Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 5

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There's an unanswerable case for a second referendum.

* The result of the first one was extremely close. Arch-leaver Nigel Farage said he wouldn't accept a vote this narrow as the end of the matter, so there's no reason why the other side should have to.

* Leavers tended to be older, remainers younger. This means as older voters have died and younger ones come of age in the last two years, the result of the 2016 referendum might well have flipped without anyone even changing their mind.

* Opinion polls suggest the 2016 result has indeed flipped, with a majority now wanting remain.

* The winning side resorted to some very dirty tricks, if not outright fraud. The promise to free up an extra £350m on the NHS was an outright lie, and they broke spending limits too. This alone should justify a new vote, doubly so when paired with the narrow result of the first.

* Back in 2016, no one quite knew what they were voting for. They do now (or at least have a better idea). To borrow a member of the Upper Chamber's analogy, what if I conducted a vote in a rest home for the old about what to do this weekend. The vote was a win for the cinema, so I checked what was on. The only movies available were Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist, any of which would lead to fatal heart attacks among the pensioners. What do we do? Go anyway because democracy, or have another vote based on this new information?

* The new referendum would also contain a 'leave' option, so if the Leave campaign won again, we'd be out due to the two-year expiry on Clause 50. The idea that a new referendum would be the first step in asking over and over again until we got the answer we wanted is a nonsense.
 
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The only drawback with that unanswerable case is who you have to convince with it: those who would decide if we get a second referendum or not.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
People seem to be arguing here as if there hadn't been a UK general election in 2017, a year after the referendum.

Neither of the main two parties were anti-Brexit but the 3rd and 4th largest were and their popular vote actually declined (much to my regret).
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I am anti brexit but didn't vote for the lib Dems. The 2017 election was not just about brexit.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
People seem to be arguing here as if there hadn't been a UK general election in 2017, a year after the referendum.

Neither of the main two parties were anti-Brexit but the 3rd and 4th largest were and their popular vote actually declined (much to my regret).
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The highlighted is the point, unfortunately. This wasn't a single issue vote it was a general election and people were voting on a number of issues national and local not to mention party loyalties or the desire not to allow the one of the two main parties you don't want to win into power. Had one of the two parties with an actual chance of forming a government stood on an anti-Brexit platform, who knows?

Eta: And what Lothian said.
 
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Ian Osborne said:
* Leavers tended to be older, remainers younger. This means as older voters have died and younger ones come of age in the last two years, the result of the 2016 referendum might well have flipped without anyone even changing their mind.
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One could argue that since the younger Brits will have to live with this decision more than the older ones, that their decision is worth more, though that opens quite a can of worms.
 
Belz... said:
he thing is, they shouldn't have started the process at all
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No they shouldn't have. But they did. Then pissed off. It seems odd that people would then insist that because they did the only legitimate outcome now is a pig-headed pursuance of the worst possible outcome because anything else would be undemocratic - even if the majority of people don't want what is actually going to be the result.
 
Ian Osborne said:
* Back in 2016, no one quite knew what they were voting for. They do now (or at least have a better idea). To borrow a member of the Upper Chamber's analogy, what if I conducted a vote in a rest home for the old about what to do this weekend. The vote was a win for the cinema, so I checked what was on. The only movies available were Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist, any of which would lead to fatal heart attacks among the pensioners. What do we do? Go anyway because democracy, or have another vote based on this new information?
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Recent poll

Looking back, I hadn't fully considered the complexity of what I was voting for in the referendum:

Strongly agree 11%
Somewhat agree 21%
Somewhat disagree 18%
Strongly disagree 43%

See Table 9

https://www.orb-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ORB-Nat-Rep-Brexit-Poll-Sept-18.pdf
 
Aber said:
Recent poll

Looking back, I hadn't fully considered the complexity of what I was voting for in the referendum:

Strongly agree 11%
Somewhat agree 21%
Somewhat disagree 18%
Strongly disagree 43%

See Table 9

https://www.orb-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ORB-Nat-Rep-Brexit-Poll-Sept-18.pdf
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thats pretty damning. the question is horrible but you still get half the respondents who cant confidently say they understood the complexities of what they were voting for.
 
Ian Osborne said:
There's an unanswerable case for a second referendum.

* The result of the first one was extremely close. Arch-leaver Nigel Farage said he wouldn't accept a vote this narrow as the end of the matter, so there's no reason why the other side should have to.

* Leavers tended to be older, remainers younger. This means as older voters have died and younger ones come of age in the last two years, the result of the 2016 referendum might well have flipped without anyone even changing their mind.
snip
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The problem there is global warming, without a proper cold snap to see off the blue rinse brigade there's older people surviving keeping the vote close and probably to referendum the third, if we ever do get part deux to start with.
Saint Theresa did try kill off her own support (cancelling cold weather payments) and it proved popular (nihilists) but like her promise to club badgers and foxes to death she reneged once she won.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
thats pretty damning. the question is horrible but you still get half the respondents who cant confidently say they understood the complexities of what they were voting for.
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Well think of the 4 quartiles in Dunning-Kruger. A lot of the best-informed people would probably answer that they didn't really understand as we have since seen that every day seems to reveal a new area where we will take a hit. How many for instance were aware of all that Euratom did?
 
Aber said:
Not sure you wouldn't get much the same answers for a General Election.
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Not sure.

The question isn't really getting to whether people actually understand the issues or not but simply whether they are prepared to admit that they don't.

In the case of the EU referendum it was LITERALLY impossible to understand the complexities of a Leave vote since nobody knew what the arrangements would be post Brexit.

And to be honest even putting that aside the issue is vastly complex and I would be skeptical of anyone who claimed they understood all the complexities fully whether Leave or Remain.

I mean FFS we even had an MSP in Scotland who told the world she didn't vote because it was too difficult for her to decide!
 
Boris has a new plan for a 'Super Canada' deal

May has humiliated Britain with her Chequers deal and only his new plan is the way forward. He proposed a looser free trade agreement, "at least as deep as the one the EU has recently concluded with Canada".
His 'Super Canada' deal would bring an open border with Ireland, zero tariffs and zero quotas on all imports and exports, Mutual recognition agreements covering UK and EU regulations to ensure conformity of goods with each other's standards, Technological solutions to keep supply chains operating smoothly, A deal covering goods as well as services, membership of the Aviation area and should be "relatively straightforward" to negotiate.

So, looks like it will be fun at the Party Conference next week.
 
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Wudang said:
And why shouldn't the 1.4 million people who have since come of age to vote be denied a say?
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There's a reason January 19, 2019 should be considered Brexit crossover day.

On that day, the number of young people who have come of age, and who are generally considered remainers, will more or less have overtaken those from the elderly generations, who were generally leavers, who have passed away.

With the result that on Brexit day in March, the UK electorate is decidedly anti-Brexit.

Of course, the whole thing is speculation and fun with numbers, but it should be thought provoking nonetheless.
 
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Aber said:
The counterexample is that the Conservatives keep winning general elections...
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Is there a conservative party in the UK?

It can't be the Tories: They triggered the biggest constitional change since the UK joined the EEC... and that was them, too.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
thats pretty damning. the question is horrible but you still get half the respondents who cant confidently say they understood the complexities of what they were voting for.
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Exactly. 32% say they weren't clear on what they voted for, and the margin of victory was 4%. That poll definitely supports my case.
 
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