March in March

[Niamer]

Remainers, regretters and non-voters, please come!

www.uniteforeurope.org

It's not just mine tbf.

The result just said Leave, there was no mandate in the referendum vote for one kind of Brexit over another.

Is 'fear of the mob' not self-explanatory?

Not to me, no. I think if you are going to bandy words like "mob" around, you should be a bit more explicit. Who are calling the "mob", why are you calling them the "mob" (it's a massively loaded term) and why are they feared?

I think it's more a fear of the gutter press than of the mob tbh. IIRC, Farage could only muster a few pensioners for his supreme court demo.

I think the number of people who care enough about brexit to commit violence is pretty small. But the number of leave-supporting newspaper magnates is large enough to ruin an MPs career. Hence the A50 vote.

It kind of makes brexit worse than trump. At least part of the US press has woken up, albeit a bit late.

I think the gutter press and the mob are part of the same continuum. The press stoke the mob and the mob buy the gutter press.

There is definite sense among MPs of being cowed by the Leaver crowd, a fear of displeasing the mob, of popular disapproval. While fears of civil unrest can be overplayed, it has been repeatedly explicitly threatened by angry Leavers if they don't get their own way. I think the 2010 riots are more to the point than Farage's debacle.

As Jim Hacker once said ' It's the people's will. I am their leader I must follow them'.

Okay Ninon I think I'm getting the picture of who you consider to be the mob.

Fortunately, in my view, but presumably not yours, we live in a parliamentary democracy where one person's vote (whether you consider them to be a rational person or "the mob") is as good as another's.

Well our parliamentary democracy has rather broken down at the moment due lack of effective opposition, and a power grab by Whitehall - which has been symbolically resisted by voting on A50 but not in actual fact.

I'm not convinced by the mob argument. The hard brexiters were barely able to muster a hardcore of pensioners to protest the A50 court case, let alone a baying mob. Outside of social media and a small number of extreme rightwing movements, no one cares that much.

What MPs in leave areas fear is that the right wing press will bay for electoral blood and that they will lose their seats. Personally I think they have overestimated the risk - I think there is a good chance that UKIP is now past its sell-by date. May turning the tories into blukip put them on notice, and Nuttall was a colossal error that may have finished them off as an electoral force.

Well I'm not convinced that MPs are only in fear of the press, I think they're more afraid of their own population. (Nor indeed that UKIP is finished - I wish it were).

I don't think the A50 court case is relevant, riots tend to have random, unpredictable sparks. It's not often that they develop from organised protest, although that does happen. At the moment the Brexit population is happy as things are going their way. MPs are ensuring that because they fear the consequences if they don't. It's as much fear of disapproval and anger as it is actual unrest.

But, for example, if Parliament had overturned Brexit or a second referendum voted to stay in the EU, then I think we could genuinely see civil unrest.

I think the fear is inflated but I think it's real.

But I should emphasise I think the issue is more anger, revolt, protest than actual riots.

I'm finding it hard to understand what sort of political system you would advocate Ninon.

You don't seem to want "the mob" to be able to make political choices through referenda.

You aren't happy with the conduct of the MPs "the mob" have elected, and you seem to think it wrong for MPs to consider the wishes of "the majority mob" when voting.

You also don't want to see "the mob" out on the streets demonstrating and/or rioting.

Please can you explain what system you would like in place of our current parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage? Presumably something which keeps power out of the hands of the majority?

I would dearly love to know who my MP is afraid of. It doesn't seem to be her constituents because she ignores us most of the time. She will wake up and realise we are still here just in time for the next election.

release the bats

Get out there and march, protest away as long as it is peaceful. It will be more credible if it isn't solid socialist worker banners.

But be aware that most of us outside London will hear nothing about it and probably care less, there seem to be protest marches every weekend there.

But be aware that most of us outside London will hear nothing about it and probably care less, there seem to be protest marches every weekend there.

Nothing mobilises "the people" like a Tory government. BTW I'm 300 miles away from London and will be attending.

Art special. Socialise worker and momentum

People are coming from all over the UK, and from abroad.

It will be my second ever protest march and I have no links to either the swp or Momentum. Can't stand either of them. My 70- year old Dad will be coming. It's the first march he'll ever have attended.

What the March for?. Yy to always being marches.

Correct, I think referendums reducing complex, multi-factoral issues to a binary vote are not a good idea.

Where they are used, the example of other countries are instructive: first Scotland Indyref had a very long document setting out what an independent Scotland would look like, there was no such Brexit plan, so no-one knew precisely what they were voting for. Second, Ireland has regulations about media coverage of referendums which is strictly monitored - there must be equal coverage for both sides. Third, Australia requires a 'double majority', ie a majority of nationwide votes as well as separate majorities in a majority of states (4 out of 6 states). Where a particular state is affected by a referendum, a majority of voters in that state must also agree to the change ('triple majority). And of course voting there is compulsory.

I am not happy with the conduct of MPs of any party. MPs have generally considered the views of the mob, who have a relatively small majority, and only constitute ~39% of the electorate, over their own views, and over the views of their constituents in Remain areas. I am particularly unhappy with the conduct of Labour who have failed to provide any effective opposition.

I have no issue with demonstrations - I might come back to London to attend this one - and I think riots are part of life. What I actually said was that politicians are rather in fear of them, although this can be overstated.

I would like to see a functioning parliamentary democracy, effective opposition, meaningful rather than superficial, compromised debate, coherent, well-written and high quality white papers, respect for the independence and importance of the judiciary, respect for the freedom of the press, acceptance that dissent is part of political discourse, no attempts at power grabs by Whitehall, and most of all no attempts to hijack a referendum result for hard right ideological ends.

I agree with everything that you say Ninon, apart from your use of the word "mob" which IMO is counterproductive. Still it conveys the general picture that the government is effectively abdicating its responsibility and riding on a wave of protest, rather than informing us and looking after our interests.

MPs have generally considered the views of the mob, who have a relatively small majority, and only constitute ~39% of the electorate

So just to be clear, Ninon, for you "the mob" are leave voters? Are they "the mob" specifically because they voted leave? Or is any majority (for example, the people who elected the Tories at the 2015 election) "the mob"?

Can you explain how "the mob" differs from "the majority" other than that you don't agree with them?

Do you think it is helpful to use a word like "mob" to describe more than 17 million people exercising their democratic rights?

I can't speak for Ninon but Nigel Farage has frequently hinted that mob violence would result if Brexit is in any way "thwarted" in his view. I'm sure he is not referring to all Leave voters coming out on the streets but clearly he feels confident that there are enough among them to cause serious problems of crime and disorder and has used this as a sort of threat. I think he is talking shit - on this and most things - but plenty of people seem to have swallowed the line, I've seen it parroted on MN many times.

lala I'm with you. I don't put much credence in what Farage says, and I imagine most leave voters and presumably all remain voters feel similarly.

I do wonder whether the people who presently think Farage is a good bloke, one of them with his fags and his pint, will be the ones to turn against him? Except by then, he will have cleared off.

Nigel Farage has frequently hinted that mob violence would result if Brexit is in any way "thwarted" in his view

It's got to be bollocks though.

Mob violence in the UK is almost exclusively confined to young people in city centres. That's right - the people who voted heavily in favour of remain. The most ideologically committed brexiters are elderly middle-englanders, whose preferred form of protest appears to be posting on newpaper websites and appearing on BBC question time. The idea of these people rioting is so fanciful as to be absurd.

There's also very little tradition of people in the UK rioting to defend abstract values like sovereignty - the trigger for riots in the UK tends to be much more tangible, like police violence.

If brexit fails, I expect some outbreaks of violence against migrants, but not "riots" (it will be by disturbed individuals, or small groups of Britain First types).