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British Government loses Article 50 court fight

bbc.co.uk

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Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#171

Post by tehwalrus »

lmm wrote: post #23
cmdkeen wrote: post #20

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 Par…

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).

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#172

Post by zigzigzag »

DocTomoe wrote: post #147
zigzigzag wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 vo…

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.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#173

Post by Nursie »

danielsamuels wrote: post #79
jbb555 wrote: post #67

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…

> 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. I would argue that the opposite is true.

It's funny how both sides insist that, as the last few months have proven them right, attitudes have obviously changed to favour their side.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#174

Post by jleask »

ricksplat wrote: post #139
koolba wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish they'd stop calling it a "clear majority". I'm not sure when 52-48 was ever such. It's a majority though. If they wanted to have a higher threshold for the vote (say 60%) they should have done as much when writing the referendum.

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 pos…

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.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#175

Post by joosters »

usgroup wrote: post #21
cmdkeen wrote: post #20

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 Par…

Brexit before March, what do you think?

Current betting suggests 60% chance of article 50 triggered Jan - July 2017, 39% not triggered before July 2017, and 1% during 2016.

Although the betting wasn't a great guide to the original brexit outcome, so you have to wonder about trusting it...

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#176

Post by lordnacho »

exox wrote: post #90
midgetjones wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#177

Post by ricw »

ldjb wrote: post #105
throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #54

Earlier 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?

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).

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#178

Post by Desustorm »

bb101 wrote: post #123

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 parliamen…

>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.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#179

Post by pjc50 »

tehwalrus wrote: post #159
pjc50 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are they? I thought they could only vote in local authority and European elections. Parliamentary is only British and commonwealth citizens.

Sorry, I was confused because they're allowed to vote in Scottish Parliamentary elections.

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/faq/voting-and-registr...

"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.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#180

Post by throwaway-hn123 »

ldjb wrote: post #105
throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #54

Earlier 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?

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?

Not sure what that has to do with my comment. Perhaps you meant to reply to someone else?
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