To believe that the Brexit will fail on legal grounds?

[MojitoMadame]

It seems that under the European Union Act 2011, a Brexit will require not only a referendum but also an act of parliament to implement the decision and, given that apparently 75% of MPs were in the remain camp and will be free to vote as a matter of conscience, I cannot see the relevant legislation being passed.

So, in the words of Mark Twain, 'Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated'!

[Showmethewaytogohome]

So at the moment - off the top of my head- we have no idea how to:

Plan our food security
Plan our migration/immigration strategy
Plan our fiscal strategy - including plugging the holes the EU subsides will leave
Plan our STEM strategy outside of the EU
Plan our legal strategy - unpicking EU laws

There are obviously a lot more. But we need to plan and set out our ideals BEFORE negotiation happens. And people think we should trigger A50 - utter madness

Have you any idea how long just the planning takes before negotiations? It can take years - especially if you look at option planning too...

[Grassgreendashhabi]

If you mean fail as in wont happen then yes possibly

But I think it's won by telling the government that people want change. So regardless of the outcome I think it's been productive and a wake up call the the government

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

Do not forget the Government extended the deadline for allowing people to register to vote... (mostly because they thought young people who are more likely to vote remain had not registered)..

Yes the result was still a vote to leave.

[MojitoMadame]

The law firm Mishcon de Reya is acting for a group of leading businesses and academics in arguing that it would be unlawful for a British PM to trigger Article 50 without a full debate and vote in parliament, where the Scots, the Irish, London and the other major city MPs would block it; also probably the Welsh and the Cornish now they have realised that they will lose their valuable EU subsidies.

And of course it would be mad to trigger Article 50 without advance negotiations, or as a PP has said, the other countries would just wait 2 years and we would get worse than nothing. So it looks like a 'stand off' and a situation which will run for years.

There seems to be a lot of rhetoric at the moment, including potential leaders/PMs saying we will be out next Spring. It's total hogwash and anybody who believes that this is the case is either being deliberately misleading or is naive and/or ill informed (ie unsuitable for high office).

IMHO, this will not be resolved in 9 months or two years or probably at all.

[BonerSibary]

52% not altogether decisive? Oh well, no problem with Parliament ignoring the referendum then!

But are you suggesting that this is only an issue for an area with an MP/referendum split if there was a sufficient gap between the Leave and Remain votes? And will you be applying this logic to Danny Kinahan of South Antrim, where the Leave vote was 50.4%, or is it just constituencies who voted Remain where it doesn't matter?

[mamamea]

"And we are still left with the MP elected on one platform, electorate voted the other way issue. This is an issue for areas voting Remain as well as Leave- see the North Belfast and East Londonderry situations."

Those went 50.4% and 52% for Remain. Not altogether decisive.

Meanwhile Boston & Skegness, Mansfield, Hartlepool, and others with 70% for Exit, have Remain MPs. Tone-deaf.

[BonerSibary]

So this is interesting, but basically we don't actually have specific constituency figures for most of the UK. Most MPs will not actually be able to say for sure which percentage of their constituents voted what. I mention this because I live in a city that voted strongly Remain, with five parliamentary constituencies, but I reckon my own constituency might be pretty tight and I don't think our MP could conclusively say either way what the people of the seat want.

And we are still left with the MP elected on one platform, electorate voted the other way issue. This is an issue for areas voting Remain as well as Leave- see the North Belfast and East Londonderry situations.

It is true about people voting on immigration, though. And they're about to get a nasty shock. Most people don't want to hear that it's not something politicians can actually limit in the way they want it limited. It's not about ignoring, it's about not being able to deliver even if they wanted to.

[mamamea]

"Whilst the overall area came out Leave, by constituency there would have been a massive difference with one being heavily leave and one heavily remain. It was just averaged out.

I have no doubt that there would be similar issues elsewhere.

That 68% could be even more in your favour. Conversely it could be the opposite. That figure is NOT saying what you are claiming it to though. That figure you have come up with does not bare any relationship with actual constituency boundaries so is utterly meaningless. "

No, it's not meaningless. The Westminster constituencies are strongly correlated with the council areas. Some of them much more so than others.

For example, take the region Yorkshire & Humber.

Here there are 21 councils, of which 3 voted in, 18 out. (1 in 7). By equalising constituency size, I made this into 11.1 Westminster constituencies out, 40.8 In. (1 in 5)

By county:

South Yorkshire:

Barnsley - 68.31% out (175,809 electoral roll)
Doncaster - 68.96% out (217,432 electoral roll)
Rotherham - 67.89% out (197,623 electoral roll)
Sheffield - 50.99% out (396,406 electoral roll)

There's a giant swathe here where it's statistically essentially impossible for Remain to have won. Also note that UKIP scored over 20% of the vote in 2015 in all of South Yorkshire except for:

Sheffield Central (7.5%)
Sheffield Hallam (6.4%)
and
Sheffield Heeley (17.4%)

So that gives us clear victories for Leave in:

Barnsley * 2
Doncaster * 4
Penistone
Rotherham * 2
Wentworth
Sheffield Brightside
Sheffield South East

Remain victories in
Sheffield Hallam
Sheffield Central

and a 'probable Leave' for Sheffield Heeley.

Question here is 'what does 17.4% UKIP support translate to elsewhere? In Scarborough, 17.1% support for UKIp in 2015 resulted in a 62% Leave vote.

So it's reasonable to assume that Sheffield Heeley is also a 'Leave' area.

Hence 12 out of 14 Westminster constituencies voting Leave.

In West Yorkshire, the result was:

Leeds - 543,033 (49.69%)
Bradford - 342,817 (54.23%)
Kirklees - 307,081 (54.67%)
Calderdale - 149,195 (55.68%)
Wakefield - 246,096 (66.36%)

This results in a proportional allocation of 13.9 for Leave, 7.2 for remain

Looking at the UKIP votes in 2015, we get:

Bradford:
Bradford East - 9.9%
Bradford South - 24.1%
Bradford West - 7.8%
Keighley - 11.5%
Shipley - 8.9%

Here Bradford South is an outlier. The overall 54.23% for Leave with the uneven spread for UKIP suggests that two or three out of five when Leave here.

Calderdale
Calder Valley - 11.1%
Halifax - 12.8%
This is very even. Both for Leave.

Leeds
Elmet - 11.1%
Leeds Central - 15.7%
Leeds East - 19.0%
Leeds North East - 7.7%
Leeds West - 18.5%
Morley - 16.5% (split with Wakefield)
Pudsey - 9.2%

Here the overall vote was 49.7 to 50.3%. There's no total UKIP dead zone, but this may well have split 4 constituencies for Leave, 3 for Remain.

Kirklees
Batley - 18%
Colne Valley - 10.1%
Dewsbury - 12.4%
Huddersfield - 14.7%
A 55-45 split here in the vote. Question: could Remain have taken one seat here, with uneven spread? Answer: very probably.

Wakefield
Hemsworth - 20.2%
Normanton - 21.0%
Wakefield - 18.3%
All three plainly for Leave

So overall in West Yorkshire - 14 or 15 - 7 or 8

Humberside:

East Riding - 60.4%
Hull - 67%
North Lincolnshire -66.3%
North East Lincolnshire - 69.87%

It seems all 10 Westminster constituencies would have gone leave. The lowest Leave vote here was in East Riding, which splits into:

Beverley - 16.7% UKIP
East Yorkshire - 17.9% UKIP
Haltemprice - 13.9% UKIP
Brigg and Goole - 15.5% UKIP

Not really enough variance here to suggest a possible Remain win in Haltemprice.

North Yorkshire:

York 155157 41.96%
Harrogate 119987 49.03%
Craven 44320 52.83%
Hambleton 70133 53.66%
Ryedale 41529 55.26%
Richmondshire 36794 56.78%
Selby 65278 59.17%
Scarborough 82900 61.9%

This translates quite plainly at Westminster:

Richmond - Leave
Scarborough - Leave
Selby - Leave (Selby contains some small Harrogate villages, plus the whole of Selby)
Skipton - Leave this consists of Craven, plus some Harrogate villages
Thirsk - Leave
York Central - Remain
York Outer - Remain
Harrogate & Knaresborough - Remain

Total: 5 -3 Leave

Total: 41 or 42 Leave, 11 or 12 for Remain.

Which is what I calculated above.

Fact: the vast majority of Westminster constituencies were for Leave.

Question: why didn't that result in a higher margin for Leave?

Answer:
(a) because Scotland cut the margin by 643,000
(b) because inner London cut the margin by 850,000
(c) because the Remain vote was more highly concentrated than Leave. In other words, a few big inner city areas piled up huge Remain leads, but Leave areas tended to be less dominated by Leave.

Either way, the MPs we have completely fail to represent the views of the population. Clearly, the overwhelming mass of England & Wales is opposed to the EU. In particular, this is a response to immigration. The Labour party basically fails entirely to pay any regard to these concerns. Both it, and the Conservatives, are no longer popular movements, but instead represent the wishes of the global elite, as does Hillary Clinton in the US. Voters have no real choice, as MPs could not give any fucks what the voters think.

[MojitoMadame]

Thanks sleep, I totally agree with you.

[sleeponeday]

marbletstatue it's exceedingly relevant to posters on MN frothing at the mouth when others suggest that a wafer-thin majority is not sufficient reason to commit economic suicide.

caitlinohara of course it's the role of financial leaders to try to minimise the damage as much as they can by seeking to reassure, but if you really don't understand the systemic reasons this is fiscal insanity, and you really don't comprehend that we have just written off our status as one of the global financial centres because that status depended upon our being a doorway to the EU, then really your points aren't worth engaging with because they are factually-devoid.

[glassgarden]

the markets are peoples emotions, the economy is made up of people
anyone panicking and spreading fear is part of the problem

[caitlinohara]

sleeponeday I keep saying this, but it is a self fulfilling prophecy that if people talk about disaster and catastrophe, then that's what you get. The markets react to people's emotions in the first place, and talk of 'panic' just doesn't help anyone, whichever way you voted. Incidentally, Mervyn King was on the radio at lunchtime basically saying could everyone just calm down a bit. He was very measured and sensible and pointed out that there is no basis to assume that short term instability, which was predicted by all by the mere fact of having a referendum, does not necessarily mean a long term downturn. Which all just sounds like common sense to me. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36641046

[RedToothBrush]

mamamea - There are REAL problems with that methodology/

As I point out, you are splitting that into data that does not reflect constituency boundaries properly by generalising too much.

A friend was at the local count. They saw the count by ballot box so know which areas were heavily remain and which were heavily leave.

Whilst the overall area came out Leave, by constituency there would have been a massive difference with one being heavily leave and one heavily remain. It was just averaged out.

I have no doubt that there would be similar issues elsewhere.

That 68% could be even more in your favour. Conversely it could be the opposite. That figure is NOT saying what you are claiming it to though. That figure you have come up with does not bare any relationship with actual constituency boundaries so is utterly meaningless.

This IS of importance to do properly as it is of use to politicians to know and see the exact breakdown, because from what I know it was primarily along socio-economic lines which means there are issues that need to be addressed on particularly localised levels.

There are lessons to be learned all round. The interests of everyone should be represented properly.

This does not mean working class interests over and above middle class one anymore than it should mean middle class ones over working class ones. Which is ultimately what a lot of this is coming down to unfortunately. We depend on each other, and we need to start working together more on that as its causing conflict because we are not.

[mamamea]

Based on the ones in the referendum.

Data are here: www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections-and-referendums/upcoming-elections-and-referendums/eu-referendum/electorate-and-count-information

There were 382 areas, 263 went leave, 119 remain = 68.8%

If you even it up relative to Westminster constituencies, then:

Scotland has 59 constituencies at Westminster.

Moray, which was closest to Leave, at 49.87%, has a 1-1 between Westminster constituency and local government region, so this would still have been Remain.

Behind this Dumfries and Galloway council had 46.94%, but this in Westminster is two constituencies, with around 75,000 electors in Dumfries & Galloway, and the remaining 40,000 in Dumfriesshire (which spills over into Scottish Borders, which only went 42.2% for Remain). It's likely that Dumfries & Galloway Westminster constituency therefore voted Leave, but it's impossible to say for certain

Aberdeenshire, which splits into three constituencies at Westminster, went 45% to Leave. It's possible here one of them would have gone Exit, but who knows.

Anyway, I'm going 58-1, with Dumfries & Galloway as the one Leave.

In Northern Ireland there are 18 Westminster constituencies. These were counted by constituency, with the result going 11 -7 in favour of Remain.

In Wales, there are 40 constituencies, and 22 councils.

It seems the result here would have been:

Arfon
Dwyfor Meirionnydd
Cardiff (all four seats)
Vale of Glamorgan
Monmouthshire
Ceredigion
one Swansea seat
going Remain, the rest for Leave.

This is 30-10 for Leave.

In England there are 533 MPs, and if you equalise constituency sizes, you get 368-165 for Leave.

That gives a total of 406 Leave, 244 Remain for the UK. I suspect in reality Leave would have done slightly better, as they would have won more in London than the results suggest (Remain piled up huge votes in inner areas, but the other areas went Leave. Bromley went 50.5-49.5 for Remain, however this probably reflects huge Remain votes around Lewisham. In reality three out of four Westminster constituencies in Bromley BC may have gone Leave.

Basically: Westminster's MPs are completely unrepresentative of the will of the people - in excess of 400 MPs should be for 'Leave', but in reality it is only around 150.

[marblestatue]

It's worth pointing out that Farage explicitly stated, before the referendum, that if the result was 48% Leave and 52% Remain he would demand another referendum

It's not relevant as Farage wasn't connected to the official Leave campaign. He's in no position to make demands, which wouldn't have been met anyway.

[sleeponeday]

You know, the threads on MN over the past few days have been depressing beyond belief.

It is absolutely crystal clear that not only do a lot of people not know what they voted for, they won't ever admit that they don't. They keep sticking fingers in ears and going la la la.

The economy is royally fucked and it is falling off a very steep, very large cliff. This is not a blip; this is the start.

We have pissed off the EU so much that once that Art 50 is triggered, they won't have us back. It has to be unanimous and someone will veto. Full stop. They will.

They are currently saying they won't even allow us to join the Common Market (which would essentially mean we are bound by all EU arrangements, including immigration, but would have no input into what those might be, and our current opt-outs would vanish at once) and if they don't, then we have no trade agreements with anyone else either, because all our trade arrangements of note are negotiated on the basis of our EU membership, and we won't be members.

It took 7 months to negotiate a few changes to the EU arrangements last year. 7 bloody months. And we have to renegotiate every single aspect of our international economic and legal frameworks with every other nation on earth in two years while the EU work out exactly how badly they intend to fuck us over. When they are seriously angry, and need for their own reasons to punish us to stop any other states thinking that semi-detached, trade-only arrangements might look good. All this while the economy is in meltdown.

Oh, and for those insisting the economy is not in meltdown - why were the Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays suspended from trading on the stock market today?

The systemic problems in the world economies exposed in 2008 were never really addressed, and as we positioned ourselves as the economic capital of Europe we were already vulnerable to a repeat. And now, we're creating a perfect storm - the financial industry headquartered here because we were the most appealing European capital, not because it was British. They'll leave. Along with all the trade deals we have with every other nation. We're heading for being Greece of Northern Europe while some posters say that we should "calm down and trust you" and that there's no need for a plan in advance, oh no, two years is ages. Two years isn't enough time to stage a fucking Olympic Games - are you under the delusion that what needs to happen before we leave is less complex than that?

[sleeponeday]

How is there no plan? That is why article 50 takes 2 years to expire, so we can create the plan! Do you think it drops out of midair?

No, we don't create the plan. Under Article 50, the people who create the plan are the remaining states in the EU. We are wholly excluded from the process. They decide. Not us. I quote from the Economist:

"Under Article 50 it is for the other 27 countries to decide, by majority vote and without British participation, the terms of Britain’s exit."

[sleeponeday]

It's worth pointing out that Farage explicitly stated, before the referendum, that if the result was 48% Leave and 52% Remain he would demand another referendum, because it was unconscionable that such a slim majority should determine something of such huge national importance. He felt a 10% in either direction was the only sort of number that should determine this. So those claiming it's outrageous for the losing side to demand this, and insisting it's just sour grapes, should wonder how they would have felt about the proposal in reverse. After all, if it is truly the democratic will of the majority, with full understanding of the consequences of the vote, why worry about a second referendum at all?

[RedToothBrush]

It's difficult to do this analysis because only NI used the parliamentary constituencies, and I can only think of two rest of UK constituencies that were also areas for the referendum vote, Anglesey and Isle of White

I know someone at our count so I do know the local split. It was for two constituencies. The area came out overall for Leave. But only just. Our constituency was about 2/3 for Remaining.

It is a very valid an interesting point to make.

We have a Tory MP. (I know he is heavily pro-Europe).

[Showmethewaytogohome]

Peach that is a process not a plan.

A plan would be created from objectives and we would understand what we want to achieve by when. It would have resources allocated (for example we need 100's and 100's of civil servants that do not exist) It would have a leader (we don't have one).

All we have is a process and a deadlin - that has NEVER been used btw- but we don't know what we want, how we can get it, when, by whom or how realistic anything is

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Another legal "out" might be that Scotland can veto leaving, obviously if the Scottish Government did this it would open a whole other can of worms...

[BonerSibary]

Was that with existing parliamentary constituencies mamamea or the ones for the referendum, do you know? Can you link?

[BonerSibary]

Well there doesn't appear to be a plan for who's actually going to trigger Article 50, nor when.

[mamamea]

Had the referendum been conducted on FPTP, Leave would have got 68.8% of the seats.

[peachpudding]

How is there no plan? That is why article 50 takes 2 years to expire, so we can create the plan! Do you think it drops out of midair?