If a new referendum on Brexit was announced..

[bbcessex]

Would you be up in arms about that?
Discussing last night.. I think given the margins in the last vote and the (being charitable) confusion and uncertainty over the Brexit plans, a new referendum would generally be accepted.

DH (remainer) thinks a re-vote is not constitutional & would cause uproar (amongst all).

Who is unreasonable ?

A new vote would be totally suitable. To be completely democratic several referendums spaced months apart would have been much more suitable. As we know from hindsight, a decision with such massive implications on something that is permanent, should never be based on a single vote, a vote which was peppered with misinformation and blatant lies to boot. It should also have never gone ahead without a plan already in place for each possible outcome. The whole thing has been like a joke and makes the UK a laughing stock.

Legally it wasnt binding

Cameron said he wanted it to be binding

But didnt make it legal

Whether we have another referendum or not, the fact that it wasnt binding is fact

The fact that Cameron said it would be binding is also fact

Referendums are advisory unless you make them formally binding

We had the referendum, the vote was to leave.

We can't keep having referendums until we get the answer the retainers are looking for, it is beyond ridiculous.

I think if we were to have a second referendum more people would vote to leave, the result would be a resounding leave. Many many people voted to remain because they were afraid that by leaving it would cause a huge immediate economic crash. The fact that the economy has continued to grow and unemployment rate is at its lowest since the mid 1970s will help people would feel more confident about leaving not less.

Going out now

But if this can stay civil i think it will be a really interesting thread

Thanks OP

The frustrating thing is that Brexit is the result of the Tories (and nuLabour before them) not listening to the marginalised and downtrodden voters outside of London. They could have avoided Brexit by making a few changes to the welfare system (which other European countries already have such as benefits being linked to contributions and time limited) and reducing immigration but they are beholden to big business which wants cheap EE labour subsidised by benefits to maximise profits.

If you don't address the concerns of the electorate then you are going to get results like this. Telling them they are racist/stupid/lazy etc is not going to change their minds and will probably strengthen their resolve. Politicians need to actually start listening to what voters are saying rather than talking over them otherwise there will be far more Trumps/Brexits/Corbyns and more extreme results which could be avoided.

more people would vote leave in another referendum. The bully boy tactics employed by the EU since the Brexit vote has pissed off remainers as well as brexiteers

little

I don't disagree

But if its such a shoo in why couldnt we have another

Stop the remainers whining once and for all (dont think this would happen

Right deffo going

I think because the LW media leann towards stay then you get the impression another vote would go the other way but in Scotland the maj from what I read, do not want another ref. It was v divisive as is NS’s implication that there could be another one. SNP support was less at last election. The result could surprise everyone by being another Leave imv.

I disagree RIK, you can’t keep having votes until they get the result that they had hoped for, the so say project feet aspect of the campaign did a lot of damage to the remain camp and to see a resurgence of the arguing, lies from both sides and scaremongering could only cause more damage!
Unless we can offer a referendum based on a completely new deal offered by the EU to keep us in the union, I can’t see the majority of the country being happy about it.
By the way it was made very clear before the vote that the result would be binding, to go back on that would damage the democracy of this country!

Fear!

Crackednips there was nothing written into the EU Referendum Bill requiring an action on the outcome of the vote.

E.g “If more votes are cast in the referendum in favour of the answer “Leave” than in favour of the answer “Remain” the Minister must make an order repealing the European Communities Act 1972” (or similar).

Hence it is non-binding.

Rufus - Perhaps there should be a nice and democratic and totally binding and not at all advisory coin throw? Heads we remain in the EU and tails Brexiters lose. If for some reason the coin lands on its side it can be thrown again until it lands on its head there is a clear result .

You must be in denial. And bit thick. If they had another then nobody would put any stock in it and they would keep having them over and over. Which one would be the final one? When would it be good enough to stop? When we get a result that you like? I don't think that it is unconstitutional (although I would be interested to hear your husband's reasoning on that front but I am unaware of any conventions etc that dictates no rereferrenderring). But it is a. Dry stupid thing to do. It would undermine voter confidence and undermine itself. Surely that's obvious. At any rate it is too late. The mechanisms for leave the EU have been triggered. What's done is done and we all need to be a little bit more British about it and move on.

We had a referendum, people voted to leave, end of. Just because it's not the result that certain sections wanted you can't just have another referendum.

As my late SiL used to say "if you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question".

I just wish we'd stop all the woolly faffing around and just get on with it.

Just a note to the remainers on here who want another vote.

If you erode democracy (Like the EU did in Ireland) and if you just ignore democracy (like the EU did with Holland and France) then you will eventually end up with it being entirely worthless.

Is that what you want?

I bet it's what the EU want.

No democracy means they can just steam ahead with whatever they think is best for themselves, they certainly don't give a dam for the people or the culture of Europe.

I wish ill-informed people would give up with the claim the referendum was advisory

"Binding" is a Constitutional question. Putting a blurb in a pamphlet does not bind. Passing legislation, for all practical purposes, cannot bind.

Perhaps this is a question that should be asked after Parliament and the public have been informed by the Government’s Brexit impact studies on 50 industry sectors?

Bertrand So the referendum gave bad advice and thus deserves to be ignored. Is that your position?

mothertruck

I agree with that comment.

If the EU had compromised with Cameron and made a few minor adjustments when they had the chance, i.e. allowing some controls over immigration. Restricting welfare and limiting the impact of mass immigration then this would referendum would have a different result.

The UK public watched Cameron wrangle with Merkel and she would not bend or budge on a single issue, the result was his creditability was fatally wounded, and we all understood that the EU is run like a dictatorship. It is not a democratic relationship as many thought, that can adapt and move with the times. It is indeed run out of Berlin not Brussels and people like Juncker did nothing for the EU cause.

The UK digested the information that they could not indeed influence or change a single thing about the EU, and even the smallest of concessions were not possible and decided pretty much to up and leave.

Given the legacy of two world wars, you would have thought there would have been some sensitivity to the implications of the referendum and that the EU could and should have tried much harder to meet at least some of the needs of the UK.

The EU will now march towards becoming a federal state unhindered now. One has to wonder if this was the intention by not compromising at the time....

"We can't keep having referendums until we get the answer the retainers are looking for, it is beyond ridiculous."

But what if the views of the country really HAVE changed and the democratic opinion is that we shouldn't leave? Would it be democratic to continue with this process?

There are many reasons why it's quite likely that the balance of the opinion will be to Remain in 2 years - see my post on the last page for details.

This is why referendums on big, complex questions are a bit of a shit way of making decisions!

If you erode democracy

Constitutional democracy in the UK is expressed through the election of Members of Parliament.

There are no provisions for any sort of legitimacy of referendum.

David Cameron said he would respect the results of the Referendum. He is now in no position to offer anything but the advice of any normal private citizen.

What happens if there is another referendum and the result is still to leave? Would there be another referendum after that? Those who want another referendum/want Brexit reversed by any means, what would your response to another leave win be?

"Bertrand So the referendum gave bad advice and thus deserves to be ignored. Is that your position?"

No. My position is that it was an advisory referendum and it is up to our elected representatives to decide whether the best interests of the country to go ahead or not. That's what they are for.

We don’t know what the future of the EU holds maybe more Catalans will happen. So saying we should have known what leaving means, before leaving, is not really possible. We won’t know until we look back several years down the line.

and we all understood that the EU is run like a dictatorship

This is not true.