Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 254 posts

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#61

Post by Nursie »

shin_lao wrote: post #54
Nursie wrote: post #21

There's a lot of clutching at straws going on at the moment. People coming out with political or legal theories, trying to interpret David Cameron's failure to immediately declare leaving under article 50 as kicking the whole issue into the long grass etc etc. This is the latest, like others it's more of an exercise in denial than it is in reality. Many of these things could come to pass, it's true, but each one carr…

Several political leaders admitted that they lied during the election, therefore people voted based on lies. Since the majority isn't that big (less than 52%) is would be acceptable to not immediately follow through. It's as big as a constitutional change and such change usually require more than 50% to be adopted.

Like David Cameron and his promise to invoke article 50 last Friday? Or George Osborne and his punishment budget?

There were dreadful lies on both sides. Personally I treated the entire campaign period as a sideshow we'd have been better off without, the issues and opinions about EU membership are far deeper rooted than the last few weeks of noisy bickering.

Further, the constitutional changes that got us in were not subject to supermajority conditions, in fact no political party that implemented them had an equivalent mandate behind them to either side of the referendum vote.

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#62

Post by steve19 »

antouank wrote: post #45
Nursie wrote: post #21

There's a lot of clutching at straws going on at the moment. People coming out with political or legal theories, trying to interpret David Cameron's failure to immediately declare leaving under article 50 as kicking the whole issue into the long grass etc etc. This is the latest, like others it's more of an exercise in denial than it is in reality. Many of these things could come to pass, it's true, but each one carr…

Around 4 million EU nationals that live in the UK, were not eligible to vote, and they are directly affected by his decision, while they pay taxes and they contribute to the economy as much as the ones who could vote ( if not more... ). Also, a significant percentage of those who voted "Leave", around 10% at least, now would certainly change their vote since they saw that "scare tactics" was basically people telling…

"Around 4 million EU nationals that live in the UK, were not eligible to vote"

I have spent a significant portion of my life living in countries where I was not a citizen, paid taxes and was unable to vote. Just like there are millions of Europeans paying taxes in the USA and unable to vote. This applies to most countries and does not make them any less democratic.

At the end of the day Democracy is a shit system. A really shitty system, but we keep it around because it is better than the other systems.

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#63

Post by codecamper »

hollander wrote: post #20

How to get out of this mess: quit with this government, call for new elections. Then you make it an election subject: will we follow the referendum or not?! The referendum is advisory, not legally binding. So they can ignore it. If the new elections are clear and people vote 55% to stay in - it's a clear cut case.

It seems crazy to me that such a thing can be decided with a simple majority vote. Such a big decision and almost half (or more than half?) of people very much against it. Certainly more than half of the money & influence against it. It's the sort of thing that would cause serious infighting.

I'd say 2/3, or some requirement for a certain % of the total population.

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#64

Post by antouank »

Nursie wrote: post #57
antouank wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 4 million EU nationals that live in the UK, were not eligible to vote, and they are directly affected by his decision, while they pay taxes and they contribute to the economy as much as the ones who could vote ( if not more... ). Also, a significant percentage of those who voted "Leave", around 10% at least, now would certainly change their vote since they saw that "scare tactics" was basically people telling…

1. They are not citizens, their lives may be affected but they have no vote. This has no bearing whatsoever on any of my argument above. 2. I voted 'remain'. If this result is ignored for a.second referendum I will vote 'leave' because I believe democratic respect is more important than EU membership. 3. Your 10% figure is pure conjecture. 4. It was a 4% margin. 5. Whether the referendum is legally binding or not has…

I guess you do not care whether the UK will be (or maybe is) way worse off economically and that xenophobia/racism is now an "every day" thing. Fine, vote "leave", probably suits better that mentality.

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#65

Post by Nursie »

DanBC wrote: post #43
Nursie wrote: post #21

There's a lot of clutching at straws going on at the moment. People coming out with political or legal theories, trying to interpret David Cameron's failure to immediately declare leaving under article 50 as kicking the whole issue into the long grass etc etc. This is the latest, like others it's more of an exercise in denial than it is in reality. Many of these things could come to pass, it's true, but each one carr…

> David Cameron's failure to immediately declare leaving under article 50 as kicking the whole issue into the long grass Maybe not the long grass, but it's a poison chalice for the next leader for the reasons you say - trigger article 50 and Scotland leaves UK and tries to join EU. Don't leave and the majority voters get angry. (And we really don't need them getting angrier since a small minority are angry enough to…

Oh there's political poison all over the place. It's one of the reasons I considered voting leave and am not too pissed off that the way I did vote didn't win - it's rather delightful seeing the turmoil at Westminster.

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#66

Post by antr »

smcl wrote: post #50
alkonaut wrote: post #24

Legally, as far as I understand no. But politically? Almost certainly. If Scotland could remain in the EU (By remaining , not re-joining, which Madrid would oppose) then they almost certainly would. This means that "brexit" would imply the end of the "United" in the UK and I believe that would be enough of a change in circumstances that a) leave politicians could hold off invoking Article 50 without losing face or b)…

Just thinking out loud - probably wandering into OT territory here, but ... If Spain was to block an independent Scotland's entry to the EU would they feel the need to provide an explanation? If so would they say the real reason - "we don't want to set a precedent and embolden Catalonia's bid for independence" - or would they weasel out of it somehow?

I doubt any explanation needs to be provided. What true explanation did the Leave vote give to EU members?

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#67

Post by Nursie »

onion2k wrote: post #49
Nursie wrote: post #21

There's a lot of clutching at straws going on at the moment. People coming out with political or legal theories, trying to interpret David Cameron's failure to immediately declare leaving under article 50 as kicking the whole issue into the long grass etc etc. This is the latest, like others it's more of an exercise in denial than it is in reality. Many of these things could come to pass, it's true, but each one carr…

each one carries with it the implication that a direct democratic mandate, to leave the EU, is ignored There is no such mandate, implied or otherwise. The referendum was advisory. Legally there is nothing compelling the government to act on the result.

The mandate is the vote of the people, regardless of the technical nature of the vote.

There is a lot compelling action, I mentioned some of the possible fallout scenarios in my post.

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#68

Post by michaelt »

hollander wrote: post #20

How to get out of this mess: quit with this government, call for new elections. Then you make it an election subject: will we follow the referendum or not?! The referendum is advisory, not legally binding. So they can ignore it. If the new elections are clear and people vote 55% to stay in - it's a clear cut case.

  Then you make it an election subject: will we follow
  the referendum or not?!
If we had AV or STV this might work - you could have "Conservative, exit", "Conservative, remain", "Labour, exit" and "Labour, remain" so the exit/remain decision was decoupled from the labour/conservative decision. But we don't, we still have the shitty FPTP election system.

I'm sure there's been some buyer's remorse among leave voters - but if remain can't win a remain-vs-leave vote, I doubt they'd fare better with a remain-labour-corbyn-vs-leave-conservative-boris vote.

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#69

Post by deepvibrations »

Nursie wrote: post #57
antouank wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 4 million EU nationals that live in the UK, were not eligible to vote, and they are directly affected by his decision, while they pay taxes and they contribute to the economy as much as the ones who could vote ( if not more... ). Also, a significant percentage of those who voted "Leave", around 10% at least, now would certainly change their vote since they saw that "scare tactics" was basically people telling…

1. They are not citizens, their lives may be affected but they have no vote. This has no bearing whatsoever on any of my argument above. 2. I voted 'remain'. If this result is ignored for a.second referendum I will vote 'leave' because I believe democratic respect is more important than EU membership. 3. Your 10% figure is pure conjecture. 4. It was a 4% margin. 5. Whether the referendum is legally binding or not has…

I agree with your principles, but I do think this may be an exception...With all the mis-information peddled by the media pre-vote and given the number of people who have already come out saying they didn't fully understand the implications of voting leave, I personally believe that another referendum wouldn't be the worst thing, especially given that the win was by such a small margin. What if we were to have a second referendum and the result came out 60/40 in favour of remain- would your opinion remain the same?

Re: Could the Scottish Parliament Stop the UK from Leaving the EU?

#70

Post by Nursie »

antouank wrote: post #64
Nursie wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. They are not citizens, their lives may be affected but they have no vote. This has no bearing whatsoever on any of my argument above. 2. I voted 'remain'. If this result is ignored for a.second referendum I will vote 'leave' because I believe democratic respect is more important than EU membership. 3. Your 10% figure is pure conjecture. 4. It was a 4% margin. 5. Whether the referendum is legally binding or not has…

I guess you do not care whether the UK will be (or maybe is) way worse off economically and that xenophobia/racism is now an "every day" thing. Fine, vote "leave", probably suits better that mentality.

This hate by some on the remain side is most unbecoming.

You've got effectively called me a racist there. You realise this is precisely the sort of rhetoric that's lead us here?

Post reply on HN