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Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

nytimes.com

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Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#501

Post by hardlianotion »

lizknope wrote: post #459
jkmcf wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also an American, but from the outside I don't see how a majority desire can be so objectively determined beyond a vote. My personal opinion is "majority" wins isn't necessarily a proper majority. Given how our Congress votes party line on most things, and the ratio is more or less 50:50 Dm to Rep, a 66% majority seems minimal for passing any law unblemished with party bias. With 72% of registered UK voter turnout,…

In the United States we require super majorities to amend the Constitution. 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures. Something as important as Brexit should require more than 50.1% to pass. But it was actually non-binding anyway so the government could just ignore it.

The referendum was enacted as part of an elected party's manifesto that promised to implement the result.

After the election, parties voted to enact Article 50.

After enacting Article 50, the parties that campaigned in the following general election on a promise to implement the decision to leave were overwhelmingly successful.

Ignoring the referendum would have been a poor decision.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#502

Post by rusk »

RafiqM wrote: post #414
tim333 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get how going back to the people is political suicide and creates distrust. I mean the first question was do you want to leave and the vote was yes. The second would be that now we know the facts were not entirely as advertised do you still want to go ahead? Not sure how that is betrayal, political suicide and the like - it seems fairly fair and sensible.

Think about practically any political issue, in the US or elsewhere. "Fair" and "sensible" are rarely anywhere near the primary considerations, are they? I do think what you suggest would be fair and sensible. I do not believe the voters will see it so reasonably. I'm from Ireland, where we had something similar happen. People still talk about how the govt will just hold multiple referendums till they get the answer…

I remember these referendums and in at least one case there was no explanation of the the referendum was the first time around. We were just expected to rubber stamp it. Also on one or other of them concessions were gained on the second time round. So it wasn’t just like the ”keep voting til you get the right result” thing that you hear people spouting ... does anyone actually believe we’re that soft?

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#503

Post by VBprogrammer »

cm2187 wrote: post #283
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #99

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…

1. I don't think it had much to do with nationalist sentiment. EU historically had a bad press in the UK, and the greek debacle didn't help. At the same time immigration has been an increasing concern (not just in the UK, everywhere in Europe, and in the US too). The UK has seen a massive inflow (>1 million in 4 years) of eastern european nationals immigrating, which I think is the primary reason why leave won (right…

> 2. I am not sure how you can claim the majority of the populace is against leaving the EU. A national vote demonstrated the opposite. And it's not clear that another vote now wouldn't yield the same result

I'm not generally happy with the idea of assuming those people who didn't vote on the day would have voted in one direction or another; but given that EU citizens who've lived in the UK for many years were excluded from voting we can assume that a lot of those would have voted to remain had they been given the choice.

Unfortunately if we did have another vote the only outcome which would be decisive would be another leave result.

The leave campaign didn't define a vision of brexit beyond vacuous slogans. It left the door open to any dream of what brexit could mean. This is irrefutable in spite of their protests to the contrary.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#504

Post by towelr34dy »

andybak wrote: post #445
growlist wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: I got a bit carried away.

> all calls for a second referendum would be treated with utter contempt Yes but it's symmetrical. If result A then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side B If result B then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side A So no conclusion can be drawn by the fact that people are partisan. The question of whether a second referendum is a good idea is independent of the result of the firs…

There is a difference:

If A, then result would NEVER be realistically contested If B, then result COULD be realistically contested

No one would argue that if the vote were stay, we'd be seeing it again. It wouldn't happen. Not even maybe.

But since the underdog won, since leave won, it is now contestable.

I'm on this fence on this one, and I don't live there, so I don't have a side. But I do see each side's points.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#505

Post by tim333 »

growlist wrote: post #463
andybak wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all calls for a second referendum would be treated with utter contempt Yes but it's symmetrical. If result A then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side B If result B then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side A So no conclusion can be drawn by the fact that people are partisan. The question of whether a second referendum is a good idea is independent of the result of the firs…

The point is that in the alternate scenario there wouldn't be half the establishment or more agitating to subvert the democratic will of the largest vote ever in British history, I guess..

There's something to be said for a bias towards the status quo. If it ain't broke don't fix it and all that. If the vote had been 60-40 leave I'd agree with you but it was close to 50/50 and based on some misinformation.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#506

Post by Tomte »

School-Cotton wrote: post #194
makomk wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May's deal permanently blocks the UK from ever fully leaving the EU without the EU's permission, meaning that anyone who wants to leave won't support it. It also removes almost all the benefits of remaining in the EU, meaning Remain supporters hate it too. Oh, and for bonus points it effectively makes Northern Ireland no longer fully part of the UK, meaning that the DUP (the Northern Ireland unionist party which the…

The UK is a sovereign country -- how is it possible for them to never be able to do something without someone else's permission?

They are sovereign, as article 50 proves. Unfortunately, they want something from the EU. Actually a lot. And so they need to offer something in return.

That's the big joke of Brexit. Boris Johnson fantasizing about dozens of trade deals ready to be signed when the UK exits. How many are there now? Zero.

Because the UK isn't in a position as strong as Brexiteers fantasized. Ostensibly they are all for negotiating deals in the national interest, but when the other side has interests, too, that's somehow unfair and they should "go whistle".

Brexiteers are looking for handouts, not real negotiations.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#507

Post by clappski »

derriz wrote: post #269
makomk wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May's deal permanently blocks the UK from ever fully leaving the EU without the EU's permission, meaning that anyone who wants to leave won't support it. It also removes almost all the benefits of remaining in the EU, meaning Remain supporters hate it too. Oh, and for bonus points it effectively makes Northern Ireland no longer fully part of the UK, meaning that the DUP (the Northern Ireland unionist party which the…

No it does not. It simply requires that the UK ensure that no hard (customs) border is required in Ireland. A key component of the Good Friday Agreement which ended 3 decades of bloodshed on the island of Ireland was that physical border checks between the two states whould be phased out. All it requires is that the UK accepts that EU customs checks are performed between Britain and Ireland rather than at the Irish b…

Because the current government only have a majority due to a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP, who would break off that agreement if there was a border between Northern Ireland and RoUK as part of the deal.

Overall to Brexit supports in Britain it doesn’t really matter, it mainly matters politically for the current government. Without the DUP they would effectively be a minority government.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#508

Post by starshadowx2 »

andybak wrote: post #481
xienze wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what if? You're essentially arguing that if our benevolent overlords decide that the democratic process might result in something unfavorable that they should do the wise thing and ignore the will of the people.

"the will of the people" sounds very grand and final. "the will of 52% of the people" doesn't quite have the same ring to it. I'm not claiming that I don't understand the concept of referendum by simple majority - merely that there's a certain duplicity in the sanctimonious language being used to describe the result.

52% of a 72% turnout, so really just ~37% of "the people".

(If I did the maths right)

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#509

Post by sievebrain »

pjc50 wrote: post #379
hazeii wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Brexit promise is something nobody can deliver on.. I would - respectfully - point out that's not the situation. It is (was?) a promise in the sense that the government is there to enact the will of the people. The majority of people who voted, voted to leave (personally I was in the minority). So now (in engineering terms) it's pretty simple. If everyone sits on their hands, the UK will leave the UK as schedule…

More importantly the government cannot deliver both "Brexit" and "business continuity", potentially including such things as "food and medical supplies". This is gradually dawning on even the dimmest Cabinet ministers.

The idea that food and medical supplies will disappear is completely wrong and has already been debunked by, amongst other people, the head of the NHS.

This is especially true because being in the EU actually increases food costs due to the common external tariff. The only reason food imports would slow is if the government wanted them to, which it doesn't.

The illogical and ridiculous predictions that somehow the only thing keeping British people alive is huge payments to the EU, is not only factually false, but insulting to boot. The UK survived the rest of Europe trying to literally conquer it. Now there are people who seriously believe the country will be brought to its knees by trading on WTO terms.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#510

Post by whatupmd »

mrec wrote: post #103
yholio wrote: post #41

The Brexit promise is something nobody can deliver on. It was a lie, you cannot force the EU to accept an unfavorable trade deal. If only for the reason that it would set an exceptionally bad precedent and everybody would want their own deal, to pick and choose the parts of EU membership that are favorable to them, leading the EU to implode. Somebody needs to own up to that lie and accept that a "no deal" outcome, wh…

> they are trying to camouflage that reality with a bad deal They're not, May is, and May is not a Brexiter. The Brexiters generally are pushing to leave on WTO terms, not so much as a preferred end state but in recognition of the fact that only a genuine commitment to doing so has any chance of convincing the EU to agree to sensible terms such as Canada+. If the EU can keep the UK under its thumb forever then of cou…

"The Brexiters generally are pushing to leave on WTO terms" - to claim that there is a consensus amongst this lot is perhaps a stretch.
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