Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 5

[JoeMorgue]

And still nothing be proposed is any different on a functional level from just asking the question, getting the answer you didn't want, coming up with excuse to ask it again, and when you finally get the answer you want by some magical amazing coincidence that one time will be the time the question was answer correctly and none of the stars aligned to invalidate it.

As in if the next referendum is "No" nobody here is going to be going back through the demographics and background looking for a reason to not accept it.

Whether or not it's "technically" politically clean is beside the point, it's dirty.

 

[Ian Osborne]

Let's just say if I'm pretty sure if we have another referendum (either another basically glorified opinion poll like the first or one with some actual to be taken action attached to it) and it comes back "Yes" again... most people in this thread will still be coming up with reasons we should have another one.

It would be too late by then anyway - we'd be out.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I think we have learned that there is no point having a decisive vote where you don't know what you are voting for.

In future the deal needs to be done before the vote.

Again that just invalided like... everything ever done under a democracy ever of all time.

And this is a little close to "They obviously didn't know what they are talking about because they disagreed with me. If they did, they would have voted the way I think they should."

Hell we can't get our own elected officials to bother reading what they are voting for 90% of the time. Sure as hell aren't going to get the holi polloi to do it.

 

[3point14]

Everyone's all "Democracy is great, will of the people, sucks to be you losers" when the masses vote on their side, all "OMG Tyranny of the Majority! This is why we have Representational and not pure democracy!" when it's not.

I deeply object to the above, inaccurate, portrayal of my position.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I deeply object to the above, inaccurate, portrayal of my position.

Okay. Put it to a referendum. We'll keep having the referendum over and over until we get the results I want at which point we will stop having it.

 

[3point14]

Again that just invalided like... everything ever done under a democracy ever of all time.

Might I refer you to my post #2274

 

[Tolls]

Do you know what was voted for in 2016?
Can you describe what "Leave" meant?
Because that is what we're arguing about.

Remain was bloody obvious.
Leave meant whatever the person speaking, and the person listening, wanted it to mean.

Now, as I keep saying, we know what Leave is going to entail. No accusations of "Project Fear". We know, because the government handling the Leave negotiations has been making provisions.

Is it not right to put this major change to the public? Otherwise the previous referendum was simply a blank cheque.

Put it this way, I wouldn't have been terribly impressed if a government had taken a Remain vote as an excuse to sign up to the Euro and Schengen...but that's where we're at with Leave.

 

[3point14]

Okay. Put it to a referendum. We'll keep having the referendum over and over until we get the results I want at which point we will stop having it.

Jesus.

No. Because, in the main, people do not have the time to investigate each and every piece of legislation that might potentially be passed.

Perhaps there's some way that we can vote in people who do have that sort of time, give them a mandate for a direction and let them and the civil service become experts in the relevant fields.

Can't think what we'd call it though.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Might I refer you to my post #2274

The pointless snarky civics lesson? No I'm good.

Because if the referendum had come back "No" but the people in power had decided to go away with Brexit anyway, you wouldn't be arguing that just how representative democracy works.

 

[Wudang]

The pointless snarky civics lesson? No I'm good.

Because if the referendum had come back "No" but the people in power had decided to go away with Brexit anyway, you wouldn't be arguing that just how representative democracy works.

Bad news for you link

 

[Lothian]

Again that just invalided like... everything ever done under a democracy ever of all time.

And this is a little close to "They obviously didn't know what they are talking about because they disagreed with me. If they did, they would have voted the way I think they should."

Hell we can't get our own elected officials to bother reading what they are voting for 90% of the time. Sure as hell aren't going to get the holi polloi to do it.

No, People like Ceptimus are in favour of a hard brexit. There could be a vote on that and we would know what we are getting. Same with a vote on a Canada deal or an EEA deal. Problem this time was, and still is, that we don't know what deal we are going to get.

It is not about what I want. If 51.7% of the public vote for a hard brexit then we would get it. If 12% voted for it, it would curb the appetite to run the poll again for a while.

Same with joining. If after a hard brexit and a further economic downturn there is a vote to rejoin and only 20% support then there will not be another vote for a while until someone can come up with a definite deal that gets public support.

 

[3point14]

The pointless snarky civics lesson? No I'm good.

My apologies. It perhaps came off more snarky than I wanted to. It's a somewhat emotive issue.

It is, however crux of the whole matter and one you seem to keep disregarding. It's not about democracy, it's about knowledge and information in the field being discussed. The situation now is that the electorate were lied to. Simple as that. Decisions made in the absence of knowledge can be disregarded.

Because if the referendum had come back "No" but the people in power had decided to go away with Brexit anyway, you wouldn't be arguing that just how representative democracy works.

You think that would have happened? I don't think that would have happened.

You're waving the flag for the results of a non binding referendum which is made useless by the fact that the leading proponents of one side lied, extensively. We now know that. In light of that, and that we are, as a populace, much better educated about the ins and outs of Europe, a second referendum at this point would be entirely valid and the result of that poll would not be, in any way, invalidated by the one that preceded it.

If that one comes back with 'yes, let's leave' then I will curse my countrymen for the fuckheaded, racists idiots they are, accept the result and start looking for a European woman to marry so I could leave here before it becomes the no-tax, no-service, no-rights haven for lasais faire capitalism I believe it will become.

 

[Belz...]

If that one comes back with 'yes, let's leave' then I will curse my countrymen for the fuckheaded, racists idiots they are

And her I thought we had made progress on that.

 

[3point14]

And her I thought we had made progress on that.

To be fair, I don't think it's racism as such, it just presents that way


Successive governments have invited many people into the country, collected the taxes they pay (they tend to pay more tax than the native residents) but simply haven't ramped up services to accommodate the extra people. So, what people see, with their Daily Mail education and the constant bashing of Europe by those who want to distract from their own failings, is immigrants arriving and using up limited public services. They don't see that the migrants are diligently paying their taxes and that it's government policy that creates the lack of services, not the arriving people.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You're waving the flag for the results of a non binding referendum which is made useless by the fact that the leading proponents of one side lied, extensively. We now know that. In light of that, and that we are, as a populace, much better educated about the ins and outs of Europe, a second referendum at this point would be entirely valid and the result of that poll would not be, in any way, invalidated by the one that preceded it.

If that one comes back with 'yes, let's leave' then I will curse my countrymen for the **********, racists idiots they are, accept the result and start looking for a European woman to marry so I could leave here before it becomes the no-tax, no-service, no-rights haven for lasais faire capitalism I believe it will become.

You seem to think I'm defending Brexit as a concept or its supporters and I seem to be catching a lot of anger for that. I am not.

Hell I'm completely honest here the UK had so many asterisk and exceptions to the EU anyway that actually going through the trouble of leaving the EU seems rather silly to me. The UK has enough leverage to largely pick and choose which parts of the EU it pays attention to and which ones to ignore already it seems.

All I'm saying is.

1. The fact that the referendum was non-binding (I've referred to it as nothing more than a glorified opinion poll throughout this whole discussion) does not make it meaningless. When the government asks the people something in an official capacity it is not unreasonable for the people to expect their answer to actually have an affect.

2. If you didn't trust the people to make the decision you shouldn't have asked them. To essentially ask them their opinion and then after the fact go "Oh never mind you obviously don't know what you are talking about" only after they answer "wrong" is dirty pool, even if it is 100% true.

In a democracy "We trust the people to answer this question" has got to be something you determine before you put the question to them, not after. After is too late.

3. And again this just a major political party dangling a carrot in front of a group of one-issue voters, safe in the assumption that they could have pulled the carrot out of the way at the last minute and now when that didn't happen everyone is just trying to pretend like they didn't get the carrot.

This was a political bluff that got called. You still lose the hand when your bluff gets called. You can't after the fact go "Well if I knew you where gonna call my bluff I would have folded, so I'm just gonna keep my part of the pot."

 

[Dave Rogers]

Let's just say if I'm pretty sure if we have another referendum (either another basically glorified opinion poll like the first or one with some actual to be taken action attached to it) and it comes back "Yes" again... most people in this thread will still be coming up with reasons we should have another one.

As I've said before, if we have another referendum where the question is basically:

and the answer is "OK," then I'll accept that as the informed will of the people. I may not be happy about it, but based on the fact that we know have a much better idea of what leaving the EU entails, I'll recognise that there are no grounds for asking again.

Dave

 

[Aber]

Remain was bloody obvious.

Was it?

Did it mean 'status quo', or 'ever closer union, all the way to a federal state', or 'something in-between'?

 

[angrysoba]

We get to override democracy if we can prove the majority doesn't know what the heck they are talking about?

BRB gonna go override pretty much every decision made ever in a democracy.

You don't understand, Joe. The decision was bad. Bad! It's different when the decision is bad. Objectively bad, even.

As with most things Brexit-related, there are many viewpoints on this.

One of those is that after the Prime Minister negotiates a deal, it could, potentially go to a second referendum on whether the terms of the particular deal are acceptable to most of the population. And it has been argued, further, that in the event of such a referendum there may be a three-way choice:

Deal (May-EU)
No Deal ("Hard" Brexit)
Remain

Now, I think that this is often put forward with a deliberate attempt to split the Brexit vote, and may not end up with a majority for any choice, but I don't think it is unreasonable, in principle, to ask whether the only realistic options are the ones that the population would find acceptable.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I do wonder if "The EU" is just symbolic and everything the Brexit voters are really worried (separate from questions as to whether or they are valid/right) about could be done without technically leaving it (or vice versa I guess)

 

[Darat]

Was it?

Did it mean 'status quo', or 'ever closer union, all the way to a federal state', or 'something in-between'?

It meant that we would remain a member of the EU and to only allow further integration if our democratically elected national government wanted it to happen.