Can we stqrt calling it what is is?

[Itisnoteasybeingdifferent]

It's not exit, it's independence. Alternatively we should call it sovereignty or self rule.

if it had been binding then there's every chance the referendum Bill wouldn't have gone through without all sorts of safeguards being added in case of a small majority or a split vote between Scotland/Ireland/England.

Well, exactly.

Cameron's arrogance, assuming Remain were going to win meant that those very things weren't thrashed out prior to offering the ref - resulting in the shambles now wrt article 50, court judgements etc.

So many things should have been explained and thrashed out before the referendum.There should have been an information booklet explaining what the European Union is.
In response to Wrong can agree with you on one thing ! I too am growing a little impatient with those who think that just because they believe something, this qualifies it with some sort of objective fact status.My comments on sovereignty were all substantiated by objective fact and I even linked to an article containing more detail.

You posted that people voted leave exclusively because they want to leave the European Union. I can see why it is logical to think that, however that is your own subjective view,not objective fact.Surely it is possible that many voters misguidedly blamed membership of the Union for other things they were dissatisfied about?
Understandably many voters seemed confused about the complexities of the European Union. Remember, after voting some people even googled " what is the EU?'

From what can be gleaned from the press,tv,radio and social media there are many things factored in to the reasons people voted the way they did. Leave voters I know well said they voted as they did " ...because we have had enough". They explained of working hard and deriving little benefit.
I heard Nick Clegg saying that when he went around canvassing in the Midlands many people were saying to him that they wanted change, just to change something.
Surely rather than a careful analysis of the pros and cons of the European Union, voters in the (advisory) referendum could have been protesting about other things? For example,the NHS,austerity measures, globalisation, decline of manufacturing, populism, anti elitism, the north/ south divide,polarised distribution of wealth,misunderstanding of terrorism and extremism, desire for improvement in personal circumstances, longing for the past etc.A few xenophobes may have tried to hijack the debate with a negative focus on immigration without looking at the positive benefits.However surely it is at least possible that the underlying root causes of the referendum were complex and varied with many things factored in behind the reasons people voted the way they did.

Anyway, whatever the motives last June, there is evidence of change in public opinion since then. The following are only examples:

• On 24th December -Staffordshire Express & Star online poll of 10,000 readers showed a dramatic change from 80% for Leave ito 62% in favour of Remain in December 2016.
• Birmingham Mail: 69% Remain, 31% Leave
• Plymouth Herald: 61% Remain, 39% Leave
• Sunderland Echo: 60% Remain, 40% Leave
• Coventry Telegraph: 65% Remain, 35% Leave
• Recent local elections have shown a huge,huge swing to the Liberal Democrats campaigning on a pro European Union platform.

If people believed that Cameron was being arrogant in assuming he/ remain were going to win, is that why they voted leave ?

I contemplated voting Leave to give Cameron a bloody nose. In the end, I decided that the issue was too serious for what would have been a petty response. I inadvertently got my wish, despite my vote, and have now ended up with May, who is worse IMO, and has been a disaster from day one.

Remember, after voting some people even googled " what is the EU?'

There you go, an objective fact.

But the objective fact you fail to qualify your objective fact with is that we don't know who googled "what is the EU".

Were they eligible to vote or eg too young? Did they vote? Did they vote leave or remain?

No, we don't know any of these things. Also, despite the urban myth, the number of such searches was small. Still, can't argue with objective facts can we?

Also, "even linking to an article" doesn't make what you are saying an inarguable fact. It demonstrates that someone agrees with you.

I don't think newspaper online polls are very robust evidence (self-selection and all that).

I find it hard to believe that many people voted leave for all sorts of un-leave reasons given the many polls which have shown pretty much no movement on whether people want to leave or remain since the referendum, and the high satisfaction with TM and the Tories. How can this be explained?

The high satisfaction with TM and the Tories is at odds with what is happening in Local Elections, which after all, are real votes cast, not opinions told to an opinion pollster.

Even if those points are correct (I think the local election situation is v complicated) why haven't the polls for leave/remain moved though, if leave voters didn't really want to leave?

I think there is somewhat of a difference between an online newspaper poll which anyone can click on and a formal survey poll where the sample is selected to reflect the true population (YouGov etc). Not perfect of course but I would have thought worth considering if you want to try to understand people's views and actions.

I'm just thankful that we have a PM who is prepared to carry out the democratic wish of the British people.
Whether people on here like it or not the majority of the electorate voted leave.
And don't tell me that some people didn't vote. If they were on the electoral roll they had the opportunity to vote.

Some of the British people, trying. Some.

And of course if hard Brexit is where we are headed, that's only a subsection of leave voters, so really rather a small some...

Do we need a dictionary definition of electorate again?

Tryingtosaveup - I am eligible to vote. I was denied a vote.

Apparently so, informal, but has anyone got the energy?

There's that cliché being reinforced again.

Bobo Either you are eligible to vote or not, unless you were physically restrained from voting. You were obviously not eligible in the referendum.

Sadly it is nit that simple.

Back in October the Sun was shouting out about how France and Germany might force us out of the Single Market. Boo hoo, nasty France and Germany. Now it's apparently what we wanted all along.

caroldecker there were reports of eligible voters living overseas who had confirmed registrations for postal votes who either didn't receive the documents at all or received them too late to vote.

A glib 'obviously you were not eligible', does not cover proxy voting papers which went astray, or postal voting papers not received on time. I know of one concrete example of a proxy vote having to be chased up and the proxy being able to prove via a paper trail that the application was received in time. How many more were there? How many people entitled to a postal vote abroad didn't get their paperwork until it was too late?

It's easy to make glib comments - you might be the one disenfranchised next, and then it will be a different story.