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 th…
£350 million a week. GBP/USD hitting record lows. Which side was lying, again?
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. (A third alternative would be to repeal the act.)
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.
> 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.
Of course, not always. It is only a good idea when you can agree with the result, of course.
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...
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 m…
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.
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 any…
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.
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.
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…
I 'm pretty sure the Courts know better than any of us.
Yes, 2 minutes ago on the BBC :) I had not seen it. What do you think will happen at Supreme Court? Same again?
so? Parliament is sovereign here the UK supreme court is nothing like the US one
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.
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 any…
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.
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…
You're already anticipating a "remain" vote by parliament. That's not on the table, so far. Parliament wants to be involved, not necessarily kill Brexit. You can come back with that argument if and when Parliament actually tries to stop Brexit.
My point is: If a "remain" vote is not on the table, then what's the point in voting? It seems like a pointless exercise.
Parliament can be (and are) involved in the Brexit process, but there are plenty of other ways to do that than with this vote.
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.
Referendums in the UK are, legally, glorified opinion polls and so any resulting democratic mandate is spurious.
The mandate is as strong as mandates ever are in a democracy. But the cost of ignoring it is political, not legal.