Why the the leavers so scared of a second vote?

[StrumALum]

I don't get it.

The leavers were fed some lies, that much is obvious.

What I don't get though is that if the leavers are so sure of themselves then why are they so worried about a second vote? If it's 'the will of the people' then it will be the same outcome anyway.

Or are they panicking because now the lies (like the bus) have been exposed, people are now more clued up and they were relying on people not being clued up to get the vote through in the first place?

a leave vote was a vote for uncertainty and confusion

Well it would be wouldn't it.

All Remain could say was "nothing will change, lets stick with it" - much like half of the shit relationships discussed on here.

We'd just seen Cameron come back from the EU, humiliated & told to sling his hook - a lot of people wanted that to change.

So they voted LTB.

@Moussemoose you refer to short term and long term causes - what do you think this is building towards? I am fearful about the current situation and have never seen anything like it. Most of my colleagues and friends have no idea how much of a crisis we are in!

At the time of the Lisbon treaty, Juncker advised PM Gordon Brown to mislead the public on the sovereignty issue. In a series of mini-referendums by over 150,000 voters in around several marginal seats in the U.K., 89 per cent voted against the treaty, with only 8 per cent in favour.

Of PM Brown and British calls for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, Juncker said "Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?

@MagnificentSevenHeaven to use your analogy, LTB is followed by financial hardship even having to use food banks and refuges. Is that what you want? Because that's where No Deal takes us. The Withdrawal Agreement lets us LTB but with a transition period.

I am happy to debate sovereignty my issue was that it is not the same as democracy.

@TiddleTaddleTat I think the historical parallels are very worrying. The extremes - left and right - want Brexit because it will cause social unrest.

Social unrest is, historically, the crucible for violent social change. It pushes voters into the arms of populists and demagogues. The chaos and the confusion caused by disruption to services and food supplies is where the left and right make political gains.

I worry that Brexit will polarise society even more ( I'm right so far) and we may end up with significant social issues. This has the potential to be disastrous for U.K..

Because some leavers haven't changed their minds. I think its more anger rather than being scared.

It strikes me that we the public keep letting our politicians down. I come to this conclusion after writing to my MP several times and been treated with nothing but contempt and all my concerns dismissed.

Politicians don’t seem particularly interested in representing the people who elected them, but more interested in telling them what they should be thinking and doing and how they should have voted. It’s a funny thing... when the public leans more to the right, the politicians stampede towards the left. They have a very clear idea of what they want to accomplish but the public keep impeding them.

Love the idiocy of 'well then I want a rerun of the last three general elections'!

Um, you get one of those every four years or so. A rerun because if a party has been proven to be a bunch of liars or idiots, spouting crap they can't achieve then we get to change our minds!!!

THAT'S democracy.

Oh and don't get me started on that 'will of the people' rubbish. What, about 32% of the electorate voted Leave?

Those that didn't vote were obviously content with the status quo (so remainers by default) so the 'will of the people' comes down pretty clearly in the Remain side, whether we bother taking into account misinformation and campaign lies.

content with the status quo (so remainers by default)

If they were remainers, they’d have gone to the polls to make sure it stayed that way. Those who didn’t vote just didn’t care either way. So many people are becoming disenchanted with modern politics.

Those that didn't vote were obviously content with the status quo

Yeah i agree

Oh and don't get me started on that 'will of the people' rubbish. What, about 32% of the electorate voted Leave?

Those that didn't vote were obviously content with the status quo (so remainers by default) so the 'will of the people' comes down pretty clearly in the Remain side, whether we bother taking into account misinformation and campaign lies.

Normally, when people don't vote in an election, we accept that they've forfeited their right to vote rather than ascribing our own views upon them.

Those that didn't vote were obviously content with the status quo

That's a pretty big assumption, it could be that they where happy with whatever the result turned out to be, but it is not an assumption they are pro one side or the other, this is why no one includes them in one side or the other unless deliberately trying to be disingenuous.

I'm not saying their opinions should be counted as 'votes' but the options were either the status quo or leave.

They didn't choose leave so their 'will' cannot be ascribed to that of the National Lemming Run of 2016.

I'm not saying their opinions should be counted as 'votes'

Again i agree

I do think it’s true to say that folks who didn’t vote have no reason to complain.

In fairness, the June date for the referendum was deeply unhelpful for students, most of whom were abroad or in transit one way or another at that time. The low 18-24 vote makes much more sense, and is more forgivable imo, if you take that into account.

I'm thinking of democracy as a sliding scale. Is the EU more or less democratic than the U.K. with its power further away from the "demos", the people? Is its centralisation a vehicle for autocracy and greedy monopolisation?

MEPs are expected to have an allegiance to the EU and it's institutions, and work in the interests of the EU, rather than that of their own nation and its people.

EU laws automatically overrule UK law in a one-way direction. Personally I don't like this set-up and believe we are capable of running our own affairs, and that other countries are too. Collaboration and friendship, as and when, yes. Total political union with a one-size fits all approach, no.

I prefer politics to be far more localised and accountable. We can visit our MP at their open high street "surgery" in the constituency. The MP can take up issues to be debated in parliament, in the interests of British people, rather than 28 countries which all have different priorities, needs and traditions. Our MPs propose legislation themselves, which MEPs do not.

In their Parliament, MEPs are organised not by country, but into artificial European groupings, such as the European People's Party (centre right) or the Socialists (left). These two groups vote the same way 90 per cent of the time, unlike the robust challenges between Labour and Conservative, where a strong opposition is perceived as a good thing.

The Lisbon treaty says EU leaders must "take account" of elections when a new commission president is chosen. There are 2 "spitzenkandidaten" put forward by the European groupings. However the treaty says nothing about the pan-European parties, or voters, having any real choice in who the next Commission president will be. All the main candidates are EU federalists.

Another Juncker quote: "There can be no democratic choice against the European treaties".

he low 18-24 vote makes much more sense, and is more forgivable imo, if you take that into account

It was 64% not much lower than a lot of the older age groups

MEPs are expected to have an allegiance to the EU and it's institutions, and work in the interests of the EU, rather than that of their own nation and its people.

I don't think that's really true. An MEP's first responsibility is to their own constituents and their interests in the context of EU business. If British interests have not been optimally represented in Europe up til now, that's connected to large-scale voter apathy in the UK in respect of European elections over many years tbh.

I'm not saying their opinions should be counted as 'votes' but the options were either the status quo or leave.

Folks who didn’t choose between the two options shouldn’t be considered as preferring the status quo though. We don’t know what they would have preferred, since they didn’t vote. If they’d had strong feelings either way, I’m sure they would have voted.

Other than they were lied to in the first ref what on earth have leavers got to be angry about re a second ref?

They weren’t ever going to get what they wanted which is why it won’t go through Parliament. Not the fault of remainers or their fault another ref is one of very few options left.

LTB is followed by financial hardship even having to use food banks and refuges. Is that what you want?

To keep on with the analogy.

Yes

Because the alternative is to be in a controlling, potentially abusive relationship.

Those that didn't vote were obviously content with the status quo

No, they were obviously happy for it to go either way.

They're the idiots that couldn't be arsed to take an interest & I give no shits how anyone that didn't vote feels about the result.

And as for "Oooh, I'm interested now - give me a chance to have a vote" - Fuck Off...

@MagnificentSevenHeaven - I was using the silly analogy of a previous poster. If you genuinely think that membership of the EU is abusive and controlling you are very deluded.

I think it's very controlling.

How can it not be?

I also said "potentially abusive" - ask some of the smaller EU countries what they think.

Anyway, our bags are packed & the taxi's on it's way....