why should house of lords be able to determine our future?

[dreamingofsun]

Could someone explain to me why an unelected group of people (many of whom seem old/senile/out of touch with every day life) determine our terms of leaving the european union - and whether we leave it at all. the british public voted to leave - so why do they think they can alter that? why do they think they can over-rule what the majority of public said?

I left the UK cause of Brexit. I am now in Dublin. Yesterday I was offered a job with a firm that has moved to Dublin from England (the need to be in the EU to operate). One to the staff members cant make it across with their family.

I am not entirely sure that is what Brexit was all about was it? Apart from the idiots who believed the £350m figure.

The House of Lords is part of our parliament and is part of how we do laws. Anyone is clearly disagrees with our parliament and laws is unpatriotic and an enemy of good governance.

/sarcasm.

The level of ignorance about the EU is one reason why this should never have been a referendum question

Wow.

So what started as a basic trade agreement back in the 70's has grown and changed out of all recognition, affects our lives day to day - we never had a vote for over forty years on whether we wanted to be a part of it - and now we should never have had a vote to leave it wow.

I don't understand how anyone is happy to blindly hand over their future to a remote federalizing bunch of people more obsessed with new offices and limousines than major crisis within its white fortress?!

wow.

When I came to this country almost 20 years ago (yes, from the EU) I made the effort to learn about the UK and how its parliamentary democracy works. Shocking that so many native Brits haven't bothered.

I'm still chuckling at the idea that Theresa May might have a hand she can play

It'll go something like
"So you don't want to be part of one of the largest and most successful organisations in the world, despite all the concessions we've made? Right ho- off you fuck"
Couched in more diplomatic language of course.

I saw a figure today that it's going to take something like 1600 pieces of legislation to undo the 40 years of EU membership. What an insane waste of time for Parliament. (Basically, I believe that's making UK versions of EU rules that have passed into law here, or undoing ones that no longer apply. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.)

On the one hand we could have the current government rushing things through for their own political advantage whether or not this will be economically beneficial to the UK.

On the other hand we could have a measured pace in which the government has to come up with a practical approach that passes sensible scrutiny and is generally accepted before making one of the biggest "sudden" changes to this country's economic future there has ever been.

Why anyone would want the former instead of the latter is a mystery to me.

Who came up with hard, soft, Brexit?

This distinction has come after the vote - back peddling raising hopes of some half in and half out - worst of all worlds situation.

Nonsense. This was part of the dishonest seduction of the electorate before the vote by leading Brexiteers - the Norway model, the Swiss model, the 'no one is talking about leaving the Single Market' model. People were convinced to vote leave because they thought they'd get their preferred model.

I have to say the OP is one of my favourite of the Brexiteer tropes.

'We want our sovereignty back! Except not the idea of an independent judiciary. And I've just realised I don't like the House of Lords doing its job. And now you mention it, I'm not dead keen on representative rather than direct democracy in the lower house. But apart from that BRITISH SOVEREIGNTY 4 EVA.'

But how are the government supposed to negotiate the terms of Brexit with the EU if everything they agree has to go through parliament?

Broadly by being transparent and getting buy-in. They can do this by developing a consensus that is generally understood, getting general approval for it, and then proceeding on that basis so people can have a sense that they know what is being sought and can support the outcome.

They can gain the confidence and trust of enough of the people and of interest groups that a rational result to benefit the UK as a whole is being sought. Do that and the need for a vote on a deal will recede.

They're not supposed to have a hidden "plan" that seems to vary from week to week depending on Daily Mail front page denunciations and who knows what powerful groups.

not sure if i think they should be elected, or if there is some other way of ensuring decisions are made by intelligent, aware people

Well, not basing our decisions on referenda might be a good start....

I don't understand how anyone is happy to blindly hand over their future to a remote federalizing bunch of people

Not sure if you've ever noticed, IAdoreEfteling, but that remote bunch of people includes MEPs voted for by the British electorate. And if you thought you had blindly handed over your future to them, how do you account for the fact that our Parliament has been merrily passing laws that regulate how we run our lives despite our membership of the EU?

I didn't vote to leave the EU. My father in law is an immigrant from an EU country. I have good friends that work hard here, that came from EU countries. Thank fuck the Lords are there trying to stand up for the rights of immigrants from the EU.

I teach teenagers, some of whom are from immigrant families. They don't know what's going to happen to them. Why are their lives worth less than the kids who were lucky enough to be born here

I'm just waiting for the EU folk to be chucked out at which point we get back all the ex pats that retired to Spain and made no attempt to "integrate" into the society there...

IAdoreEfteling

Wow. Who knew we didnt have elections in this country were we elect people to make decisions in a representative democracy. Wow

Wow. I dont understand how people who claim Europe is a white fortress cant see the xenophobes and nativists who voted for Brexit are going to be worse about lots of non-whites here. Wow.

Wow. I dont understand how immigration needs to remain at similar levels now yet can also be reduced. Wow.

Wow. I dont understand the idiots who thought that £350m for NHS was a real thing but they did and voted accordingly. Wow.

Wow. I dont understend Brexiters demanding control back for UK courts and parliaments and then complaining when they are not doing what they are told. Wow.

Wow. I dont understand government ministers and their proclamations that Johnny Foreigner will do as he is bloody told as we build Empire 2.0. Wow.

Wow. Etc. Wow.

Those same repatriated "expats" (aka immigrants) who will pay much less tax than the ones living here currently...

Eftling has one thing right - we should never have had to vote on this. Deciding issues of this sort of complexity and involvement should be up to the people whose job it is to do so.

Unfortunately these people, being the MPs in House of Commons, have decided not to do the job they are paid to do and handed it back to 1,269,501 people whose main involvement was a 12 week TV campaign and "man in a pub said". (Fewer people than signed the petition to prevent Donald Trump from making a state visit - and that's not "will of the people")

The House of Lords, on the other hand, despite being (apparently/allegedly) composed of the sort of hidebound crusty old reactionaries who would like to return to some mythical 1950s are doing their job and holding the proposed legislation up to scrutiny -- on behalf of the people of the UK.

Part of me wishes we could have a third referendum, only this time I'm going to hire TWO busses and I'm going to promise £700m per day for the NHS ... and if that doesn't work, then I'll hire two more busses and promise £1,400m per day -- after all, it's just campaign promises and can be recanted the day after the count!

But that's just a pipe-dream: even if we could stop Brexit it doesn't matter. Paris and Bonn and Frankfurt are already building the office space to take the financial sector jobs when they drain out of formerly-Great Britain - and our farms collapse, conveniently just as we lose our free-trade with our food producers.

And why are we doing this? So that our own unelected PM can attempt to circumvent the rule of law? Or is it just to keep the nasty foreigners out? The ones who staff 30% (or more) of our NHS.

I really don't know why Brexit is being driven along like this ... but someone, somewhere, stands to gain a lot. And I don't think it's the leave voters.

scottoshdiem yeah, wow. Just...wow.

The HoL seems to be more intelligent than some of the people on this thread who don't grasp what Parliamentary sovereignty is all about and who think the Lords are trying to stop Brexit (they aren't, and can't). One of the amendments they want to see included in the bill triggering Article 50 is written reassurance of residency for EU nationals who have been living here for donkey's years so they aren't summarily kicked out (at which point, you'd probably find the NHS would grind to a halt and half the offices in London would no longer be cleaned).

IAdoreEfteling

What we are discussing here is the apparent lack of comprehension about how this country's government structure works among people who voted Leave to empower the government of this country and who are now having a meltdown about seeing it at work. As if they literally had no idea how it actually works before, which, to be fair, they probably didn't choosing instead to go on about 'faceless Eurocrats because sovereignty and stuff' Thus, you quoting some random stuff about EU and their bureacracy is more of the same. Also, it would have helped if UK stopped sending absolute fucking jokers as their reps to the EU parliament - people like UKIP who apart from posturing like dicks, siphoning expenses and having embarrassing public punch ups, did precious little to actually influence policy in a meaningful way.

Could someone explain to me why an unelected group of people (many of whom seem old/senile/out of touch with every day life) determine our terms of leaving the european union - and whether we leave it at all. the british public voted to leave - so why do they think they can alter that? why do they think they can over-rule what the majority of public said?

Senile?

Nice ageist shit

And incidentally Op you have no problem with an Unelected prime minister pushing this through?

some of them appear batty when i see them on the TV

Jacob Rees-Mogg is an MP, not a Lord. Hope that helps.

In other news, if Brexit was about parliamentary sovereignty which we already had the Lords just gave it to you. That's how Britain works. Even the 1950s Britain you lot think was much better. So why the whining? You won, get over it.

amispartacus Gordon Brown and Major did take part in an election though within their party

Megatherium There certainly was plenty of Sturm und Drang about Gordon Brown being unelected,

Which is it then? Surely not dissension in the ranks? Was Gordon Brown elected by the party or not?

Can anybody explain the implications of triggering article 50 after 31st March 2017? From what I understand the voting system for the member states is changing, what will this mean for brexit? Will it just be dragged out over a longer period? It just seems that nothing much has really happened for months and things are being pushed back.

Theresa May was unopposed by anybody when she became leader. In the second phase of the leadership election yes, but she did have opposition that was eliminated in the first round (Fox and Gove), and Crabb withdrew in round 1. Had Leadsom decided not to withdraw from the second round, Mrs May would have had opposition then, so she was not unopposed by anybody, as implied, but all the opposition had dropped away by round 2.

If the party hadn't wanted her, she would have been eliminated in round 1 as well, or withdrawn if it had been made plain, as it was to Mrs T, that there was no support for her.

And incidentally Op you have no problem with an Unelected prime minister pushing this through?

How so? we do not elect Presidents. We elect MPs, who elect the PM. TM was elected as an MP and they elected her as PM.

We elect MPs, who elect the PM. TM was elected as an MP and they elected her as PM

We elect MPs who are supposed to represent their constituencies but then decide to follow the views of their PM who has not been elected on a national mandate to carry out a hard Brexit instead of representing the views of their constituents.

Should a Tory MP vote and debate in favour of what the majority of their constituents voted for in the referendum OR follow the wishes of Theresa May?

I don't remember the Tory manifesto saying they would go for a hard Brexit.