Brexit matters

[najaB]

NF would, of course, thrown a hissy fit, but Government would have been in no mood to have another referendum in that Parliament.

So how is that any different to what has happened? The Government is in no mood to have another referendum and anti-Brexit campaigners have been throwing 'hissy fits'.

 

[Bald Rick]

So how is that any different to what has happened? The Government is in no mood to have another referendum and anti-Brexit campaigners have been throwing 'hissy fits'.

It’s different because the status quo was changed.

 

[AlterEgo]

Regional "winner takes all" is pretty undemocratic - it's one reason Trump got elected in 2016 despite having far fewer votes than Clinton.

I think the answer for referendums is a presumption in favour of the status quo - such as requiring 50%+1 [edit: of the whole electorate] in favour of change, on the fairly reasonable assumption that anyone who can't be bothered to vote is content with things as they are.

Can we therefore take the 15 million or so non-voters in the last General Election as de facto Conservative voters then?

 

[najaB]

It’s different because the status quo was changed.

Yes, but your contention was that pro-Brexit people would have been reduced to the margins had it been a narrow result in the other direction.

Can we therefore take the 15 million or so non-voters in the last General Election as de facto Conservative voters then?

Constitutional referenda aren't the same thing as general elections though. With a GE voters get the opportunity to correct any perceived mistake in five years time (or less).

 

[AlterEgo]

Constitutional referenda aren't the same thing as general elections though. With a GE voters get the opportunity to correct any perceived mistake in five years time (or less).

Sure, they're not, but if one makes the argument non-voters effectively are happy with the status quo, one should be consistent.

So 15m people were okay with the Tories for five years, by that logic.

 

[najaB]

So 15m people were okay with the Tories for five years, by that logic.

Except those who were in seats held by other parties.

 

[OzLoon]

Yes, and AIUI countrywide referendums in Switzerland usually require a majority of votes both countrywide and in a majority of cantons. Similarly, in Australia constitutional changes require a majority of votes both countrywide and in a majority of states. This is known as a "double majority". If the Swiss or the Australian model had been followed for the Brexit referendum, at least three out of the four countries of the UK would have had to vote Leave for Brexit to happen.

(snip)

Indeed, in Australia, referendums relate to proposed changes to the Constitution. We don't have a history of taking policy matters to a national ballot or referendum. The only issue I can recall of that was when the Federal government got itself into a moral tangle about how to deal with Marriage Equality, and decided to take the matter to a national plebiscite - not managed by the national elections authority, but by the Federal Bureau of Statistics! This strategy was chosen because the designers (who were ME opponents principally) thought the great Australian electorate would lean towards social conservatism vote it down, but found that there was a clear national majority for change instead - reflected anyway you wanted to consider it: by state/territory, by electorate, as well as nationally.

The vote-tally was announced on a national basis, but published by House of Representatives' electorate. The proposers were clear to say the vote itself would not determine the issue, as the Parliament would need to determine the matter in the ordinary course of managing legislation - and the HoR member was not bound to cast a vote in accordance with the way their electorate voted - cover to ensure the most egregious of HoR ME opponents would not have to vote in favour.

It was a very interesting time - but essentially the plebiscite had no legal standing in determining the issue. But neither has it had any significant blowback as far as legitimacy in determining Australians' acceptance/recognition of ME despite all the nonsense thrown it it by opponents during the campaign.

 

[The Ham]

Regional "winner takes all" is pretty undemocratic - it's one reason Trump got elected in 2016 despite having far fewer votes than Clinton.

I think the answer for referendums is a presumption in favour of the status quo - such as requiring 50%+1 [edit: of the whole electorate] in favour of change, on the fairly reasonable assumption that anyone who can't be bothered to vote is content with things as they are. And if the nature of the change isn't clearly defined, as Brexit wasn't, then it either needs to be defined before the vote or put to a second referendum against the status quo once details are known.

My post was more to highlight that if you were doing regional votes you'd fall into all sorts of traps of it being fair/not fair and even if you tried to make it fair you'd still end up with the same result as we had.

50%+1 of voters would be a fairly high bar, much more so than 2 thirds of votes, as many elections (at least for monitoring stuff) don't reach 50% turn out.

Although in the case of Brexit (with a circa 75% turnout) it would have also been about 2 third of those who voted.

Can we therefore take the 15 million or so non-voters in the last General Election as de facto Conservative voters then?

No, because at the time of the election technically there are no MP's, there's a load of former MP's being ministers and running government. As such there is no voting option to maintain the status quo, as such there's no place for those abstentions to be added to.

That's not the case for a vote one way or the other, as voting for an MP is voting for person A, B, or C but with no option to vote not having any of them.

To give an example, let's say I was offering a vote on should I sell my car; there's two options yes or no. You can sell it voting for selling my car or voting for keeping my car, however you can't vote for doing neither.

However I was to offer you a vote on what new car I'm going to lease (having returned my old lease car) then the options are for one that's the same make and model as I've already got or a choice one of another few options. There is no option of being given a random model of most popular make last year (effectively a Tory MP).

Also, whilst it's a general election, the status quo isn't the Tory government. What we vote for is a local MP. Once that vote has been made the winners of those votes go to London to try and form a government. As such the status quo votes (SQV) would only be for the last MP.

That does get us into an interesting question, what happens when an MP defects? Did we vote for them and so the SQV go with them, or do we vote for the party and so the SQV go to the new party candidate?

Likewise what happens when there's boundary changes or a new seat is formed? Where do their SQV go and how do we know if there's any SQV or not from those changes?

The idea of SQV is a bad one.

At least with meeting a fixed target for change to happen, but with a guaranteed future vote if the fixed target isn't meet but also isn't voted down by that fixed target (say until leave or remain reached 66.6% there would continue to be votes on the matter).

 

[AlterEgo]

No, because at the time of the election technically

"Technically" doing a lot of enthusiastic heavy lifting in your post and invites us to use the same logic to deny the Conservatives have continuously been in power for 12 years.

 

[The Ham]

"Technically" doing a lot of enthusiastic heavy lifting in your post and invites us to use the same logic to deny the Conservatives have continuously been in power for 12 years.

Not all that much heavy lifting:

https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/elections-and-voting/general/dissolution/

When Parliament is dissolved, every seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant. All business in the House comes to an end. MPs stop representing their constituencies. There will be no MPs until after the general election.


MPs can come into Parliament for a few days after dissolution to clear their offices.


Those who wish to be MPs again must stand again as candidates for election.

However it goes on to explain:

Parliament and Government are two separate institutions. The Government does not resign when Parliament is dissolved. Government ministers remain in charge of their departments. The role of minister is independent of the role of MP.

As such I'm not arguing that the Tories haven't been in power since 2010 when they were in government with the Lib Dems, as they have held ministerial roles in government for all that time (yes there haven't been Conservative MP's all that time).

 

[birchesgreen]

Yes the government remains in control during (and indeed after) an election even if they lose until they can be replaced. If you remember in 2010 as the coalition discussions dragged on a bit Darling attended a meeting of finance ministers even though Labour has just lost the election.

 

[AlterEgo]

Not all that much heavy lifting:

https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/elections-and-voting/general/dissolution/

However it goes on to explain:



As such I'm not arguing that the Tories haven't been in power since 2010 when they were in government with the Lib Dems, as they have held ministerial roles in government for all that time (yes there haven't been Conservative MP's all that time).

I’m it disputing that it is technically correct, but to suggest that someone voting in the next election for the Conservatives isn’t voting for the status quo is a serious stretch of the imagination, which rests entirely on the constitutional quirk that MPs no longer become MPs upon the dissolution of parliament prior to an election.

If you wish to consider non-voters as endorsing the status quo for the purposes of buttressing a Remain argument then I don’t see why you can’t also for General Elections. Else we can go down the bad-faith rebuttal line of “well Remain wasn’t really a vote for the status quo, was it? Our relationship with the EU was going to change and that was made clear by Cameron”.

The “non voters were Remain actually” argument, applied to the single most important referendum ever held in Britain about a fundamental constitutional issue with very fine dividing lines of support and oppose, is just daft. And desperate. The most we can suppose is they were uninterested.

 

[The Ham]

I’m it disputing that it is technically correct, but to suggest that someone voting in the next election for the Conservatives isn’t voting for the status quo is a serious stretch of the imagination, which rests entirely on the constitutional quirk that MPs no longer become MPs upon the dissolution of parliament prior to an election.

If you wish to consider non-voters as endorsing the status quo for the purposes of buttressing a Remain argument then I don’t see why you can’t also for General Elections. Else we can go down the bad-faith rebuttal line of “well Remain wasn’t really a vote for the status quo, was it? Our relationship with the EU was going to change and that was made clear by Cameron”.

The “non voters were Remain actually” argument, applied to the single most important referendum ever held in Britain about a fundamental constitutional issue with very fine dividing lines of support and oppose, is just daft. And desperate. The most we can suppose is they were uninterested.

The point I was making was that within a GE, at the time of the vote, the status quo is for there to be no MP which isn't a valid option as they have all resigned. However, even if we were to say that SQV were to exist then it's for the MP previously in post and not the party in government. If that were to be the case then those red wall seats would have stayed Labour. Chances are we'd very rarely change MP's.

As in the UK we don't vote for a government, rather we vote for MP's who then group together to form a government. As such, I was highlighting that SQV wouldn't have all gone to the Tories.

At the time of the referendum the status quo was being inside the EU, yes there would have been changes to that relationship. However MP's and governments also change their relationship, as their policy changes from one election to the next.

If you team my post, I'm not very supportive of the idea of SQV. As it causes all sorts of questions, especially at local level elections.

IF (and that's not necessarily a good idea) we are wanting to try and ensure that we don't have 49.99999999% upset at the outcome of a vote, then probably the best way to do it would be to have any vote reach 66.6% of the votes otherwise there would be another vote within an agreed timeframe.

To give an example, which doesn't include Brexit for a moment, the SNP would have lost the last referendum on independence however with a course vote they would have been given another vote (probably by now) and given another if that vote didn't give a clear answer.

To some extent that could have weakened the SNP, as they wouldn't be able to claim that the government in London wasn't giving them the chance to debate and vote on independence again.

Of course how that played out with regards to Brexit and how that could have changed the outcome is another debate. However that's not what happened and so we are where we are and whatever we think or would have liked to have happened (on either Brexit or Scottish Independence) doesn't mean that we can change anything now.

For instance, to rejoin the EU we'd have to be a new entrant and so would never be able to go back to the way things were before. For instance chances are we'd not have the same veto power that we had before.

 

[najaB]

The “non voters were Remain actually” argument, applied to the single most important referendum ever held in Britain about a fundamental constitutional issue with very fine dividing lines of support and oppose, is just daft. And desperate. The most we can suppose is they were uninterested.

If we take it to an extreme example, if nobody voted at all in the Brexit referendum then we would have stayed in. If one person had voted and they voted leave we would have been out. Something feels basically wrong about this.

 

[RT4038]

If we take it to an extreme example, if nobody voted at all in the Brexit referendum then we would have stayed in. If one person had voted and they voted leave we would have been out. Something feels basically wrong about this.

That is too unlikely an extreme scenario to be considered. If nobody at all (-1) voted in such an important election then they would all get what they deserved!

 

[najaB]

That is too unlikely an extreme scenario to be considered. If nobody at all (-1) voted in such an important election then they would all get what they deserved!

I agree it's unlikely, even impossible, but the fact still remains - on something so fundamental that cannot be undone easily (if at all), there is merit to the argument that more safeguards are needed than for a regular election*.

*As noted above, if you feel that you voted for the wrong party in a General Election, you'll get an opportunity to correct that in five years or less.

 

[REVUpminster]

Perhaps if we had been allowed to vote on the Masterich treaty which was the real turning point from economic community to European union we would not have needed a later referendum; or an opt out like Denmark to negotiate with Rwanda.

 

[najaB]

Perhaps if we had been allowed to vote on the Masterich (sic) treaty which was the real turning point from economic community to European union we would not have needed a later referendum...

Based on opinion polling at the time, the result would most likely have been a resounding "In" vote.

 

[Doppelganger]

Perhaps if we had been allowed to vote on the Masterich treaty which was the real turning point from economic community to European union we would not have needed a later referendum; or an opt out like Denmark to negotiate with Rwanda.

Did all the opt outs Major secured bypass you?

This is exactly why leave won. No one had any real clue exactly what the EU was about and what advantages the UK had over other members.

If only people could think for themselves, and not just regurgitate the usual Daily Express spiel, then perhaps the UK wouldn't be heading on the downward trajectory it seems to be heading on...

 

[dgl]

I see Boris is in India trying to get us a trade deal, why exactly do we need a trade deal with India, what exactly have we got that they want other than victims to scam? Maybe the express might want to talk about Indian scammers when they are bigging up this big trade deal we are going to get from them!
Surely Boris should be trying to get trade deals with similar countries to us, oh but we had a nice hugely beneficial "trade deal" with a load of countries similar to us that got scuppered.

 

[birchesgreen]

Maybe we'll get a trade deal which will add 0.001% to our GDP.

A GREAT DEAL FOR BRITAIN!

 

[dosxuk]

I see Boris is in India trying to get us a trade deal, why exactly do we need a trade deal with India, what exactly have we got that they want other than victims to scam? Maybe the express might want to talk about Indian scammers when they are bigging up this big trade deal we are going to get from them!

This is the postponed trip that was due to take place until Boris got pushed into calling another lockdown. Another one of the high points of him premiership.

 

[ainsworth74]

A GREAT DEAL FOR BRITAIN!

Why am I reminded of this?

 

[REVUpminster]

Torbay (Liberal/Independent council) is complaining the UK government are using EU figures to give Cornwall £220 per head while Torbay gets £17 per head and have not taken advantage of Brexit to level up. This is from Liberal democrats albeit in a Brexit area claiming the EU system was unjust.

Torbay like a lot of seaside towns suffers from other councils using bed and breakfast accommodation to house their homeless and it is nicer to be beside the sea. Many of the thousands of houses being built are bought by outside councils a long way from Torbay.

 

[edwin_m]

This is the postponed trip that was due to take place until Boris got pushed into calling another lockdown. Another one of the high points of him premiership.

Not the first time either that he's arranged a foreign trip that happens to coincide with a difficult vote in the Commons. At least this time he isn't putting British troops in harm's way providing security for him in Afghanistan.

 

[BananaRepublic]

…… why exactly do we need a trade deal with India, what exactly have we got that they want other than victims to scam?

Maybe we'll get a trade deal which will add 0.001% to our GDP. ………..

With the 6th largest economy and a growth rate higher than China, there is every reason to forge a closer economic tie with India.
They are already a world powerhouse in sectors such as pharmaceutical, iron and steel, computer industry, IT and increasingly car production (Tata own the JLR group with manufacturing in the UK, Slovakia, China and India).
Boris is simply treading the same path to Modi’s door that other work leaders have been doing for the last few years.
We’d be remiss as a nation if he didn’t.

 

[317 forever]

50% + 1 of the total electorate, not of those who vote.

What would be good about that is that it would be a confirmation that a majority of the electorate want the change. It would also discourage complacent abstentions by people believing "Oh, a Leave outcome / change of government will not happen anyway" an attitude which can lead to a back-door victory for the unexpected and perhaps unwanted outcome.

 

[najaB]

With the 6th largest economy and a growth rate higher than China, there is every reason to forge a closer economic tie with India.

Oh, absolutely. The two questions are "What are we going to get out of the deal?", and "What are we going to have to give in return?" The issue is that we're in a very weak bargaining position, so it's highly likely that any deal will be better for India than it is for us.

 

[317 forever]

Of course, the EU referendum was arranged without the government having a Leave policy yet alone a Leave prospectus.

Suppose this or a future government offers a similar "blank canvas" referendum asking whether we should rejoin the EU, would you vote Yes?

You are of course all welcome to answer, but I'm especially curious how Remain voters would feel?

Of course, in such a scenario we would have no clues about how this would affect trade, our currency, or how much say we would still have on environmental or specific domestic policy for example. It seems unlikely that we could rejoin without joining the Euro, or maybe Schenken either.

Even from outside the EU, both sides (UK & EU) are still free to work together as effectively as they like over the above issues, the Irish Border, battles further afield suck as Ukraine etc.

Discussions about rejoining would take up a huge amount of time that could be used for other legislative matters and dealing with other issues arising. So, I reckon in the event of such a Referendum arising, I would vote No to rejoining the EU.

 

[REVUpminster]

My first Suzuki came from Poland, the second Yugoslavia, and if I had bought a third India; but that was a rubbish car that was withdrawn from the UK because of poor sales.
Boris might be able to wean India from Russian armaments but we can't compete with cheap gas and oil the Russians give as a bonus.