That our government had a clear form of democracy as basis for actions

[Hawkinspace]

Some people see asking for a Final Say on the Brexit deal as undemocratic. We've voted, they reason, therefore we must leave. The way the whole matter has been managed, since the first decision to hold a referendum onwards, has made me question our idea of democracy. The word is freely used but seems empty of the rigour that could be applied here. I thought of a phrase instead, functional democracy. We have a duty to ensure our democracy is in good working order. Googling, I found the phrase has been thought of before (unsurprisingly!) and is part of an elaborate hierarchy of stages. That's not what I 'm getting at though, but rather a simple principle that government needs to ensure the democracy is fit for purpose. On present showing it is not. Does this legitimise a Final Say?

"To me those whom used the EU and its citizens here as CHEAP labour are selfish and pretty ignorant"

Another leaver claim that has no basis in reality.

Go find the evidence that immigration has had a large detrimental effect on wages of the poorest? Oh dear, you can't? That's because there is none.

The faux sympathy and use of the poorest paid and the impact of immigration is ridiculous.

The latest government research shows that real wages for the lowest paid have been more negatively effected by the fall in the pound, and subsequent increase in prices since the referendum, than they were by immigration over the preceding 12 years.

You did that, so stop using the poor as a front.

I don't think my opinions are particularly flattering to leave voters in any case mouse but I stand by my opinions, unless anyone convinces me otherwise.

On the other hand, I'm not convinced that the bulk of remained are more critically adept at cutting through the bullshit either.

I'd say a lot, if not most, stuck their finger in the wind to see if life was working out well for them and chose to stick to business as usual and then made themselves available to the argument to suit that decision. It just so happens that that decision works out well for the country as a whole.

Now who's being cynical?

Seeing as the mjaority of the provably wrong bullshit prior to the referendum ( 350m, Turkey, immigration effects, EU Army) was on the leave side, I disagree.

Yes, you are right Boris. I think I'm exhausted with it all now and just dissolve into a big huff about it all every now and then.

Anyone who thinks we are taking back control has no idea how business negotiations in the modern world work.
If you are supplying goods to a supermarket you want to be in the largest group possible to have enough leverage to get the best price for your goods. If you are just supplying one type of cake it doesn't matter how good the cake is, you have little or no leverage to get a good price for it. If in addition to cake you also supply the supermarket with biscuits, crisps, rice cakes, dried milk etc then you have more leverage to get a reasonable price and not to have to pay for too many promotions of your products.
However good the UK plc is as a product it is losing its scale by leaving the EU, it is therefore reducing its ability to control negotiations.
The modern world is built on negotiations between trading blocs, between countries and between companies. Leaving the EU won't make us time travel.

@MrsAriadneOliver
I am far from seeing an easy way to resolve the situation although I am hopeful it can be resolved. If government rushes us out with no deal then we will face a much longer and even grim time while we try to get enough new deals to compensate for our trade with the EU (shedding patiently negotiated EU standards as we go). Because of the loss of preferential tariffs within the EU we won't just be able to go on as before. All the individually negotiated deals - it doesn't bear thinking about.

@RedToothBrush

"Underlying this is the problem that 100 years ago, education was tied to the concept of self improvement and creating opportunities. The history membership of political parties really reflected this desire to be engaged with problems and to understand the nature of them. "
Thanks for this thoughtful post. It's in the spirit of my original post, as I find the hurly-burly of political discussion and media input sometimes nudges me into musing on the nature of the beast. I do think your opening comments hit the nail in the head in that a great age of politics coincided with the very positive creative impetus of the extension of education and literacy. With communication being so much personal and online now, the surge has changed direction I think - from collective, attuned to parties and group activism, and towards individuals coming together in looser gatherings for specific causes prompted by online 'groups' of a different kind. I know it's not as cut/and-dried as that. But I can sense how it's changing the nature of politics.

Why do people fear what the 52% will do if we don't leave? What about the 48% whose lives and those of their children look like being utterly fucked because of lies, incompetence and wilful stupidity? I am livid and feel no connection with this country anymore (I am British). I can't bear to think of some stupid fucking blue passport (made in France) being rolled out with an attempt at fanfare. I won't want one. And that's just one of the trivial examples of what's ahead.

Does no one worry about the impact on social cohesion of a no deal Brexit? Certainly not all leavers, including those who haven't changed their minds in principle, voted for that, so why on earth does it look like being visited on us?

100% this

Fantastic, no deal looking more likely and we get exactly what we put our cross against on the voting slip.

Hopefully when we do inevitably crash out of the EU with no deal, the consequences will be felt primarily by the people who voted for this shit show.

So basically what you’re saying in a very flowery way is that you only like democracy when it returns decisions that you’re happy with, and when it doesn’t, you blame the system rather than considering that perhaps what benefits you doesn’t benefit other people.

And your solution is to change the system so that that it’s engineered to favour the solutions that you prefer. Which is not a democracy, functional or busted.

Tom Peck @ tompeck
One of British politics' biggest problems: you only need win the selection for a safe seat, just once in your life, and from that point on there ceases to be any real upper limit on how big a bellend you are at liberty to become.

Fair point.

Anyone want to disagree with that?

Democracy - it’s better than the alternative.

Indeed. We will miss it when it's completely gone.

BejamNostalgia some of us have been critical of the democratic deficit in this country for a long time.

Brexit is merely highlighting the issues:

FPTP has led to a feeling of disengagement. The same MP is always elected and my vote makes no difference - an entirely accurate assessment in many constituencies.

There is a significant concern about lack of checks and balances. JRM suggesting that we, entirely legally, suspend parliament.

The belief that democracy is about majority rule and minority rights can be disregarded. Ballot box bullying.

Referenda are not appropriate in a representative democracy.

The legislation surrounding the Brexit referendum was shoddy and ill prepared. The ability to push through substandard legislation is a cause of concern.

All long standing issues, all highlighted by Brexit. Just because you have only just become aware of them doesn't mean we haven't known about them for decades.

I'm not sure we've ever had a vote where one group is allowed to take away the rights from another group.

I'm not sure we've ever had a vote where one group is allowed to take away the rights from another group
How about every election ever?

Power and rights are different things.

Elections give one group power.

What that group do with the power is a different issue.

That is why we shouldn't have referenda.

FPTP has led to a feeling of disengagement. The same MP is always elected and my vote makes no difference - an entirely accurate assessment in many constituencies.

Well, yes, but it’s also pretty effectively stopped extremist parties getting in. Over 12% of our MPs would have been from UKIP in 2015 with PR and we would have had a Tory/UKIP coalition.

There is a significant concern about lack of checks and balances. JRM suggesting that we, entirely legally, suspend parliament.

Firstly, this hasn’t actually happened and someone suggesting something doesn’t necessarily mean that a system of checks and balances will fail to prevent it happening in the event it was tried. Secondly, checks and balances are not just failing for Remainers. There are huge questions about areas whose functioning as part of the system of checks and balances is questionable: the neutrality of the speaker, MPs willingness to carry out the manifesto on which they were elected or honour their constituents referendum vote.

The belief that democracy is about majority rule and minority rights can be disregarded. Ballot box bullying.

Er. Yes. The alternative is tyranny of the minority. The word ‘bullying’ gets trotted out easily and inappropriately these days and this is certainly one of those occasions. As others have pointed out the word ‘rights’ is completely inappropriate in this context too. Nobody has taken away your rights, the only person suggesting taking away rights is actually you.

You’re missing the entire point of a democracy. The entire population is never going to agree, so doing what the majority of those who bother to vote want is fairest.

Saying the minorities wishes need to be respected too would either lead to paralysis where nothing is done, or worse the entire binning of democracy and a tyrannical system.

Referenda are not appropriate in a representative democracy.

Well then why have they been repeatedly used in EU member states including the UK? But only respected when they give pro EU results? It’s almost like the EU uses them to give a false veneer of consent, which is false because they have no commitment to respecting the result if it goes against them.

Did you campaign against the 1975 referendum result? Have you been campaigning against the EU treaties ratified by previous referendums if you believe referendums are so inappropriate? Or do you just complain they’re inappropriate when you don’t like the results?

The legislation surrounding the Brexit referendum was shoddy and ill prepared. The ability to push through substandard legislation is a cause of concern.

Yes, and May’s substandard deal was rejected by parliament - an example of a functioning democracy.

All long standing issues, all highlighted by Brexit. Just because you have only just become aware of them doesn't mean we haven't known about them for decades.

More pompous remainer crap. I’m not sure how you’ve supposedly been aware of these problems for ‘decades’ when most of them have only surfaced as issues this decade. Even the ones that could be argued have been bubbling away longer into the Blair years were rarely if ever raised as concerns by the type of people who tend to support Remain now.

I’m not sure using the phrase ‘democratic defict’ which was invented to describe the EU can be taken entirely seriously when it’s being used by someone arguing against the entire essence of democracy either.

Actually, arguing that a referendum result should be ignored by chuntering about ‘representative democracy’ is probably about the closest and purest example of promotion of a democratic deficit that you can get.

*Brexit will never be over if we are forced to stay. The 52% will keep fighting until we are free. If remainers dont give a crap about democracy then leavers will likewise give up on democracy and lets see where that leaves us.

The only way to bring our country back together again is after we have implemented the result of the referendum.*

My country is Scotland and 52% of us didn't vote to leave the EU, instead 65% of voted to stay.

Brexit is certainly not going to help bring us back together with the rest of the UK. We're thoroughly pissed off about it, as are the people of Northern Ireland who are already showing signs of instability over what's about to happen there.

Brexit might be good in your head, but that's where the good stuff ends.

How about every election ever?

Er, no. I’ll try to explain.

If a new government is elected, and removes the right for the electorate to vote or the rights of people they think might oppose them to vote, they are removing rights. If they restricted the access of certain groups to the police or the legal system, then they would be removing rights, if they restricted the rights of citizens to access public services like the NHS, to hold public office or work or express themselves freely, then they are taking away rights.

We haven’t had a modern peacetime governs who have done this.

When our governments are elected, they take power, it does not automatically remove rights of those not in power. Power is what they gain, and nobody has a right to power.

Democracy is an ongoing conversation. A vote can only ever represent the exact moment it happens. The mandate of the referendum is one that has a finite time limited nature. And until we know what version of leave we want that does undermine the referendum especially because the narrative has changed and we've had a GE in the meantime. May stood on a platform of hard Brexit which doesn't appear to have won her support.

We need to have conversations about what future we'd like in practical terms, not just which ideology we like the sound of. The two things are both relevant to a functioning democracy which delivers on the will of the people.

The referendum is not the only democratic expression we have had from the people in the last 3 years. We must keep this in mind that even the referendum is NOT as binary as the result and purists suggest.

BejamNostalgia constitutional reform is not a remain leave issue. It is a long-standing problem in our democracy.

FPTP does prevent smaller parties and therefore removes their voice. Listen to the leavers and how they say no one heard them and they had no voice. Just because you don't agree with a particular group or don't like them doesn't mean they don't have the right to be heard.
If UKIP has a stronger voice and a role in parliament we could have had the Brexit debate without the referendum.
PR is not just one system and is very rarely a list with 100% proportionality. It allows for nuanced debate.

I didn't imply checks and balances only impact on Remainers - the issue of democratic deficit is not a leave vs remain issue. You then prove my point by listing other areas where our lack of checks and balances raise issues. Thank you. The system does need rigorous reorganisation to prevent the issues you mention.

I'm missing the point of democracy? Democracy is not often a simplistic majority always wins system. Like many people you assume the U.K. system is the only system. During significant constitutional change most systems require more than a 50% majority.

One of the fundamentals of a balanced democracy is that all groups are represented fairly. If the majority always wins then minority groups can be easily be oppressed and repressed. Many systems have structural safeguards. Look at the Senate in the US, it makes sure rural and metropolitan areas have representation - although that has gone a bit too far with population changes.

Referenda are used in direct democracies like RoI and Switzerland. They are illegal in Germany. Democracy is not one size fits all. We are a representative democracy and referenda are not suitable for the U.K. as we do not have the systems in place to support them, quite obviously.

Passing a bill though parliament, or not, is not the same issue as ensuring legislation is rigorously checked. Good bills can fail bad bills can pass. My point is that our parliament frequently passes shoddy legislation.

when most of them have only surfaced as issues this decade
Totally and utterly incorrect. Like most Brexit supporters you believe information you have just discovered is new. Look up Lord Hailsham and his work on our 'elective dictatorship'. In terms of 'democratic deficit' David Marquand who coined the phrase was a long term campaigner for all the constitutional issues I have mentioned above.

Finally, non of these are issue to suggest the referendum result should be ignored. They are reasons why the issue should be dealt with by MPs in our parliamentary democracy.

@Theworldisfullofgs
"I'm not sure we've ever had a vote where one group is allowed to take away the rights from another group."
You are so right !