171–180 of 1001 posts
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He was an MP, is still a MEP, and cofounded a party that once commanded "major party" status and nearly 20% of the vote in 2014. He's clearly representing some folks.
He has never been an MP.
12.6% is really high to be getting only 1 seat, but it definitely isn't 20%.
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That "woman of great importance in the UK government" is the Prime Minister. For the purpose of this discussion, and until she's voted out, she is the most important person in the United Kingdom.
10-4. Why is she being resoundedly disapproved upon by her own gov't? Presumably, the same gov't that put forth this vote? At least some significant margin of politicians must have wanted this vote knowing that 'yes' is on the table. Where are they?
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Apparently more than 51% of the UK's voters thought that the UK belonging to the EU was a real problem worth solving. What's your legitimacy to belittle this concern?
Approximately 99% of the people voting for or against brexit didn’t know what they were voting for. I would be surprised if even 1% of the UK population could accurately describe what the EU is, it’s structure and the implications of leaving the EU.
Remain voter, just to be clear. I know it's got better over the last decade, but the real mistake of the EU was letting in a lot of countries without any say from the populace.
It was an ideological decision, with no democratic mandate, and it's ripping the union apart.
I loved the comparison to a submarine made of cheese: https://twitter.com/hugorifkind/status/1072222230791229440?l...
>Theresa May was initially against building a submarine out of cheese, obviously. Because it’s a completely insane thing to do. Leaving the EU is not a completely insane thing to do. The UK (and many other countries) have legitimate grievances about some things the EU is foisting on them (immigration for example) and the EU is giving them the cold shoulder and fining them if they don't comply. Labelling people who ar…
From the start, it was insane.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That "woman of great importance in the UK government" is the Prime Minister. For the purpose of this discussion, and until she's voted out, she is the most important person in the United Kingdom.
10-4. Why is she being resoundedly disapproved upon by her own gov't? Presumably, the same gov't that put forth this vote? At least some significant margin of politicians must have wanted this vote knowing that 'yes' is on the table. Where are they?
It would be similar to half the republicans and half the democrats agreeing on a key policy & fundamentally disagreeing with the other half of their respective parties.
(it's actually even worse than that because there are at least 3 main positions [hard exit, soft exit, no exit] which divide the two main parties, meaning nothing really has a clear majority).
The way the UK government works is: from the majority party a government of ministers is formed from their group of MPs. By convention individual MPs in this government (called front-benchers) have a cohesive support for the overall government policy (if they disagree with the policy or vote against it then by convention they have to resign). Anyone from the ruling party NOT on the front-bench can (and often will) vote against the government.
Brexit has been insanely divisive. Internally, the ruling Convservative party have at least 4 different positions, including the official government one. Many front-benchers have resigned.
Fundamentally the problem is this; people voted for Brexit. But only just. So really nearly half the population doesn't want it. It was simple to answer a simple yes/no question. But exiting is a hugely complex question whereby it is nearly impossible to negotiate a compromise that works for everyone.
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The real issue is that the people who voted "for Brexit" were all voting for different things, because it wasn't at all articulated what "Brexit" would look like. Now that that's better understood, there should absolutely be a second referendum, probably with three ranked options: 1. Stay 2. Soft leave (May's deal) 3. Hard leave (No deal) With months and months of nonstop coverage, one could now say that there's broa…
...and keep asking until you get the answer that truly answers the will of the people? Could you make the same argument that people voted yes for multiple reasons? I think it’s difficult to see an outcome where a single referendum would be sufficient to solve all doubt. Especially with three options, if no option has majority would you stick with original referendum? Or not exit?
In any case, the point of a ranked ballot is you use runoff to reallocate the last place option votes, so you do get a clear majority in the end.
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The "best" solution to this problem is to cancel Brexit. Even that solution would cause a massive political blowback and only deepen the current divides that exist today. The "fantasy" solution is that the government can somehow negotiate a better deal for Brexit. But this is pure fantasy. For starters, there is severe disagreement as to what kind of deal ought to be pursued among the people who dislike May's deal. M…
"you can't fly between UK and Europe;" These problems are temporary - do not believe all the scaremongering. The same goes for the economy. Life well go on for christ's sake.
I'll be the first to admit: I'm an American. I fundamentally do not understand Brexit. I understand the following timeline: 1. A largely disseminated, nation-wide vote occurs, bolstered by nationalist sentiment, that the EU is bad for the UK. This vote results in a conclusion that UK should leave the EU. 2. This is controversial, due to the majority of the populace in general not desiring to leave the EU, but not vot…
In short, May has never taken a WTO ("no deal") exit seriously. Since she won't walk away she's had no leverage, so the EU predictably gave her the worst "deal" imaginable, to the extent that polls show Leave voters would prefer staying in the EU and Remain voters would prefer leaving with no deal. It's seriously awful.
> Where are the people who initially brought in Brexit- why are they not supporting May?
If you're talking about the various Leave-supporting ex-ministers like Boris Johnson and David Davis, they quit when it became clear that they were only there as window-dressing for consumption by domestic Leave voters, and had no influence at all in negotiations or planning. When May came up with her "Chequers" plan, she showed it to Angela Merkel before her own Cabinet; this in a political system that supposedly follows a principle of collective responsibility.
> What is preventing the referendum from being declared stupid and that the UK gov't is not going to do it?
As an American, what prevented the election of Trump being declared stupid and that the US gov't was not going to accept him? Because I suspect it's pretty much the same answer: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." You can't hold a referendum for tactical reasons and then welsh when it doesn't go your way without thoroughly destroying faith in the legitimacy of your political system.
Ahhhh fudge ... People’s vote ... it might just happen. May now has to chat with the opposition, understand what it’d take to vote yes , take that to Europe, bring back a compromise ... vote again, get that accepted. People’s vote is starting to look like the more likely outcome... had she lost by say 50 or 100 votes ... ok but 432 vs 202 ?! 230 votes to claw back somehow .
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Brexit is a real problem that the human race is faced with. There can be no higher question than that of what rules people should be using to deal with each other. For most of human history the rules were imposed by force. You open your market because if you don't, I'll escalate from sending a strongly worded missive all the way up to sending my armies to pillage your countryside. Recently we've moved to a more contr…
> The EU is a phenomenally novel way of integrating sovereign nation-states into a singular political entity, that happened without war. Not just without war, but between nations that've been regularly at war with each other (in various iterations) for well over a thousand years. It's a pretty remarkable achievement.