To think that if you voted for Brexit becaise you valued British 'sovereignty', that you should WELCOME the opportunity for Parliament to have a meaningful vote

[flibbertyfive]

Following on from my previous Brexit thread. Here:

It is now looking pretty certain that we will not achieve a deal with the EU and will therefore very shortly be falling out of the EU with no deal.

This is not what was promised before the referendum and polls show there is little support nationally among voters for a hard (no deal) Brexit. There is also no majority for it among MPs.

Theresa May has lied to her own MPs who want a meaningful vote on the outcome of the negotiations - she wants to force through whatever is decided behind closed doors without our MPs being able to have any say at all.

This is outrageous - if you voted for Remain, but even more if you voted for Brexit, which was, above all, a vote for the UK Parliament to be sovereign.

How dare Theresa May try to overrule Parliament and deny our elected representatives a vote on the future of our country, the most important change to our constitution and economy in decades??!!!

This is the OPPOSITE of what the public voted for, both Brexiters and Remainers.

Let MPs have a meaningful vote, Theresa May.

Sorry, here's the previous thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3276407-To-wonder-how-many-of-you-are-ready-for-hard-Brexit-after-todays-Commons-vote

How is this the opposite of what was voted for?

Ugh, another thread for me to hide.

A minority of posters on the previous thread took to calling other posters 'stupid', 'thick' etc.

Just a reminder to please have respect for your fellow posters and assume that everyone who voted did so in good faith and based on their honest interpretations of the issues.

No-one's mind was ever changed by being called 'stupid'.

Fattymcfaterson - it's in my OP.

LeighaJ - you're not obliged to read the thread. If you're not interested, can I recommend not commenting, as this will now come up in 'Threads I'm on'. A useful tip.

I agree but I find most brexiteers are quite inconsistent. They want parliamentary sovereignty but not where brexit is concerned. They only wanted a trading organisation and didn't like all the political stuff, but then get cross with the EU when they point out we can't be part of Galileo.

They wouldn't admit it but I get the feeling most of them want to be in the EU but without paying our dues, with one way FOM and without having to follow any of the rules of they don't feel like it.

Polls are not reliable at all and I don’t understand why so much emphasis is put on them. 17,410,742 people voted to leave and 16,141,241 voted to remain. Poll surveys of 500 or 5000 people are not going to reflect this so comments like “polls show there is little support nationally among voters for a hard (no deal) Brexit” are as equally as ridiculous as comments like “polls show that people who voted to remain would now vote to leave”.

I just want them to get on with it.

No, Brexit was not 'above all a vote for the UK Parliament to remain sovereign'.

Voters had different reasons for voting, but claiming that this was a vote for legislative sovereignty over the executive (which is what you are claiming here) is straightforwardly wrong.

Brexit was a vote to leave the European Union, any detail beyond that is only a gloss.

Agreed brexit wasn't for so called sovereignty. We already control our own rules etc.
The vote was to leave the EU. I don't know why but hey?

Ah OK, so I vote to leave the eu (for reasons you have apparently decided for me)
So you can then manipulate the sovereignty thing by letting mps have a vote on the deal and we end up staying in the eu! Hurrah you win.

MissionItsPossible - fine, but 'getting on with it' must suely include the parliamentary sovereignty that you were so keen on?

I assume you are therefore opposed to May trying to deny us the parliamentary sovereignty you voted for.

Because, if, as you claim, polls are usually wrong, what we need is a proper vote. Maybe even a second referendum. Because you are - according to your post - convinced that a hard Brexit would win in a real vote.

Yes?

CaitlynsCat

"Brexit was a vote to leave the European Union, any detail beyond that is only a gloss."

Fine, but no-one is suggesting giving MPs a vote to overturn Brexit. The 'meaningful vote' is about MPs debating the terms of Brexit eg the details.

Why do you not want our elected representatives to have a say on our country's future?

That doesn't sound like democracy at all. It sounds like a dictatorship, like a coup in which a small group at the top have seized power.

Fattymcfaterson - I most certainly don't 'win' and more importantly, we all lose.

Letting MPs debate the terms isn't 'manipulating the sovereignty thing' , whatever that means - it IS the sovereignty thing.

What on earth did Brexiters mean when they said they wanted the UK Parliament to make decisions and not the EU Parliament?

Are you suggesting that 52% of people really wanted Theresa May to make decisions in secret in cahoots with a group of hard right multi-millionaires, with no parliamentary scrutiny?

Do you think most Brexiters voted for Parliament to be replaced with a dictatorship??

I don't think so.

flibbertyfive

Are you asking me questions or writing answers for me?

Also quite plainly those arguing for Parliament to be sovereign are being disingenuous in their demands.

The fact is that the 2017 Conservative election campaign was the worst in history, and the result was that a hubristic plan for a massive majority against a thought-to-be-unelectable Jeremy Corbyn went badly wrong, and the result was a legislature that is incapable of passing decisive legislation.

The reality of our Parliamentary system is that a government with a large majority can do exactly what it wants with no fear of defeat, regardless of whether it is popular. This happened for example when the poll tax was introduced. Whereas a government with no majority, cannot make such steps.

The question of whether the legislature is right or justified to do so is really besides the point - if you have a majority you can pass all your legislation, and if you don't, well it's a struggle.

At present the executive is presented with a situation where the legislature is opposed to Brexit. The question of whether it is required to put all solutions to a vote is very clearly and unequivocally 'no'. The executive is able to enter into and break treaties, wage war, etc., without any recourse to Parliament.

And in the case of Brexit, the UK voted only for Brexit, it did not vote for a particular solution. The specific solution is very clearly the responsibility of the government.

A 'Parliament must have a vote' approach is nonsensical and presumes that the somewhat capricious set of circumstances where we now have a minority government is somehow reflective of a desire to have some sort of 'soft Brexit' or 'no Brexit', rather than simply a response to a disastrous and arrogant election campaign.

To put Brexit before a Parliament opposed to it is to aim for 'no Brexit'.

In today's news, it sounds a lot like Theresa May has lied to her own MPs in order to force through a hard Brexit against the wishes of the House - see:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/15/conservative-rebel-theresa-may-forced-backtrack-brexit-pledge-meaningful-vote

But then what happens if mps don't agree with the terms, considering the eu also have to agree to terms?

MissionItsPossible

I'm waiting for your answers with interest...

Well it's up there with "control of our borders" isn't it? Oh so important during the Brexit campaign but now we're ok with an open border w the Republic of Ireland.

Fattymcfaterson

Then we negotiate until we have got a deal that our MPs are happy with.

This is a very important deal. It's important we get it right. And we should utilise the skills and expertise of all MPs to ensure that.

@flibbertyfive
I'm waiting for your answers with interest...

Ok.

Because, if, as you claim, polls are usually wrong

Polls are usually wrong. See Brexit and Trump.

what we need is a proper vote.

Like a referendum?

Maybe even a second referendum.

Why?

Because you are - according to your post - convinced that a hard Brexit would win in a real vote.

It did, the first time.

Yes?

Yes.

I don’t know if you’re aware that you’re coming across as patronising and borderline rude but it’s not going to help you win any arguments OP

But by the time MPS vote against the deal, we won't have enough time to get another one as it's taken us bloody ages to get this far. Then what? We only have 8 more months before we have to leave regardless under article 50 rules.

CaitlynsCat

Your post makes no sense. You are arguing that because May does not have a large majority, and it is hard for her to get anything through, she is therefore justified in ignoring the will of Parliament (and by extension, the electorate)!

That is completely the wrong way round.

It is because she couldn't win a large majority that she has no right to force her decisions through Parliament.

I'm gobsmacked at the casual dismissal in your post of the whole basis of Parliamentary democracy!

You seem to be saying hat we should just ignore the will of the people if not enough of them vote for the party in charge. Basically, you are advocating dictatorship.

I am completely astonished. I find it hard to believe you are British with an attitude to democracy like that. I can assure you that British people have rather more respect for the basic rules of democracy.

The position that a 'soft Brexit', as desired by Parliament, is somehow more neutral than a 'hard Brexit' is clearly wrong.

Whatever form of Brexit we have is likely to be settled for the rest of our lives, and we will therefore be setlling for or against customs union, freedom of movement, etc., once and for all. Neither position is neutral.

And how? Well the referendum was a Conservative manifesto pledge, in 2015 order to settle the question of whether we remained in the EU or not. As it happened the population went against the government & opposition's views and said 'Out'.

This was an advisory referendum in that we do not have direct democracy - it's well understood how our constitution works, but we wanted to settle this question by directly asking the population - since it was seen as highly controversial - rather than having people vote on our wider platform.

After that the implementation of Brexit is the responsibility of the government of the day, and in March 2017 Parliament further voted to invoke Article 50.

There was never any sort of pledge to allow Parliament arbitrary freedom to negotiate the Brexit terms, and that has never been the case in our system. Clearly Brexit negotiation is the responsibility of the government, which then passes it through whatever path it feels fit.