Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by nicoburns » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #121

nicoburns wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What option do you think is more likely? Any leave option has the Irish border question to sort (unless we remain in the customs union I suppose), which is pretty intractable, and already causing low-level violence to start up again in Ireland from what I hear. And surely we won't choose to stay without a referendum.

I don't keep up with British politics much so this is me just taking wild guesses from nowhere but I feel like either they'll delay the exit or they'll exit without a deal. If there is another referendum I just can't see it happening the March 29 deadline.

I think a postponement is pretty likely at this point.

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

#132

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #128

dragonwriter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what should have happened is a second plebiscite confirming the actual deal negotiated with the EU, with: (1) Accept deal and exit, (2) Exit with no deal, (3) Rescind Article 50 As the options. Or, the government should just not have used a non-binding referendum on such a complex policy matter as an electoral ploy in the first place and actually governed as elected to do rather than passing the buck.

It occurs to me that this is exactly the question that should be offered. And people should be able to express ranked preferences with the winner needing to get over 50% to avoid the issue around vote splitting.

I assume you mean something like IRV (single winner STV) with a winning threshold over 50%, not over 50% on first place preference.

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

#133

Post by mrec » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:45 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #106

mrec wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 g…

> 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. I think it's significantly more democratic to have another vote. Most people thought remain would win the first one, but they didn't. If leave won again, we'd definitely definitely have to leave. > there'd be no Leave option as most people…

I think a recent poll showed only 12% thought the WA respected the referendum result. Another showed 44% - not a majority but a significant (and rapidly rising) plurality - supporting no-deal. Both were polling the general population, not just leavers.

That obviously doesn't mean that all leavers agree, but enough of them do that a WA-vs-Remain re-ref would be a foregone conclusion.

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

#134

Post by evgen » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:47 PM UTC

sparkie wrote: post #97

matthewmacleod wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 term…

I have often wondered where this delusional "the EU needs us more than we need them" view comes from and here I have it on display. The EU is not happy with, but perfectly content to accept, the UK leaving. They will not change their mind about a trade deal and in fact will go out of their way to bend the UK leadership over and remind them of their public school days at Eton to prove a point. The fact that so far the UK has _zero_ post-Brexit trade deals and is already feeling the hand of Trump and the US on their neck bending them over should tell you all you need to know about the power dynamics of the UK on the world stage at this moment.

Pointing out the reality of the weak and pathetic position the UK finds itself in is not 'scaremongering', it is simply the first of many wake-up calls the UK will be facing in the near future.

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

#135

Post by dotdi » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:48 PM UTC

atombender wrote: post #127

dotdi wrote: post #89

I'm a bit confused as to why politicians always bring up ‘ignoring the will of the people’ when it's been shown that ‘the people’ have been lied to on a grand scale and there is evidence that Cambridge Analytica had worked pro-Brexit. I guess nowadays you cannot convince people with facts anymore. You can only convince them with covert, subliminal ads on their social media feeds.

As recently as one year ago [1], polls indicated that sentiment in favour of Brexit was still strong enough that another referendum might have resulted in another "leave" vote. A more recent poll [2] shows that this is now much less likely, but there's still strong support among a huge portion of the population. As much as I agree that the Brexit leave campaign was fraudulent and the whole referendum tainted, I don't…

> At what point do decide a vote that was made through a legal process should be rejected?

When it's fundamental premises are shown to be fraudulent. As you said.

Also, don't ignore the fact that the wording of the vote had a big impact. It was `remain` vs. `literally everything else with the only constraint being "not in the EU"`.

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

#136

Post by pmyteh » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

matthewmacleod wrote: post #107

nkkollaw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You've been downvoted, but this is the core issue preventing a simple solution. It is legitimately damaging to democracy to have the results of a referendum ignored. That referendum shouldn't have been executed in the manner it was, but we can't ignore the outcome. The problem is, the practical reality of that vote (as it has worked out) is pretty sketchy, and pleases very few people. So now we have the three immedia…

I agree.

The problem with a second referendum, though, is that the vote is to stay it won't be "the country" changing its mind. The country doesn't have one. If 5 percentage points of the previous 52% change their minds, the 47% that voted (Brexit, Brexit) will feel betrayed, as they will (actually) have been sold out. They were told that their first decision would count, then people-who-were-not-them demanded another vote, then people-who-were-not-them took their victory away.

Of course, those of us who voted (Remain, Remain) will be happy, but this isn't exactly analogous to a general election, where this kind of change-of-result is expected. The referendum was supposed to be a one-off, and 'those people' will have stolen Brexit.

I have a bit of sympathy for this position, but I have a lot more concern for the long-term consequences of reducing trust in the political process even further.

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

#137

Post by grey-area » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #91

grey-area wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My point was it is very foolish and provides no democratic mandate to vote on such vast changes with a simple majority. Whatever the outcome, it was an extremely bad idea in what is supposed to be a representative democracy. So I think you're agreeing with me there.

You think the EU funded illegal propaganda like that funded via the russian embassy? Got any proof of that? Arron banks is being investigated currently:

https://www.politico.eu/article/arron-banks-investigated-ove...

I believe rhetoric like 'the will of the people' is facist.

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

#138

Post by _rpd » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

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…

> "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence."

I love Bukowski, but this quote should be attributed to Yeats or Russell ...

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/04/self-doubt/

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

#139

Post by evgen » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

NavyNuke wrote: post #50

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.

> now that people are more educated on things What do you mean by this? Most of the articles I've read and people I've talked with from England have said that immigration and keeping England English was the main concern behind Brexit...have views on non-English immigrants changed?

While these were some of the claims made in favour of Brexit, there were also many wild claims regarding how much money the NHS would get now that the UK didn't need to send money to the EU and similar lies regarding trade deals and how everything would be better once Johnny Foreigner was kicked out. Now people are discovering unpleasant truths like how much of the NHS depended on foreign nurses and doctors and the amount of EU money that was propping up these small Leave-voting villages.

If you want a good laugh you should take a look at some of the claims made by Johnson, Farage, and Gove during the campaign.

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

#140

Post by atombender » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

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?

In terms of "political suicide": It's complicated.

There are lots of MPs who would want nothing more than to scrap Brexit or at least hold a second referendum. However, the situation is similar to what's happening with Trump and the Republican Party in the US: Politicians vote on party lines against their personal beliefs (or the desires of their constituents) simply so the party can hold on to power.

May and the Tories can't backpedal on Brexit because it would, at this point, be political suicide. It would significantly weaken the Conservative Party (the Tories) politically, and pave the way for a Labour government. May and her colleagues would prefer Brexit to losing their power. Of course, May says she sees it as her duty to fulfill the "will of the people" despite the fact that, according to insiders, she doesn't actually believe in Brexit.

What's remarkable is that the Conservative leadership has never been able swing the rhetoric around in their favour. A more cunning politican should have been able to turn David Cameron (who was responsible for setting Brexit in motion in the first place) into a scapegoat as well as point the finger at the Brexit faction for poisoning the well. There's a whole group of politicians, including Boris Johnson, that are now hated by the general public following the revelations about the Leave campaign.

What's also remarkable is how badly Labour has miscalculated the opportunity to gain a huge political momentum by becoming the anti-Brexit party. But its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is an EU skeptic, and hasn't stepped up.