People’s Vote Delusion

[PersonaNonGarter]

It isn’t going to happen. For the following reasons:

1. May Government won’t vote for a second referendum
2. No new post-May Tory Government will vote for a second referendum
3. Jeremy Corbyn and those in the Labour Party front benches won’t vote for a second referendum
4. There is no agreement about what the referendum would ask.
5. There is no plausible timetable for a referendum.

Why would Corbyn want a second referendum? He is a Leaver wanting to win in Leave seats. And he wants to implement his domestic agenda, not waste any further time on Brexit votes. The current situation SUITS him.

The 1975 referendum produced a result for the status quo. Is that called being enacted? A ratification of the status quo might be a better way of putting it, but it doesn't alter the basic question - Farage and Co and the Tory right wing, did not accept the status quo and agitated for change. Why are Remain voters now being told that they must not agitate for change?

@LouiseCollins
“Leavers you need to bring the remainers with you if you want to bridge the divide”
Why?! Why do you presume to tell me what I should campaign for?

Depends on your views about a more deeply divided UK. If you're happy for division to persist and deepen then feel free to ignore.

What you are urging us to push for is something that is acceptable to (some) remainers, not including yourself? I am left wondering why you’d want this?
Personally would accept EEA/EFTA+CU as a reasonable reflection of '16 result and it would avoid the worst of the economic damage. Soft-Brexit is minimum acceptable outcome but will always push for full remain as UK has been a major contributor to EU (e.g. Single Market) and not willing to throw that intellectual property and continued influence/leadership opportunity away.

I have a problem with Leavers trying to rewrite the script

That's my biggest frustration too.

Everywhere you look Leavers are doing this either to continue to justify their position or to try and detract from the fact they got it wrong originally.

I simply don't understand why this is preferably to challenging the route Brexit is going down if you are not happy with it.

Did you honestly vote for this mess?

the 2016 ref will be enacted
Even if all predictions, including the gov's own impact assessments, say it will be damaging? Is that what you want? Is that the behaviour of a responsible government?

Why?! Why do you presume to tell me what I should campaign for?

Why can't you Recognise Your Own Role?

@TheElementsSong
I'm probably going to regret this, but recognise my own role in what?
thanks.

No problem Bearbehind - I’d be very grateful if you ignored me forever, not just for now.

Cheers.

Louise It's what the OP has been urging people to do on this thread.

surfer if you, or anyone else posts comments I want to interact with, I will do so.

This thread has now caused me to muse what would have happened if Harold Wilson had ended up with a No vote. I don't think he would have done, because he was too wily to ask a question he didn't know the answer to.

However, he would only have had to undo two years worth of legislation, and negotiate with 8 other countries, so that would have been much easier. Just in Time systems had been invented but were still confined to Japan. I suspect he wouldn't have found it especially easy.

Farage and Co and the Tory right wing, did not accept the status quo and agitated for change. Why are Remain voters now being told that they must not agitate for change?

Yes and it took 40 years to get it, you want another before we have even left.

Even if all predictions, including the gov's own impact assessments, say it will be damaging? Is that what you want? Is that the behaviour of a responsible government?
It was in the manifesto of the Tory government so everyone knew about it and was voted for overwhelmingly by Parliament to put it to the people. You can’t change it now. It’s a bit of a cop out to accuse people of not doing their homework when the government/parliament did not do theirs pre June 16. Pre 2016 was the point at which impact assessments should have been done and a decision to go ahead or not made then not after people have had their say on the understanding that the result would stand. So yes, I do think it needs to be enacted.

time your thought process there makes no sense to me at all.

I agree the impact assessments should have been done before the vote but they weren't.

What is the logic in now saying that even though those impact assessments predict a poor outcome in every scenario, we should carry on regardless because we said we would?

I personally won't be agitating for 40 years because I would expect to be dead, but I can easily see that others might.

So yes, I do think it needs to be enacted.
This of course, begs the question: What exactly? Farage's Norway option? The Theresa May/Nick Timothy/ERG option - May lost a working majority, so didn't get the endorsement for the Hard Brexit she expected.

We live in a democracy and voted to leave the EU. I don't understand why some people have a problem with this

We did not, 36% did, 64% (of the electorate) did not vote to leave the EU, there is no majority for this course of action.
Which is why if May had any wisdom, she'd have another vote, if only because unlike remain, leaving is irreversible because of the EU joining requirements.

All sides (and voters) in any democracy/after any vote, have the right to continue to argue their point and/or change their minds, just as Boris did in 2016, when he changed to Leave.

If Remain had won, then of course Farage/ukip have the perfect right to continue to argue their case.
Perhaps if we had a government of national unity, that right could be put on hold but we haven't.

The ‘out’ bit needs to be enacted, what form that takes is tbc (imminently I hope, as my patience is wearing a bit thin).

Those who fought for our right to vote didn't do so thinking we'd just turn up and stick a cross on a box without thinking about what it meant.
Oh really? Whe adult universal suffrage was introduced was there a clause saying voters must be well informed?

@LouiseCollins
Further points on the benefits of remain and UK's importance to the EU:

• UK is/can-still-be largest of the non-integrationist member states
• UK is outside Euro. Other nations e.g. Denmark recognised structural issues of monetary union with the solution being fiscal union. Other nations in Euro now recognise issue with Euro (e.g. Greece) and will never accept fiscal union.
• UK is not the only nation worried about mass-migration from ME and Africa. Other Schengen nations concerned that Germany accepted ~1m refugees and are watching for signs of mass-naturalisation.
• UK is/can-still-be well placed to lead EU states with these concerns to a 2-speed but integrated EU with appropriate restrictions on FoM and built-in opt-out from some key integrationist EU features
• UK is/can-still-be key (and valued) advocate of competitive market structures and lead much SM initiatives
• UK is/can-still-be key (and valued) advocate of joint defence infrastructure (e.g. galileo) and public safety partnering (e.g. sharing of counter-terrorism intel)

All this (and a whole bunch more inc. economic benefits) is currently at risk of being thrown away without many/any counter-balancing realisable benefits. Remaining and engaging more actively in EU is the way forward - we can help resolve EU issues to ours and other member states benefit. Unbelievably, despite UK government incompetence and hostility, this outcome may still be possible through revocation of A50.

What's more you can help make that happen by engaging other leavers on SM or IRL, persuading other leavers, writing to MPs, marching etc ... Cool, no?

jasjas1973 Why do all remainers take it that the people who couldn’t be bothered to vote want to remain ?

Oh really? Whe adult universal suffrage was introduced was there a clause saying voters must be well informed?

God knows why you are persuing this as it is not the subject of this thread but yet again dapple you haven't addressed my question - how can you defend someone voting on a subject that they haven't even attempted to inform themselves about?

Why do all remainers take it that the people who couldn’t be bothered to vote want to remain?

If they have no strong feelings either way it's not a big leap to assume they don't want to be worse off, hence wouldn't support Leave now.

@indistinct
Thanks for your post, and I genuinely mean that. It’s not often that people even attempt to construct a case that focuses on the things that matter to those on the other side of the remain/leave divide.

Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the UK’s principal importance to the EU is/was the size of its financial contribution.
David Cameron went to the EU seeking a deal he could sell “at home”, he asked for very little of consequence and managed to get even less. When your second largest contributor comes to you and says, “we need reform” and no meaningful change is forthcoming, what is the voter supposed to conclude?

40 years of membership have convinced me utterly that the only type of reform the EU is interested in is the sort where it accrues more power and a wider span of competence and the nation state (any, not just the UK) has less.

My view is that FOM will never be meaningfully restricted by the EU for member states. I am well aware that there are restrictions we could apply independently and don’t. We don’t because they are antithetical to our laws and the principles of our welfare system, so no dice.

If the prospect of the UK leaving and triggering Article 50 isn’t enough to prompt reform, I am further convinced that nothing would be sufficient.

On joint defence infrastructure, I think the EU advanced its plan for a European Union army immediately after the referendum vote. We are members of NATO, there’s our joint defence infrastructure.

I have come to the conclusion that the UK’s principal importance to the EU is/was the size of its financial contribution

75p per average wage per week.

Louise, thank you for your reasoned 'reasonable ' response to a remainers measured post. We need more of this. I have at last caught up with the thread and had been hoping the conversation would veer in a reasoned way. Great.
My leave vote was cemented when Cameron came back with little or nothing after his last ditch attempt to negotiate with the EU. It just exemplified my impression of what the rest of the EU thought of us when they wouldn't move an inch even when Cameron said that we would have a referendum and might leave.