brexit

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I thought that the random six million folks who signed up might have had a voice. but apparently not.

So on we go into the wilderness that is Brexit.

I have a cellar full of tinned peas and spam. I will survive. Perhaps.

Everyone one had a voice and 17 million people voted leave, which means their voice is louder.

The most frightening thing about all of this is the willingness of some people to dump democracy just because they can’t have their own way.
However I voted, I trust firmly in democracy because the alternatives are appalling.

I would agree. MPs are just out to further their own agenda. The ridiculous Article 50 should be revoked. It never should have been invoked in the first place without a feasible plan (if at all).

I even know some ardent leave voters who are now saying that.

Even Donald Tusk referred to the petition and questioned why it could apparently be ignored.

Everyone one had a voice and 17 million people voted leave

Yes they did. But only 30% of under 40s voted because they couldn't really be bothered at the time. They've had no real experience of politics or life in general. Just let ev eryboy else get on with it.

Look seriously at the statistics. Under 30s did not bother to vote.
More responsible over 50s voted But not all older people voed t leave.

Over 60 year olds had a 70% turnout and mostly voted leave. I didn't .I voted remain. Some did. Some didn't.

What pisses me off majorly, is that the young folks are blaming us oldies for voting us out of the EU, when in fact under 30s are only 25% of the vote.They should have sallied forth in their hundreds of thousands. They did'n't. Maybe they couldn't be arsed. Maybe expected it to be just dropped into their laps. Like everything else does,

The ridiculous Article 50 should be revoked. It never should have been invoked in the first place without a feasible plan (if at all)

Exactly. You really need a better plan, before you burn your bridges.
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I agree with seniorschoolmum

(and no, I didn't vote leave)

I'm still astounded that leavers would rather have the Tories in charge of us with zero accountability beyond the Queen who does fuck all to govern within her remit even when parliament are a shower of shit than to be part of a pretty successful trading block with some decent regulations (clean water, workers rights just as a starting point).

The whole thing is insane frankly.

I didn't vote remain because I'm an ardent pro-EU person. I voted remain because there wasn't and still isn't after 2 years of arguing a coherent plan for Britain post EU membership. Staying means influence and future negotiating power with the option to leave with a plan in the future. Leaving with no plan was a monumentally stupid idea that too many stupid people agreed with.

Don't give up OP. It's not over yet and ref2 was the most popular option, though not a majority. DUP have said no to the deal and a majority have said no to no deal consistently. Scary times indeed but not done and dusted by far.

What I'm astounded at is that people still think that the referendum was democratic. You can't have democracy without a free press.
And that its not democratic to have a shift of opinion when lies are revealed and /or what people voted for turns out not to be even possible. We get to change our minds in a GE every 5 years.

Are we at least safe from defaulting out of the EU tomorrow?

I thought the extension was contingent on us getting ourselves together and agreeing a solution this week

Roll on all those new Trade Deals. Honestly, who would trust the word of any of the chancers, charlatans, spivs and conmen who have allowed this public embarassment to develop? The world is pointing and laughing at 'plucky little Britain' and its slow mass suicide. Ken Clarke, please save us.

What I'm astounded at is that people still think that the referendum was democratic this too...but also feeds into my 'stupid people' argument.

The only sensible person I know who voted leave she had sound and sensible opinions on her reason to vote...I didn't agree with them but they were sensible is also the only leave voter I know who isn't rabbiting on about democracy being destroyed by asking the question once more.

Are we at least safe from defaulting out of the EU tomorrow?

Yesterday the house voted to accepted the SI, which put on law that the leave date will be amended to be the 22nd of May, if the WA is passed this week, or the 12th April if not.

Technically the law still stands that without a further change we will leave no deal on 12th April, however given the absolute lack of support in the house I cannot see this being allowed to happen.

But there is a lack of support for any other option. And without any other option the default is no deal on 12/4.
Theyre like toddlers, they know what they don't want, but cant articulate what they actually do want. So just carry on shaking their head at everything that's offered.

LoudBatPerson

Thanks, was managing to generally keep abreast of the Brexit coming and goings until recently when it just became this latest shit show and I've given up trying now!

Theyre like toddlers, they know what they don't want, but cant articulate what they actually do want. So just carry on shaking their head at everything that's offered.

^ Best analogy of it all so far!

It'll happen in a fortnight, or in May instead.

And as it is clear there is not enough support in the House or any of the options (some twat of a commentator was saying last night that they'll now try to build support for some options which have fewer votes against - but as House is so very divided I really don't see how any of those are going to ommand enough support.

May's deal cannot go back unless substantially changed.

I really think hard Brexit became likely for the first time last night. As the House may have 'taken control' as the rhetoric goes, but it's just shown there is no consensus that means that phrase will be nothing g other than a soundbite

We voted in advisory capacity. There were significant lies told and misinformation and total lack of information. The government cant deliver without irreparable harm, we now understand. None of the possibles are what 17 million who voted leave could possibly have envisaged when voting. None of us could.
If the government were a delivery service who couldn’t deliver as promised they would get back in touch to rearrange. If they were a supplier who could deliver but saw the item was damaged they would get in touch to see what we wanted to do and how long to wait or cancel the order etc. ‘Leave’ from 3 years ago is no longer in stock - we don’t want some crap replacement do we ?

The most frightening thing about all of this is the willingness of some people to dump democracy just because they can’t have their own way.

How does having another vote kill democracy? It is perfectly reasonable to check that the result still stands with a second referendum when the situation had changed or become clearer. It happens all the time in countries that frequently use referendums to drive policy. It’s even more important to do so if the result of the referendum would have been declared void had it been legally binding.
It’s not exactly democratic for the government to use whatever powers they can to try and force through a policy which was never discussed during the referendum campaign.

I'm not sure about "under 30s didn't bother to vote"
Quite a few under 30s I know chose not to vote as they didn't have the facts to make a decision. Personally I felt the same and voted remain as a "better the devil you know".
Now that the actual consequences of Brexit are (more) clear, many of the abstaining under 30s would vote.

It was never a vote.

When you vote, you vote for parties with manifestos and people with clear policies.

It was conjecture.

We never had any idea what we were actually voting for. And yes, many people didn't / cba to vote.

"We voted in advisory capacity"

That is definitely a post-hoc revisionist theory.

It was abundantly clear at the time that it was a single question being put to the enfranchised population for determination, and the result will happen.

It was a referendum, not an opinion poll

(No I didn't vote leave, but there's a level of trying to argue black is white which strikes me as just plain wrong)

Sorry for long paste below but this explains really clearly that the referendum was not binding.

The European Union Referendum Act 2015 – the law that allowed the referendum to take place – didn’t specify what would happen in the event of a vote to leave.

We know that because it didn’t contain any explicit statement to make clear that the result would be legally binding.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee explained in a 2010 report why that’s the case. It said “because of the sovereignty of Parliament, referendums cannot be legally binding in the UK, and are therefore advisory”.

In other words, unless Parliament actively agrees to bind itself to the result of a future referendum, it is not legally obliged to enact the outcome.

In fact, the government recognised the need to make these things explicit in 2011, when Parliament passed the legislation to allow for a referendum on electoral reform. Section 8 of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 makes very clear that the government would have to enact a new voting system in the event of a “yes” vote.

There was no such provision in the EU Referendum Act, which in legal terms means that the result was not binding.

Indeed, this was the basis of the supreme court ruling in January 2017, which clarified that an act of Parliament was required before the government could trigger Article 50.

Ordinarily I’d agree with you on that point meditrina. But it doesn’t seem to make any sense to carry on with following through on the result of an advisory referendum that we wouldn’t be following through on if it were a legally binding one.

Even taking that into account , May’s position is very different and much harder than the one than vote leave campaigned on. And when she put that to the electorate in a GE, 30 Tory MPs lost their seats.

I don’t think it could be argued that the position we’re in now represents what all of those 17.4 million were voting for.

I wonder if we did manage to get a second vote, what would happen if leave won again!

Which ever way you voted, not a single person voted for what’s currently going on.