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Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

bbc.com

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Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#61

Post by dumael »

dragonwriter wrote: post #16
pmyteh wrote: post #4

The current BBC headline is "Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes", which is a better summary of the situation. For a variety of reasons (legal, procedural, and political) MPs can't simply resolve to reject Brexit, and didn't do so today. What they can do is reject the exit deal that May has negotiated. Some of them have voted to do this because they want a 'softer' Brexit with a closer ongoing relation…

> For a variety of reasons (legal, procedural, and political) MPs can't simply resolve to reject Brexit, There is no legal reason why ministers cannot reject Brexit; given the role of Parliament in the UK system of government, there is very little that ministers could be legally prevented from deciding, since the current (at whatever time it is you are asking the question) Parliament itself is generally the ultimate…

> There is no legal reason why ministers cannot reject Brexit;

There is, for a revocation of article 50 notice to be legal, Parliament has to pass a motion directing the Government to do so[1].

[1] https://ukandeu.ac.uk/revoking-article-50-after-the-ecjs-rul...

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#62

Post by [deleted] »

osrec wrote: post #22

I think this just goes to show that maybe the entire Brexit option was not a good one. I mean, why would Theresa May not try and get a good deal - she is trying her level best, powering through defeat after defeat in the house! One could conclude that, perhaps, there just isn't a good deal to be had. Brexiteers seem to have this "it'll be alright on the night" attitude - as if they want to leave without weighing up t…

[deleted]

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#63

Post by sparkie »

vkou wrote: post #40
tedivm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a non-binding referendum. It wouldn't be "overturning" anything. A delay plus a new vote (now that people are more educated on things) seems like the most democratic way to handle this.

1. I have no issue with a Parliament overturning a non-binding referrendum. 2. Why do you expect that the vote will turn out any different? One third of the country wants a hard brexit, one third wants a soft brexit, and one third wants no brexit. There is no way to make even a majority happy. Having another vote will put you right back where you were two years ago.

If voting should happen twice, can we vote again on our politicians before they cancel our previous vote on leaving the EU? (Who all promised to deliver the result of the vote in the election manifestos)

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#64

Post by voidlogic »

oliveshell wrote: post #20
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #6

I've said this before so I'll ask this again- I'm an American and I'm entirely ignorant on UK politics. I've followed the headlines and I am still confused why Brexit is happening. It seems no one wants Brexit as it has been suggested by the political leadership of UK, and the majority want to avoid no deal at all. I do not understand why not call the entire Brexit thing off; why is that political suicide?

There’s a widely-held belief that simply calling the whole thing off— or holding a second referendum— would cause outrage and undermine public faith in British democracy (by ‘ignoring the will of the people’, i.e., the referendum result).

With all the brexit challanges, why not have a new referendum to "confirm the will of the people"? It seems doubtful it would pass this time, crisis averted?

Also, doesn't brexit basically guarantee Scottish independence? The Scotts were way more opposed to brexit than the English in the brexit referendum and their most recent independence referendum stated as a condition of the delay until the next independence referendum that the UK's relationship with the EU did not change? Is that right?

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#65

Post by sparkling »

ddebernardy wrote: post #39

I followed the Commons debates during both votes. It's just surreal. It's as if the UK was living in some kind of bubble where just about anything happening outside of it had no existence let alone importance whatsoever. If I were a UK voter I'd be extremely angry. As an EU citizen I sincerely hope the outcome will be the UK ultimately staying in -- if only because of the outright lies during the referendum and the s…

> As an EU citizen I sincerely hope the outcome will be the UK ultimately staying in -- if only because of the outright lies during the referendum and the suspicion of Russian influence in the Leave vote.

What if i told you that crying "b-but the other side lied!" and talking about "russian hackers" do not outweigh a fair, free, democratically held vote? Imagine the vote was vice versa and the right-wing would be crying about unfair campaign ads and Brussel influence, not one person would take them seriously.

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#66

Post by tedivm »

vkou wrote: post #40
tedivm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a non-binding referendum. It wouldn't be "overturning" anything. A delay plus a new vote (now that people are more educated on things) seems like the most democratic way to handle this.

1. I have no issue with a Parliament overturning a non-binding referrendum. 2. Why do you expect that the vote will turn out any different? One third of the country wants a hard brexit, one third wants a soft brexit, and one third wants no brexit. There is no way to make even a majority happy. Having another vote will put you right back where you were two years ago.

I'm not sure where you're getting the numbers that 2/3s of people want Brexit to happen, as I can't find any that do.

Here's some more realistic numbers-

> The survey by polling firm YouGov showed that if a referendum were held immediately, 46 percent would vote to remain, 39 percent would vote to leave, and the rest either did not know, would not vote, or refused to answer the question.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/britons-would-now-vote-to-st...

Here's an aggregate of polls that show much stronger support for "stay" than "leave":

https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-a-second-eu-referen...

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#67

Post by JoeAltmaier »

philk10 wrote: post #57
LeonM wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's a democracy, they let the people vote, and the people voted in favor of leaving the EU. It's the same for me as a non-American looking at the whole Trump situation. The people chose him as their president, yet I get the impression (again, I'm an outsider) that very few people like him as a president.

he lost the popular vote but thanks to the Electoral College won the presidency

Because, of course, he campaigned to the Electoral College (put advertising effort where the most Electoral College votes could be leveraged). Why the Democrats didn't do this is appalling.

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#68

Post by mrec »

nicoburns wrote: post #32
nkkollaw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you personally think that the UK will actually end up leaving the EU in 10 days? If yes, what are the chances of that happening?

It's not impossible, but probably not. I'd give it maybe a 10% chance. There's a clear majority of MP's who don't want a No Deal scenario. Most likely there will be a postponement of some kind, but probably a short one. What happens at the end of that period is entirely unclear at this point. Leaving without a deal is still a distinct possibility, but probably not the most likely one. I'd give about even odds to some…

> The vote is likely to be close again

That depends very much what the question is. The vast majority of those pushing for a 2nd ref want it to be a choice between May's WA and Remain. In which case the majority of Leave voters boycott (because there'd be no Leave option as most people understand it) and Remain wins by a landslide. National support for the WA is down in the noise.

Personally, I think that if you're going to do that you may as well just skip the referendum entirely, declare that the whole thing's cancelled and save everyone a lot of bother.

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#69

Post by hlnas »

pcwalton wrote: post #48
hlnas wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what the mass media, which is skewed to the left, wants you to think. The truth is that his approval rating is doing okay, and it's especially good for republican voters.

Trump's approval rating is really not doing OK. It's mediocre. Not Nixon or GWB-at-the-end-of-his-term bad, but an unbiased observer would not call being down 12 points "OK". https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

Yes, but I think it's perfectly normal given how politics works now. Everything is becoming more polarised.

Re: Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes

#70

Post by matthewmacleod »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #6

I've said this before so I'll ask this again- I'm an American and I'm entirely ignorant on UK politics. I've followed the headlines and I am still confused why Brexit is happening. It seems no one wants Brexit as it has been suggested by the political leadership of UK, and the majority want to avoid no deal at all. I do not understand why not call the entire Brexit thing off; why is that political suicide?

As a quick intro – membership of the EU has been a bit of a hot topic in the UK for quite a few years now, and longer in certain circles of the Conservative party. That party made a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on membership as a bit of a concession to help avoid a split in the party. It was generally expected that this would be an easy win for the "remain" group, and there is only minority support among representatives for a Brexit policy in any form.

The problem there is that there are now several groupings of representatives – some of them would like to push forward with a "cliff-edge" style exit, some would like a negotiated but "hard" deal, some would like a very soft "technical Brexit", and others would prefer to remain entirely. The parliament is politically bound by the outcome of the referendum—it would be a damaging move to hold a referendum then not implement the result—but at the same time, there is no consensus on what "Brexit" actually means, so it's not currently possible to construct a majority for any individual plan.

It's not a good situation.

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