To want David Cameron's head on a platter?

[Ladymargarethall]

If he hadn't given in to pressure from Tory back benchers we would still be bumbling along in Europe.

Cameron went to the EU to try and get some improvement.

Absolutely the EU did give significant concessions to Cameron in February 2016. I just don't see how anyone can feel that the EU tipped him out without a bean? It just isn't true. Where does that feeling come from.

It just never seemed to sink in that Cameron did secure some changes:

In Feb 2016 Cameron and the EU agreed the following:

• An express agreement confirming Britain’s exemption from "ever closer union" of people’s. This was to be written into the treaties as a special thing for us.

•A four-year brake on in-work benefits was agreed.

•An agreement on out-of-work benefits banning EU men and women from claiming jobseeker's allowance for three months and confirmation that if they have no job within six months they would be required to leave.

•	Cameron got written agreement that Britain would not fund future euro bailouts and would  be reimbursed for any euro propping  from EU funds. Again special treatment. 

• Also some new wording about lowering any administrative burdens (in the only areas shared with the EU ie food , agriculture, environment and workers' rights).

We never gave a sufficient chance to see how these changes planned out.We really didn't.

Also my Dutch and German friends say that the UK didn't do EU diplomacy properly in recent years anyway. It's about slow diplomacy, getting other countries on side- Cameron achieved these changes over a long weekend. If anything else was needed we didn't try properly.

We definitely should have let the above changes settle before having a ref just four months later.

My head isn’t full of nonsense. If you stopped insulting people for just one minute and had a civilised discussion, we might get somewhere.

You see I would agree with you.

But then you say they gave no concessions, which is factually incorrect.

So get your head around what actually happened and then we can try that civilised discussion.

His spineless actions were akin to treason

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/19/eu-deal-what-david-cameron-asked-for-and-what-he-actually-got/

He did get some concessions

@LaurieMarlow

I said nothing about concessions. I think you have me confused with another poster.

No trying to bring in voting percentages as some kind of gotcha that ignores the historic calls for an EU ref and the political climate at the time with the rise of UKIP, also the fact both Labour and Cons ran there last election promising to abide by the result shows that it is a strawman.

No, that is not a strawman. It's a totally relevant and necessary point when posters are suggesting that Cameron is less to blame because people voted for it in the manifesto.

What is a strawman is Labour and the Tories both promising to abide by the result of the vote once there was agreement in Parliament that it would be held. That just plain doesn't mean that there was significant support in 2015, the year earlier. They are two separate things. Like it or not.

Did not dispute otherwise, this is not a conversation about FPTP.

Nobody said you did or that it was. That's also a strawman.

YANBU, OP. And lonelyplanetmum is spot on as well.

It's a totally relevant and necessary point when posters are suggesting that Cameron is less to blame because people voted for it in the manifesto.

And people are pointing out that just blaming Cameron ignores a lot of history and the political climate at the time, so yes trying to bring voter turn out is along the lines of but he didn't have a mandate, I will concede maybe not a full strawman, but not relevant to the posters that are pointing out that he had his feet held to the fire on this one, he could have copied Brown and Blair and ignored their manifesto pledge however with UKIP already in 3rd it would more than likely made them even more mainstream.

Nobody said you did or that it was. That's also a strawman.

That was not me trying to strawman, that was me stating my opinion on you thinking you were educating me with this comment.

Also, while no party has had a majority of votes cast in decades, plenty of them have secured more than 36.9% of the votes.

Glad you agree it's not a strawman. It doesn't have to be relevant to every single poster on the thread to still be relevant to the general topic.

Actually, I wonder if the manifesto pledge might have been intended to be one of the things they'd drop in coalition. The polls were very close in 2014 and the general thought was that a hung Parliament was very likely. They put a few things in the manifesto that seemed like they were there more as negotiating points than anything else, things to concede. Common enough tactic in systems where coalitions are common and expected. The extension of right to buy to HA tenants was another. UKIP's support was distributed in such a way as to make more than a couple of seats unlikely under FPTP, and this was known in 2014, so most of the potential coalition partners were to the left of the Tories and also more pro-EU.

Glad you agree it's not a strawman. It doesn't have to be relevant to every single poster on the thread to still be relevant to the general topic.

It wasn't really relevant to the thread as you was trying to pull the tired trick of they didn't get a majority, but we can agree in principle.

I do agree that they put it in their manifesto hoping they could drop it, the issue is with the revisionism that goes on in these type of threads, instead of people who are pro EU accepting that they are neoliberal they just blame blame the other

I mean there was a reason that slightly more than half the country voted out

Stop deluding yourself.
17 million out of a population of 66 million
and out of an electorate of 48 million is not nearly half the country.
If you had walked into a room with 3 random people from the electorate the day after the referendum one would have voted leave, one would have voted remain and one wouldn't have voted.

Stop deluding yourself.

If you are going to try and play this card, then only ~45 million people are eligible to vote, which in your scenario is a massive difference, those that didn't vote are not automatically on your side, it's a fundamental flaw in thinking you have some appeal to authority/majority

not automatically on your side.
But can't be ignored to claim that half the country voted one way or the other

As explained and demonstrated several times, it was relevant. I wouldn't have posted it if it weren't.

But can't be ignored to claim that half the country voted one way or the other

Ironic that you are trying to point out nuance in language with your response...

but surely it's undeniable that over half of the people who were eligable to vote, and could be bothered, voted for Brexit.

He said he would give the people a voice and a vote and that’s exactly what he did. Fair enough. The idea that The People should have a say after nearly 50 years of huge political, economic and legal changes to what the EU and it’s predecessors meant for this country is not an alien concept. This is meant to be a democracy we are living in.

but surely it's undeniable that over half of the people who were eligable to vote, and could be bothered, voted for Brexit.

Yes. But that doesn't translate into over half the country 17 million is not over half the country.

He's a typical arrogant Eton old boy.
These public schools are claimed to give their pupils confidence, but too often they breed an attitude of, 'I believe this and therefore it must be right.'
And, having lost the vote, he didn't have the decency to remain as an MP, but scuttled off to his shepherd's hut.

Agreed Eddiemairswife.

He said he would give the people a voice and a vote and that’s exactly what he did. Fair enough

He could and should have given them a meaningful, informed vote. He didn't. Realistically Leavers had no idea what they were voting for.

but surely it's undeniable that over half of the people who were eligable to vote, and could be bothered, voted for Brexit.

The assumption in other contexts is that people who don't vote want the status quo.