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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

#121

Post by mehrdadn »

nicoburns wrote: post #111
mehrdadn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a second referendum really that likely? I feel like the way they're treating it it's a 5% likelihood.

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.

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

#122

Post by osrec »

mrec wrote: post #113
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…

> I mean, why would Theresa May not try and get a good deal May has two contradictory goals. She doesn't want to really leave the EU - I think absolutely everything about her staff picks, negotiating non-strategy and Cabinet management supports that - but she's a genuine Tory loyalist who needs to maintain enough of a fig-leaf of Leaving that her party doesn't get utterly obliterated by irate voters at the next elect…

Sorry, for my ignorance - what does WA stand for?

Edit: worked it out - Withdrawal agreement

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

#123

Post by cheeseomlit »

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.

I guess nowadays all you have to do is run some Facebook ads and spin up some Twitter bots and that's enough to convince people this whole democracy thing is a sham. Unless of course the people vote for the right result, then all the social engineering and censorship on social media is a-ok

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

#124

Post by chc »

altern8 wrote: post #82
chc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The usual suggestion is not to ignore the vote, but to put it back up for a vote. Ask people if, now that they've seen the difficulty of Brexit, they still want to do this. If the people actually want the Brexit that exists in real life, they'll reaffirm. It's still democratic by any reasonable definition of the word.

Having people vote again and again until you get the result you want is like ignoring the vote.

First of all, two votes is not "again and again" in any sense of the phrase. I take your point, but nobody is suggesting referendums without end.

Second of all, bringing something up for a vote more that once is not like ignoring the vote. Rejected proposals are very often brought back up, maybe with some retooling, maybe just in hopes that the passage of time has made them more palatable. For example, Quebec voted on its equivalent of Brexit twice, and though it was a bit of a joke, it wasn't generally viewed as shady.

It is possible to use additional referendums as a stalling tactic, and if you kept doing it forever, you would effectively be ignoring the vote. But again, nobody is suggesting that. Putting it up for another vote now that the public has more information would literally just be democracy.

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

#125

Post by nicoburns »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #84
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…

I would stress that constitutionally parliament's vote on "no deal" is entirely irrelevant – the currently legal status is that the Treaties will cease applying to the UK on 29 March, regardless of the outcome of that vote. In other words… func brexit(){ if(deal){ exit(deal); } else { if(!deal) { exit(null); } else { if(postpone){ wait(TIME); brexit(); } else { exit(null); } } } } However, this is subject to change.…

In practice, the EU seem willing to postpone Brexit to give the UK more time to think, and it seems likely that parliament will vote to do this (which they have the power to do).

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

#126

Post by benj111 »

mrec wrote: post #68
nicoburns wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

The original vote was 48% to 52%. Older people (Brexit voters) dying off would kill that advantage.

Polls that I've seen show a narrow remain majority. I don't think any specific leave option would win against it. The last vote unified all Brexit voters, so it's hard to see how a specific Brexit would command more support.

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

#127

Post by atombender »

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 think it's as clear-cut as you want. At what point do decide a vote that was made through a legal process should be rejected? You can't run the "will of the people" through some kind of legitimacy filter to weed out the ones that have been unduly influenced by political forces.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan...

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

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

#128

Post by nicoburns »

dragonwriter wrote: post #109
kristopolous wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was the plebiscite format. It had two options: . [ ] Remain a member of the European Union . [ ] Leave the European Union Do you see the huge honking flashing design flaw here? No? Let's rephrase this with a little substitution: . [ ] Continue the known reality . [ ] Do something else (to be determined later) There's the problem. The second was a catch-all that cast a huge net encompassing all imagined al…

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.

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

#129

Post by atombender »

sparkie wrote: post #45
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?

The idea that nobody wants Brexit is an false image painted by (predominantly left-wing) mainstream media to try and prevent it from ever happening. There is massive support for Brexit across England and Northern Ireland. Support for remain is largely in Scotland and the the large academic cities in England. The vote results can be seen here:[1] One trouble with the media is they never leave their echo chambers in th…

Since you're being downvoted: A January 2018 poll [1], showed that many areas, such as the Midlands, were still majority "leave". A recent poll [1] showed that "remain" support has increased significantly, however.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan...

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

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

#130

Post by benj111 »

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…

While true: Bicker()

Did it in one line.

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