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Brexit

To believe that the Brexit will fail on legal grounds?

101 replies

MojitoMadame · 27/06/2016 10:14

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'!

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TwigTheWonderKid · 27/06/2016 11:26

I'm inclined to think this could've all been avoided if you had to display even the most basic levels of education before voting....

Absolutely. Or just never put such a massively important and life-changing decision in the hands of people so easily manipulated by self-serving politicians and a totally unscrupulous press?

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OneArt · 27/06/2016 11:31

We live in a democracy. One person, one vote. The Remain campaign and Corbyn need to take responsibility for the fact that they failed to get across the implications of a Remain vote.

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TessDurbeyfield · 27/06/2016 11:34

In response to the original Q in the OP (do we need Parliament's approval before Brexit can be triggered?) I came across this helpful analysis that was put up earlier today. It is quite involved but might be interesting. The blog argues that Parliament's approval would be needed before the Govt could trigger Art 50. The argument is quite convoluted and that in itself shows that the answer to this fundamental question, like so much in the past few days, isn't clear. It's not simply a case of pointing to a bit of legislation that unambiguously shows that Parliament is or is not needed.

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TwigTheWonderKid · 27/06/2016 11:34

And do the Leave campaigners not have any responsibility towards the people they deliberately misled?

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peachpudding · 27/06/2016 11:34

I'm inclined to think this could've all been avoided if you had to display even the most basic levels of education before voting....

I'm inclined to think you should have to have an IQ test and score above 100 before you can post on MN.

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RedToothBrush · 27/06/2016 11:37

The Remain campaign and Corbyn need to take responsibility for the fact that they failed to get across the implications of a Remain vote.

They were up against propaganda on a scale unseen in this country since the 1940s.

Put simply Brexit was advertised and marketed in a way that would be completely illegal if you were selling anything else in this country.

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MaryPoppinsPenguins · 27/06/2016 11:39

peachpudding - not sure if that was an attack on me personally? But the comment I made was in reference to the video I posted beneath it.

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peachpudding · 27/06/2016 11:39

They were up against propaganda on a scale unseen in this country since the 1940s

And Corbyn did bugger all about it, he was useless and should resign.

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TwigTheWonderKid · 27/06/2016 11:55

Why is it Corbyn's fault that, as RedToothBrush says the Leave campaign was allowed to promote its cause in a way that was basically dishonest?

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Peregrina · 27/06/2016 11:59

Can someone help me out with the constituency talk please as I'm quite puzzled by it and think the referendum was administered in different ways around the country.

It wasn't administered in different ways round the country, but it was a vote by Local Authority areas, rather than Parliamentary Constituencies. To illustrate: I live in the Vale of White Horse, but that includes parts of two Parliamentary constituencies - part of Oxford West and Abingdon and part of Wantage and Didcot.

So when people say that Your MP should take in the wishes of how their constituents voted - they may not actually be in a position to fully know this.

Oxford West and Abingdon includes parts of two authorities which voted differently - one with an 81% turnout and a 13.4% vote for Remain and one with a 75.5% turnout and a 0.61% vote for Leave (i.e. less than 1% so nearly a dead heat). In this case I think our MP can be reasonable assured that the majority of her Constituents did want Remain and that is how she voted herself. But there must be other Constituencies where it's not entirely clear.

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PansyGiraffe · 27/06/2016 12:07

Mojito I do absolutely consider this a big decision - my point is that as far as I could see, the Act lists precisely which circumstances will need a Minister to have an Act passed and a referendum in favour of - and I can't see "leaving the EU" on that list (nor on the other list where they just need an Act). I may be looking at the wrong bit as on my phone of course but seemed as though the Act wouldn't stop it happening as you said, as not designed to deal with this circumstance? Please someone find the relevant bit!

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peachpudding · 27/06/2016 12:14

TwigTheWonderKid - Why is it Corbyn's fault...?

Because as leader of the Labour party supporting the remain campaign it WAS his responsibility to successfully explain to Labour voters that Leave was being dishonest and get them to vote to remain.

He didn't, so he should resign.

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MojitoMadame · 27/06/2016 12:19

Pansy, I think it is open to debate, but a number of leading lawyers believe that legislation is necessary.

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Wellthatsit · 27/06/2016 12:19

The Remain campaign wasn't just the Labour party, peach.

The press showed virtually nothing of the Lib Dems - the only wholeheartedly pro EU party - and have also tried to destroy Corby from the outset of his leadership.

Remains failure does not rest on Corby ms shoulders. It's a lot more complicated than that.

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TwigTheWonderKid · 27/06/2016 12:27

Peach perhaps the cross-party Remain campaign could have tried harder but frankly, if people managed to willfully ignore the unbiased and educated advice of economists, lawyers, political commentators, business people and scientists in favour of the vote-buying lies of the other side, how precisely should they have acted?

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AnnPerkins · 27/06/2016 12:27

If you can explain what it means to leave, what will be achieved and how we will get there then we can argue about voting %

We have NOT GOT A PLAN! Even if was 70/30 I would have the same view - no one knows what has been voted for. So for me that makes it void

Precisely. It's not about who wanted it any more. It's about who's going to - who is ABLE to - make it happen. And what exactly 'It' is in the first place.

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peachpudding · 27/06/2016 12:29

The Remain campaign wasn't just the Labour party

Every other party and group seemed to doing a LOT more than Corbyn, he was the only one who was suspected to actually be working to lose the referendum.

The way his cabinet is resigning he will be lucky if he has as much support as the Liberal Democrats.

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peachpudding · 27/06/2016 12:34

Parliament has no formal say over whether or when Article 50 is invoked, as this lies within the royal prerogative powers that are exercised by government. Government’s powers in matters of foreign policy are very extensive, and parliament has veto rights only in respect of treaties. If parliament were to pass a motion calling on the Prime Minister not to invoke Article 50, we might nevertheless expect him (or perhaps, by then, her) to respect that. But the Prime Minister could claim the authority of the popular vote to justify ignoring such pressure.

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RedToothBrush · 27/06/2016 12:41

And Corbyn did bugger all about it, he was useless and should resign.

Corbyn was not as great as he could have been, but he DID do a lot. It was not covered by the media. He was mild mannered and polite. He did not wheel out outrageous claims or resort to controversy. Thus he did not generate column inches.

And even if he had been 'better at leading' and 'really pro-EU' he had a problem.

The issue is that the propaganda on display was controversial and in its nature headline grabbing. It was nationalistic. There are very few ways to counter propaganda of that nature - apart from with more of the same.

There was never any way of doing that over the EU. You were never going to be able to stir up the British public to wave blue flags with yellow flags. You were never going to be able to appeal to a part of the population who were disaffected with the status quo by offering the status quo - Leave were able to offer a little bit of hope by offering 'something different', whatever the something difference was or is.

I did see Paddy Ashdown, be very, very passionate and positive about the EU. This was shot down, again by xenophobic rumblings about an EU army and calling argument about the unity and peace in Europe as scaremongering nonsense. Not to mention the British psyche is one that is naturally suspicious of Europe and tribal - look at the football. It is rare to come across British born voters, who call ourselves Europeans first, and British second. We see ourselves as different, and don't look at how we have things in common unlike someone in The Netherlands might do with someone in Belgian for example.

This is because such an inward looking mentality at work here and there is a complacency we have for peace. We take it for granted. Well we do, in England - less so in NI - and guess what they did vote differently.

Leave ran a cracking campaign that could not be rationalised with. It was purely emotive. It was something that left very little room to counter. The 'Project Fear' moniker was a deflection of pretty much anything that could have been thrown at the Leave campaign.

So they couldn't go positive and negative had been neutralised.

The Remain point was always that it was 'an on balance' argument and as such, its main issue was that its main problem was apathy and a luke warm attitude - which Corbyn himself had. It would have been disingenuous to be more excited at something that is difficult to be excited about!

Corbyn could have run the best campaign in the world. I'm not convinced about how much more he could have persuaded people, without alienating other parts of his voter core.

What do you think Corybn or the Remain campaign could have done better in the face of that?

The reason that Remain went for the 'scare' approach was a) that it was based on the reasonable assumptions of expects and b) how the fuck else were they going to motivate people to the polling booths.

Maybe they could have done a little better, they DID make mistakes. They overcooked it with the scare tactics to the point it seemed unbelievable, next to the hopes and dreams of the Leave campaign. They had too much coverage of the hated duo of Blue in Cameron and Osbourne.

But honestly even the harshest critic is faced with the inevitability of the fact there wasn't much more Remain could have done to slay the image of Churchill riding in on his red, white and blue leave unicorn of empty promises.

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BonerSibary · 27/06/2016 13:13

This is what I thought peregrina. I can see that an individual MP who voted not to trigger Article 50 when their constituents voted Leave would probably be in trouble, but do we actually have analysis of the way each constituency voted? With such a small margin of victory, it's actually possible that the majority of parliamentary constituencies recorded a Remain vote.

Additionally, what happens when the electorate have said two different things? To take an example, Nigel Dodds of the DUP is the MP for Belfast North. He and the DUP, are both pro-Brexit, and if there were a GE tomorrow I reckon he'd hold the seat. He could legitimately argue that he was elected on a clear Brexit platform and he must enact the wishes of his constituents by voting to trigger Article 50. Which is impossible to argue against, until you find out that Belfast North voted Remain in the referendum. So who has the democratic mandate there?

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howabout · 27/06/2016 13:13

Interesting interview with Mervyn King on the BBC where he speaks of the complete implausibility of much of the Remain campaign and seems to place the "blame" for Brexit squarely on their shoulders - calling your opponents idiots and attempting to bully them into agreement is rarely a good look or very persuasive were some of his thoughts.

He also seemed pretty relaxed about the outlook for the UK economy and finally came out with the first piece of economic sense I have heard from the "Establishment" - austerity and fiscal contraction is the opposite of what you should do to support the economy in the face of economic shock and uncertainty.

Nicola Sturgeon is not convinced it is even necessary to invoke Art 50 to exit the EU (and I tend to agree), but it is probably best to work within the EU framework to get the best negotiation imho.

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Showmethewaytogohome · 27/06/2016 13:16

Howabout I'm afraid I would listen to Carney rather than marvellous Marv any day of the week. Has he seen the finance pages today or is he still waiting for luncheon to be served?

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BonerSibary · 27/06/2016 13:28

Looking more at NI, as they used the parliamentary constituencies so it's possible to make an accurate comparison, Belfast North isn't the only area to elect an MP who thinks one thing and vote the other way in the referendum.

There's also East Londonderry, for whom the MP is Gregory Campbell of the DUP. Also a pro Brexiter, from a mainly Brexit party, but his constituents voted Remain. Danny Kinahan is the UUP MP for South Antrim. He supported Remain, as did the UUP generally, his constituents did not. That's three constituencies in NI, out of 18, with a split. If you can work out what reflects the democratic will of the voters in those constituencies, you're a better woman than I am.

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howabout · 27/06/2016 13:28

We will have to agree to differ then Showme. I don't think Carney has ever even had a plan to hit the BoE inflation target range and he has done very little to pop the housing bubble or sort out banking regulation. Even GO has stepped away from his punishment budget and the markets are still well within the trading range for the last 12 months. Watching to see what the £ does when the US markets open but when I moved to the States 18 years ago it was at 1.39 so the current knee jerk 1.32 doesn't concern me overly.

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Showmethewaytogohome · 27/06/2016 13:35

howabout are you still in the states? If you are you really won't understand the palpable feelings of despair in the UK at the moment

We have a triple crisis; economic, social and political. Banking regulation and targets aren't the current priorities I'm afraid. Having to suspend Banking shares is OK? Really? That is just the markets. Contracts are being put on hold everywhere - there is no confidence. We now have HUGE wholes in budgets within LA's, Research facilities, Housing associations, infrastructure.

We have no leadership - in any party. Oh and NO PLAN to take us forward in any direction I don't hold any truck in Marv's views no.

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