If we just cancelled Brexit....

[GraceGrape]

...do you think there would really be that much fuss?

I posted on the id card thread that it would be much less hassle if we could just cancel Brexit. It got me wishful thinking that this could actually be possible!

Even the most ardent leavers are starting to downplay its likelihood of success. Key figures like Gisela Stuart have admitted it's all been handled disastrously. The economy is starting to look a bit shit before we've even left. According to the pro- leave camp, we all apparently knew there would be a recession but it would still be "worth it" if you're independently wealthy like Garage, IDS or Bojo maybe.

Anyway, I think it would be typically British if we just harrumphed a bit and said "Well, maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. The referendum was only advisory y'know."

As a nation, we don't tend to like big changes so I think a lot of people would be secretly relieved. There might be a bit of grumbling, and maybe Farage would leave the country in disgust as an added bonus. We could then sweep it under the carpet and pretend it never happened, as the Brits tend to do with some of the more unsavoury parts of our history anyway. It would also save us the humiliation of seeing David Davis try to do any more negotiating.

I think there would need to be some sort of democratic process before just "cancelling" Brexit. Constitutionally parliament could just vote to chuck it out, but after everything that has been said and done over the last 18 months that would leave a significant democratic deficit.

OTOH amused that the "riots!" threat is still being trotted out. Even at the height of the "enemies of the people" nonsense, Farage could not drum up / bus in enough people to attend a demo at the Supreme Court. Pro Brexit riots are not going to happen: the rioting demographic (younger, poorer people in cities) either voted remain or didn't vote at all, and most people who voted leave don't care enough to turn out for demos, let alone to put themselves at risk of a prison sentence.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-referendum-leave-european-union-norway-prime-minister-erna-solberg-warning-a7084926.html
Norway itself is not entirely happy with its status outside the EU. See the warning given to Cameron before the referendum. As pp have said, however, Norway is wealthy because of well invested oil revenues and can mitigate the economic effects somewhat.

userlots
I still feel bitter that the winning campaign was based on lies and many people didn't know what they were voting for.
and this attitude is why the leave voters voted the way they did.

Olliegarchy- why? We still don't know what Brexit entails! Are you telling me that you do?

We will just have to learn the hard way. In 100 years time school children will read about the great Brexit swindle. Maybe then people will realise how precious voting is. And how important making informed decisions are.

Would breathe a massive sigh of relief. It's not impossible - the next two years will provide us with more clarity and if it looks as though promises were broken, then people may well demand another say. Personally I am dreading the day that mine and my children's rights to live, work and study in 27 other countries are taken away from us against our will ... if only we had Irish ancestry!

Given that the likely outcome of a vote today would be 70% to stay....
Brexit at the moment is a way for May to achieve what she failed to in the home office being dressed up as the democratic process.....(she hates failure so she won't stop even if it's economically suicidal)

This is why we need a second referendum.

I'd be over the moon.

And all this bleating about democracy: wake up people, our democracy isn't functioning. It needs a free, fair and unbiased media to work and we most certainly do not have that. How many leavers voted that way on the basis what were very quickly shown to be outright lies after the vote? All fed to them by that vile man Murdoch and others.

We do need a second referendum, but again - unless we gag the entire British media and make people go and find out for themselves what leaving means, it'll still be a vote based on nothing but prejudice (and I'm talking about both sides here, not just leavers).

Come off it. We are British. This is what we do when we realise we have made a mistake: we pretend we intended this all along because it would be too embarrassing otherwise. Think back to the last time you accidentally entered a shop you didn't intend to, sat down in a cafe that turns out not to serve the kind of thing you thought they did, or got into conversation with a random person at the party and then realised that this was the crazy aunt you had been warned to avoid.

You didn't say "oops I didn't mean to do this" did you (or if you did I am not sure you are British). You went along with it in order to avoid any kind of scene, desperately hoping that your phone might ring so you could claim an emergency and save face.

We won't just cancel Brexit. If our EU friends are kind, they may engineer some kind of emergency (the situation in the middle east may oblige) and ask us to please "postpone" Brexit so we can all pull together which could turn out to it being semi-permanently shelved - if it can be postponed for 5 years then the next government may be able to hold a 'do we still what this' referendum.

Ollie - so voters piled out to cut off their nose to spite their face? That's how your post looks - is that what you mean?

Remain's campaign was dreadful, there's no doubt about it, but the things they were backstabbing and whinging about were at least true. The leave campaign was as fictional as Jilly Cooper, but with less sex and no handsome hero.
We've been sold a three legged donkey instead of the racehorse we were told we would get, but no-one in charge will acknowledge it at all.
What should happen ideally is a chance to wait and plan, shelve the idea for a bit, instead of driving forwards to prove a democratic point (it's also within the realms of democracy to wait).
As it is, TM is likely to push forwards, run a brexit that manages to piss the EU off and alienate us further, then when she loses her job, and when things go tits up, the millionaires of Westminster will carry on living their elitist, cushy lives while the rest of us live the consequences of this utter fiasco.

This was a bit tongue in cheek, but I think the whole affair has shown us that the UK government don't really know how to do a referendum. Maybe we should have taken a few tips from Ireland or somewhere that they hold them regularly. If we had a second referendum, I think a lot of leave voters who are seeing the way Brexit is going might not bother voting. However, I sincerely doubt that the public will be trusted to make a decision on anything for quite a long time.

Who paid for the leave vote? Brexit should be halted until we know
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/28/paid-leave-vote-funding-brexit-public-inquiry

Why is it ok to ignore any 'stink' leavers would kick up for overturning a democratic majority, but not ok to ignore remainders?

Other than that remainers are naice, better people with right and good on their side and leavers are stupid unwashed, vile masses who shouldn't be allowed a vote?

Do you honestly see nothing wrong with thinking like that? It's this bollocks that got us Brexit and got the US bloody Trump. Brexit is a disaster. Cameron should be bloody sued that he set this up with no plan at all and then walked away. But this bollocks of blatant bigotry against anyone with diversity of opinion just makes the problem steadily bigger.

Besides which the ship has bloody sailed. The EU will not let the uk just forget this ever happened, the rebate would be gone, we'd likely have to adopt the euro, it would be EU plus. And that's when the riots would start.

Cameron did one hell of a fuck up on us.

I don't get this idea that you will not be able to live and work in the EU countries anymore. I am not a EU national- I'm British as they come, born and live in the British Isles yet am not a EU person....not at all, not one bit, never have been (yes we do exist)..... and I can apply to work in ANY country I want not just the EU. In fact many of my family have done.
Considering the US is obviously not part of the EU, I haven't noticed any particular restrictions on their citizens coming to live and work in the U.K. should they choose to?

Democracy is not "winner takes it all". If that was the case then a political party could call an advisory referendum, make up lies to persuade voters, use Internet data mining, treat the result of the advisory referndum as legally binding and then introduce a huge change that enables them to introduce loads of new laws using a tiny majority. As has just happened.

Democracy has different methods of ensuring checks and balances. I believe the way this referendum was called, structured and conducted was completely undemocratic. Why is disgarding the result agaibst democracy if getting the result was undemocratically obtained. In ireland, where they have referenda regularly, i am sure various aspects of the leave campaign would not have been allowed.

Theresa's May's refusal to even discuss the result in parliament, until told to by the supreme Court was worthy of a dictator. In an age of x factor the Conservatives have managed to convince us that this is democracy. There should have been the 60% threshold that applies in a legally binding referendum. There should be a cross party committee to deal with brexit. I am scared of what laws the Conservatives will try to introduce when (hopefully if) they get their hands on the great repel act. Thank God their majority has gone down.

Also, if you follow the link above, the DUP were used to 'filter' funds to the Leave campaign, there is no clarity on who or what actually funded the Leave campaign.

If individuals and businesses who stand to benefit financially funded this campaign, how does that affect the result?

How does the DUP's involvement affect the current deal, enabling brexit negotiations to continue?

Who stands to benefit from brexit and have electoral and constitutional rules been broken in the process?

In fact, I think the tories will do for themselves as they have done for the country. May is already having to intervene to solve snits between Hammond and Davis. The tories will attack each other and brexit talks will collapse.

But where does that leave the Grenfell mums sleeping 5 to a hotel room with toddlers and babies.

Or the fire proof cladding the tories refuse to fund?

There's a country to run; the quicker the tories destroy themselves the better for all of us.

MissH, the leave campaign was based on lies. People voted for something that wasn't true.
I'm sorry if it looks like bigotry, but surely there should be some sort of cooling off period to allow the whole shambolic campaign to be digested, the truth picked out from the lies, an opportunity to present facts and only facts so the people can make an informed decision based on that.

The whole thing was handled incredibly badly, but the country should not be pushed under a bus in the name of democracy. The democratic thing to do would be to say "we're not going to give the NHS £350,000,000 a week, we're not going to be overrun by Turkish immigrants, we will lose EU grants and funding which many areas heavily rely on, etc", lay out the facts, and vote on them.

User - you're assuming that everyone voted based on propaganda or whatever else, and that's simply not accurate.

*The consequences of not following the vote when a single question is put to the electorate for decision is a step towards dictatorship that I would not want to see UK ever take.

On this or on any other issue.*

This.
How arrogant some sections of society are, that think a minority should dictate to the majority.

I'm assuming that because nearly leave voter I know voted for those things.
The majority of the farming community locally to me voted enthusiastically to leave, then immediately regretted it as they now know that they will lose EU funding that is keeping them afloat. Without their grants, they will not be able to continue. They are incredibly angry about brexit, even though they voted for it . They are angry that they weren't told this, except they were, and they chose to believe Farage, Johnson et al instead.

The only person I know personally who voted leave based on anything but the lies was someone who will benefit greatly from brexit, and he is in a financial and work position to ride through it all unscathed. He was eloquently passionate on the subject, and made some very valid points about the EU, and I can see that long term, he has a point. Even he has the grace to admit that it is not going to be great for vast swathes of the country, and to admit that the leave campaign was an exercise in propaganda and fiction. His take on it is that, with hindsight, it would be better to have voted remain and to work on the problems within the EU whilst still in it.

Yes, you can at present move to and live in most countries in the world. But it can be expensive simply to gain entry and you might not be allowed to buy property. You might not be able to get a work visa. You will probably have no employment or benefit rights. You could not guarantee that you would be fairly treated under the law. You might not be able to move money in and out of the country. You could be booted out at short notice. In the EU, so long as we are a member, you have the same rights as any EU citizen. Leaving the EU will not stop the very well qualified or the rich from living, working and owning property wherever they like. But it may well prevent many of the rest of us.
Why would anyone throw the rights we have as European citizens away for the sake of "controlling borders" (which we could already do, but didn't do well) or "regaining sovereignty" (which we had not lost in any meaningful way)?

I'm assuming that because nearly leave voter I know voted for those things

I know a fair few remainers who would vote Leave on a basic principle that we had a vote and the vote was to Leave, you don't have another one until you get the result you want, that undermines the whole principle of democracy and that's a slippery slope. Although I would'nt dream of suggesting that all remainers think that - you know what they say to assume anything

The majority of the farming community locally to me voted enthusiastically to leave, then immediately regretted it as they now know that they will lose EU funding that is keeping them afloat. Without their grants, they will not be able to continue. They are incredibly angry about brexit, even though they voted for it confused. They are angry that they weren't told this, except they were, and they chose to believe Farage, Johnson et al instead

I know if I was a farmer and I was getting a substantially subsidy from the EU that would be a big factor in my decision to remain or not - they chose to still vote Leave. I don't think it's as simple as to say they believed the side of a bus etc and nothing else, there must be more to it than that.