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UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

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Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation is more convoluted. You are partially correct. The key sentence is this: " In the second place, the revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw must, first, be submitted in writing to the European Council and, secondly, be unequivocal and unconditional, that is to say that the purpose of that revocation is to confirm the EU membership of the Member State concerned under terms that are un…

This is not my reading at all. It brings _the_ withdrawal procedure to an end - the procedure under Article 50 is terminated. It does not preclude starting another. Indeed, it would be contradictory - the purpose of the notice is to confirm membership is "under terms that are unchanged" -- if the State loses its right to invoke Article 50, the terms _have_ changed.

No, the reading is very clear to me: a withdrawal cannot be lawful if it is made with the intent to continue exit negotiations. If negotiations were to continue the proceedings have not ended.

A new invocation of Article 50 can only be made as the start a new and completely independent process. Everything that has been negotiated and decided so far would have to be ignored.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You always get the worst of people when you target their irrational fears You get the worst anti-democratic statements from people who believe their own voting to be based on rational thought and everyone else's on irrational fears.

> worst anti-democratic statements Direct democracy isn't the only form of democracy. We're all irrational and biased, that's inherent to being human. Some people are more informed than other and there are processes to mitigate biases (direct democracy isn't one of them). The problem comes from people who have no business in the vote, no knowledge of the issues, are not even aware of what biases are, and drink the pr…

> The problem comes from people who have no business in the vote, no knowledge of the issues, are not even aware of what biases are, and drink the propaganda kool aid.

Of course, that's always the other people...

> Well first off London only strives because of international financial businesses

London isn't the UK and "international" doesn't mean "about the EU-27".

> Since the vote Brexit cost the UK much more than what they contribute to the EU

Laughable nonsense.

> they export/import ~50% of their good to/from Europe

So does Iceland. Is it broke yet?

> Time will tell, what I'm convinced of is that Brexit was sold on lies

I rest my case about irrational voters... It's also quite pointless to turn every discussion into a superficial pro/con Brexit argument.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#193

If I recall correctly, is not the invoking of Article 50 non-revocable?

It's perfectly revocable, until 11pm 29th March. Opinion is divided as to whether it requires Parliament or if the Government can do it without further ado.

So what happens on March 30th if it is not revoked? Nine days from now is truly the point of no return?

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#194
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may be surprised by the outcome. The real question is, do the Tory party want to commit political suicide by administering a no deal brexit, and risk never getting re-elected until the subsequent turmoil subsides? I think not. Farage and the rest are no where to be seen (he still collects his salary from the EU apparently though!). The upshot of all this mess will probably be as unlikely as the referendum…

> commit political suicide by administering a no deal Brexit I don't know how this would be political suicide, it is currently the most popular option in polling, and it's not considered to have any greater economic costs than the other options (including reversing the referendum decision entirely!).

1. It is not the most popular option in polling. Right now it is to remain in the EU.

2. The idea that it has no greater cost than the options is ridiculous. UK Treasury and economists from all around the world have all come to the conclusion that a hard brexit is significantly more harmful than a soft brexit. And it's common sense since it imposes trade friction on the UK's largest trading partner.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#195
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the English Civil war which ended up with Charles I being executed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England Also the later, and peaceful, Glorious Revolution?

I don't think either of those count as popular revolutions; more the layer below the monarchy deciding to switch out the monarch for a more compliant one. Parliamentary, rather than popular, sovereignty. (This is partly why I'm fed up with all this pretending that "will of the people" was a thing in English politics - it wasn't until 2015. Different in Scotland with the Claim of Right.)

So what would count as a genuinely popular revolution? I'm always reminded of Orwell's view:

'Cyclically, the Middle deposed the High, by enlisting the Low. Upon assuming power, however, the Middle (the new High class) recast the Low into their usual servitude. In the event, the classes perpetually repeat the cycle, when the Middle class speaks to the Low class of "justice" and of "human brotherhood" in aid of becoming the High class rulers.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#196
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made a progress bar against the NoDeal counter-petition: https://brexit-petitions-count.now.sh (Pending API availability)

That's actually really cool. Who needs parliament to vote for a second referendum? We can run our own mini referendum using the two petitions :) Brexit petitions in realtime: 710,563 signed for remain - 65.81% #RevokeArticle50 371,020 signed for no deal - 34.17% #NoDeal https://twitter.com/paulmaunders/status/1108684812414533632

That's a really terrible way to run a statistical study.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#197
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone does not vote, when there was ample opportunity to do so, then they implicitly are accepting the outcome - whichever way it goes. This actually should read "Brexit - The will of the 17m + 50m who are okay with this" This would have read the same if the result had gone the other way: "Remain - The will of the Xm + 50m who are okay with this" At the end of the day, there was a vote and more people wanted Bre…

>A democratic process and result. Pull the other one. This isn't the BBC Have Your Say comments section. People won't just believe that because you've declared it so. Illegal data theft: https://twitter.com/Nealb2010/status/1059068463933743104 Flagrant violations of electoral law: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/ele... - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/17/vote-leave-... Blatant…

Seriously anyone who thinks the Brexit referendum was democratic or fair is either ignorant or naive.

And it's scandalous that the UK government hasn't properly invested everything that came out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#198
post #92
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can't definitively say "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not all of the country voted in the referendum. Those that didn't vote either way, don't count, and shouldn't count. Percentages in elections are of active voters. Unless they were prevented from voting some way, their post-facto protests are meaningless. You can't have yo…

> Those that didn't vote either way, don't count, and shouldn't count. That's 3 years ago. There are ~3-4 mil. more young people that are now elligible for vote. Should they have no say?

There are new voters who had no say in Trumps election. Thems just the breaks.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#199
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this claim, but I don't think it's true. "The highest turnout recorded at a UK general election over the last 100 years was in 1950, 83.9%.", according to https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Sum...

Are you arguing relatively while others argue absolutely?

Turnout is normally given as a percentage, I think.

Either way, the 1992 general election had a turnout of 77.7% or 33,614,074, both of were larger than the EU referendum.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#200
post #102
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think she has handled this dreadfully. She should have built a parliamentary cross-party consensus on what option to pursue well before now. Her only negotiating tactic with parliament is pushing things up to the deadline and saying my deal or no deal. Read Matthew Parris' reports of her personality (e.g. [1]). He (a conservative journalist) says that almost everyone says she doesn't listen to anyone, speaks in sou…

> saying my deal or no deal But consider it from a higher-level perspective. Had she done everything perfectly (for whatever definition of "perfect"), would anything be different? The EU is the "problem" here, not the UK parliament. The UK was never going to get what they wanted - free trade with no freedom of movement, nor no border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and no border between Norther Ireland and the m…

- May chose to leave.

- May chose the date to leave.

- May chose the redlines.

- May chose how the Irish backstop would work.

- May chose not to work with Corbyn on leaving.

- May chose to capitulate to the ERG.

And yet somehow this is the EU's fault ?

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