To ask if you see a second EU ref as a sleight against democracy?

[VladmirsPoutine]

Is there anyone that thinks that the 2016 outcome should be respected regardless of anything else? If so - how do you square that with the fact that Theresa May has tested her 'exit' deal to Parliament twice and both times been shot down?

How can this be the 'WILL OF THE PEOPLE' given the initial result was 48%/52%.

Just curious where people now stand given we are 9 days away from Brexit. No judgement here just curious how people are interpreting the various outcomes and ongoings...

I am sick and tired of the Brexit mob saying that the 'majority of people' voted for Brexit. They didn't. It was certainly the majority of those who voted, but NOT the majority of people. Non-voters did not vote to change the status quo i.e. to leave the EU. Therefore the percentage of people voting for Brexit was 38%.

The error was in not stating that we would only Brexit if the majority of people DID vote to leave. At the moment we are being lead by the will of less than 40% of the people.

Fair? I don't think so.
Reasonable? Absolutely not.
Totally crazy? Yes!

I think that the information most people had to base their vote in at the first referendum was at best too little and in some cases very misleading. In addition to the fact that we are only now starting to see exactly what a 'leave' deal/no deal might look like, I can't see how anyone can say that giving the people a second chance to have their say is undemocratic. After all, if 52% of the people wanted to leave and still want to leave, asking again will not change things.

So.

If Scotland votes very narrowly in favour of independence in the next few years, but the administration of the subsequent divorce proves tricky and laborious, will independence supporters be in favour of further democracy at that point, with a view to going back on the decision to go independent?

In case anyone hasn't seen it.

Jaxhog and lovelygreenjumper - both remainers both asking for another vote?

Jaxhog if the vote was flawed then the MP's should not have voted in Article 50. If the system is flawed then why do we accept it for the General and council elections across the country? We had a vote on PR remember. That was voted down.

Therefore the percentage of people voting for Brexit was 38%.

This I don’t understand at all. If you don’t vote you don’t get a say.
We don’t presume to think what the people who don’t vote in general elections think. If an MP wins a constituency they are usually also winning with 30-40% because loads of people don’t vote. Tough shit, that MP won a majority of the people who bothered to vote.

As for the fact that May’s deal keeps getting rejected. I mean, this may have something to do with the fact that MPs of all sides have been utterly useless, are completely divided and generally won’t consider any outcome that isn’t their preferred stance.

Finally, I also don’t buy the “no one knew what they were voting for / what Brexit meant” argument either. So because you can’t foresee what a plausible agreement would look like, it’s impossible to ever have a vote? So it should be impossible to leave the EU? What about the Scottish referendum? No one knew hypothetically what independence would look like. There was still a vote.

I voted Remain and wish the outcome had been different FYI.

Morriszapp - all voting results should be treated equally but some are more equal than others !!

yes we do Iggly. and that is something that we negotiate once we come out. you are right it is a "future deal" not a deal for now. we come out first. we negotiate after. Not just with the EU but with everyone else

You demonstrate your naivety if you think we can just leave then negotiate. That makes absolutely no sense. Trading will not stop - so you need to know what happens the day after we leave.

It’s impractical otherwise

Yes. Nothing new has come to light. The EU is still the same as it was. No one talked about leaving with a deal, the deal only sets out the rules during negotiations not relationship with the EU will finally be negotiated. So we will be asked to vote on exactly the same thing twice. We were not asked to vote on the poor representations by both sides in the original vote we were asked whether we wanted to stay in the EU. We,as a nation, said no.

Like Mays deal regarding the negotiating period after we leave we shouldn’t be asked to vote on the same thing again in such a short space of time.

It’s about time we left because only then can we start to negotiate our long term relationship with the EU. It’s taking up too much time when we should be focusing on important matters like health, welfare and education.

The country is struggling whilst we are dealing with petulant toddlers insisting they know best and having a strop because they didn’t get what they wanted

Iggly it’s not naive it’s fact. Whilst we remain in the EU the EU can not negotiate deals with us as a member state. A deal will potentially allow us to continue trading with it on the current terms during the negoting period or no deal would prob give us wto terms upto the point we negotiate other terms.

Jaxhog. Well what is fair to say is that the minority of people voted to stay in the EU

As a staunch remainer if there was a second vote that had a larger margin to leave I would totally accept it.

I definitely think a second referendum is needed and would respect the result.

Dragging the country into No Deal without consulting the people is a sleight of democracy.

How the hell can you presume what the non voters wanted?

All that mattered was the people that actually voted.

The easiest way out is to revoke Article 50 now. If anyone wants to commit to another referendum in their next general election manifesto, that’s entirely up to them.

I don't want another referendum but that's more because it would provide a precedent for another one in Scotland, too.

However, I don't think revoking the Art 50 notice would be a terribly undemocratic thing to do.

And I don't think having another referendum would be a terribly undemocratic thing to do.

I'm not bothered about the so-called interference with the referendum as I don't think most people were swayed by FB posts (not enough to make a difference to the result). I do think some people may have been swayed by Boris's lies.

But I think it's certainly become clear that leaving the EU is not a simple thing to do, that there are lots of ways to "leave" and so it would be reasonable to ask people what they want. However, I've said all along that MPs got us into this mess so they can get us out of it. And stop playing chicken with our lives for their own political ends.

What about the Scottish referendum? No one knew hypothetically what independence would look like

There was a detailed White Paper with a lot of ideas. Not just headlines on the side of buses.

I fundamentally think that "government" should be as close to the people being governed as it can be

We should start a new thread on this because I am a centralist and don't like postcode lotteries :)

No I don't think it would be undemocratic

Use of the whip system I think is undemocratic though, but that wasn't the question

Thus far this is arguably the easy part. We have as of yet to start negotiating what a future relationship with the EU would look like. For those that want it just "over and done with", afraid to say that as things stand we'll be talking about this for decades to come.

No I don't think so. It was 2 years ago, and we were lied to an awful lot on about basically everything. And the politicians have shown themselves to be incompetent. If anyone actually still has faith in them, I question your judgement because monkeys could be more organised than that lot.

People busy worrying about whether a second ref will harm democracy and yet here are a bunch of brexiters plotting to block up the motorways unless parliament agrees to leave on 29 March. Nice.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/what-know-far-brexit-blockades-2665744.amp

No, not if the question is different. In 2016 the question was something like 'Do you want to remain a member of the EU?'. If that was asked again then it wouldn't be democratic IMO.

However, if the question was something like 'Do you want TM's deal to leave or do you want to remain a member of the EU?' then that would be reasonable, as the initial question didn't specify what leaving would look like, whereas now we know what the conditions for leaving would be we should, IMO, be given the option of whether to accept that deal or remain.

I read a very good piece yesterday on how Theresa May has basically made a very good case - by her conduct thus far - for a second Scottish indy ref which would decisively vote out i.e by a large margin. If Scotland bails then everyone (the UK) is toast - will there be talks of a Scottish backstop too!

I hate it when people say 'would we have a third vote? When will it end?' Etc etc.

That was a snapshot of public opinion in 2016. I do believe another one should be held, before we act again, for 2019. Just as elections are held every few years, etc, democracy is where we check in that decisions are being made in accordance with the will of the people, and adjust accordingly.

Not being allowed one, is not only undemocratic, it's a dictatorship.

And TM is a total fuckwit, trying to wear everyone down with her bad, bad deal.