For those who don't follow British politics this is very significant.
- Invocation of Article 50 is likely to be delayed from Q1 as the legislation will go through parliament and the (hostile) House of Lords.
- A 'hard' Brexit is less likely due to incoming amendments from remainer MPs and Lords
It also increases the chances of a general election before Article 50 is invoked if the PM feels that MPs will force too many changes to her negotiating stance.
Of course this is all subject to appeal, and ironically, could eventually be decided by a European court!
The majority of them are pro-remain, having concluded that brexit is damaging and dangerous and cannot result in a better deal.
... but they will be whipped into line by government (Tory) and party leadership (Labour) insisting that they follow the settled will of the clear majority of the people
... but the will of the people is neither settled nor a clear majority.
My take on this is that it was a "qualified" majority to "Leave" but no specific plan was outlined as to what "Leave" entailed. "Remain" is easy: Status quo. "Leave" means many different things to many people.
In a constitutional republic (such as Ireland for instance) a referendum clearly specifies the change to the constitution down to the wording and an open informed debate is had on what the consequences, and possibilities of those unforeseen etc.
There was nothing like this with "Leave". Article 50 as a the mechanism by which leave might be initiated was never even mentioned.
Even since the vote there has been all sorts of inferences based on opinion polls about what the "Leave" constituency desire and it has largely been interpreted as "keep the foreigners out" - and that is an interpretation that clearly has no constitutional footing.
Brexit was at best a plebiscite, dressed up as a referendum. There is a mandate for leaving the EU, but there is no prerogative at all for any of the specifics of how that happens nor has there been a robust discussion over what "Leave" even means.
It will be sad to see the UK go and it will be disruptive for many but if that is her will then so be it, but I wouldn't want it to happen before all that are involved get to have their say on what it means.
That the meaning of "Leave" was left so vague was with hindsight reckless. It allowed the leave campaign to bring together all the various differing factions as they could all believe it meant what they wanted it to mean. I can only assume the government was so confident it would win that it went for an option that gave the best soundbite and best opportunity to shut up the euro skeptics in the Conservative party.
That's the usual modern approach to campaigning, and the one Clinton has been taking. Trump is of course too ill-disciplined and unreliable to manage this kind of clever political triangulation; he just seems to make stuff up. May the best liar win!
The beauty of trump is he has no encumbrances. He can literally say whatever he wants with no consequences. When his analysts tell him "this will really get the yokels going" he can just go ahead and say it. He doesn't have to worry about any spinning plates in the background.
But that's all he is. Just words and bluster. Hillary like her or loath her has substance.
The "hard remain" option would definitely have lost. The EU is not all that popular even among people who voted remain. Rather like the "oh well, Clinton if I must" voters in the US.
It would have been interesting to see a three-option ballot under runoff voting, but those are completely alien to the UK system.
No country has ever left the EU so no one knows exactly what it entails. Even the EU documents themselves does not describe the process in detail. It wasn't supposed to happen!
But the question on the ballot was "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?" and the option "Leave the European Union" won. It is clear that that means invoking Article 50 and begin exit negotiations with the rest of the EU.
There was no real way to define what "Leave" means: clearly it means ceasing to be a member of the European Union, and the only means provided for that is Article 50, but beyond that the UK does not have the power to decide unilaterally what "Leave" means (as it requires coming to an agreement with the Council of Europe), and therefore any referendum in the UK could not decide what "Leave" means.
Begging the question: What exactly does "ceasing to be a member of the European Union" mean?
What I mean is, there was a whole sales pitch during the campaign about what it might mean (e.g. more money for the NHS) which we all found out subsequently to be tosh.
Now we have: "Free trade but not free travel" or something to that effect. Never was such detail ever discussed prior to the referendum.
The 17 million votes for Leave was the largest vote ever cast in Britain for anything at all in the entire history of the UK. Blair swept to power in 1997 with 13 million votes. The Conservatives got fourteen million in 1992. With 16 million voting for Remain, putting it to the courts was a recipe for confrontation. Nothing has ignited the British people as much as this issue. Big trouble ahead.
There's a view that Trump is but a big "fk you" towards the liberal elite that has drifted too far from the blue-collar folks they have failed to support in dire times. The UK situation would seem to be similar. Thus the key question is "did the elite get the message and can/will they do anything about it?" If yes, the society will go back to normal. If no, the rift widens further as the society is divided into radical camps. Which, by the way, would suit the neo-russian message of "the west is doomed, we are the saviour" message very well.
What can be done about it? Rich people funnel money into making poor people fight amongst themselves, poor working people blame people who get money from the government, and immigrants who are willing to have a lower standard of living, to vote for conservative governments, and the immigrants and unemployed to vote for liberal governments, instead of joining together and getting rid of the rich people taking all the money in the first place.
Given the 72.2% turnout[1] it was just 37.5% of the voting-eligible population that voted for Brexit.
The whole Brexit saga makes me think more than ever that voting on issues of such national importance (including general elections) should be made mandatory.
The referendum to enter the EU had a 64% turnout with 67.23% voting yes & 32.77% voting no. So that's around 43% that voted to enter[1].
Regardless, I think this entire line of reasoning makes no sense. You could dismiss pretty much any election by multiplying the "yes" votes with voter turnout to get less than 50%.
That's just how democracies work, if you don't care enough to vote you don't get a say, that doesn't mean the opinions of people who do turn up should be given less weight.
> You could dismiss pretty much any election by multiplying the "yes" votes with voter turnout to get less than 50%.
Not in Australia. Here we have compulsory voting, and referendums have to have a double majority in order to pass (so there's no question about whether the majority of the people actually wanted the change).
So multiplying by voter turnout would not meaningfully change the results (voter turnout is >95%). Maybe more countries should adopt mandatory voting...
> Aren't Australians encouraged to not write "fuck you" and things on the ballots as people sarcastically participate?
Yes, donkey voting is a problem as well. But there's a stigma around it as well (as that article shows). Invalid voting on the other hand doesn't have a stigma around it.
> Couldn't you just do the exact same thing with "valid votes" and say the same thing that the parent has said?
Maybe. But if someone makes the decision to tick random boxes rather than write "fuck you" then it's clear that they've made a decision to make a vote. It's a grey area, and I despise the issue of donkey voting, but you can't deny that the person has "had their say".
However, the number of invalid votes is counted though. And even considering invalid votes, the percentage of valid votes is better than most countries which don't have mandatory voting. Not to mention that invalid voting is known to be a method of abstaining from voting. I don't know what the stats are for donkey voting, but I doubt that a large enough portion of people do it for it to classify as that large of an issue.
You get a fine if you're on the electoral roll but were not counted as "having voted". Since we have a private ballot system, you can write whatever you want on your ballot (so you can "abstain" by writing "fuck you all" on your ballot and it'll be considered an invalid vote). You don't get fined for placing an invalid vote, you just get fined if you don't show up (and didn't vote by post and so on).
We have many different ways of voting, so it's designed to be as easy as possible for people to vote (in contrast to what I've heard from Americans). The fines are not that bad for first-time offenders but they're large enough that it discourages people from not voting (the fine gets larger for subsequent offenders).
The rules for voting in elections and referendums are also the same (so the same fines apply).
In the Austrian case I suppose "not at all", but usually compulsory voting doesn't mean that you're dragged to the urn, but that you're paying a fine if you donÄt vote.
I always wonder with people who say this - if the vote had gone the other way but Parliament decided to leave the EU anyway, would you still be saying the vote was only advisory so it's fine?
Rhetorical question, isn't it. Of course they wouldn't.
Support for the EU is deeply rooted in a belief that people can't/shouldn't rule themselves: they need to delegate 'complex matters' to elite experts who, of course, only have the people's best interests at heart. The sudden belief that the referendum was only a fancy opinion poll entirely fits with this narrative.
> deeply rooted in a belief that people can't/shouldn't rule themselves
Of course I believe that. Everyone who isn't a rabid libertarian or anarchist believes that, whichever side of political spectrum they come from. I imagine you believe it too to some degree. In representative democracies we don't rule ourselves, we choose the people who will rule us, which isn't the same thing at all.
There's a lot of valid arguments to be had around the process of choosing, the institutions, and what power those chosen should have, but no serious person believes that the best solution for a species that lives in societies is for every member to rule themselves in every particular.
That's ridiculous. Just look at Switzerland. Dozens of referendums a year, pretty much the opposite of anarcho-libertarianism. The richest and most successful countries also the ones that tend to use referendums a lot, have lots of checks and balances and don't simply "choose rulers" to the extent practically possible.
They don't rule themselves either. They're ruled by the decisions of the majority.
Direct democracy has its place, but that place isn't the UK, which is a parliamentary democracy. It's an arrogation of parliament's responsibility to make decisions based on referenda.
To be clear, I'm not claiming that the result of this referendum has to be carried out. I honestly don't know enough about British politics to say to what extent that's the case.
I'm saying that dismissing a popular vote on the basis of voter turnout doesn't make sense. E.g. only 66.4%[1] voted in the last UK general election. Would anyone argue that the entire government of the UK is illegitimate on that basis?
Not really, no. Especially if it's not clear there's an option to say "idk". Say you care very much but don't know what's best? Does your vote not matter, now? If so, doesn't that make the election wrong? But how do you express that?
There may be an answer to this deep inside some legislature chapter XVI section 16 paragraph b, but if people don't know, does that matter?
Anyway, not saying that was the case for brexit. But "That's just how X works" is typically not the strongest argument. There are a hundred ways to implement a democracy, and they all have their own flaws.
> Say you care very much but don't know what's best? Does your vote not matter, now?
Yes, your vote doesn't matter in that case, because you have no information to convey to the system: you have no preference. Only votes which are conveying a preference about how the situation should be handled are useful. There's no reason to distinguish between "I care, but don't have anything to say about the topic" and "I don't care" if you're not even willing to vote based on which candidate talks about the issues you care about, at least as far as elections go.
Write a letter or something.
Ed: In a slightly less snarky sense, your vote really doesn't matter at that point. The point you should participate in the process, if you feel candidates aren't addressing your issues, is way before that. It just requires actual amounts of time and effort to shift platforms, though, and participation beyond checking a box every year/few years.
That's not the same. It just means the yes/no vote is just proportional to those that voted. 50 people voting yes and 50 people voting no would be split evenly at 50% for both opinions. But if you have 50 people voicing idk, you have 33% yes, 33% no, and 33% idk.
Well, the UK has run referendums that way in the past. Most famously the Scottish devolution referendum in 1979. Yes got 51.62% but did not win because there was a requirement for 40% of the electorate to vote Yes for it to pass.
Yup. One of the reasons why referenda are such a bad idea in the UK is that every single one has been run with different rules, usually for the purpose of putting a thumb on the scale. The Brexit referendum excluded resident EU nationals - who are allowed to vote in Parliamentary elections.
"Citizens of EU countries other than the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta cannot vote in UK Parliamentary general elections, but can vote at local government elections, Scottish Parliamentary elections if they are registered in Scotland, National Assembly for Wales elections if they are registered in Wales and Greater London Authority elections if they are registered in London. They can also vote at European Parliamentary elections if they fill in a form stating that they wish to vote in the UK and not in their home country"
Bonus points to people who can give a rational non-imperialist argument as to why Ireland, Cyprus and Malta nationals get that privilege.
Bonus points to people who can give a rational non-imperialist argument as to why Ireland, Cyprus and Malta nationals get that privilege.
Well . . . the reason is pretty much imperialist in nature. In recent history, citizens of those countries (along with citizens of commonwealth countries) were unequivocally citizens of the United Kingdom. When the countries became independent, the UK government chose not to take away those erstwhile citizens' right to vote.
The reason is that the UK is best buddies with Ireland, while Cyprus and Malta are members of the Commonwealth and so their citizens get the same privileges as all other Commonwealth citizens (including the right to vote in UK parliamentary elections).
That's not a non-imperialist argument, but it is the reason.
Kind of surprised that only 72.2% turned out, given the implications of the vote. When Quebec was voting for sovereignty in 1995, 93.52% of the eligible voters in the province voted. When Scotland voted for the same recently, it was around 85%.
In any case though, if people don't want to show up, then why force them? I'd put the 'blame' on the campaigners for not underlining the importance to get out to vote to constituents.
"Do you prefer this complex, useful but far-from-ideal trade bloc to a raft of (mostly implausible) hypothetical alternative arrangements?" is a somewhat less basic question than "which country do you want to be part of?" though. 72.2% is high, considering the turnout at UK General Elections.
This kind of argument only makes sense if there's a reason to think the people who didn't vote would be significantly different to the people who did.
For instance you say only 37.5% of them voted to leave. That means you'd have to find fewer than 12.5% of the 27.8% who'd agree with them, basically 45% of the non-voters.
So you need some sort of explanation of why a selection of the population, which is a lot of people, came out 52-48, while the non-voters would have come out 45-55.
Without such an explanation, you'd have to think the law of large numbers would suggest that people who didn't vote were pretty much the same as the ones who did.
typically we practice more complex implementations of democracy and as a rule we use majority rule for things like social questions as opposed to key strategic and economic ones.
Considering the British people never voted to join the EU in its current form, I'm not sure why membership of the EU should be seen as the default option.
If we weren't asked whether we wanted to join a post-Lisbon Treaty EU, and once we were in it, we actively said we don't want it, why should we remain in it?
This is factually incorrect. As a parliamentary democracy we voted for all the governments that agreed to all such treaties and had the right to veto or reject any of them (which we did, the Schengen or euro treaties being examples thereof).
People voted in general elections for many different reasons. People voting for a pro-EU party didn't necessarily support the EU. And all those elections took place under a flawed first-past-the-post system.
I don't see how I'm moving the goalposts. All I'm saying is that the EU referendum result must be respected.
General election results must also be respected, but they revolve around a number of issues, so are not a good indicator of voters' opinion of membership of the EU.
Besides, the Conservatives were elected into government with a manifesto promising an in-out referendum. The government has delivered on that promise and is carrying out the will of the people, as decided in that referendum.
> All I'm saying is that the EU referendum result must be respected.
It is being respected. This might be news to you, but we don't live in a fascist dictatorship where dissent is forbidden.
So, in your view, not a single thing any government has done (with the exception of joining the Common Market) has been agreed to by the population. Interesting.
Things such as the NHS, the minimum wage and same-sex marriage are things governments have achieved with overwhelming support from the people. But it's true that the people didn't have a direct say on these things. I don't see it as a problem though because, unlike the EU, the majority of people are perfectly happy with these things.
Nice assertions. I think this would be a good time for you to step back and examine the profound contradictions in your thought processes. And remember, in your future, no dissent is allowed.
I disagree with what you said about it being okay to attempt to stop Brexit, even after we voted against membership of the EU and never agreed to be part of it in the first place.
In any case, I trust you'll never vote again or protest against any voting outcomes that you disagree with as you seem to think that once a vote has been held, the outcome can never be disagreed with.
I'm not sure how we agreed to be in the EU when we voted to leave on 23rd June.
I don't expect everyone to be happy about the outcome of votes, but I do expect outcomes to be respected.
I'm not opposed to decisions being overturned, but I don't think it's right to re-run a vote right after it has been carried out. We haven't even left the EU yet. At some point after we've left the EU, perhaps there will be grounds to take another look at membership of the EU. But not straight away.
I want as many people as possible to participate in elections and referendums (even if I disagree with them), because I want everyone's voice to be heard. That's what it means to live in a democracy. And so I certainly intend to continue voting.
The number of people who claimed to wish they could change their vote after the result was surprising. How many referendums do we need before people decide they've voted "properly"?
The number of people who claimed to wish they could change their vote after the result was surprising. How many referendums do we need before people decide they've voted "properly"?
Maybe that's the reasons why direct democracy by means of referendums is [considered to be] not always a good idea.
I'm not sure if you can describe modern democracies as a will of the majority -- marijuana legalization, civil rights movements, anti war sentiments as examples.
Exactly - so we should disregard the original referendum (a mere poll, as you put it) on the basis of which the British government signed up in 1975 to what was then the embryo EU - though only those experienced in deciphering subtexts in official documents really understood at that time that federation was the real goal not merely the establishment of a free trade area.
> the original referendum (a mere poll, as you put it) on the basis of which the British government signed up
You seem to be trying a reductio ad absurdum argument here and failing.
The UK joined the EEC in 1973, without a referendum but based on an act of Parliament. In 1975 they held an explicitly non-binding referendum that supported staying in the EEC. In other words, that referendum voted to maintain the status quo. You can "disregard" it if you wish, but that would also just mean maintaining the status quo.
The UK has never held a binding referendum on EEC/EU membership. According to the UK's crufty "constitution", this means Parliament gets to decide. If Parliament does nothing, the UK remains in the EU.
The court also relied somewhat heavily on a more specific feature of UK constitutional principles: that if Parliament has granted a right to British citizens, only Parliament itself may revoke it. The European Communities Act 1972, the court held here, has the effect of granting certain individual rights to British citizens (such as a right of appeal to various EU courts). As these were granted by an Act of Parliament, they can only be revoked by another Act of Parliament, not by a decree of the Government. Therefore the European Communities Act 1972 must be properly repealed by Parliament, not de-facto rendered inoperative by action of the Government.
I've never seen anyone call this a clear majority, all the news I've read, seen and heard called it close. Anyone who calls this a clear victory or clear majority is kidding themselves.
Well then he's either a fool or misrepresenting facts. I recall the difference being less than 4 percent points which cannot be called significant in a referendum under any circumstance.
I'm not even saying Britain should leave or stay, the whole methodology is wrong here. With close calls this is equivalent to flipping a coin, and only because it's a close call we accept the given outcome. Or in this case, many don't because they didn't think it'd come to this, but that's beside the point.
Exactly. It's not a penalty shoot out. The margin of the majority is tiny. Overall the electorate was broadly split among Leave, Remain and Shrug/Dunno. This is in no way whatsoever a clear mandate to leave given that X% of Leave votes were by voters' own admission a protest, and another Y% seem keen to change their vote having had a taste of the upheaval ahead - where X + Y is likely more than 2.
Personally I don't think it "disrespects" the original vote, or the democratic process, where margins are absolutely razor-thin to feel an "are you sure?" followup is warranted. 70/30 Leave? Sure: a clear consensus, can't really argue. 52/48? Different matter entirely.
In 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' if I recall correctly, it was suggested that if 1/3 of the population really wanted a law then it should probably be enacted. Conversely if 1/3 of the population really didn't like one then it should be repealed. I always thought Heinlein liked the thought of a state of anarchy though and I haven't tried to work out if he would induce one by his suggestions..
Yeh, approx 25% of people couldn't vote (and you've got to image many of the Europeans in the UK would have voted to stay), another 25% didn't vote, and the 50% that did vote were narrowly split
If you translate votes into parliamentary seats, the majority was much larger than the tally of the referendum. So it is very likely to happen with or without party whips, as the MPs would be denying the decision of most of their constituents still which would be damaging at election time. But this may result in a more moderate, softer Brexit.
I think it's still likely that they will vote to invoke Article 50, but the leeway they have is with amendments. E.g. Is there enough support for an amendment requiring the UK to stay in the customs union? Possibly.
Staying in the EUCU requires consent of the Council of Europe—Parliament can put in primary legislation that they wish to remain in the EUCU, but they have no power to enact it. You cannot make Article 50 conditional, as once the notification is sent you cannot unsend it—you are stuck with whatever is agreed between the state and the Council of Europe (or nothing, if no agreement is made within two years, or longer with unanimous agreement).
It seems that new elections with a clear mandate would be the best solution... except that the first-past-the-post system could possibly lead to a very different outcome than the purely proportional referendum.
What does a "clear majority" even mean? A majority that you personally would accept? Like a majority of your favourite TV celebs and comedians like John Oliver agreeing that Brexit is a good thing?
The rules for the referendum have been set by the government therefore it has committed to follow these rules regardless of outcome. And the outcome has been clear for anyone who understands basic arithmetic.
This whole debate about how to best screw the voters reminds me of Stalin's attitude towards democratic elections.
The right wing in Europe is calling the EU the EUSSR for a very good reason!
This referendum was not set up as binding or self-executing. If you can find where in the rules the government committed to any particular course of action, you're welcome to quote them.
Yeah this is the kind of legalese bs that leads to violent overthrows of governments. If you believe that this will stop Brexit you are living in phantasy land.
The idea that there will be violence is the real fantasy here, and a very unpleasant fantasy at that. Other than maybe a few more murdered Poles and a fistfight between UKIP MEPs.
The Leave supporters are mostly over 50, have no coherent organization, and no history of street protests. All they're going to do is write angry comments on Daily Mail articles and vote in elections. They're not going to get hold of semtex and Armalites and start an insurgency.
This kind of "legalese bs" happens all the time in Switzerland and you won't find a lot of people believing Switzerland is on a brink of a violent government overthrow.
Referendums are usually a mandate to the parliament to implement something.If the referendum idea turns out to be impossible (like eating and having your cake) then the parliament will dismiss or water down this mandate.
There is nothing impossible about leaving the EU. It's not like the Referendum demanded the UK to colonise Pluto.
And its the government itself that initiated this on its terms so it should follow through on it. Not a fringe party but the ruling government parties.
> There is nothing impossible about leaving the EU.
There's nothing impossible about jumping off a cliff either, it's just inadvisable.
But of course, and more to the point of what the grandparent post was saying, if the promise was that you will happily land on a soft bed of £350 million in delicately crumpled £10 notes, then meeting that promise may be impossible.
Yes, they could choose to leave the party. Even if they don't feel any duty to said party or to the constituents they're representing (who, realistically, voted on party lines, despite nominally voting for an individual representative), that still means leaving their whole career behind. I would be extremely surprised if we saw more than a handful of MPs do it.
Theoretically, yes. That's sort of like saying the British army ultimately answers to the Queen so the Queen could run the country as a dictatorship if she wanted to. It's not an argument rooted in the real world though. Queenie would be gone tomorrow if she tried that.
The vast majority of the British voters do not like the EU. Most voted out and of those who voted remain, about half were motivated by simple fear of economic consequences like higher prices rather than any actual support for the project. Given that the EU wants the UK out ASAP without any kind of concessions at all, the people who want a "soft brexit" (whatever that means) are likely to be disappointed as such an option will not be on the table at all.
If MPs attempt to ignore or roll back the referendum in the face of an EU that's already committed to screwing the UK, Farage will return to UKIP and UKIP will absolutely slaughter the other parties. It'll still happen, it'll just take longer.
> The vast majority of the British voters do not like the EU. Most voted out
Although your comment is clearly articulated, and concludes with a very real and accurate statement, I feel I must redress the opening of your second paragraph.
If the vast majority of 'voters' did not like the EU, and 'most voted out' then the result would have been the same, but with much larger majority. This was not the case. The economic fallout of Brexit has yet to be experienced as it will not really kick in until after the UK leaves the EU. The fallout size also depends on the 'deal' (if any) the UK gets when it leaves. Merkel has been very clear that there is no deal on the table and there never will be. Whether the threat of higher prices were a scare tactic or not, many remainers simply did not want a financial hit on their wallet, which is totally understandable. Meanwhile, a large swathe of Leavers simply voted that way because Farage told them it was the only way to keep the migrants out.
At the end of the day, both sides were lied to, more or less, by parties whose political agendas and parliamentary jockyings were more important than the well-being of the country.
I'm not pro the EU in it's current form, but I do believe that the UK will be worse off as a non-member. This is my view, and I voted accordingly.
I also voted in an well-informed away, and I just wish the rest of the country had done so also. The outcome might have still been the same, but at least it would have been for the right reasons.
> The vast majority of the British voters do not like the EU.
That's a wild overstatement - 52% of the people who voted (which was about 40% of the eligible voters) voted to leave the EU, sure, but that's not nearly "the vast majority of British voters" by a long margin.
> Farage will return to UKIP and UKIP will absolutely slaughter the other parties
You didn't read my statement. Of those who voted, 52% obviously didn't like the EU. Of those who voted remain, about 45-50% have told pollsters they did so purely out of fear of economic consequences.
That is not "liking" the EU anymore than paying the Mafia to make them go away instead of fighting them makes you a fan of the Mafia. If the EU had committed before the referendum to striking a good trade deal with an out UK, continuing cooperation in areas where it was possible etc, then most likely leave would have won by around 80%. Which is why the EU didn't do that.
The polls are quite clear on this point. The EU has very little real support in Britain, defined as people who actually like the idea and want it to be extended further. It seems only about 20-25% of the population can be called real federalists. But basically all the EU leaders are.
The Queen becoming a dictator is completely different from the Parliament doing what it should do.
To keep it simple: This is a democracy, which means every citizen is giving away his/her power to a selected few.
The Parliament - the people you voted, more or less directly - has to act.
An ADVISORY referendum is going to be used as an ADVICE.
The Parliament has to act - considering the people's will AND what makes sense for the country.
This mechanism is in place to protect you from direct democracy - which doesn't make sense because:
A. People are easily manipulated - especially in a world where TV and internet make spreading information really easy
B. People can choose to vote randomly, erratically
C. People can have a different level of understanding on delicate matters - depending on their education and background
If the EU was in any way serious about continuing to collaborate with the UK after the vote, they'd be willing to start talks now, pre-notification, as the guy who wrote Article 50 has said it was deliberately designed to never be used. It's not a workable mechanism for leaving.
In fact they are acting as if the vote never happened and refusing to talk about anything at all until notification, thus doing their utmost to ensure the 2 years elapse with nothing done.
They're also briefing about "dirty brexit". Google it.
> they'd be willing to start talks now, pre-notification
And fuel every little fascist's antieuropean campaign in other EU countries? The EU has to make an example about how leaving the Union is a bad idea, one that even the dumbest of voters understand - and that's exactly what they are going to do.
> In fact they are acting as if the vote never happened
Which is partly due to the fact that the British Referendum vote has no legal standing whatsoever. It is a "Suggestion".
> and refusing to talk about anything at all
Thus avoiding to making concessions and letting the UK test the waters before they actually decide to jump in.
> thus doing their utmost to ensure the 2 years elapse with nothing done
You do understand that the two years are a maximum length, and that the EU could simply decide not to Play, declaring negotiations over within seconds of May pulling the trigger, thus creating the hardest of Brexits with the UK without the EU and without any newly-set up trade agreements with third parties?
Your response is typical of why the EU will eventually collapse in a messy way that will likely make all of Europe poorer. It is simply re-running the story of the USSR in a less extreme way. EU supporters even think of themselves as being "anti-fascist", language identical to what the Bolesheviks used in the 30's and 40's.
I absolutely understand that the EU can simply "refuse to play" and that's what I expect them to do. See my comments elsewhere. The EU is held together by fear and needs to make itself a sworn enemy of any country that wants to get out. It's an unstable strategy and it will eventually cause serious chaos, especially when the Euro falls apart. If the EU was willing to undergo massive reform and change itself, the transition could be orderly and yield minimal or even positive economic impact. It never will, so Europe is gonna have a very troubled next few decades.
I'm sorry, time to wake up from fantasyland of sovereignity. Decisions have consequences and it was rather obvious that the incentives become rather misaligned when UK decides to tell EU to go fuck itself.
UK did enough damage already, the latest and most glorious example is blocking finance reform so you could protect your criminal banker city (which, ironically will probably pack up and leave after brexit)
EU has no obligation to make special concessions, quite the contrary - it is obvious you cannot get a better deal than for example Norway, nor can you continue to benefit from common market without agreeing to it's most core terms
Sure, the Euro is in dire need of remaking, maybe explosive collapse of UK will be glorious enough to force some changes in that regard, so...thanks!
I find it kind of amusing that for some/a lot of commentators (from the UK) it
is ok for UK politicians to only try to get the best deal possible for the
UK, whereas when EU officials and/or representatives from the other EU27 state
that they will do the same for the EU/their country/interests, it is considered
screwing over the UK. This argument can easily be turned around from the
point of view from people living in the rest of the EU, just as a hint.
There is no assumption on the part of the British that a good deal for the UK is in any way worse for the rest of the EU than what they have now. Why would it be? I'm sure the UK would be quite happy with a reciprocal arrangement - UK imposes immigration quotas on Europeans and the same is true in reverse, but trade continues and other forms of cooperation continue as well. That would be best for all sides.
It's the EU that sees the world as a zero sum game: that for the EU to "win" out of this the UK must "lose". As Hollande has so memorably summed up.
Well, for one, the EU has (understandably) choosen very anti-Brexit negotiators, hinting at hard and unfruitful negotiations. I guess the UK would have loved if the EU sent Faragne...
Look at topics like the death penalty where opinion polls often suggest that a clear majority of people would like the capital punishment but very few in parliament do.
The problem is, of course, that how "hard" Brexit is, is not really up to the UK, or its parliament.
It'll depend what sort of deal the rest of the EU is willing to strike, and unless either the UK is willing to compromise on allowing free movement of people, or the EU is willing to compromise on the indivisibility of the "four freedoms" - neither of which seems likely - then the Brexit is, in fact, going to be quite hard.
There are a reasonable number of MPs who support compromise on free movement, i.e. leave the EU but reach an agreement with the EU similar to the ones that non-EU members Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have signed. That's one of the "soft Brexit" options. It's not guaranteed that the EU would accept this proposal, but it's something the British government could choose to seek.
Whether this is consistent with the referendum result is arguable either way I think. The majority of pro-exit campaigners, and most likely of Leave voters, were against free movement, with regaining exclusive UK control over immigration being one of the foremost demands. So a soft Brexit that retains free movement could be seen as not following the spirit of the outcome, even if it follows the letter of it (by formally leaving the EU). On the other hand, the Leave majority was quite slim, and a subset of the Leave voters, probably at least 10%, in fact did think they were voting for a soft exit to more of a Switzerland-style status. So it is probably the case that while Brexit, when asked about in general terms, had 52% support, if you explicitly specify "hard Brexit" including exit from the common market, support would drop. But none of this was made precise in the referendum question, so what the referendum outcome gave a mandate for is what's now being debated.
There are no soft brexit options. Anyone who thinks this hasn't been paying attention and isn't aware of the facts (ironic, considering how often such people accuse others of not knowing the facts).
No such offers are on the table anymore, not even to Switzerland, which has been told by the EU that there will never be any more negotiations unless they agree to replacing their current arrangements with a new one that's basically EU membership by another name. Additionally the Swiss also voted to impose immigration quotas years ago and the deadline for that referendum (a legally binding one) is February. The EU have told them to vote again. The Swiss Parliament is now desperately pretending that a law change that doesn't involve quotas is sufficient to satisfy a referendum that specifically asked the population about implementing quotas.
Even Switzerland is no longer able to get a Switzerland style agreement. The chances of the UK getting one are zero.
The UK has to accept that the EU is now an enemy of the country and is fully committed to the impoverishment and exclusion of the British people. There won't be any cooperation on anything with the EU ever again, and not because the UK doesn't want it but because the EU is held together by fear.
Isn't the current Swiss controversy just a simple case of Switzerland abrogating the treaty? Switzerland and the EU member states signed a treaty agreeing that Switzerland would be given access to the common market, on the same footing as if it were an EU member, in return for following the EU's common product labeling/regulation, and allowing free movement of labor between all signatories of the treaty. Then, recently, the Swiss voted in a referendum to curtail the free movement of labor. That's their right to do, but it means they're no longer honoring the treaty, so naturally they can't expect the other side to continue honoring it either.
The treaties, like all EU treaties, are deliberately designed to bind people to things they don't want to do by artificially tying them all together with a "guillotine clause". There is no need for this type of thing - it's a pure power play.
Switzerland is heading for what could be a potentially nasty constitutional crisis, if things go wrong. Parliament is legally bound to implement referendums because they work by adjusting the constitution. Swiss MPs are apparently more scared of the EU than they are of their own courts. This is not a sustainable situation for a democracy. Even if it doesn't blow up now, eventually it will. Switzerland will eventually go through its own "Swexit", due to a referendum that involves wishing to withdraw from one part of one agreement and the EU insisting that it withdraws from all of them simultaneously.
I sort of agree as regards the very general guillotine clause, but I don't think it would make a huge difference in this case, because the Swiss referendum hits at the core of the common market agreement. The common market is made up of a few things that all go together to attempt to produce an integrated economic zone: free movement of labor, equal treatment of foreign and domestic companies, regulatory harmonization, etc. If countries can choose to honor some parts and not others, then you end up with a very fragmented market that fails to achieve the objective. Maybe France passes labeling laws designed to exclude Danish dairy products, Switzerland decides to restrict free movement, Greece decides to tax foreign companies at a higher rate than domestic companies, etc., etc. So it makes sense to me that the treaties over the common market are written such that countries only retain membership as long as they continue to honor each of these factors.
Free trade deals outside of Europe never involve changes to visa policies, as far as I'm aware. This is not some sort of natural or unavoidable thing - it's the result of political choices. Very many other things are like that, such as the various courts that you have to agree to obey, agreeing to automatic implementation of laws created by the Commission, etc.
>like all EU treaties, are deliberately designed to bind people to things they don't want to do by artificially tying them all together with a "guillotine clause".
I'm sorry, what?
You sign a bilateral agreement bringing you massive wealth and advantages then you try to avoid doing your part of the deal
So EU is now evil because it will not take shit from a tiny country?
Mrs May has a 14 point lead in the polls and justification to call an election were Parliament to block Article 50. Given the current state of the opposition, their leader, and the fact that many Labour seats voted Leave it is a pretty safe bet that the Conservatives could end up with a 100+ majority.
The key thing comes down to what "block Article 50" means. If the Government decide to not give ground during the Parliamentary process and refuse to be bound on their negotiating strategy an election is pretty likely as I doubt they would get that through Parliament at the moment. That election would potentially enable May to purge some of the wetter Tories as well.
If you think this ruling is going to stop Brexit or is a victory against the Government I suspect you're going to be disappointed.
Plenty of Conservative MPs and Conservative voters opposed Brexit. A general election would force the Conservatives to adopt a manifesto position on Brexit and be held accountable for the consequences of that position. It may not be a victory against Brexit, but it's a victory for democracy.
A pro-eu party may do very well in any such election, possibly unseating many Tories. I don't think May will be foolish enough though: she has a parliamentary majority to force brexit through regardless of the new requirement.
(If she does, I'll be standing in it by the way, because my party has already allocated candidates to seats for any snap election).
As far as I recall the only time manifestos come in play in the political process is during the passage of a bill through the House of Lords - they "will not oppose the second or third reading of any government legislation promised in its election manifesto":
That's interesting, I had never heard of the convention before, thanks for mentioning it.
However, it is specifically about the house of lords not blocking government manifesto promises. I was more thinking about the opposite, i.e. a government not going ahead with their manifesto promises.
The issue here is that Theresa May cannot call a general election.
The Fixed-term Parliament Act means that the only ways to call an early general election are if parliament passes a motion of no confidence in her majesty's government or a two thirds majority of MPs passes a motion to bring an early general election.
This is a purely theoretical obstacle. In practice, she could call a vote of no confidence in her government and order her MPs to abstain at very short notice.
Abstaining is less politically embarrassing than voting no confidence in yourself. You can guarantee that at least some of the opposition MPs will vote no confidence in your government, and it's not really politically possible for them to vote in favour of your government.
Even if May could get past the Fixed-term Parliament Act, a general election could turn in to a rerun of the EU referendum if the Labour party were to campaign on the grounds of not wanting to invoke Article 50, so the Tories would seen as the Leave party and Labour as the Remain party. Given the events of the past few months, I doubt that the Tories would risk that.
I think they'd be reasonably happy with that, given that (i) Remain voters are highly concentrated in specific urban constituencies which tend not to vote Conservative anyway (ii) The Remain vote is more split between different political parties than the Leave vote in a FPTP electoral system (iii) Labour doesn't even have a consistent policy against Brexit and (iv) There's no way that conservative-minded Remainers are going to see a maybe anti-Brexit Jeremy Corbyn government as a more attractive option than a definitely-going-to-Brexit-but-not-lead-by-Jeremy-Corbyn Conservative government.
1) an early election would require 75% majority vote in the commons. Unlikely as labour would be wiped out (they'd have to vote for it).
2) The Tories are utterly scared of UKIP, an early vote if the economy is in less than great health, or the effects of post brexit globalisation become clear, then UKIP will hold the balance of power.
3) The real power in the tory party it's self is not with May and the government its with the 1922 comittee, who are an odd mix of libertarians and ultra nationalistic types. It would be them driving the purge not May. That scares May.
That's the thing about Parliament being Sovereign it could pass an Act saying "notwithstanding the Fixed Term Parliament Act the next election is on X" and call an election. It could also just repeal the Fixed Term Act.
Parliament can indeed do that, but it would require either the consent of the House of Lords or the application of the Parliament Acts (which is a multi-year process).
My suspicion is that the Lords (where the government has no in-built majority) would vote down the new Act on the basis that it was an abuse of process.
The backup option is a German-style 'technical' declaration of no-confidence, where the Prime Minister whips their MPs to vote no-confidence in the government for the express purpose of triggering the Fixed Term Parliament Act's clause. This would be effective, but would have a (relatively small) political cost in public perception.
Many people voted pro-Brexit in the referendum due to the increasing disparity and alienation between the ruling/political class and the rest of the country.
By deferring the decision to a parliamentary majority, the High court has ensured that Brexit will not happen. That's a sound result for the politicians and chiefs of industry based in London, but what will it mean for the wider UK?
Both the courts and parliament demonstrating they are ready to meddle and overrule the majority will of the people, I have a feeling we are going to see many, many more votes for UKIP and BNP in any subsequent election. It's a ratchet effect along the lines of "if they didn't get the message with this vote, perhaps they'll get the message with this one."
For the Americans out there, this is akin to Trump receiving a 52% majority by US voters (yes, 52% is still a majority, no matter how thin), and then the Electoral College deciding to vote amongst themselves instead about who becomes President: of course it would be Clinton.
> this is akin to Trump receiving a 52% majority by US voters (yes, 52% is still a majority, no matter how thin), and then the Electoral College deciding to vote amongst themselves instead about who becomes President: of course it would be Clinton
It's more like Americans voting in a referendum that a trade agreement with Canada should be scrapped in favour of something new, and then the Supreme Court ruling that the date of departure and negotiation objectives are set by Congress debating and voting and not by the House Majority Leader exercising prerogative powers.
>For the Americans out there, this is akin to Trump receiving a 52% majority by US voters (yes, 52% is still a majority, no matter how thin), and then the Electoral College deciding to vote amongst themselves instead about who becomes President: of course it would be Clinton.
Um, not really. It means that we are applying the law, not meddling... The prime minister doesn't get to decide what she wants to do regardless of whether it can pass in the commons, and an advisory referendum is certainly not legally binding.
However in comparison to the American election, where Trump has been explicitly clear in his plans and prejudices.
A number of voters opting for Leave did so based on information provided by the Leave campaign, a lot of which turned out to be very misleading or just plain false.
Edit: And so it's not unreasonable to think that a portion of Leave voters may have already changed their minds in the wake of what has transpired.
That eventuality is perfectly legal and the reason the founders designed the Electoral College in the first place, as a last ditch emergency brake. Not that I would want that to happen but it is well known that only democratic convention binds the electors.
> By deferring the decision to a parliamentary majority, the High court has ensured that Brexit will not happen
There's nothing sure about this. In general most MPs are against Brexit but they are expected to roughly follow the will of the people, so there's a good change they'll still vote in favour of article 50. I mean the whole government right now is working hard to make Brexit happen, while at the same time being against it.
Or like Gore getting an incredibly thin majority based on interpretation of ambiguous ballots and then having it overruled by the Supreme court?
(George W. Bush: 50,456,002.
Al Gore: 50,999,897. Yes, I do know how the electoral college works, but if the same election had been counted under referendum rules the result would have been different)
I think it was quite arrogant from Theresa May to decide not to involve the Parliament in the first place. People did not give a blanket mandate to her for implementing whatever she thinks Brexit means.
Parliament is involved in the Brexit process, including through the Brexit Select Committee. Politicians from across different parties will have their say on how the UK leaves the EU.
However, the British people have voted to leave the EU, and it would be an affront to democracy if the will of the people were denied by Parliament. It would be unacceptable for Parliament to vote against triggering Article 50, so why even vote if there is only one valid outcome?
Even as someone who is fanatically pro-EU, I think you're right about the affront to democracy bit. The remedy for the public is to 'throw the bastards out' at the next election if they feel sufficiently affronted. Or alternatively to have made the referendum self-executing - a clause could have been added to the 2015 referendum act giving Article 50 notification in the event of 'leave' winning. Of course, that ship has sailed.
I feel pretty conflicted about this, given that I strongly prefer the 'not leave' option but also think the result of an (even advisory) referendum should be respected. That's the nature of a polity with Parliamentary sovereignty, though :-/
I agree that certain aspects of the referendum (both in terms of the Referendum Act and also the campaigning) were far from ideal. All the same, we're in the situation we're in, and everyone needs to look forward at how the UK can best proceed with Brexit, and not look backwards and try to overturn the referendum result (but of course I'd say that).
The point of retaining the option for Parliament to veto Article 50 being invoked on a specific date is to ensure the MP for Maidenhead actually has to get their consent for the approach she chooses.
The government has already set out how they want Brexit to work. I haven't heard Labour or other parties set out how they want Brexit to work, except the Lib Dems who don't want Brexit to happen at all.
If the only plan for Brexit out there is the one the government has, then of course that's the one that is going to be implemented. Parliament does have the opportunity to influence that plan, though.
> The government has already set out how they want Brexit to work
the whole point is that the government does not get to decide. Even if, as it is likely, the parliament ends up voting for brexit, in the same bill it might constraint how the government is to conduct the negotiations.
Yes, the government has said that Brexit means Brexit, meaning that the UK will exit the EU. There will be controls on immigration, but the UK will seek to maintain positive relationships with other European countries (and the rest of the world) and co-operate in matters such as security.
Okay, they haven't quite spelt it out in the level of detail some would have liked, but they've provided more detail than other parties have, and I'm sure further details will emerge in due course.
I'd say this is more of a strategy than a plan. It's all pretty vague.
It was the tories who called the referendum, and the tories who are currently dealing with Brexit. It's not Labour's job to come up with a plan (which would not get used anyway). All Labour have been trying to do is get details of the Tory (currently non-existent) plan, in order to be able to start a discussion on it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-170-que...
Labour, as the official opposition, are supposed to represent an alternative government. I think it's perfectly right to expect them to set out what they want from Brexit. However, they won't even answer any of the 170 questions they asked the government.
I don't want the Conservative government to have a monopoly over deciding how Brexit is implemented. But if other parties want to have a say, then they do need to say what they want from Brexit! They need to take a more pro-active stance. Problem is that Labour is still rather divided, UKIP is literally beating itself up, and the Lib Dems (whilst united in opposing Brexit) are still rather weak. What we really need is a strong opposition, and unfortunately we don't have one right now.
I do understand what you're saying, but I would say labour are representing an alternative government. One that would not have got us into the mess that we are currently in. One that would attempt to bridge the gap between the different groups across the uk (the gap that has been highlighted by the brexit vote).
But Brexit has never been defined (in terms of a government position on what it actually means in trade terms for example) , so saying Brexit means Brexit is pretty much nonsense!
The article says parliament will get a vote on whether to invoke Article 50.
As I understand things, there was a vote on leaving the EU, and the UK voted to leave. And as I understand things, there's only one way to leave the EU, and that's by invoking Article 50.
Seems to me that means there was a referendum on whether to invoke Article 50, and people voted to invoke it. Why should MPs get to block the referendum result?
Article 50 states that "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements." It's the "constitutional requirements" clause that's the problem. Britain does not have a written constitution, but it has traditions that are considered an unwritten constitution, eg. the government (ie. the ruling party) cannot take away rights of the citizens without the consent of Parliament. How exactly this interacts with the Brexit vote is a difficult question, hence the need for this court case.
And if Theresa May thinks that taking back board control is worth leaving the single market, can she do that, just because of the referendum?
People also gave Tories majority in the Parliament and Tories' manifesto committed to stay in the single market.
>As I understand things, there was a vote on leaving the EU, and the UK voted to leave. And as I understand things, there's only one way to leave the EU, and that's by invoking Article 50.
You are interpreting people's reasoning here, as Article 50 was not mentioned in the referendum (another option to leave the EU is to declare war to it, is that what they voted for, then?) and as I understand things, in UK, that is the Parliament's job.
Whether the UK remains or leaves the single market isn't really relevant. Triggering Article 50 opens up the possibility of leaving the single market, but doesn't necessarily result in it.
Triggering Article 50 is one of the simplest ways of leaving the EU, and it was almost universally agreed across both sides of the referendum campaign that Brexit (if that was to be the outcome) would be achieved through the triggering of Article 50.
I don't think those who want to leave the EU are especially hung up on Article 50 -- it's just a means to an end. How the UK leaves the EU isn't vital. What's important is that the UK does leave. Those who oppose the triggering of Article 50 aren't doing so because they want another method of leaving the EU -- they don't want to leave at all!
The question is ultimately about whether the UK should leave the EU or not. And the decision was already made on 23rd June.
The referendum was an opinion poll, with no legal effect.
The effect comes from what the government does with that poll, and the high court has ruled that the government cannot act without parliament's consent. To be absolutely clear: The referendum had no legal effect beyond being an opinion poll.
37.5% of the population voted to "Leave the EU". The definition of what "Leave the EU" actually meant and the way in which the leaving would actually take place was never discussed.
If the EU was just a group of people holding hands, and after deciding to leave you were informed that instead of just letting go, the only way out was to cut off both of your arms, I imagine you might want to re-think your decision?
Because the referendum was only advisory, something that was stated clearly at the start. Both sides were aware going into the referendum that invoking article 50 would ultimately be decided by parliament.
and people voted to invoke it
Because apparently that's not how the UK system of government works. Parliament has a sovereignty different than that of the people.
> As I understand things, there was a vote on leaving the EU
You understand incorrectly. A referendum has no legal binding in the UK, it is essentially the government asking the population what to do - it might decide to ignore the results altogether.
Hoisting a comment of mine from a previous thread:
The UK has never been through a "year zero" forcible reconstitution, so its constitutional and administrative arrangements are full of little adhoc anomalies (the various islands like Sark and Man, the City, "County" Durham, chancel repair liability, and so on). Mostly these are a fine and picturesque addition to the texture of the nation. There's certainly no real appetite to "fix" things, although Scotland managed to abolish the feudal system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_Feudal_Tenure_etc...)
However, this means that the sort of internal tensions which in the US get nailed to the mast of the constitution instead float around, un-crystallized. Until now, when the "brexit" vote has triggered a cascade of constitutional crises: is parliamentary consent required to leave the EU? How does this affect the Good Friday Agreement? What about Scotland? What exactly is the constitutional status of the Human Rights Act and why do the conservatives keep trying to abolish it? And so on.
Right now the fight is about "sovereignty", but everyone seems to be operating with a sixteenth-century Henry VIII view where sovereignty must be absolute and means getting to do whatever you want. People keep talking about trade deals without realising that they also involve a compromise in arbitrariness, especially when things like ISDS are involved. Pretty much any international agreement involves the governments binding their hands and refraining from doing certain things (e.g. preferential subsidies) in exchange for the counterparty also accepting the same restriction.
There seem to be a lot of people who simply cannot handle the idea that other countries are free to not go along with what Britain wants if it's not also in their interests. Compromise lacks the stirring power of "sovereignty", but it's necessary if you want to get on in the global economy.
Services PMI was released at 9:30 which caused a small move up, then around 10 when the A50 ruling was announced there was extreme volatility. I can't see any indication of a leak.
Overall I can't see Parliament voting to remain, the ruling has only really delayed he process. It may result in a "softer" Brexit, maybe this is why the GBP has risen?
I can; there are just enough Tory potential rebels to make it happen, led by Ken Clarke. I think that a big part of the reason article 50 hasn't been triggered already is that a lot of people know deep down that it's going to be a disaster in the long term and their names will live in infamy. Just as we invoke the name of Vidkun Quisling to this day. But at the same time they know that not doing so will be unpopular in the short term. They're in a comparable position to #NeverTrump republicans.
David Cameron is really the architect of this clusterfuck. The referendum legislation should've made it clear what needed to happen.
May's position is that the PM can wake up one day and decide to irrevocably and unilaterally leave the EU. That's a ridiculous position. You can argue there was a referendum but it was non-binding.
MPs from Scotland and Northern Ireland will oppose leaving as their constituents vote overwhelmingly to remain so much so that many in Scotland want to revisit the question of independence.
The leave vote was a proxy for two issues: first and foremost was immigration. The second is control of territorial waters and the resulting overfishing.
On immigration, there is no access to the single market without freedom of EU has made that clear. That will mean paying into the EU coffers too but without any voting rights. So the alternatives are both terrible (for the U.K.).
The U.K. while in the EU can and has extracted concessions on the threat of leaving. This is the best position for them. After pulling the trigger the UK has far less leverage. The EU does want access to the U.K. market but I think the U.K. needs the EU more than the EU needs the U.K.
Hopefully this decision is upheld but even the delay is good. Maybe cooler heads will prevail. An uninformed 52% fueled by a Leave campaign making a bunch of promises they cannot keep and had no intention of delivering upon (since they expected to lose) is hardly a clear mandate.
It is the same screenplay as in Switzerland and their MEI referendum [1]. Difference is just that the Brits managed to trash all lot of porcelain before they will blink.
I didn't know about Horizon2020 and Erasmus, thanks for sharing. I do know decisions ought to happen before March 2017, when shit would hit the fan for the Swiss. It would be a shame, it is a country I would definitely would like to live in sometimes in the future.
I can't believe the UK government allowed this to happen. They went ahead with the referendum without ever explaining what Leave means.
They should have drafted the Leave plan first, with very specific dates, and have people vote on that. "Do you want Britain to invoke Article 50 by 31 Dec 2016?"
That would have been the responsible thing to do. (If anyone argues that you can't have a referendum on such a specifically worded question -- well, if the
electorate doesn't understand even the basics, is it a good idea to have a referendum in the first place?)
Cameron must be one of the least competent political leaders of our time. Maybe the Venezuelan ruling party could hire him as a consultant.
> I can't believe the UK government allowed this to happen.
Blame David Cameron for that, the referendum was supposed to be an intra-party political play in which he expected "remain" to prevail to quell the extreme wing of his party. It's like a US president, without any form of planning, calling for a referendum on federal minimum income(D) or banning Muslims(R) with the intention that they turn to the further-from-center wings of their respective party and say "See, Americans don't really want that", and then things don't go as planned, but the country will have to lay in the bed that was made while the prime minister literally[1] whistles his away from the public stage...
Not even Farage had a plan, despite having been the face and voice of the anti-EU sentiment. As soon as Brexit won, he resigned and went underground. You would expect he would roll his sleeves and dive in to implement the plan he has honed over the years.
1. Cameron hummed/whistled a tune as he walked away from the podium at the end of his last address to the nation.
There can't be any leave plan because the EU refused to ever even discuss the possibility, as did unfortunately large chunks of the British civil service. Their primary strategy, since more or less forever, has been to resolutely insist that the EU is irreversible and forever and reducing its power is utterly unthinkable.
Given that both governments refused to contemplate the possibility, how much of a plan did you expect there to be? Planning for the outcome of referendums is the governments job!
Who are you blaming exactly when you say that "EU refused"? What should this other party have done -- written a Leave plan when the UK government wouldn't do it?
The referendum was a matter between the UK electorate and their government. Other EU states played no part in that.
The Treaty of Lisbon specifically offers a way for a member state to withdraw in the timespan of two years. Not sure how you read that as "irreversible".
The EU (minus Britain) is over 440 million people. Who should have been willing to talk? About what?
Cameron did negotiate with EU leaders and tried to get concessions (on top of the existing special treatment that Thatcher and others negotiated over the years). Isn't that "talking"? Why didn't the UK government make a plan for the Leave option after those negotiations were concluded?
The lack of clarity around Leave is really not the fault of anyone except the UK government. Blaming it on other states is just avoiding responsibility.
And those MP's in rural areas will get pressure to vote remain as the farmers are getting scared about losing the CAP subsidies and the cheap eastern european labour to pick the crops.
This was frankly unexpected. I wonder what P(supreme=no|high=yes) ? If anyone knows please say. Will the gov bother appealing?
The ruling makes available a sabateurs toolbox and could potentially delay Brexit for some time.
My bet is that the government don't appeal and then go onto put serious media pressure on parliament to pull the trigger quickly. Having said that I was definitely betting that the high court would pass this ...
Not sure about P(supreme=no|high=yes). I've read the judgment in some depth; although I'm not a lawyer I am a political scientist with a strong interest in constitutional law. The principle that rights established by Parliament cannot be abrogated by the executive in exercise of prerogative powers is a really strong one in English common law and the judgment seems very strong there.
The technical question about whether the European Communities Act enshrined a particular set of rights as guaranteed in the treaties, or enshrined whatever rights happened to be a consequence of those treaties from time-to-time seems a much closer question in my view. I think the judgment is convincing on the point, but it wouldn't surprise me if another bench took a different view. In fact, the High Court in Northern Ireland did, when they recently ruled (though the present judgment does address and explain the differences).
I think the other thing worth mentioning is that this was a very high powered High Court panel - it featured both the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls - so it's not exactly akin to a handful of random junior judges giving an opinion in expectation of being overturned. The Supreme Court may take a different view of the merits, of course.
Leaving the EU necessarily entails amending or (more likely) repealing the European Communities Act 1972. It's pretty fundamental to the UK constitution that this can only be done by parliament, which makes the judgment entirely expected in legal terms.
Judgments of the UK Supreme Court do bind the executive, though - so if they uphold the High Court judgment then the government needs to go to Parliament.
In the event that they overturn the High Court judgment, you're right that Parliament could in principle pass an Act reserving to itself the right to activate Article 50. In practice, though, the government would use its majority in the Commons to stop that happening. Or alternatively send in the Article 50 notification while Parliament is debating the bill. In either case, the Supreme Court's judgment would be effectively final.
It's pretty clear that if they revoted the result of the referendum would be anti-Brexit so UK is in the absurd situation where they have to proceed with a major political/economic decision that does not reflect anymore the will of UK's citizens.
And if the vote outcome _does_ change, what do we do afterwards - make it best of three and have another one to finally settle it as the pro Brexit voters revolt about their decision being overturned?
The common working class person has no real ability to alter the globalisation and pro-immigration agenda pushed by mainstream politicians. Successive governments have indicated that they would reduce immigration but all it has done is increase.
My father was born in Birmingham, a city in which people of english-descent will be a minority by 2020. When a city is only 40% english-descent, it is no longer an English city.
Karachi is still a pakistani city.
Lagos is still a nigerian city.
Birmingham is not an english city.
Most brexiters aren't particularly fussed with the finer points of the common market, or EU centralised decision making. They just want border control and feel completely powerless as things stand to change anything. There is no neat referendum question regarding immigration, and there seems to be no way other than a referendum for real democratic hearing of people's views on this issue.
Brummies born in Birmingham with brown skin are still Brummies, I suggest, just as the British descendents of Roman, Saxon, Viking, Norman, Jewish, Huguenot, German, Irish, Jamaican and American immigrants remain British.
That, and it's a bit cheeky to pray-in-aid Karachi as some kind of purely Pakistani city given how much influence we Brits have had over the place as a result of conquering it.
6% of leave voters regret their choice according to an academic study published about a month ago, enough to swing the vote the other way.... And as the effects of a potential Brexit continue to bite, this percentage will only increase
I for one. I voted remain, but having actually gone partly down the brexit path, would be comfortable with it now.
The treatment of leavers by remainers has been frankly disgusting. Accusing them of being racists, stupid, and various other things. Brexit has made them lose their minds. They simply refuse to believe their are people who would vote brexit for reasons other racism. I know many people who voted for brexit on informed reasons, that have nothing to do with racism.
> having actually gone partly down the brexit path
What do you mean exactly?
> The treatment of leavers by remainers has been frankly disgusting
Completely agree. The whole thing of people taking sides, rather than discussing a political issue, has been absurd and awful.
> voted for brexit on informed reasons
Unfortunately this was badly communicated, the media's fault no doubt. It was genuinely quite difficult to find a reasoned, balanced view (especially on the leave side I have to say).
What have we been seeing? Lower pound is probably a major advantage to working class people.
We have such a high pound because we are a country driven by financial industry, people keep their wealth in pounds because of this. Ultimately it screws over other industries resulting in the south/north divide.
I've got a lot of sympathy for this argument, but without wage inflation coming as well there's going to be a short-term nasty squeeze as food and fuel jump 20%.
We saw this play out in Greece. The situation there was far worse, both at government and private level, but there still wasn't enough support for jumping out back to the Drachma and devaluting. And meanwhile the shortage of hard currency caused medical shortages.
Ultimately a clear majority of the UK population is in favor of leave. This has increased since the vote as the lies of the remain campaign proved not to be true.
Much of the remain support is concentrated in a handful of London consistences meaning that almost all english MPs have a significant majority of leave supporters.
They have to vote for that or they won't be selected in a future election.
In any case. If the government doesn't follow the will of the people, then the 18 million people who votes leave will ensure that we have a new government one way or another.
> Ultimately a clear majority of the UK population is in favor of leave. This has increased since the vote as the lies of the remain campaign proved not to be true.
The problem is that the leave campaign won by lying and playing on people's fears, and when UK voters had a chance to reflect it turns out that was a stupid choice.
Cameron said he'd stay on as PM regardless of the outcome of the vote.
Cameron said he was on the fence and he'd choose how to campaign based on the results of his renegotiation. During campaigning he told the nation it'd be morally wrong to leave the EU, so obviously that was a lie.
Even 4 days before the vote, Cameron was saying the UK could stay in a reformed EU, despite Juncker saying simultaneously that there were no further concessions on offer and despite the Remain campaign choosing not to mention Cameron's "renegotiation" because it had achieved so little.
Osborne: Brexit will make every household exactly £4300 worse off. This figure was quickly dropped by the campaign because it was based on garbage calculations and focus groups showed nobody believed it (too high, too specific, inability to explain where it came from). Moreover it came from the Treasury which Osborne himself had slated as being unfixably politically biased when he first came to government.
Osborne: punishment budget, despite that he must have known that his best mate and political protector Cameron would quit rather than "do the hard shit", as he put it.
Turkey will never join the EU, despite the government's official position being that Turkey should join the EU.
The business uncertainty caused by an out vote will wreck the economy. Reality: all economic indicators not directly controlled by Mark Carney (i.e. devaluation of the currency) are doing fine.
There is no chance of an EU army. In reality an EU army was the very first thing the EU discussed after the Brexit vote.
etc etc etc. There were just tons of statements already proven to be lies thrown around by the pro EU camp, mostly coming from top politicians like the PM and Chancellor. The absolute blindness of EU supporters to this fact is remarkable.
o Leaving would give us 350 million pounds extra a week to improve healthcare
o We would have a strong currency
o The world would fall over it's self to give "free trade deals" to the UK
o UK tourists would be able to go to the EU without a visa
o No businesses would leave the UK to avoid trade tarrifs/customs hops
o The UK wouldn't loose service "passport rights" that allow banks, IT companies and service providers to provide services to the continent without extra taxes or hurdles
o that more good and secure jobs would be created, and globalisation would be rolled back
However the 350million is almost certainly not going to happen. Mainly because even if we managed to not pay a single pound more to the EU (thats a big if) that budget would be needed for farming subsidies, science, grants and weird legislature functions currently provided by the EU
I'd also wager that globalisation is not going to be rolled back, especially looking at the three pricks "running" the negotiations
The main ones were "I will trigger Article 50 the very next day" from David Cameron and George Osborne's threatened "punishment budget" where he tried to directly threaten the public into compliance by basically telling them he was going to take all their money.
There were also an awful lot of predictions of total, immediate economic armageddon. Up to and including telling us that the very fact we were having a vote was harming the economy massively.
Is this something that could split the conservative party between those in more UKIP-populated districts and those in more LibDem dominated ridings? What if the LibDems start campaigning in those ridings where they are strong in order to pressure those MPs? It wouldn't be in the interest of the LibDems as a party (who would benefit from backlash against triggering article 50), but it would be in the collective interest of individual LibDem-leaning voters who want brexit not to happen.
Although they didn't win, the Lib Dems did fairly well in the Witney by-election and they are certainly making a big deal about the upcoming Richmond Park by-election.
A lot can happen before the next general election, and the next local elections aren't until May, after the government intends to trigger Article 50. And the Lib Dems still only have eight MPs. So whilst I'm sure the Lib Dems will be doing a lot of campaigning, they remain in a rather weak position.
Isn't it a well known fact for everyone by now that leaving the EU would have dire consequences to England? Losing the shared market access, researchers not being allowed into shared EU projects, the European Stock Exchange moving from London OR London leaving the UK, Scotland leaving the UK, maybe even N. Ireland leaving as well to unify the island (erin go bragh by the way!). How would it be in the interest for anyone to go on chasing this rabid dog that is Brexit?
Someone should send a memo Bashar al Assad that "dire consequences" are a valid reason to postpone democracy.
In fact, democracy seems to be reserved only for use by western NATO powers, even when not respecting a democratic vote, while imposing democracy "with dire consequences" on the rest of the world.
Indeed. al Assads next interview "Sure, I did not win the vote, but this is not a direct democracy, the presidential ballot is mere a poll".
Direct democracy for export to some (exclude Saudi), power for others.
All this Brexit event just highlights the hypocrisy when calling Russian political system names and criticizing it for lack of democracy and other positive terms-on-paper.
While I think it will overall be bad for the UK, on the specific point of researchers in shared EU projects, that is a bit less tied to EU membership. The EU research programme doesn't require EU membership to join, or even quasi-membership of the EFTA/EEA variety. In fact Turkey recently joined it (in 2014). It does still require mutual agreement that may or may not happen, but I think a specific "a la carte" agreement on a programme like this one is less thorny than most other questions, since it isn't really tied with anything else (like common markets or immigration or anything else), except for agreeing to pay the membership dues.
Factually wrong, it is already happening. It is tied to funding for these projects. Project management are afraid of losing key research members when the funding doesn't come through from the UK. So they exclude UK researchers altogether until things biol over. Problem is, these researches could be years/decades long, and joining in the middle of it is way harder than during planning phase.
UK partners are already being left out. I predict a generation of uk phd's that will just not exist - between now and when the whole thing is sorted out, funded and implemented - 3-4 years easily.
I believe many voters didn't see other side of the coin. Mass media bragging about independence, market and money control did pretty decent brainwashing for mass population.
They should have opted for elections long ago to give the electorate the responsibility to choose both leaving and who will take them out.
I wonder if it is possible however for either Tories or Labours to go with a believable pro-brexit stance in the polls. Ideally one would take the "in" stance and the other the "out", the point is who is with what?
The UK is pretty much slap-bang in the middle of the table when it comes to EU economies. The idea that the UK is an economic powerhouse within the Union is mostly a myth.
hopefully they hold a general election and Mrs May can continue doing her good work unimpeded for the foreseeable future. You may haggle on the terms of a "clear majority" on the referendum but there is no mistaking the majority the tories currently have over their opponents.
Letting parliament vote on something after everybody has already had the chance to vote on it is not democracy, it's letting the political elite overrule the decision of the people.
But "everybody" did not vote on whether the Brexit should be hard or soft or whatever.
The advisory referendum told Parliament and Government "we want out".
The idea that all the hundreds or thousands of details that this referendum leads to were also implicitly voted on as "Government alone shall decide" is preposterous.
That depends on how binding the referendum is. (It is not some sort of universal truth that a referendum has to be some sort of absolute thing that has to be followed.)
I would guess it also depends on how detailed and clear the referendum is.
Just imagine the following situation: There is a referendum on a carbon tax that wins a majority. The referendum itself doesn’t give any further details beyond the question “Do you want a carbon tax?”
Does this hypothetical vote give the executive the complete authority to create a carbon tax, including all the myriad (unanswered by the referendum) policy decisions that would have to be answered when implementing such a tax?
One sentence obviously does not make a tax and with a carbon tax you would probably have to write a book to arrive at something useful and implementable.
Why does the executive get all this power and the legislative gets none of that power?
In fact, creating (not really creating, but I wanted to avoid writing “legislating”, which would, however, be the more appropriate word here) a carbon tax (including all the detail questions concerning its exact implementation you have to answer when doing that) is more of a legislative task, anyway! The executive isn’t even supposed to do things like that.
So what gives the executive that kind of power and the legislative none of that power? Why should that be the case after a referendum?
I know that invoking Article 50 is not the same as a carbon tax and I know that’s a more complex process (without a referendum I would expect both the legislative and the executive to be heavily involved in such a process), but I just wanted to give a clear-cut example illustrating the problem.
All this, by the way, comes back to a fundamental issue with all referenda. The executive could just as well ignore the referendum. That’s undisputed. So you can’t really use the argument that parliament could vote against leaving. The executive could just as well decide against leaving.
The issue here is more about who gets what power when making decisions – and why the executive or the legislative should get what kind of power and when.
The government is the political elite, expect some you didn't vote (directly) for. If you voted for a MP that is a political elite that you despise and you believe that he is not representing your interest, you voted wrong !
edit: to take a not controversial example - Boris is part of the Government. Cameron was the government too.
This is a big issue stemming from incredible divide that has happened and is widening ever faster
You have two camps that are pretty much self contained - paper magazines, TV, radio, YouTube channels, Facebook groups, even fucking meme sites are now springing up to spew propaganda
And the worst thing is that on the left you have SJW terrorists attacking anything and everything just to feel better about themselves, while the right has no fucking idea how to make anything work good and the only slightly reedeeming point is their pushback against extremism from the left
And the bubbles just push most of the people off to either side
Brexit done by cretins currently in power will just wreck UK. The tremors we are seeing now are just the beginning - my welsh friend tells me that power, water, gas, etc. prices are adjusted yearly, so next wave of pain is approaching already
Staying in would be the best, IMO, but, it hardly matters - either way you are going to have ~30% population extremely unhappy
- Invocation of Article 50 is likely to be delayed from Q1 as the legislation will go through parliament and the (hostile) House of Lords.
- A 'hard' Brexit is less likely due to incoming amendments from remainer MPs and Lords
It also increases the chances of a general election before Article 50 is invoked if the PM feels that MPs will force too many changes to her negotiating stance.
Of course this is all subject to appeal, and ironically, could eventually be decided by a European court!