The referendum gave the What. Parliament would give the How and When.
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"
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…
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.
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?
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.
Other way round: the single market is extremely critical to the UK econonmy, as we've been seeing.
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.
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…
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 harmonizatio…
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.
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 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).
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 Assem…
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.
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 e…
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 "irr…
The EU should absolutely have been willing to talk about it, yes!
Article 50 was only put there because the British insisted on it. Read what the guy who wrote it thinks:
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.
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.
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.
More's the pity! For some reason we have to stick with these archaic systems that produce perverse results...
The same reason anybody stays with any archane system: entrenched interests.