Just in case you thought (foolishly) that democracy was a real thing.
You're confusing democracy with populism and idiocy.
British Government loses Article 50 court fight
81–90 of 316 posts
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#82Ultimately 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 th…
> This has increased since the vote
Source? Not being facetious, genuinely interested if there's evidence of this.
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
MP's are in a hard place because of this. 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.
How can they be whipped into pary line? Isn't the worst that can happen to them exclusion from said party?
Or become party leader, as in the case of Jeremy Corbyn who defied the labour whip over 500 times.
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Involving Parliament instead of letting the Government do whatever it wants is democracy.
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.
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.
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
MP's are in a hard place because of this. 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.
...and the referendum was purely advisory which means they can do whatever they wish.
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.
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 re…
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…
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.
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or realise that the 52-48 reflects a point in time, that things change and therefore it's perfectly ok to campaign against brexit, and try to stop it. Or do you subscribe to the point of view that we should only have had a single general election and abide by that result for all time?
> the 52-48 reflects a point in time 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.
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
MP's are in a hard place because of this. 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.
...and the referendum was purely advisory which means they can do whatever they wish.
Well, we do have a representative democracy.
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.
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#89I 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 e…
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 :-/
Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
MP's are in a hard place because of this. 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.
I really wish they'd stop calling it a "clear majority". I'm not sure when 52-48 was ever such.
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.
[1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/how-did-turnout-a...