The Brexit Arms goes forth! All welcome. Leavers, Remainers, Couldn't give a Tossers, & openly gay athletes.

[surferjet]

Welcome

Ww bear there's no talking round this you bunch of fakers
We represented ourselves - all MPs need to do is rubber stamp out decision

WTAF? The word 'incomprehensible' comes to mind! And not for the first time...

A vote for Remain was not a vote against UK sovereignty.

Apart from EU immigration, the British government still determines the vast majority of policy over every issue of greatest concern to British voters – including health, education, pensions, welfare, monetary policy, defence and border security. The UK controls more than 98 per cent of its public expenditure.

Continuing to pool its sovereign power selectively in the EU would enable the UK to help design integrated EU responses to many challenges that it cannot resolve on its own. These include the challenges of energy security and efficiency; environmental sustainability; internet governance; managing a more assertive Russia; and the fight against terrorism.

In a world that is more interdependent today than it was when the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973, the notion of ‘absolute’ British sovereignty is illusory. It is also worthless if it limits the ability of future British governments to ensure the security and prosperity of their citizens. Judging from the UK’s experience and its future prospects, the opportunities from remaining in the EU far outweigh the risks of doing so, and the risks of leaving far outweigh the opportunities.

(From the Chatham House report, May 2016).

Meant to say '...not for the first time on this thread.'

Darling bear

There's no talking around this, you bunch of fakers. We represented ourselves in the referendum; we do not need MPs to represent us; all they need to do now is rubber stamp our decision.

Does that help

my other posts are beautifully clear, unless you have an idee fixe that causes you to struggle which you do

No because you've gone back to the misconceived notion of MPs as delegates of the people when they are an fact representatives.

If I was Prime Minister, first thing Monday morning I'd be on my feet saying,

Mr Speaker, I wish to put a motion to this house; in the Referendum on June 23rd a majority of those voting, voted to Leave the EU.

Does this house agree we should abide by that vote? Yes or no.

I propose Mr Speaker that we proceed straight to the vote.

To any question (I doubt whether the Speaker would agree to the immediate vote) I would reply, do you abide by the vote?

Can't see why May shouldn't do the same.

Nope they were representatives up until the point where they passed legislation by 6 to 1 to give the decision back to the people they represent in a referendum. Then they chose to become delegates for that decision presumably because they felt it was bigger than them and their representative responsibility.

Bit behind on the thread but hope the bar is still open for campari and soda drinking Lexiteers. Cheers all

YY Petronius - that's exactly what I'd be doing too.

And YY howabout- that's what WW has been repeating over & over again, but to no avail.

How about the MPs knew that the referendum was a non-binding advisory referendum and that they, as representatives and not delegates, can still vote in the best interests of their constituency, their party and the country as a whole?

The problem with putting it to an immediate vote is that if she lost she would have no choice but to try and call a GE and the impression she is giving at the moment is that she really wants to avoid an early election.

Gloria they are not our representatives here because we have had an exercise in direct democracy

Do you really not understand?

Is there a sort of fake head tilty ignorance going round as well as a fake concern for sovereignty aimed at hiding the plan to block brexit?
It doesn't work - we can see right through the lies

If she lost?

And gets remainers are assuring us not to worry because MPs won't vote against?

You're kidding no one
You want direct democracy overturned
Hypocrites

Informal: how about they respect the legitimacy of a majority vote? Which is after all the source of their own legitimacy?

MPs voted to hold an advisory, non- binding referendum. This was made clear to them at the the time. And the vote only covered whether to leave, not membership of the single market, customs union or anything else. It is entirely up to parliament how the vote is to be best implemented. They have to decide what is in the country's interests. Nothing else.

Leavers.
The main thing is getting A50 triggered, after that we have power.
I'm confident triggering A50 will go ahead in March as TM is still promising.

How will we have power once A50 triggered?

Howabout - exactly the point, they chose overwhelmingly to pass the power to the people to decide using a simple yes/no (and with no plan required). End of.

Unfortunately, they misread the feeling of the Country.

Have a Campari

Informal: how about they respect the legitimacy of a majority vote? Which is after all the source of their own legitimacy?

Because it's not a majority vote. I'm going to C&P from Quandry's post on another thread because it is a good explanation:

In the 'Duties of MPs' it clearly states that Members have a general duty to act in the interests of the nation as a whole; and a special duty to their constituents. They are expected to exercise their judgement and consider issues in the context of both the national interest and the interests of their constituents. They also have to consider the interests of ALL their constituents, not just those that actively vote, or engage the loudest on social media, or write to them etc.

If we consider that this advisory referendum has provided MPs with the following guidance on how to act (if we use the national figures as an example/guide)
- a minority (37.4%) of their constituents eligible to vote are in favour of leaving the EU
- a not dissimilar minority (34.7%) are in favour of remaining
- a significant proportion (27.8%) did not vote (and in so doing have left it to their MP to represent them, and act in their best interests).
- another significant proportion were not eligible to vote, but this doesn't mean that their interests should not be considered, and again, an MP is expected to vote in whatever they believe would be their best interests. For example, c.21% of the UK population is under 18 years old.

Taking all this into consideration, it may well be that only about 29% of all constituents have actively expressed a preference to leave the EU. If the MP strongly believes (given everything they know and have learnt in the professional role to which they were elected) that it is in the best interests of the nation and constituents to remain in the EU, then that is how they should vote. They are then acting in what they truly believe is in the best interest of 70% of their constituents!

Bollocks - do you question votes to elect MPs like this? No, and neither do the MPs. This set up as a majority vote and that's what we got. I f this is illegitimate then so are the MPs themselves - and they have no legitimacy therefore to review our decision. Almost every other majority vote in our democracy takes no account of electorate per centage and we rejected AV.

Reading this and the previous thread is rather interesting so I'll give my 5 cents.

The referendum was legally not binding, but advisory under the terms of the act. Any politician voting for (the 6-1 vote) would have been well aware of it, and therefore saying that "we have had an exercise in direct democracy" is in accurate, if this had been the case then we would have had to have the constitutional reform, prior to the vote, that Farrage was talking about on Andrew Marr this morning. This would have been unlikely to pass in the house.

We have a representative democracy, no matter what the poster WW would like to think the referendum did not change this. The interests of all of the people need to be represented and therefore the issue needs to be voted on, and debated in the commons.

The leaver stance that this is anti democratic is rather ironic, as they are objecting to the rule of law and our sovereign parliament being subverted for their own needs.

I think it ties in with the need for leavers to be the victim, first it was the wicked EU, now its the wicked rule of law.

Informal, whilst I agree with most of that summary, I take issue with:

- a significant proportion (27.8%) did not vote (and in so doing have left it to their MP to represent them, and act in their best interests).

They didn't 'leave it up to their MP to represent them', because it was a national referendum.
By choosing not to vote, they consented to go along with the majority outcome.

It would be sensible, therefore, to presume that:

65.2% are in favour of Leave
34.7% are in favour of Remain

If she lost?

Well Corbyn has said that he has red lines that he wants met before he agrees to Brexit, so Labour might vote against if May has a yes/no vote without agreeing to those conditions (although having said that he seems to be rolling back on this now). SNP and some of the NI parties will consider themselves a having a mandate to vote to remain. Some MPs in remain-supporting constituencies may consider that they have a mandate from their constituents top vote remain.

I'm not saying the Commons would vote 'no', but there may be enough uncertainty to make May cautious about it. Or it may be that she's simply being bloody-minded in her belief that this can all be done by Royal Prerogative and is determined to take as far as possible through the courts.

The government decides policy and negotiations. That's what a government does. Why should any other party have a say, except what they can achieve through effective parliamentary representation? The government owes them nothing. It's for the government to decide the terms and negotiate.

So all those promises we're reading - 'don't worry brexit WILL happen' - more lies then.