EU, Euro, everything"? Of course not. The same applies here.

 

[The Don]

I found this relevant:

https://www.ft.com/content/f1efaed2-abea-11e6-9cb3-bb8207902122

Some 85 per cent of those who voted to leave the EU said they wanted to control immigration; as did 55 per cent of those who voted for Britain to remain. Around 12 per cent were undecided.

At the same time the report found that more than nine in 10 people wanted Britain to have access to the European single market — regardless of how they voted.

(...)

Some 49 per cent thought freedom of movement for EU citizens should be kept if it enabled the UK to keep free trade — with 51 per cent opposed — roughly in line with how the public voted on June 23.

Herein lies the conundrum Theresa May finds herself in. Half the electorate wants Single market access even if it means permissible immigration, the other half is prepared to starve in order to keep Europeans out of UK.

Short of EU accommodating her and giving extraordinary and ultimately self-destructive deal, she will alienate half of the country. I do wonder what can UK offer to EU that would make EU even remotely contemplate the deal Theresa is promising:

Mrs May has always rejected that binary terminology, insisting that she will be able to achieve a tailor-made arrangement for the UK involving both immigration controls and good trade deals.

Of course good trade deals isn't anywhere near single-market access, but that is what makes her a regular lying politician.

McHrozni

Parliament voted to delegate the decision to the voters. How many times did you hear the PM and other MPs spout, 'let the people decide'?

McHronzi has very ably summarised the problem, it seems that a small majority of people want control over immigration and a much. much larger majority want to remain in the single European Market. These two aims are seemingly incompatible.

The Leave campaign said a lot of things but one thing that they said regularly is that we could have control over EU immigration AND stay in the single European Market - Boris Johnson often stated it. This is despite all the experts (who of course could be safely ignored ) who said this is impossible - and so it subsequently seems (despite Angela Merkel's recent comments).

If the British public had been given a choice between staying in the EU or not but that it was clear that the price of leaving the EU was leaving the single European Market (I mean the Remain campaign said it a LOT but the Leave campaign spent a lot of time countering that view) then we'd have had a clear idea of which way people felt about those mutually incompatible positions.

Perhaps for the 51%, it really was that important and they would see the UK economy significantly damaged in order to get control over EU immigration - though whether such a momentous decision should be made on such a thin margin is another thing.

 

[McHrozni]

McHronzi

It's McHrozni

Perhaps for the 51%, it really was that important and they would see the UK economy significantly damaged in order to get control over EU immigration - though whether such a momentous decision should be made on such a thin margin is another thing.

The poll asked 1400 people, the margin of error for polls of that size is about 3% either way. A 53-47 split would be a statistical tie, 51-49 is really just random noise. An equal number of people prefer Single market access to control over immigration than vice-versa. There is no popular mandate to speak of for either option.

I have a solution: Leave campaigners must come clean and admit UK already has control over non-EU immigration and is able to control that, and that non-EU immigration represents more than half of immigration to UK. That should get us to at least 60% Single market and 40% immigration, allowing for an irresponsible and stupid but not catastrophic Brexit. If the public supports something because it was deceived by lies, their mandate is not democratic.

McHrozni
(and not McHronzi )

 

[3point14]

I think we should have a referendum where the question on the ballot is:

"Parliament should give everyone in the UK an elephant"


If the vote was 51% in favour of UK-wde, state-provided elephants then parliament would have to do it, right?

 

[The Don]

It's McHrozni

McHrozni
(and not McHronzi )

Sorry

 

[Tolls]

Sorry

Out of curiosity, did you get an email off Liam this week (or so)?

 

[The Don]

Out of curiosity, did you get an email off Liam this week (or so)?

Liam Fox ?

No I did not, and AFAIK nothing came through for the company as a whole.

 

[MCel58]

@ Ceptimus this is the briefing that all MPs got prior to the parliamentary vote on the referendum bill
" This Bill requires a referendum to be held on the question of the UK’s continued membership of the European Union (EU) before the end of 2017. It does not contain any requirement for the UK Government to implement the results of the referendum, nor set a time limit by which a vote to leave the EU should be implemented. Instead, this is a type of referendum known as pre-legislative or consultative, which enables the electorate to voice an opinion which then influences the Government in its policy decisions. The referendums held in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1997 and 1998 are examples of this type, where opinion was tested before legislation was introduced. The UK does not have constitutional provisions which would require the results of a referendum to be implemented, unlike, for example, the Republic of Ireland, where the circumstances in which a binding referendum should be held are set out in its constitution".
if you want to read the complete briefing then here is the link http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7212/CBP-7212.pdf
So yes you were lied to what a surprise that a referendum that was basically a ploy to keep the Tory Party together was underpinned by a hidden clause buried in the section 5 0f the briefing paper.

 

[Tolls]

Liam Fox ?

No I did not, and AFAIK nothing came through for the company as a whole.

Got an email from him (OK, it was HMRC with his signature on the bottom) through the company.

It was obviously more selective than I thought!

 

[Andy_Ross]

@ Ceptimus this is the briefing that all MPs got prior to the parliamentary vote on the referendum bill
" This Bill requires a referendum to be held on the question of the UK’s continued membership of the European Union (EU) before the end of 2017. It does not contain any requirement for the UK Government to implement the results of the referendum, nor set a time limit by which a vote to leave the EU should be implemented. Instead, this is a type of referendum known as pre-legislative or consultative, which enables the electorate to voice an opinion which then influences the Government in its policy decisions. The referendums held in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1997 and 1998 are examples of this type, where opinion was tested before legislation was introduced. The UK does not have constitutional provisions which would require the results of a referendum to be implemented, unlike, for example, the Republic of Ireland, where the circumstances in which a binding referendum should be held are set out in its constitution".
if you want to read the complete briefing then here is the link http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7212/CBP-7212.pdf
So yes you were lied to

Details

 

[Klimax]

Out of curiosity, did you get an email off Liam this week (or so)?

Was there supposed to be some communication?

ETA: Forgot to refresh. Apparently some letters were sent...

 

[Arcade22]

Boris Johnson’s approach to Brexit has been ridiculed by European ministers after he told Italy it would have to offer tariff-free trade in order to sell its prosecco in the UK.

Carlo Calenda, an Italian economics minister, said it was insulting that Johnson had told him during a recent meeting that Italy would grant Britain access to the EU’s single market “because you don’t want to lose prosecco exports”.

“He basically said: ‘I don’t want free movement of people but I want the single market,’” he told Bloomberg. “I said: ‘No way.’ He said: ‘You’ll sell less prosecco.’ I said: ‘OK, you’ll sell less fish and chips, but I’ll sell less prosecco to one country and you’ll sell less to 27 countries.’ Putting things on this level is a bit insulting.”

...

In response, Michael Gove, the former cabinet minister and leading Brexit campaigner, pressed for the UK to achieve a “quickie divorce” with the EU regardless of the economic consequences, as he raised concerns that civil servants were overcomplicating the process.

The former justice secretary, who led the Vote Leave campaign with Johnson, questioned why the UK could not just leave the EU without having settled its future relationship with the bloc after having sorted out “housekeeping” related to outstanding payments.

“Can we simplify?” Gove said. “What if I were to determine to simply leave the European Union, to trigger article 50 and to conclude the bare minimum in order to leave? What would article 50 actually require me to agree?

“For the purposes of this question, I am not worried about transitional arrangements, I am prepared to take the economic hit or to secure the economic benefits of not being inside the single market and being outside the customs union. I simply want the divorce on the quickest possible terms. What do I need in that quickie divorce?”

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ministers-boris-johnson-prosecco-claim-brexit

This is the kind of intellectual giants who'd argue for Brexit. Put a yob in a suit and you get trash like Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage.

 

[Belz...]

In any case endless re-runs are just another way of rejecting democracy unless it delivers the result you want.

This.

Actually we do. When you pretended the result would be the same if voted today, a claim you never provided evidence, we provided you with polls showing that people changed their minds over the last months, enough to revert the vote. It was quoted and linked. But just as your waffling about not obeying the NON binding referendum is anti democratic, while it is quite clear you are the only one thinking that, I expect you fully to find some excuse why that poll and similar does not count.

Does that mean that we should have a referendum a month to keep track of the change? When do we stop doing a referendum and pick the last result, since people's opinions can change all the time? What if they vote for Brexit again, and the separation is done by the government, and in five years they change their minds again? New referendum and request for EU membership? Until they change their minds again?

Insisting that the June referendum was a sacred act because it returned the result you want is self-serving. Would you feel the same had it gone the other way? Nobody can know.

Would you?

 

[Craig B]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ministers-boris-johnson-prosecco-claim-brexit

This is the kind of intellectual giants who'd argue for Brexit. Put a yob in a suit and you get trash like Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage.

It's in HuffPo as well, here. Almost incredible, even for BoJo. At least we know the mystery word he used in his speech to the Czechs. "Bollocks".

It's all becoming quite unreal. We now await Trump's initiatives in the diplomatic field, with some trepidation.

 

[Tolls]

Would you?

I would be opposed to any attempt to make a 'yes' result into an agreement to sign up for the Euro...just as any attempt to make a 'no' into an agreement to withdraw from the single market should be rejected.

Parliament would be negligent if it allowed government to push forward with an exit that was more detrimental to the UK economy than it had to be.

This is the difference between a 'yes' and 'no' vote. We knew that 'yes' simply meant more of the same...our position in the EU was a known. A 'no' vote on the other hand...well, you can see the result here.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ministers-boris-johnson-prosecco-claim-brexit

This is the kind of intellectual giants who'd argue for Brexit. Put a yob in a suit and you get trash like Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage.

The question from Gove seems like a fair one if, as it appears, it was to understand the options available in full. If the answer comes back 'economic shambles' and he still likes it then would be the time to criticise.

 

[Arcade22]

The question from Gove seems like a fair one if, as it appears, it was to understand the options available in full. If the answer comes back 'economic shambles' and he still likes it then would be the time to criticise.

He didn't ask for the consequences of leaving the EU without any agreement in place he asked for the quickest way to leave irrespective of the economic (and presumably other) consequences.

It just goes to show how utterly clueless he is despite being one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Brexit. Shouldn't he, above all others, already know that in the first place? Does he know anything?

 

[Belz...]

I would be opposed to any attempt to make a 'yes' result into an agreement to sign up for the Euro...just as any attempt to make a 'no' into an agreement to withdraw from the single market should be rejected.

Parliament would be negligent if it allowed government to push forward with an exit that was more detrimental to the UK economy than it had to be.

This is the difference between a 'yes' and 'no' vote. We knew that 'yes' simply meant more of the same...our position in the EU was a known. A 'no' vote on the other hand...well, you can see the result here.

Wait... which one is "leave"?

 

[Craig B]

Wait... which one is "leave"?

Presumably: Yes, we should leave; and No, that won't cause any problems.