It's a sign from above that you should respect the valid vote for "leave".
Article 50 was triggered by an unelected prime minister
All prime ministers in the UK are unelected.
UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
81–90 of 249 posts
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#82Petitions for Brexit are completely pointless. We already know half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay, so unless that petition has more than 33 million signatures then it doesn't prove much does it. (FYI: I voted remain and think Brexit is completely dumb, but it doesn't change how pointless petitions are for subjects where it's well established what people's opinions are)
"half the country wants to leave" A slim majority of those who voted, several years ago, stirred up by masses of illegal propaganda, especially in the last days before the vote. Now after getting some idea of the reality, the tides look to have significantly changed. Current opinion polls are showing significant majority for remain.(61% in the last YouGov poll) (Also, it was 17 not 33)
According to The Economist, Feb 23, reporting on a YouGov survey in December, 49% support Remain, and that number hasn't changed much. However, the 51% who don't support Remain support a variety of different proposals. To me it seems highly unlikely that any particular proposal would beat Remain in a choice between those two options. Remain is the Condorcet winner.
That "61%" is probably about right for what would you'd get for a two-way referendum between Remain and No Deal, or between Remain and May's Deal, but if you were to repeat the Remain-Leave referendum (which would be an insane thing to do - it was madness the first time), I wouldn't be surprised if Leave would win again, by a narrow margin.
"Well, if you knows of a better 'ole go to it"?
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Brexiteers had won when they successfully framed Brexit as "the will of the 17M". Remainers didn't counter-frame this with "50M didn't vote for Brexit". Therefor all the marches, petitions etc. are always/can be ignored in the context of "but the will of the 17M". "Don't Think of an Elephant!" is now such an old book, and still a lot of people haven't read it. Brexiteers have read it it seems.
Has any vote ever been won by a majority of the entire population, eligible to vote or not? If that’s the standard you’re after nothing would ever pass and no government would ever be formed. Seems an unreasonable bar to set, to me.
Not in the UK, indeed the largest voter turnout of any election/referendum in the UK was...the EU referendum. Making it the largest vote for a decision in the entire history of the UK.
So best described currently as `interesting times`.
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't get to keep having do overs until enough of your opposition has died to get the result you want. Might as well just start banning "racists" and other undesirables from the polls outright if that's the path you want to go down.
Or realize that referendums shouldn't be used for anything other than getting a rough idea of the population's opinion and starting discussions between people who actually know what they're talking about.
Oh yes. Giving the population a direct vote on anything is wildly dangerous and unpredictable unless you're Switzerland.
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#85These petitions are almost always met with a boilerplate response. There was a recent one (which I can't find as the site's currently down) regarding Russian interference in the last UK election, with the government response being along the lines of "we don't know what you're talking about, move on". More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/gover... While the huge number of signings o…
The Brexiteers had won when they successfully framed Brexit as "the will of the 17M". Remainers didn't counter-frame this with "50M didn't vote for Brexit". Therefor all the marches, petitions etc. are always/can be ignored in the context of "but the will of the 17M". "Don't Think of an Elephant!" is now such an old book, and still a lot of people haven't read it. Brexiteers have read it it seems.
> Remainers didn't counter-frame this with "50M didn't vote for Brexit".
They did, however the response was "50M didn't vote for the status quo"
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#86One of the developers tweeted last night "...nowhere near crashing the site - you all need to try harder tomorrow" https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108518184301268995
How do you know that's one of the developers?
The whole site is actually open source. Running on Ruby Rails.
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#87These petitions are almost always met with a boilerplate response. There was a recent one (which I can't find as the site's currently down) regarding Russian interference in the last UK election, with the government response being along the lines of "we don't know what you're talking about, move on". More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/gover... While the huge number of signings o…
I don't really understand how Paris has real protests almost every weekend, yet we're leaving the EU and we've just had a few marches. Marches do nothing, they're preplanned to cause minimal disruption, just make the people in them feel like they're doing something so that it doesn't go further than that. The march on Saturday needs to at least move off the preplanned route and actually cause some inconvenience.
>I don't really understand
Ok I get your sentiment and I agree that peaceful protest is just woefully ignored in the UK - but someone with a job and a peaceful life typically doesn't want to risk getting arrested, and potentially convicted, trying to cause trouble on a march.
Things have to be much worse before people are going to start taking that risk, and sadly, while things do not look good, the average Londoner is not yet uncomfortable enough to start doing so.
>Paris has real protests
It may not be your intent but "It's not a real protest if something doesn't burn down" is a bit unfair. If things turn violent/destructive on this march public favour will not look kindly on it in the UK.
Remember the student protests for tuition fees? Those who occupied 30 Millbank were vilified as criminals by _both_ sides. Inconvenient and disruptive for sure - but to the press they are "rioters" and to others in the movement "anarchists who don't represent us".
People have been persuaded by the powers that be that any form of non-peaceful protesting is socially unacceptable and that we should chastise it. Convenient eh? Especially because "Without a path from protest to power"[0] there is never going to be any change or acknowledgement from the government.
Any form of protest that could actually get results is a) too risky for people who are currently comfortable enough and b) intentionally socially ostracised by those in power to discourage it.
Be the change you want to see in the world? But one person in a balaclava setting things on fire isn't going to make any difference to the outcome of the protest without a critical mass of others undertaking the same behaviour for a prolonged period of time.
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/19/womens-march-w...
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#88These petitions are almost always met with a boilerplate response. There was a recent one (which I can't find as the site's currently down) regarding Russian interference in the last UK election, with the government response being along the lines of "we don't know what you're talking about, move on". More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/gover... While the huge number of signings o…
I don't really understand how Paris has real protests almost every weekend, yet we're leaving the EU and we've just had a few marches. Marches do nothing, they're preplanned to cause minimal disruption, just make the people in them feel like they're doing something so that it doesn't go further than that. The march on Saturday needs to at least move off the preplanned route and actually cause some inconvenience.
I remember the poll tax riots in 1990. That was the last time we made significant change through protest in this country.
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#89Petitions for Brexit are completely pointless. We already know half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay, so unless that petition has more than 33 million signatures then it doesn't prove much does it. (FYI: I voted remain and think Brexit is completely dumb, but it doesn't change how pointless petitions are for subjects where it's well established what people's opinions are)
"half the country wants to leave" A slim majority of those who voted, several years ago, stirred up by masses of illegal propaganda, especially in the last days before the vote. Now after getting some idea of the reality, the tides look to have significantly changed. Current opinion polls are showing significant majority for remain.(61% in the last YouGov poll) (Also, it was 17 not 33)
Please do remember, polls prior to the referendum got it wrong then, probably still will as well.
I have found betting odd's to be far superior insight than public opinioin polls and with that, ring up a betting shop and ask them what odds they will give that the UK stays as an EU member, that should give you a fair perspective as unlike polls, any mistake they make costs them money.
But for me and many others, polls are futile and so often very very wrong as Brexit and Trump have demonstrated.
Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Brexiteers had won when they successfully framed Brexit as "the will of the 17M". Remainers didn't counter-frame this with "50M didn't vote for Brexit". Therefor all the marches, petitions etc. are always/can be ignored in the context of "but the will of the 17M". "Don't Think of an Elephant!" is now such an old book, and still a lot of people haven't read it. Brexiteers have read it it seems.
I have zero sympathy, or concern for the voices of those who chose not to exercise their right to vote. The 50m (not that many - see Khol's reply) had their chance and blew it, and I say that as someone who voted remain and thinks this whole thing is a disaster, and leaving either with the May deal (bad) or the hard way (worse) would both be worse than staying. However, the people had their chance and they voted to l…
Glad to hear such a profound and sane reply. I feel this whole topic is just so heated up, I understand that, that it's hard to talk reasonable about it.
As a German I hope this will be some kind of a lesson for the whole EU and UK and we will hopefully have the UK back in the EU "soon" (don't know how long this might take).
But I think it's important to draw a line now and make a "Brexit". On the one hand to show the consequences to the UK and the other unsteady EU states who might think about using some kind of exit as a vague threat, but, more important, to show the people of the UK that their will and votes are respected. I think that's what's missing in lots of EU states (at least I feel this way for Germany), so this might really be a chance for all of us.