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EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

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Jonny

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What? So we should go ahead with Brexit in order to appease the far right? As reasons for Brexit go, that has to be one of the silliest.

And I'm not a great fan of McDonnell, but to describe him as a far left extremist is pretty absurd.

It's not so much appeasement of the far right as cutting them off, sometimes a moderate competitor is the best solution, as in the case of a Conservative-led hard Brexit. After all, the Conservative Party will be in a position to take the credit if Brexit goes through as planned, especially a no-formal-deal ( the risk of damage to the EU means that they will do something at their end to keep everything moving).
 
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Ken H

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Walking away is primarily to our disadvantage. It is not a useful bargaining chip with the EU, and meanwhile the spectre of it is slowly destroying UK industry. It needs to be ruled out.
that is one opinion. Maybe existing under WTO, and in a low tariff world will be better than the over regulated, protectionist EU
 

Ken H

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It's not so much appeasement of the far right as cutting them off, sometimes a moderate competitor is the best solution, as in the case of a Conservative-led hard Brexit. After all, the Conservative Party will be in a position to take the credit if Brexit goes through as planned, especially a no-formal-deal ( the risk of damage to the EU means that they will do something at their end to keep everything moving).
this idea that brexit is a conservative plot is risible. Cameron was bounced into the referendum by UKIP winning the EU parliament elections. (He considered that leaving tories shifting to UKIP in 2015 was a real risk and the referendum was a ploy to neutralise that risk)
Cameron thought he could swing a remain vote with his sham re-negotiation - He wanted a remain result.
then when he went off in a huff at losing, the tories put in remainer May to make sure Brexit was buried,
and the referendum leave vote came from constituencies of both Tory and labour MPs
Brexit transcends party lines. Which is why the political system in this country has failed on this issue.
 

Bantamzen

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that is one opinion. Maybe existing under WTO, and in a low tariff world will be better than the over regulated, protectionist EU

Yet most opinion, including those of experts in this field say it will not be better. Economies are not run on rhetoric and finger crossing, which if you forgive me for saying is what you appear to advocate. As I understand it, no major economies operate under purely WTO tariffs, they all have either individual or collective deals in place. Leaving with no deal would mean we'd lose all those negotiated under the EU, and have to re-negociate all of them individually, and deals can take years.

No deal risks weakening our economic situation for years, maybe decades. And for what, a different coloured passport cover? No thanks!
 

Ken H

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Yet most opinion, including those of experts in this field say it will not be better. Economies are not run on rhetoric and finger crossing, which if you forgive me for saying is what you appear to advocate. As I understand it, no major economies operate under purely WTO tariffs, they all have either individual or collective deals in place. Leaving with no deal would mean we'd lose all those negotiated under the EU, and have to re-negociate all of them individually, and deals can take years.

No deal risks weakening our economic situation for years, maybe decades. And for what, a different coloured passport cover? No thanks!
again, an opinion.
Most economists are globalists...
 

Bantamzen

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again, an opinion.
Most economists are globalists...

Opinions yes, but educated and experienced ones nonetheless. And frankly economies have to think on a global basis, otherwise they will end up being swamped. Whether you like globalisation or not, it is a reality and if we don't plan our exit from the EU properly we will be stuffed. It's a potential scenario that hard core leavers have been desperately trying to ignore, and frankly that head in sand position is part of the reason we are in this unholy mess. Time to wake up and smell the (global) coffee, leaving the EU is difficult, needs to be planned properly with a deal and a plan. And if we cannot, then you will have to wait until we have both.
 

Groningen

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The voice of TM is bad. Her remark about Juncker was a cheap snear. TM also advised yesterday evening not to vote for her own proposal. Bring it than not in. Now she seems to leave on June 30th if today's vote goes wrong.
 

whhistle

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If the country had a referendum and voted to move the entire UK to the Moon, would you insist that the result gets accepted and cannot be changed?
Really?
If you'ree trying to help me understand your point of view, at least use something that's realistic.

The problem is, there will always be people who want out, and always be people who want in.

Leaving the EU isn't impossible.
I really fail to see why we can't leave - keep things as they are, and spend the two years transision period resolving how things will be different (ie, the backstop, the import tarriffs, whatever else the Government is messing about with).

MPs did nothing for first year, except a few who tried to reverse the referendum result.

The media reports how our country has spent the last two years in hiatus as companies are unsure what's happening. The sooner we're out of that situation, the better - that's what's important.

I also fail to understand why remainers have decided that if we leave the EU, workers rights will be eroded.
Fact is, nobody knows what will happen, but I'd say it's unlikely they'll reverse anything we have now. And who knows, maybe the UK Government will decide better standards. Dunno why people think the EU seem to be some sort of protective shield about this sort of thing.
 

whhistle

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Should MPs vote for an action that is likely to make their constituents worse off, even if their constituents want it?
Isn't that the job of an MP?
To vote for what their constituents want?
Because as I understood it, they are elected spokespeople essentially.

Plus, please point me to quantifiable FACT things will be worse off in 15 years time.
Because we'll need 10-15 years to work out whether leaving the EU was good or bad.
 

Ken H

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Opinions yes, but educated and experienced ones nonetheless. And frankly economies have to think on a global basis, otherwise they will end up being swamped. Whether you like globalisation or not, it is a reality and if we don't plan our exit from the EU properly we will be stuffed. It's a potential scenario that hard core leavers have been desperately trying to ignore, and frankly that head in sand position is part of the reason we are in this unholy mess. Time to wake up and smell the (global) coffee, leaving the EU is difficult, needs to be planned properly with a deal and a plan. And if we cannot, then you will have to wait until we have both.
we should have been planning for WTO from after the referendum. If we had got a WA then that would have been icing on the cake. But we have done no WTO planning thus the clusterf*ck
 

Ken H

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Opinions yes, but educated and experienced ones nonetheless. And frankly economies have to think on a global basis, otherwise they will end up being swamped. Whether you like globalisation or not, it is a reality and if we don't plan our exit from the EU properly we will be stuffed. It's a potential scenario that hard core leavers have been desperately trying to ignore, and frankly that head in sand position is part of the reason we are in this unholy mess. Time to wake up and smell the (global) coffee, leaving the EU is difficult, needs to be planned properly with a deal and a plan. And if we cannot, then you will have to wait until we have both.
oh, so I am uneducated am i?
 

simonw

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Isn't that the job of an MP?
To vote for what their constituents want?
Because as I understood it, they are elected spokespeople essentially.

Plus, please point me to quantifiable FACT things will be worse off in 15 years time.
Because we'll need 10-15 years to work out whether leaving the EU was good or bad.
No MPs are representatives not delegates. They do not have to follow the views of their constituents if they do not agree with them.
 

Ken H

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No MPs are representatives not delegates. They do not have to follow the views of their constituents if they do not agree with them.
so why vote for them then? why have elections at all?
here we have 650 people thinking their opinion trumps the millions who voted in the referendum. Especially the SNP 'representative' who said we should cancel brexit in the commons last night.
I am starting to wonder why I bothered to go and vote in the referendum at all.
And I suspect this whole thing will show up how much of a charade our democracy really is.
Candidates selected by labour and Tory central office from people on the PPE-Spad-MP career path, all clones. Labour and Tory not really having a gnats whisker between them on policy. Majority of seats are safe seats so loads have no real say anyway.
 

whhistle

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Why not? Because you think you might lose?

It is lunacy not to reconsider your position in the face of changing evidence.
No :p

I don't give a monkeys whether we're in or out.
I haven't seen anything that made me decide either way.

But in that case, we should have the same referendum every 5 years or so because things change all the time.

It just seems the aim of the remainers that we should have another referendum in the hope the result will be remain, and we should accept that result come what may.
Why don't we have yet another vote in another two years time and go with the majority out of the three?

Fact is, MPs can vote on this and that until the cows come home but it seems nobody is interested in getting us out of this stupid none-movement of uncertainty we're in.

I fail to understand why remainers seem to think it's going to be the end of the world - they seem to have the foresight into the future that the majority of the UK doesn't. No remainer that I've seen is interetsed in trying to understand why someone voted leave.
 

whhistle

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No MPs are representatives not delegates. They do not have to follow the views of their constituents if they do not agree with them.
If I was an MP and didn't follow what my constituents asked me to, I wouldn't expect to be re-elected in the next round of voting.

The UK public elects Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent their interests and concerns in the House of Commons. MPs consider and can propose new laws as well as raising issues that matter to you in the House.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/mps/

So basically, MPs are there to represent the views.
They don't have to, but that is still their job to do so.
But way to go on seeing things in my post that simply were not there...
Re-read it. I said it was an MPs job to vote for what their constituents want - nothing to do with what they can do.
 
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EM2

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Leaving the EU isn't impossible.
I really fail to see why we can't leave - keep things as they are, and spend the two years transision period resolving how things will be different (ie, the backstop, the import tarriffs, whatever else the Government is messing about with).
We could have done, but our Government put down their non-negotiable red lines.
 

simonw

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Oh, I agree.
But if I was an MP and didn't follow what my constituents asked me to, I wouldn't expect to be reelected in the next round of voting.


https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/mps/

So basically, MPs are there to represent the views.
They don't have to, but that is still their job to do so.
Yes but the key word is represent. That doesn't mean blindly follow. In any event how do you establish the views of the constituency three years after they were last expressed in a particular subject.
 

EM2

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If I was an MP and didn't follow what my constituents asked me to, I wouldn't expect to be re-elected in the next round of voting.


https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/mps/

So basically, MPs are there to represent the views.
They don't have to, but that is still their job to do so.
But way to go on seeing things in my post that simply were not there...
Re-read it. I said it was an MPs job to vote for what their constituents want - nothing to do with what they can do.
It is not their first duty. That is to do what is best for the country. It is a tenet of our Parliamentary democracy.
 

Ken H

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It is not their first duty. That is to do what is best for the country. It is a tenet of our Parliamentary democracy.
but the referendum changed that. Parliament delegated the decision on leaving the EU to the people. What it seems to be saying now is the stupid people voted wrongly so we will ignore them.
They even won seats on 2 manifestos saying they will respect the referendum result at the last GE
Didnt see much respect for the referendum last night in the HOC.
 

krus_aragon

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No MPs are representatives not delegates. They do not have to follow the views of their constituents if they do not agree with them.

so why vote for them then? why have elections at all?
here we have 650 people thinking their opinion trumps the millions who voted in the referendum. Especially the SNP 'representative' who said we should cancel brexit in the commons last night.
I am starting to wonder why I bothered to go and vote in the referendum at all.

Given the distribution of votes in the referendum, the "SNP Representative" was probably representing the view of the majority of his/her constituency.

But as stated, MPs are expected to act in the interests of their constituents. That might not always be the same as the views of their constituents.
 

Bantamzen

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It is not their first duty. That is to do what is best for the country. It is a tenet of our Parliamentary democracy.

but the referendum changed that. Parliament delegated the decision on leaving the EU to the people. What it seems to be saying now is the stupid people voted wrongly so we will ignore them.
They even won seats on 2 manifestos saying they will respect the referendum result at the last GE
Didnt see much respect for the referendum last night in the HOC.

The referendum was on leaving the EU, not how or when we would leave the EU. What happened last night was Members of Parliament making it clear as our representatives that we should not leave the EU with no deal, because they like many of us recognise the potential risks associated with a no deal scenario instead of trying to ignore them.
 

bramling

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No MPs are representatives not delegates. They do not have to follow the views of their constituents if they do not agree with them.

They do however in most cases stand on the back of a manifesto. The Conservative manifesto clearly stated, among other things, that no deal is better than a bad deal.

I can understand voting not to proceed with no deal at this time. But voting effectively *never* to proceed that way is a ridiculous position, and contradictory to the manifesto. Even more ridiculous for ministers to be voting that way.

One wonders if the EU will simply take this matter out of Westminster’s sorry hands.

Britain is probably fortunate that our system doesn’t readily allow a Trump-like figure to emerge out of nowhere. All this talk of “far right” I think is wide of the mark - apathy is a far worse risk. We’re already hearing increasing numbers of people saying things like “I will never vote again” or “I don’t want to vote for any of the parties”. Goodness knows what would happen if an election was called now, especially under our electoral system. An election might focus a few MP minds though, especially those remain-leaning ones in leave seats.
 

krus_aragon

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but the referendum changed that. Parliament delegated the decision on leaving the EU to the people. What it seems to be saying now is the stupid people voted wrongly so we will ignore them.
They even won seats on 2 manifestos saying they will respect the referendum result at the last GE
Didnt see much respect for the referendum last night in the HOC.

Referendums and (UK) Parliamentary Democracy aren't natural partners, it isn't clear exactly how they're meant to work together. (Hence the arguments of an "advisory referendum" etc.) We've only ever had a dozen or so of them in the nation's history, and I think this is the first example where the answer was NOT what the government wanted, and told them to do something they didn't want to do. (The first devolution referenda just came back with a "no thanks, maintain the status quo" answer: much easier to do.)

You make a valid point on asking the same referendum question again until you get the "right" answer. The same point could be made of asking Parliament to vote on a particular withdrawal deal again until they give the "right" answer.

In short, it's a procedural mess, no matter what your preferred outcome is.
 

Ken H

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Referendums and (UK) Parliamentary Democracy aren't natural partners, it isn't clear exactly how they're meant to work together. (Hence the arguments of an "advisory referendum" etc.) We've only ever had a dozen or so of them in the nation's history, and I think this is the first example where the answer was NOT what the government wanted, and told them to do something they didn't want to do. (The first devolution referenda just came back with a "no thanks, maintain the status quo" answer: much easier to do.)

You make a valid point on asking the same referendum question again until you get the "right" answer. The same point could be made of asking Parliament to vote on a particular withdrawal deal again until they give the "right" answer.

In short, it's a procedural mess, no matter what your preferred outcome is.
one wonders what would have happened in 1975 had we voted to leave? That was my first go at voting. Looks like we were comprehensively lied to then too.

The then Attorney General, Lord KilMiur, wrote to Ted Heath to say
He is clear that if we do sign the agreement with the EEC we will suffer some loss of Sovereignty. This is clearly an act of Treason because our Constitution allows no surrender of any part of our Constitution to a foreign power beyond the control of the Queen in parliament. This is evidenced by the convention which says:
(Parliament may do many things but what it may not do is surrender any of its rights to govern unless we have been defeated in war).
http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2016-014-attorney-generals-letter-to-edward-heath-loss-of-sovereignty/

Then ted heath went on to say to the nation 'there will be no loss of national sovereignty.'
 

Ianno87

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They do however in most cases stand on the back of a manifesto. The Conservative manifesto clearly stated, among other things, that no deal is better than a bad deal.

The "No Deal is better than a Bad Deal" statement is probably about one of the least helpful, misleading things in this whole schenanigans. It is probably only true for the most terrible of deals that you'd have to have been pretty terrible negotiator to even have gotten in the first place. Otherwise No Deal is worse than the vast majority of potentials deals...so why would you aim for it?!


I can understand voting not to proceed with no deal at this time. But voting effectively *never* to proceed that way is a ridiculous position, and contradictory to the manifesto. Even more ridiculous for ministers to be voting that way.

They may have a minifesto, but they were not elected as a majority government based on it.

One wonders if the EU will simply take this matter out of Westminster’s sorry hands.

Britain is probably fortunate that our system doesn’t readily allow a Trump-like figure to emerge out of nowhere. All this talk of “far right” I think is wide of the mark - apathy is a far worse risk. We’re already hearing increasing numbers of people saying things like “I will never vote again” or “I don’t want to vote for any of the parties”. Goodness knows what would happen if an election was called now, especially under our electoral system. An election might focus a few MP minds though, especially those remain-leaning ones in leave seats.

As a Remainer (you may have guessed), I'm just disgusted with the outright lies told by a number of MPs (far from all of them, of course) presented as fact, without even a hint of apology or remorse when called out. I daresay Leave MPs have been in general worse in this respect. Something that would constitute Gross Misconduct in any other job...but yet people still will vote for them!
 

krus_aragon

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one wonders what would have happened in 1975 had we voted to leave? That was my first go at voting. Looks like we were comprehensively lied to then too.
On a technical level, leaving would have been easier, as it was still a Common Market, as opposed to a Single Market, and there'd have been less to untangle.

In terms of political will, that's another question (and a very interesting one). I've heard a quote of a (past) UK politician who stated that you should never ask a referendum question unless you know what the answer will be. The past few years could be a textbook example of why.
 

bramling

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On a technical level, leaving would have been easier, as it was still a Common Market, as opposed to a Single Market, and there'd have been less to untangle.

In terms of political will, that's another question (and a very interesting one). I've heard a quote of a (past) UK politician who stated that you should never ask a referendum question unless you know what the answer will be. The past few years could be a textbook example of why.

I suspect Cameron was reasonably sure he would be able to get something from the EU and the referendum would then be a done deal, again underestimating or misjudging Britain’s malaise towards the EU.

The one which always amuses me is Nicola Sturgeon. Happy to criticise one referendum, but meanwhile dying to have her own (repeat) referendum on independence. In the same way that one union is the font of all evil yet another union is all things bright and beautiful. I suppose she’s thankful all this is a good distraction from the Salmond sex scandal.
 
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