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

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

#91

Post by vixen99 »

grey-area wrote: post #52
nkkollaw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, people vote for something and you ignore their democratic vote. Pretty bad.

Democracy is a process not a single vote. People voted based on russian-funded lies funnelled through corrupt millionaires like Arron Banks, illegally funded and illegally targetting voters with murky data from the likes of cambridge analytica, using extensive and highly targetted ad campaigns on FB (still going on btw - over £500k spent this week). Among other lies politicians told them that we'd stay in the custons…

And if the remainers had won with a 'tiny margin' the same argument could be made. It's clear you have an agenda though you don't apply the same arguments on the other side for those whose pockets are well-lined directly by the EU. I do understand that turkeys don't vote for Christmas. As for your comparison with fascism, you need to extend your reading on the subject.

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

#92

Post by paulddraper »

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

The electoral college determines the presidency, so Trump and Hillary campaigned for the electoral college, and Trump won.

If the popular vote won the presidency, Trump and Hillary would have campaigned for the popular vote, and there's no way of knowing what that outcome would have been.

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

#93

Post by AnimalMuppet »

kadabra9 wrote: post #38
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.

"people didnt vote the way I wanted them to vote, so they must either be uneducated or the process is undemocratic!"

That does seem to happen sometimes in connection with the EU, doesn't it?

But I don't think it quite fits here. The people of the UK voted for an abstract Brexit - one in which everyone could pin their dreams for what it would be. When there is a concrete Brexit plan - the best negotiated deal, hard Brexit, or whatever - when it's no longer something amorphous that you can imagine is whatever you want, but is instead something specific that you can't change, the people do in fact know more. They know what the deal actually is. Letting them ratify the actual deal rather than an abstract one seems quite reasonable to me.

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

#94

Post by benj111 »

vkou wrote: post #53
rtkwe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the consensus is they will just extend instead of actually going through a 100% no-deal Brexit. Seems like a fairly safe bet given the UK can do it unilaterally and how bad it would be.

Why would the EU allow the UK to extend this one-foot-in-one-foot out nonsense? It's not clear that any deal it is willing to offer will get parliamentary assent.

Because European courts have decided that Article 50 can be unilaterally retracted.

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

#95

Post by dragonwriter »

napo wrote: post #8

It's getting closer and closer to a no-deal, and yet the pound doesn't really go down. Does anybody understand why?

Because either (1) no deal is already priced in, or (2) markets remain confident that the upcoming sequence of votes before them will lead to some other outcome than imminent no deal Brexit.

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

#96

Post by [deleted] »

berbec wrote: post #87
weinzierl wrote: post #55

> MPs voted down her deal by 391 to 242 - a smaller defeat than when they rejected it in January. > The PM said MPs will now get a vote on whether the UK should leave without a deal on 29 March and, if that fails, on whether Brexit should be delayed. What happens if they vote "No" three times in a row (no deal, no no-deal , no postponement)? If this wasn't politics I'd say: See if you can simplify this function, bonu…

There actually is a similar flowchart in a linked article. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/08/the-brexit-...

[deleted]

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

#97

Post by sparkie »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #70
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…

Membership of the EU has been a hot topic before the EU even existed. Ted Heath got us into the EEC without a referendum in 72, and then offered us a vote to remain or leave in 75. The scaremongering about leaving back then was almost exactly the same as it is being presented now.

My opinion is that a deal cannot be negotiated among uneven parties. Right now, the UK can either leave with no deal, or leave on the terms demanded by the EU, with no concessions whatsoever. There is no table for negotiation. It is leave or surrender. Once we leave, we are no longer the begging party asking for concessions, but the roles will be reversed. The EU does not want to lose one of their largest export markets, and will quickly change their mind about a trade deal.

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

#98

Post by crdrost »

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?

So a country called Greece which had been a part of the EU had a severe financial collapse a year or two (2009ish?) after the period when (2007-2008) the US had a subprime mortgage collapse that triggered the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the period that we sometimes call the Great Recession now. This led to a great lack of faith in the value of the EU because it creates some notion from the richer countries, "ew, why do we have to bail them out?" And that perception in turn caused by 2016 a lot of political pressure on the leadership of the UK to seriously consider exiting the EU, as they've always kind of held Europe at arm's length, e.g. by not embracing the Euro.

So this prime minister named David Cameron thought he would squash the whole "let's leave the EU" dissent by revealing it to be a minority position by some clever politicking: he would call a referendum and they would get only 15% of the vote and he could dust his hands and say "well we had this vote and you were wrong and let's stop holding untenable positions here." The problem was that rather than 15% of the vote, Leave carried 52% of the vote. Legally it was not a binding vote, the Parliament is still allowed to do whatever they want. But the Conservative Party that Cameron had led was sincere about "we're going to do whatever the public decides." Due to the complete reversal of his expectations, Cameron resigned as PM and was replaced by May.

May is in a tricky situation because if she holds a second referendum, "really, truly, are we going to leave the EU?" then it looks like her party is just going to keep asking the question until they get the answer they want -- and that is not really democracy. If they just say "eff it we give up, we're not doing this Brexit thing" then they are reneging their earlier promise.

With that said there is now a widespread belief that if they did re-ask the question the majority would say "hell no, remain in the EU, we didn't mobilize with enough urgency because we didn't understand what the country was signing up for in that last vote." If a different party were in power, probably they would have done so by now. But because there is this direct line from Cameron to May, May has been very firm on her belief that they need to go through with Brexit one way or the other.

Because May was so obstinate on this point, there have most recently (Dec 2018, Jan 2019) been some votes of no confidence trying to upset the government and have a new government that might be able to do the actually-popular thing. Those have failed.

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

#99

Post by matthewmacleod »

voidlogic wrote: post #64
oliveshell wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 refe…

With all the brexit challanges, why not have a new referendum to "confirm the will of the people"?

It's unclear whether or not it will be possible to construct majority support in parliament for that at present. There's also the issue of legitimacy; while I don't agree with the view myself, there is concern that a second referendum smacks of an attitude of "you did it wrong the first time, try again". This is the outcome of a badly-designed referendum, which should probably have included a ratification vote.

Also, doesn't brexit basically guarantee Scottish independence?

While I'm a huge Scottish independence fan and would love this to be the case, the reality on the ground is more complex. The case for the previous independence vote in 2014 was based heavily on continued EU membership for both Scotland and the rest of the UK. An unstable, hard-Brexit neighbour will be difficult for Scotland, which is heavily intertwined economically, culturally and politically with the rest of the UK. Brexit probably enhances the emotional case, but doesn't help the practical one. Additionally, due to the constitutional structure of the UK, Scotland cannot hold a legitimate referendum on independence without the consent of the UK parliament – something which is unlikely to be granted any time soon.

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

#100

Post by AnimalMuppet »

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.

Well, nobody can be made happy, I agree. Maybe they should go for "least unhappy". Put three options on the ballot - remain, hard Brexit, and May's best deal. None of the three will get a majority. (Brexit might get a majority if you lump May's best deal and hard Brexit together, but as you point out, those aren't really the same thing.)

What do you do when nothing gets a majority? You could go with whatever gets the most votes, but as you said, that leaves the majority unhappy. Instead, on the same ballot, ask everyone what their second choice is. If nothing gets a majority of first place votes, then go with whatever got the most first and second place votes.

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