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Over one million people sign UK petition for second EU referendum

38 points by nreece 10y ago

rubyfan 10y ago
Funny how people don't understand how devicive a simple majority is. Also incredible silly how we have "this or that" solutions from government and politicians instead of fixing issues.
arethuza 10y ago
I don't think a second UK referendum is realistic and I'm personally pinning my hopes on a second Scottish Independence referendum, but there is no doubt that the close result is being incredibly divisive. I never thought I'd agree with Nigel Farage, but he did say: "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way" Of course, he meant a 52-48 Remain win - but I think the same principle holds either way.
- michaelt 10y ago
  If exit negotiations take a few years, and the European wanted to offer the Brits a face-saving way to change their minds, they could adopt some internal reforms / offer Britain a better deal. Wouldn't have to be a perfect deal, just good enough to justify having another vote.
  - gakada 10y ago
    That's the last thing they will do because then it would encourage every EU country to hold a referendum and do the same thing, which would kill the EU easily. [What I see as more likely is that the UK invokes Article 50, goes through a financial crisis, and then the EU offer to cancel our Article 50 invocation and let us stay in the EU if we join the Euro and Schengen.]
    - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      It's not obvious at this point that the EU will still be around a couple of years from now. I think if one more country votes to leave between now and then a renegotiation and some core constitutional changes become more likely. The basic problem is that the Leave side lied about the benefits of leaving, but they were absolutely correct that the core of the EU has become a neoliberal financial dictatorship with rather thin democratic wrapping. If bigger cracks start appearing in the structure the leadership is going to have a choice between accepting more real democracy, or having the whole thing come crashing down. Currently there are no bigger cracks visible, but the economic foundations in most of the EU are very shaky - so who knows where we'll be a couple of years from now?
      - tluyben2 10y ago
        Couple of years is a bit over the top. It will take a lot longer to really collapse. But sure it can happen; probably a lot depends on how the EU handles this blow.
      - Atropos 10y ago
        What about the UK? Their prime minister has resigned, the lead of the opposition party is battling a motion of no confidence, the British pound crashed 10% against the US-Dollar and Scotland wants to stay in the European Union...
        mirekrusin 10y ago
        it's more like ~6.8% than 10% but this will stabilise after initial hiccup of course.
      - Oletros 10y ago
        > It's not obvious at this point that the EU will still be around a couple of years from now Why?
        tim333 10y ago
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    They won't, though. The EU elites want to discourage other countries from leaving. If they compromise then others will follow in the UK's path in order to extract concessions.
    - matt4077 10y ago
      The main problem is that the British don't even know what to ask for. When examined closely, there really isn't anything actually that wrong about the EU. They could've gotten a lot more in the recent negotiations but nobody knows what that should be. The only specific grievance is EU migration and that just happens to be one of the four fundamental principles.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - crdoconnor 10y ago
        Ask a poor Greek who dutifully paid their taxes now struggling on 80 euros a week who can't get medicines if there's anything wrong with the EU. The EU's sheer brutality towards Greece is one of the reasons I abstained. They didn't have a democratic mandate to do that and the institution itself is being gradually changed in order to remove democratic oversight (that's one of the reasons they could be so fucking brutal). More real power exists in the ECB and EU commission now and the parliament is more and more toothless. That's wrong on multiple levels. I'm pretty sure the British outside of the cities are rationally voting to reduce competition in the labour market. Just ask the "in" campaign: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12181385/Wages-for-British-workers-will-rise-in-the-event-of-a-Brexit-head-of-in-campaign-says.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/1218... If the EU keeps preaching austerity, labor market suppression and other neoliberal ideas I expect it to dissolve in a decade or two.
        tim333 10y ago
        Some of the brits may be rationally voting to reduce competition in the labour market but it's dubious that it'll work to raise wages. There is the counterforce of companies locating elsewhere to avoid tariff uncertainties. The main problem in Greece and the UK rural areas are the dumb austerity policies.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    The EU adopted a set of reforms conditioned on the Remain referendum already.
- sklogic 10y ago
  Class divide existed pretty much forever. Now it is just more obvious than ever.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  Those 50 and a change results remind me of the quote about Versailles = "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years" Nothing is solved. both remain and leave need 60+ to claim a mandate.
  - pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
    At first I thought that simple majority is unfair for decisions so important as this one. But I am not so sure now. Demanding a qualified majority introduces a bias towards the status quo. In fact, demanding >60 % is equal to granting just a >40 % outcome for the “Leave” option to win. And why should either, or especially the status quo, be favored in a case like this?
    - venomsnake 10y ago
      I am just stating that 51/49 settles nothing. UK is divided ... on multiple fault lines. That is a fact.
nreece 10y ago
Link to petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215 And, as it says: "Government responds to all petitions that get more than 10,000 signatures."
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  But often the response is "LOL no."
  - tim333 10y ago
    Yeah they could ignore it quite easily. Although it's setting a record for the most signed gov.uk petition yet. Also Boris who was quite popular now seems to have a job going down the street without people booing and yelling at him which will be harder to ignore.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      The other one was "Don't let Trump in, he's a dangerous idiot" which got over 5million votes. But they ignored that.
m-i-l 10y ago
See also "EU Referendum Rules Triggering a 2nd EU Referendum (petition.parliament.uk)" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11975680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11975680
crdoconnor 10y ago
Almost one million people decided the vote. This smacks of sour grapes to me.
- sbarre 10y ago
  Yeah this feels like the "oh shit I didn't bother to go vote because I didn't think it would matter" folks suddenly realizing they probably should have stepped up..
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure a small minority of the signatories of this petition weren't among the ~16 million who voted 'remain'. It was very obvious in the weeks running up that this wasn't going to be a sure thing for either side.
  - qrendel 10y ago
    There are also allegedly numerous people who voted leave just to troll the system and now regret it: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12024634/brexit-supporters-regret-vote http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12024634/brexit-supporters-regr...
  - sklogic 10y ago
    A huge number of London commuters could not vote, being stuck in the trains thanks to Govia scumbags.
- DanBC 10y ago
  UK Government has brought in strict laws for union voting around strike action. They need a majority of a certain size of a turnout of a certain size. The referendum had a good turnout (and it's disappointing to call 75% good) but for such an important change 52% vs 48% is pretty close. That's not good enough for my local bowls club or allotment society or WI.
frou_dh 10y ago
An online petition? Damn, they're bringing out the big guns!
- lifeisstillgood 10y ago
  The gov.uk petition site is one of the most popular and regularly gets a "pulse of the nation" issue brought to parliamentary and media attention. (I suppose that is in many ways the prOblem we just faced) For example Turing was given a pardon after JGCumming of HN fame started a petition on there. It's not perfect, it is "just" a voting site, but we have had a taste of direct democracy - we might just start to like it.
- DanBC 10y ago
  This one forces the government to respond, and if it gets over a certain number of votes it usually forces a debate.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
unfortunateface 10y ago
London throws it's toys out of the pram. It's quite funny to see the commentators who never saw this result coming are now the ones with all of the explanations as to why it has happened. Watching them evolve a new narrative in real time is quite funny. Apparently 50% of the country are racists, or so stupid that they have been easily duped by the bad politicians. There couldn't possibly be any other explanations.
- unethical_ban 10y ago
  Perhaps one of the biggest geopolitical events of a decade shouldn't have been on HN. The irony of you talking about Londoners throwing out toys, then locking your account because one story got through that you think is incorrect... it's delicious.
  - unfortunateface 10y ago
    A fair point - i have removed that part of the comment as it is not massively connected to my main point. Also, have an upvote
  - unfortunateface 10y ago
    Just one more point. I actually don't think that "one of the biggest geopolitical events of a decade" should be on HN if it is not directly connected to Tech. Here is a more fitting article to be on HN: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/24/how-brexit-affects-the-global-technology-industry/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/24... There are plenty of other forums for talking about this subject. In the past, i've found HN Comments about political issues to be of the least quality/value.
curun1r 10y ago
The funniest/most interesting part wasn't the call for a second referendum, but the second petition described at the end of the article: A map of the petition signatures showed that most came from England’s major cities, topped by London where there is a separate petition calling on Mayor Sadiq Khan to declare the capital independent from the United Kingdom, and apply to join the EU. I'm not even sure how that could work, but it would certainly take a lot of the impact out of the Brexit and prevent much of the chaos that's caused the markets to react so strongly to the vote.
- tim333 10y ago
  There's no way the independent London thing could happen in practice but a 2nd EU referendum is possible. The Irish repeated their one, the Scottish one looks like repeating. Go 2nd referendum!
  - gens 10y ago
    There is already an independent London inside London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
  - HoopleHead 10y ago
    An Irish one ain't gonna happen. The majority Unionists' anti-anything-Irish hatred and desire to remain British is far stronger than their wanting to stay in the EU. As an Irish Nationalist myself, the only outside chance for Irish unification that I can see would be if Scotland voted to leave the UK first. The Unionists in N. Ireland tend to identify themselves as "Ulster Scots"[1], so the advent of a Britain without Scotland in it might just be enough to loosen their attachment a bit. There is no great affinity for Wales and their attitude towards England is not much warmer than the Scots have for the 'Auld Enemy' [1](http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/what-is-ulster-scots http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/what-is-ulster-scots)
    - ProxCoques 10y ago
      I guess you've not been following Ian Paisley Jr on Twitter then... Things are going completely through the looking glass right now...
perlgeek 10y ago
That's not how democracy works. If there is a referendum, and you don't like the result, you don't just do a second referendum. If you'd do that, you could achieve any result you want, just by doing it over and over until. Due to voter's fatigue and/or daily sentiment, results will vary, so you can pick a result by deciding when to stop. It might make sense (though still be questionable) to repeat the vote if major facts changed, but I don't see that happening. The stock market shouldn't have been a big surprise, Cameron's resignation neither, nor the Leave faction retracting some of their promises. As much as I don't like the outcome of the first referendum, I think it would be fundamentally undemocratic to do a second referendum.
- kbody 10y ago
  Personally I think a (major) referendum should be voted twice even with just a week difference. A lot of people most probably didn't vote because they assumed the result from the pre-vote pools and for other various reasons. Now everyone is alarm, they won't be leaving it up to chance.
  - TrickzOnU 10y ago
    If they didn't vote because they assumed some result, perhaps they are not as passionate about their position and should not get to vote a second time.
    - tim333 10y ago
      Quite a lot of the not voting were young people who had not figured the logistics of registering a month before and so on. The oldies who votted for brexit had mostly voted before and so were pre registered and know the procedure which slewed the results.
      - ap3 10y ago
        Maybe we should not lend a lot of weight to the opinions of adults who have not figured out how voting works
mirekrusin 10y ago
Democracy doesn't work by voting until you get results you want.
- claystu 10y ago
  "Democracy doesn't work by voting until you get results you want." What are you talking about? That's exactly how it works! You vote for what you want and hope the majority votes the same and you keep doing it for the things you believe in.
- ProxCoques 10y ago
  "Democracy doesn't work by voting until you get results you want." No, it works when people make informed choices they understand. That didn't happen in this case.
sklogic 10y ago
Over 50% of the country are chavs. There is nothing more stupid in this world than a chav.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  And they are chavs that beat you in your own game. I do think that http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali... this should be mandatory read before declaring a big group of people that won as inferior. That is the attitude that as well may get Trump elected. And gave Bernie unexpectedly solid run. If you think that chavs (hey it is totally ok using slurs as long the receiving end is white) are that stupid - why was referendum given in the first place ... chavs may be stupid, but it seems the Conservative and Labor Eton elites are stupider. Also sophistication for the sake of sophistication is worthless. British lads from underprivileged background may lack some social polish, but the ones I know are awesome people.
  - sklogic 10y ago
    Chavs are stupid and ignorant indeed (and fuck the lefties who dare not to agree). And this stupidity came very handy to the Tory elite, idiots are so easy to manipulate. EDIT: also, being a chav is not about a background, it's a conscious choice of a cultural affiliation.
- dang 10y ago
  Oh, good grief. You know you can't comment like this here (or "fuck the lefties", below, which reads like self-parody). As I explained before, I don't want to ban you because you post interesting technical comments. But if you post anything else like this, we will have to ban you or other users will correctly complain about a double standard. Civil and substantive comments only, please, from now on. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11976171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11976171 and marked it off-topic.
  - sklogic 10y ago
    :( For you, Americans, it all might seem a bit abstract and detached. For us, it's a very heated and real class war. And we do not take prisoners.
mirekrusin 10y ago
this statement is idiotic: "We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based (on) a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum" it would mean infinite loop of referendums without consensus.
- DanBC 10y ago
  What's wrong with that?
unknown_apostle 10y ago
After France and the Netherlands rejected the original proposed European Constitution (basically confirming the EU as a socialist superstate), they came up with the Lisbon treaty. When Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty, they were made to vote again one year later. I would say that some form of a second Brexit vote with slightly changed conditions would be a very EU-like thing to pull.
- jeremysmyth 10y ago
  The EU didn't initiate this referendum though. The Lisbon treaty was a result of complex negotiation, and Ireland was an outlier, requiring a constitutional change to implement the change. The change hadn't been effectively communicated, hence the negative initial vote. When it eventually passed, it was after a number of small concessions had been made to the terms of the negotiated treaty, and after a massive campaign to let the people understand what was at stake. The referendum also made it absolutely clear what the "next step" was for politicians, exactly what their mandate was, and exactly what the procedural effect would be. Brexit, on the other hand, stated a simple (probably overly simple) question, with absolutely no details as to what the exit strategy would be (and actually no legal status either; parliament could legally choose to ignore the referendum results). There was no date attached to the question, no procedural detail, no mandate to perform the exit in any particular way, no bureaucratic clarity whatsoever. There were no "conditions" that could be "slightly changed" in a re-run. This was a blunt-force thwack with no nuance, no subtlety, and no room for renegotiation with the people. In short, the Brexit referendum was about the least EU-like thing the UK could've pulled.
arthursilva 10y ago
This exit was fueled by misinformation and misplaced excitement, I have no idea how Britain's allowed themselves in this hole.
rrss1122 10y ago
And over 50M voted for Leave.

38 points by nreece 10y ago

Funny how people don't understand how devicive a simple majority is. Also incredible silly how we have "this or that" solutions from government and politicians instead of fixing issues.

arethuza 10y ago

I don't think a second UK referendum is realistic and I'm personally pinning my hopes on a second Scottish Independence referendum, but there is no doubt that the close result is being incredibly divisive. I never thought I'd agree with Nigel Farage, but he did say: "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way" Of course, he meant a 52-48 Remain win - but I think the same principle holds either way.

michaelt 10y ago
If exit negotiations take a few years, and the European wanted to offer the Brits a face-saving way to change their minds, they could adopt some internal reforms / offer Britain a better deal. Wouldn't have to be a perfect deal, just good enough to justify having another vote.
- gakada 10y ago
  That's the last thing they will do because then it would encourage every EU country to hold a referendum and do the same thing, which would kill the EU easily. [What I see as more likely is that the UK invokes Article 50, goes through a financial crisis, and then the EU offer to cancel our Article 50 invocation and let us stay in the EU if we join the Euro and Schengen.]
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    It's not obvious at this point that the EU will still be around a couple of years from now. I think if one more country votes to leave between now and then a renegotiation and some core constitutional changes become more likely. The basic problem is that the Leave side lied about the benefits of leaving, but they were absolutely correct that the core of the EU has become a neoliberal financial dictatorship with rather thin democratic wrapping. If bigger cracks start appearing in the structure the leadership is going to have a choice between accepting more real democracy, or having the whole thing come crashing down. Currently there are no bigger cracks visible, but the economic foundations in most of the EU are very shaky - so who knows where we'll be a couple of years from now?
    - tluyben2 10y ago
      Couple of years is a bit over the top. It will take a lot longer to really collapse. But sure it can happen; probably a lot depends on how the EU handles this blow.
    - Atropos 10y ago
      What about the UK? Their prime minister has resigned, the lead of the opposition party is battling a motion of no confidence, the British pound crashed 10% against the US-Dollar and Scotland wants to stay in the European Union...
      - mirekrusin 10y ago
        it's more like ~6.8% than 10% but this will stabilise after initial hiccup of course.
    - Oletros 10y ago
      > It's not obvious at this point that the EU will still be around a couple of years from now Why?
      - tim333 10y ago
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  They won't, though. The EU elites want to discourage other countries from leaving. If they compromise then others will follow in the UK's path in order to extract concessions.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    The main problem is that the British don't even know what to ask for. When examined closely, there really isn't anything actually that wrong about the EU. They could've gotten a lot more in the recent negotiations but nobody knows what that should be. The only specific grievance is EU migration and that just happens to be one of the four fundamental principles.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - crdoconnor 10y ago
      Ask a poor Greek who dutifully paid their taxes now struggling on 80 euros a week who can't get medicines if there's anything wrong with the EU. The EU's sheer brutality towards Greece is one of the reasons I abstained. They didn't have a democratic mandate to do that and the institution itself is being gradually changed in order to remove democratic oversight (that's one of the reasons they could be so fucking brutal). More real power exists in the ECB and EU commission now and the parliament is more and more toothless. That's wrong on multiple levels. I'm pretty sure the British outside of the cities are rationally voting to reduce competition in the labour market. Just ask the "in" campaign: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12181385/Wages-for-British-workers-will-rise-in-the-event-of-a-Brexit-head-of-in-campaign-says.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/1218... If the EU keeps preaching austerity, labor market suppression and other neoliberal ideas I expect it to dissolve in a decade or two.
      - tim333 10y ago
        Some of the brits may be rationally voting to reduce competition in the labour market but it's dubious that it'll work to raise wages. There is the counterforce of companies locating elsewhere to avoid tariff uncertainties. The main problem in Greece and the UK rural areas are the dumb austerity policies.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The EU adopted a set of reforms conditioned on the Remain referendum already.
sklogic 10y ago
Class divide existed pretty much forever. Now it is just more obvious than ever.
venomsnake 10y ago
Those 50 and a change results remind me of the quote about Versailles = "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years" Nothing is solved. both remain and leave need 60+ to claim a mandate.
- pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
  At first I thought that simple majority is unfair for decisions so important as this one. But I am not so sure now. Demanding a qualified majority introduces a bias towards the status quo. In fact, demanding >60 % is equal to granting just a >40 % outcome for the “Leave” option to win. And why should either, or especially the status quo, be favored in a case like this?
  - venomsnake 10y ago
    I am just stating that 51/49 settles nothing. UK is divided ... on multiple fault lines. That is a fact.

nreece 10y ago

Link to petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215 And, as it says: "Government responds to all petitions that get more than 10,000 signatures."

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
But often the response is "LOL no."
- tim333 10y ago
  Yeah they could ignore it quite easily. Although it's setting a record for the most signed gov.uk petition yet. Also Boris who was quite popular now seems to have a job going down the street without people booing and yelling at him which will be harder to ignore.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    The other one was "Don't let Trump in, he's a dangerous idiot" which got over 5million votes. But they ignored that.

m-i-l 10y ago

See also "EU Referendum Rules Triggering a 2nd EU Referendum (petition.parliament.uk)" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11975680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11975680

crdoconnor 10y ago

Almost one million people decided the vote. This smacks of sour grapes to me.

sbarre 10y ago
Yeah this feels like the "oh shit I didn't bother to go vote because I didn't think it would matter" folks suddenly realizing they probably should have stepped up..
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure a small minority of the signatories of this petition weren't among the ~16 million who voted 'remain'. It was very obvious in the weeks running up that this wasn't going to be a sure thing for either side.
- qrendel 10y ago
  There are also allegedly numerous people who voted leave just to troll the system and now regret it: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12024634/brexit-supporters-regret-vote http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12024634/brexit-supporters-regr...
- sklogic 10y ago
  A huge number of London commuters could not vote, being stuck in the trains thanks to Govia scumbags.
DanBC 10y ago
UK Government has brought in strict laws for union voting around strike action. They need a majority of a certain size of a turnout of a certain size. The referendum had a good turnout (and it's disappointing to call 75% good) but for such an important change 52% vs 48% is pretty close. That's not good enough for my local bowls club or allotment society or WI.

frou_dh 10y ago

An online petition? Damn, they're bringing out the big guns!

lifeisstillgood 10y ago
The gov.uk petition site is one of the most popular and regularly gets a "pulse of the nation" issue brought to parliamentary and media attention. (I suppose that is in many ways the prOblem we just faced) For example Turing was given a pardon after JGCumming of HN fame started a petition on there. It's not perfect, it is "just" a voting site, but we have had a taste of direct democracy - we might just start to like it.
DanBC 10y ago
This one forces the government to respond, and if it gets over a certain number of votes it usually forces a debate.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

unfortunateface 10y ago

London throws it's toys out of the pram. It's quite funny to see the commentators who never saw this result coming are now the ones with all of the explanations as to why it has happened. Watching them evolve a new narrative in real time is quite funny. Apparently 50% of the country are racists, or so stupid that they have been easily duped by the bad politicians. There couldn't possibly be any other explanations.

unethical_ban 10y ago
Perhaps one of the biggest geopolitical events of a decade shouldn't have been on HN. The irony of you talking about Londoners throwing out toys, then locking your account because one story got through that you think is incorrect... it's delicious.
- unfortunateface 10y ago
  A fair point - i have removed that part of the comment as it is not massively connected to my main point. Also, have an upvote
- unfortunateface 10y ago
  Just one more point. I actually don't think that "one of the biggest geopolitical events of a decade" should be on HN if it is not directly connected to Tech. Here is a more fitting article to be on HN: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/24/how-brexit-affects-the-global-technology-industry/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/24... There are plenty of other forums for talking about this subject. In the past, i've found HN Comments about political issues to be of the least quality/value.

curun1r 10y ago

The funniest/most interesting part wasn't the call for a second referendum, but the second petition described at the end of the article: A map of the petition signatures showed that most came from England’s major cities, topped by London where there is a separate petition calling on Mayor Sadiq Khan to declare the capital independent from the United Kingdom, and apply to join the EU. I'm not even sure how that could work, but it would certainly take a lot of the impact out of the Brexit and prevent much of the chaos that's caused the markets to react so strongly to the vote.

tim333 10y ago
There's no way the independent London thing could happen in practice but a 2nd EU referendum is possible. The Irish repeated their one, the Scottish one looks like repeating. Go 2nd referendum!
- gens 10y ago
  There is already an independent London inside London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
- HoopleHead 10y ago
  An Irish one ain't gonna happen. The majority Unionists' anti-anything-Irish hatred and desire to remain British is far stronger than their wanting to stay in the EU. As an Irish Nationalist myself, the only outside chance for Irish unification that I can see would be if Scotland voted to leave the UK first. The Unionists in N. Ireland tend to identify themselves as "Ulster Scots"[1], so the advent of a Britain without Scotland in it might just be enough to loosen their attachment a bit. There is no great affinity for Wales and their attitude towards England is not much warmer than the Scots have for the 'Auld Enemy' [1](http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/what-is-ulster-scots http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/what-is-ulster-scots)
  - ProxCoques 10y ago
    I guess you've not been following Ian Paisley Jr on Twitter then... Things are going completely through the looking glass right now...

perlgeek 10y ago

That's not how democracy works. If there is a referendum, and you don't like the result, you don't just do a second referendum. If you'd do that, you could achieve any result you want, just by doing it over and over until. Due to voter's fatigue and/or daily sentiment, results will vary, so you can pick a result by deciding when to stop. It might make sense (though still be questionable) to repeat the vote if major facts changed, but I don't see that happening. The stock market shouldn't have been a big surprise, Cameron's resignation neither, nor the Leave faction retracting some of their promises. As much as I don't like the outcome of the first referendum, I think it would be fundamentally undemocratic to do a second referendum.

kbody 10y ago
Personally I think a (major) referendum should be voted twice even with just a week difference. A lot of people most probably didn't vote because they assumed the result from the pre-vote pools and for other various reasons. Now everyone is alarm, they won't be leaving it up to chance.
- TrickzOnU 10y ago
  If they didn't vote because they assumed some result, perhaps they are not as passionate about their position and should not get to vote a second time.
  - tim333 10y ago
    Quite a lot of the not voting were young people who had not figured the logistics of registering a month before and so on. The oldies who votted for brexit had mostly voted before and so were pre registered and know the procedure which slewed the results.
    - ap3 10y ago
      Maybe we should not lend a lot of weight to the opinions of adults who have not figured out how voting works

mirekrusin 10y ago

Democracy doesn't work by voting until you get results you want.

claystu 10y ago
"Democracy doesn't work by voting until you get results you want." What are you talking about? That's exactly how it works! You vote for what you want and hope the majority votes the same and you keep doing it for the things you believe in.
ProxCoques 10y ago
"Democracy doesn't work by voting until you get results you want." No, it works when people make informed choices they understand. That didn't happen in this case.

sklogic 10y ago

Over 50% of the country are chavs. There is nothing more stupid in this world than a chav.

venomsnake 10y ago
And they are chavs that beat you in your own game. I do think that http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali... this should be mandatory read before declaring a big group of people that won as inferior. That is the attitude that as well may get Trump elected. And gave Bernie unexpectedly solid run. If you think that chavs (hey it is totally ok using slurs as long the receiving end is white) are that stupid - why was referendum given in the first place ... chavs may be stupid, but it seems the Conservative and Labor Eton elites are stupider. Also sophistication for the sake of sophistication is worthless. British lads from underprivileged background may lack some social polish, but the ones I know are awesome people.
- sklogic 10y ago
  Chavs are stupid and ignorant indeed (and fuck the lefties who dare not to agree). And this stupidity came very handy to the Tory elite, idiots are so easy to manipulate. EDIT: also, being a chav is not about a background, it's a conscious choice of a cultural affiliation.
dang 10y ago
Oh, good grief. You know you can't comment like this here (or "fuck the lefties", below, which reads like self-parody). As I explained before, I don't want to ban you because you post interesting technical comments. But if you post anything else like this, we will have to ban you or other users will correctly complain about a double standard. Civil and substantive comments only, please, from now on. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11976171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11976171 and marked it off-topic.
- sklogic 10y ago
  :( For you, Americans, it all might seem a bit abstract and detached. For us, it's a very heated and real class war. And we do not take prisoners.

mirekrusin 10y ago

this statement is idiotic: "We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based (on) a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum" it would mean infinite loop of referendums without consensus.

DanBC 10y ago
What's wrong with that?

unknown_apostle 10y ago

After France and the Netherlands rejected the original proposed European Constitution (basically confirming the EU as a socialist superstate), they came up with the Lisbon treaty. When Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty, they were made to vote again one year later. I would say that some form of a second Brexit vote with slightly changed conditions would be a very EU-like thing to pull.

jeremysmyth 10y ago
The EU didn't initiate this referendum though. The Lisbon treaty was a result of complex negotiation, and Ireland was an outlier, requiring a constitutional change to implement the change. The change hadn't been effectively communicated, hence the negative initial vote. When it eventually passed, it was after a number of small concessions had been made to the terms of the negotiated treaty, and after a massive campaign to let the people understand what was at stake. The referendum also made it absolutely clear what the "next step" was for politicians, exactly what their mandate was, and exactly what the procedural effect would be. Brexit, on the other hand, stated a simple (probably overly simple) question, with absolutely no details as to what the exit strategy would be (and actually no legal status either; parliament could legally choose to ignore the referendum results). There was no date attached to the question, no procedural detail, no mandate to perform the exit in any particular way, no bureaucratic clarity whatsoever. There were no "conditions" that could be "slightly changed" in a re-run. This was a blunt-force thwack with no nuance, no subtlety, and no room for renegotiation with the people. In short, the Brexit referendum was about the least EU-like thing the UK could've pulled.

arthursilva 10y ago

This exit was fueled by misinformation and misplaced excitement, I have no idea how Britain's allowed themselves in this hole.

rrss1122 10y ago

And over 50M voted for Leave.