Thanks Boris you git Post Reply

[Balhammom]

Sheesh.

Thanks Boris you git.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j12VvolRMs

[Motherslittlehelper]

Who knows, you might actually find in a few years time that leaving Europe is good for the country and our children. We live in a democracy and need to respect the results of a vote, whatever our personal preference.

[GuyD73]

I do share many of your sentiments on this matter petal but I think to achieve the desired outcome of overturning this result, we need a slightly less emotional and more measured approach.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/comme ... BP2bTvqUfN

In the very well written article above, the chap echoes your point that a 4% margin and 36% of the electorate voting leave is not a sufficient mandate for such a momentous decision.

What we do know is that, in practice, most countries require a “supermajority” for nation-defining decisions, not a mere 51%. There is no universal figure like 60%, but the general principle is that, at a bare minimum, the majority ought to be demonstrably stable. A country should not be making fundamental, irreversible changes based on a razor-thin minority that might prevail only during a brief window of emotion.

and goes on to say, again very sensibly, that...

What should the UK have done if the question of EU membership had to be asked (which by the way, it didn’t)? Surely, the hurdle should have been a lot higher; for example, Brexit should have required, say, two popular votes spaced out over at least two years, followed by a 60% vote in the House of Commons. If Brexit still prevailed, at least we could know it was not just a one-time snapshot of a fragment of the population.

Anyway I think the key point in all this is that parliament DOES have to ratify this by voting to repeal the Eurpean Communities Act. Given that we know the leave side LIED extensively and repeatedly in the course of this campaign and that many (possibly as many as 1m according to some polls), are regretting their decision. I would be very surprised if MPs in good conscience can allow this to be passed.

Here's an article by a brexiteer about why he thinks it'll never happen and I tend to agree.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pr ... 05701.html

So what we can all do now is write to our MP and ask them to ask themselves if this was a legitimate result or a failure of 'democracy'.
I will post something shortly on a web site called http://breentry.co.uk/ where it takes two secs to email your MP.

This result has NO legitimacy to my mind, and we ought, with all due respect, to focus on what we can do about that rather than calling all leave voters idiots. A. It achieves nothing B. it makes us sound as bad as them
That's my 2p's worth anyway...

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Bravo petal. *Throws roses*

[pepper]

Bravo Petal

[Vco001]

Hi Petal- I think your answer is very educational. We just moved here from the USA a few months ago and we are very peripheral to what is happening and we do not understand how the whole process works. However- we want to learn and want to understand (especially because we are about to make a similarly catastrophic decision in the US in November which could be a lot worse than Brexit). You say in your answer that your think that parliament does need to act upon the leave vote but then you say that you'd be surprised if the MPs allow it to pass in good conscience. That seems to be opposed. Do you think the MPs can vote against it? Can they go against the popular vote? Would that happen if say, Gove, a leaver becomes the PM?
Not sure if this is the right place to ask these questions but your answer has been the most informative and calm piece that I have seen.
Thanks in advance.

[supergirl]

And now he is not going to even run for leadership.

The leave campaign was full of lies, it s been a week now and the leave leaders still havent come up with their plans for the short and long term future (because there are NO plans) and now one of the leader is gone in a "i made a mess but nanny will clean up after me" kind of way.

Shameful.

I couldnot vote, i am european, my children were all born in London, i ve been living in London for more than 15 years. I am devastated.

[ctmum]

I was devastated by the result. But I was even more shocked to find out the reasons why some people voted leave. For example, my cleaner said she voted leave because she was fed up with her European relatives coming to visit her on short notice all the time The whole referudum thing was a bad idea. This simply cannot be democracy.

[ctmum]

*referendum

[juliantenniscoach]

I voted Remain albeit with serious reservations about the waste of money, corruption and 'mission creep' towards a Federal European State the EU is headed.

However I do take issue with some of the comments. If you think your vote is worth more than the 52% who voted Leave, then you've just discovered why they did. We live in this fantastic London bubble which takes the best and the brightest from all over the World to make it one of the best cities in the World. Alas, the rest of the country isn't like that. Honestly, it really isn't.

Next up the young vote. It is true that the vast majority of young voters voted to Remain. However only 34% of them bothered to vote compared to a 73% turnout. It was thought that the bad weather that day would deter the older voters (who mainly voted Leave), but in reality, that demographic turned out in force.

Lastly the campaign itself. When the negotiations with the EU started, the Leave vote stood at 26%. Between then and voting day, they doubled their vote. How did that happen? My personal opinion is that both campaigns were awful, the Remain Campaign being truly awful. Put the lies of the Leave Campaign to one side for a minute. Can you think of any time where a positive case for the EU was made? I can't, it was all negative, lecturing and bullying especially from Carl Junkers the EU President.

And now where are we? Well the powers that be in the Conservative Party have decided that will not back any Remain candidate because they have drawn their line in the sand over Federal Europe. Johnson was seen as wavering, based on his previous statements and been undone by Gove. I seen May as the front runner as Gove has the personality of a coffee table and the loyalty of a drug dealer!

As for Labour, Corbyn has seen this as an opportunity to clear out all dissenters and replace them with loyal (yet dim) acolytes using the structure of the Labour Membership to achieve it. A coup d'etat by both parties without a shot being fired in fact.

As for a 2nd referendum, or the bill not passing Parliament, who knows? We are in uncharted waters and you have to keep swimming, even against the tide, because it's better than the other option. Have a great weekend everyone.

[phigoldenspiral]

Who knows, you might actually find in a few years time that leaving Europe is good for the country and our children. We live in a democracy and need to respect the results of a vote, whatever our personal preference.

Before I comment, I suggest you read Mary Beard's excellent article on democracy (what that really means) and what has been learned and how it relates to the referendum. You can read it here - http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/publi ... -people-2/

See, the problem with saying that we need to respect the results of the vote because we are in a democracy, conveniently ignores a few key issues:
1) we live in a representative democracy. This means that the general public vote in people who have the time, education, and mandate to inform themselves of very complex issues that will determine the best course of action. This is why we don't have referenda on every key issue the country faces. The referendum was not an exercise in democracy, it was a political tool used by Cameron to attempt to further his own career. If a referendum was held to remove the rights of foreign-born people to work or have children, and 51% of people agreed, do you think this should be enforced? We are a fickle mob. Mary's

2) A referendum on a very important, virtually irreversible issue, should it be held, should be legally binding and have a minimum acceptance threshold. Even had remain won, the margin of approval is unacceptably close. The nation is split and a referendum held a month earlier or later would have changed the result. It was irresponsible of the government not to set an acceptable minimum threshhold.

3) Manipulation, propoganda, deceit, inciting hatred - these were the tools used by the leave campaign to garner votes. The lies in particular, which are now indisputably out, are not a basis for a democratic decision to be made, or do you believe they are? If the leave campaign had promised each leave voter £20,000 cash for voting leave and then after the vote said "Sorry we didn't mean it" - do those votes still count?

4) As the government decided that the referendum not be binding, it is their responsibility to make the final decision. They should make the decision that they, in their informed opinion, believe is best for the country, considering the referendum as well as the information that has come to light since.

Mary puts it well:
"Handing us a referendum once every twenty years or so, largely depriving us of accurate information in a fog of slogans and rhetoric, and allowing us all, on both sides, to vent our various discontents and prejudices in a yes/no vote is not a way to reach a responsible decision. Nor is it a way to re-empower a disempowered electorate."

[supergirl]

@ philgoldenspiral: well said. I agree.

A true democratic exercise would have to ask the question once following a proper campaign of information and education on the subject, with another vote of the same question a year later and a minimum threshold.
Only then democraty would have spoken in my opinion.

[juliantenniscoach]

An interesting take - http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/eu ... F.facebook

[Bookymummy]

Goodness me Petal!!

For avoidence of all doubt, your arrogant, bigoted, elitest, London-centric rant is the very reason people such as myself voted Leave.

People fortunate enough to live in leafy, lovely, affluent, nappy vally land clearly have very little idea of what life is like in places like Hartlepool (70:30 Leave) and Sunderland (60:40 Leave) where wages are not much more than Job Seekers Allowance and continue to be driven down by cheap imported labour. For most people outside of the London bubble, the issues aren't (multi-million pound) house prices and the prices of cheap imported domestic labour.

Do you really think that no-one travelled abroad before 1973....?? If you do then you are not the one to be throwing around the word stupid.

As for democracy.....well, even stupid people are allowed to vote, it's called freedom. Maybe you are seriously suggesting that only those 'clever' enough to make the 'correct' decision ( presumably one with which you in particular agree) be allowed to vote? Why not go the whole hog and just have the one choice on the ballot paper, pre-marked with the correct answer of course!

Both myself and my husband served in the Armed Forces and were therefore obliged to be involved in Tony Blair's wars. The Labour administration that saw this through was elected on a turnout of 40%-ish and I didn't vote for him. Perhaps that was not fair, and maybe I could have asked for a re-run of that ballot?

Please try to understand that Project Fear (WWIII and all that) didn't work, and Project Sneer ( everyone who voted Leave is thick, old, stupid, racist, nazi etc) is wearing thin now. Screaming abuse is not a replacement for logical argument and, as I said, only serves to reinforce one of the reasons to vote Leave in the first place!

[foodeditorjo]

I agree with you Petal... but I do also respect the views of others. I'm not saying that all who voted Leave are racist, but unfortunately many racists did vote Leave. So all this has done is legitimise a small-minded, Little England, inward-looking mentality where it's now ok to voice the xenophobic views that people have kept under wraps.

I view myself as British AND European. I speak several languages, I am very cosmopolitan, I have lived in Italy and I EMBRACE the fact that we are all able to move around freely in Europe and that we, in London (where half the UK's GDP originates) benefit from highly skilled (and even not so highly skilled) foreigners coming here to work.

I actually love the fact that I hear so many languages when I walk down the street. I write about food for a living, I love different cuisines, wines, languages, cultures. It's a shame that this vote has been so divisive and consisted mainly of the old voting to leave, which will have huge implications for our children who may want to live/work abroad.