If we cancel article 50 and stay in Europe then what?

[Cantdoright1]

Surely if the public vote for something and it doesn't happen because parliament don't agree with it so won't let it happen, then we no longer live in a democracy. No point voting ever again as parliament can do what they like with the result. I don't understand why people want is to stay in Europe just because the process of leaving has been so badly handled by those in power. Or do people just accept that when the going gets tough we give up on democracy?

What happens when remainers vote for something they care about but it never happens because the government don't want it to? If we remain were all shafted on any future votes.

I don't know how people can be so fixated on remaining that they are willing to ignore the impacts of remaining on democracy, and the far reaching consequences - much bigger ones than leaving or staying in the EU. There is much more to this now than remain or leave, so much more is at stake.

What this debate shows again and again is that people simply don't understand the constitution we have, how our democracy works and its relationship with the EU.

Bluntness100 constitutionally you are entirely correct but we have poster after poster dismissing this view as 'undemocratic'.

"We won we should get what we voted for" is repeated ad nauseam.

Brexit demonstrates the total failure to educate people on how our political system works. RE is compulsory in schools but Citizenship is not.

And before anyone says, we do have a Constitution but it's not all written down, unlike the US constitution.

We have a constitution that is unclear and un-codified.

Brexit from the debacle of a referendum to the mess in Parliament has been made worse by our joke of a constitution.

I have certainly discovered how little I knew of how our parliament works (I am a remain voter). I preferred it when I could remain in blissful ignorance tbh

The difficulty with the ‘but we’re a Parliamentary, representative democracy argument’ is that Parliament can give up its sovereignty. It has given it up to the EU in matters covered by EU law, for example. (I don’t say that’s a bad thing: I’m a Remainer.) And it can give it up to direct decision by referendum too. Although the Brexit referendum wasn’t legally binding, no party or politician would or has dared say that they would ignore it; it was de facto binding.

The practical difficulty that remain MPs are creating is that if we do crash out and stumble along for some years, and then a strong movement emerges for us to rejoin, perhaps with a referendum result behind it, leave-minded MPs will have every reason and precedent to frustrate that.

Since this is all about the very highest constitutional decisions, it’s probably inevitable that we would always have a referendum - just as we did on ratifying Common Market entry. The difficulty of defining options and futures for the remainers v the certainties of going back to the prior status quo in that referendum is never cited as a reason why the result then should have been overlooked.

I wish we’d voted the other way. But I have enough sense to see that many people felt differently and that we have to come to some sensible and defensible settlement internally, not just externally.

I’m not sure the blame can be laid entirely with remain MPs though. In terms of approving the WA and who has influenced TM (and yet still aren’t satisfied) it is a good deal of leave MPs who are voting against it too. I don’t know that any remain MPs had any say in how TM approached negotiations. Given the GFA any negotiation with the EU was never going to satisfy the ERG or the DUP. But there were other options that she refused to explore because of the extremists in her party. Yes, remain MPs are now tabling amendments that are making TM’s life more difficult, but I don’t think they can be blamed for the current situation given that she has excluded parliament from almost any dealings up until recently

We for voted these people to reresent us.
Their job is to get their heads around the stuff that the majority of the general public don't understand and make the decisions based on what they feel represents the needs of their constituents.

Our job is to trust them to do so.....yeah, i know!

This issue should never have been a public vote in the first place.

I can only imagine that Dave got up one morning with a hangover/migraine that affected his judgement or was throwing his toys in order to shut everyone the fuck up abour leaving the EU because it is clearly unworkable.

Then people were mislead on a grand scale. People thought we'd "get our country back" when the reality is something far from that, that our country will be weaker and have no say in what happens in eu anymore.

If a teacher puts it to a vote whether a class gets homework or goes home early, they will be a popular teacher, they wont be a good teacher.

We need a government with the backnone to say "we know whats best" and make it happen. Leave or stay? I dont know anymore- i want somebody who does know to make that decision for me.

Teresa May wanted to remain, in what parallel universe of stupid does that make her the right person to negotiate our leaving? I voted to stay but now i just want it over.

DC should have said “if you want a referendum first of all you need to come up with a way to leave while avoiding destroying the GFA. Come back when you have done that”
But he was not strong enough and didn’t think he would get a majority

TBH, I think all this would have been avoided if the EU had given Cameron some face-saving concessions when he went for talks before the referendum, particularly over free movement. They did it with Switzerland (not EU but a single market member) when the Swiss voted in a referendum to oppose free movement.

It will be interesting to see how the Commission behaves towards other members in years to come if leave/stay/treaty adoption votes might happen. They must be quite fearful of any other country dropping out.

{"We won we should get what we voted for" is repeated ad nauseam.}

As an 'experiment' it would be great to actually carry out the hard leave, isolationist, anti Europe, 'take control of ourselves' policy. (Crash out).
Within 6 to 9 months with food limited to less than half of what the UK consumes, many industries folding completely and basically no one leaving the UK it would show that the UK is highly dependent on the EU and the rest of the world.
The UK was sold a 'dream' of something that never existed, the airbrushed halcyon days of the British Empire (about 150 years ago) for which everyone was 'upper class' and had staff, the stuff of 'above stairs' Downton Abbey.
The fact that represented much less than 1% of the UK and for everyone else it was pretty shit was ignored.
If you want a view of what this could look like, starting in a few weeks, look at the reports from Venezuela. A prosperous (was) country, similar in some ways to say Spain now. They have mobile phones, fridges, cars, all the trappings of 'modern' life but through government corruption and poor management it has collapsed.

Cameron did get some concessions, but like May he was too pig-headed to accept that he'd done well. He could have had a deal where the country was part of an outer ring of EU countries, but he wanted to be at the 'top table'. I also firmly believe that he didn't expect to win the 2015 election so would have blamed the LibDems for stopping him. Whatever reason, he showed himself to be a weak PM. I do however think that if he had stayed on he would have made a better deal of negotiating Brexit than May has done.

1tis

I agree with you. But these were all arguments for voting to remain. That’s behind us now.

I despise the little Englander mentality of so many leavers. But I’m not so arrogant as to say their votes don’t count.

I think you've got that the wrong way round Clerc. Remained and the EU are the colonialists keeping control of countries desperate for their freedom. The EU Superstate political elite is a corrupt, white, patriarchal group intent on excluding the rest of the world and feathering its own nest to the detriment of its population.

{TBH, I think all this would have been avoided if the EU had given Cameron some face-saving concessions when he went for talks before the referendum, particularly over free movement. }

Free movement in the EU is restricted, by laws that ensure that if you are staying in a country longer than 3 months (as a visitor) you have to prove an income and many other conditions. The UK governments did not implement these restrictions.
Free movement for residency is not as 'free' as the term implies.
It is however a substantial part of the way the EU works and it is ridiculous to use the failure of the EU to 'bend' to Cameron's wishes to fix a problem that was only to do with the UK's incompetence.

He could have had a deal where the country was part of an outer ring of EU countries, but he wanted to be at the 'top table'.

It’s true that he postured very stupidly. But he could never have accepted a lesser role in EU decision making. That was a bogus offer. The UK is the EU’s second biggest net budget contributor. To lose top table status was never going to be acceptable.

Free movement in the EU is restricted, by laws that ensure that if you are staying in a country longer than 3 months (as a visitor) you have to prove an income and many other conditions. The UK governments did not implement these restrictions.
Free movement for residency is not as 'free' as the term implies.

That’s true. But if some countries can be given even further latitude, why not others?

If the lies told by the Leave campaign had been uttered during a general election the people responsible could have been charged. It's because it was a referendum, and not legally binding, that they haven't been.

{I think you've got that the wrong way round Clerc. Remained and the EU are the colonialists keeping control of countries desperate for their freedom.}

The EU is not trying to 'control' anyone. The UK can leave this afternoon if it wants. It will be shit, but possible.
Freedom is also a strange concept. You might imagine being on a gorgeous tropical beach with nothing to do but relax as being 'heaven'. you can go where you like and do as much or as little as you want. At some point you might need a doctor, dentist or fancy a change of food, at which point negotiations and 'sovereignty' start to take a hit, you are not entirely 'free'.
Leavers votes do count, but with that comes responsibility to uphold continuity of life for everyone else. So far they have been totally silent on what they will DO, make and even survive as all the aspirations are unicorns.
While the UK can be total isolationist, anti everything/everybody else, but I don't want to be part of that limited mentality. The UK does not have the natural resources to be isolated.

{That’s true. But if some countries can be given even further latitude, why not others?}
You have this the wrong way around, the UK wants to STOP Freedom of movement, all those nasty EU foreigners taking up jobs in the UK.
The EU countries also have compulsory ID cards and can 'remove' people who outstay the 3 month 'restriction'.
Exceptions to this would be those who are not interested in a stable place to live, work and claim health services. To stay and live you need various documents be registered and demonstrate a source of income, either a job or a significant 'pension' pot.

If you want a view of what this could look like, starting in a few weeks, look at the reports from Venezuela

I think its going to be more like Argentina personally

The UK voted to stop Freedom of Movement within the EU we voted to put the whole world on an even playing field not just white Europeans check your privilege you're changing facts to make yourself look the good guy, you ain't.

*chocolateroses

*Why just go back to brexit - why not do another general election? Push through labour, they weren't even promising brexit referendums in their manifesto's?”

But Labour did also promise to respect the result in their manifesto.

I don’t respect the result: people were ignorant of the facts and were blatantly lied to (by both sides, probably). Now we’re all more informed, another referendum is the only solution. Anyone secure in their position, with good, strong, solid arguments, backed by facts and not fantasies, should have nothing to fear from one.

A new PM or whole new Government won’t change the position one jot, the EU could not have been more consistent or more clear, it will not renegotiate the WA, it is the only deal on offer and will remain so whichever party is in Government.

This is nothing to do with party politics anymore, it’s way beyond that, its far too crucial a decision and MPs have to ditch their tribal allegiances and personal ambitions and think solely of the good of the country. Therein lies the problem. Far too many of them still have one eye on the next GE and their job. Any indicative votes next week must be free, not whipped, across all parties

{I think its going to be more like Argentina personally}
Possibly, both have been very wealthy in the past with fantastic prospects but both shattered by poor government.
Unless the UK manages some proper negotiation, probably remaining in the EU, there is no prospect of it being in the top 8 or 10 countries again for GDP, it simply hasn't the resources any longer and if it is taking on an isolationist stance, the world global industry and finance will pass it by.
Within the EU it was 'standing on the shoulders of a giant', which itself is on uneven ground.

You have this the wrong way around, the UK wants to STOP Freedom of movement, all those nasty EU foreigners taking up jobs in the UK.

Do you mean the referendum result or pre-referendum gov policy? I don’t disagree about that being a motive of many leavers, and I thoroughly reject it. But I’m not aware that any UK gov has ever asked for a complete opt out of free movement altogether.

The point is that the EU could have offered enough to head off a decent proportion of leave votes on that issue. I don’t approve of that; I just recognise the reality: look at the mess we’re in now!

The UK voted to stop Freedom of Movement within the EU we voted to put the whole world on an even playing field not just white Europeans check your privilege you're changing facts to make yourself look the good guy, you ain't.

Which UK vote? The referendum? I don’t understand your point.