5 ms·

I saw an astute comment somewhere that boiled down to, "Look, it wasn't pitched as 'give us your opinion.'" You're dead on about more serious consequences, esp

by ellius 10y ago

I saw an astute comment somewhere that boiled down to, "Look, it wasn't pitched as 'give us your opinion.'" You're dead on about more serious consequences, especially in the current political environment. You have candidates in the US like Trump and Sanders basically saying to the average voter, "Look, you're being played for a sucker." Nothing would prove them right more than taking a democratic referendum and throwing out the result. It never should have happened in the first place. The original signers to the agreement should have put in provisions requiring a supermajority vote to undo membership. But the fact is it did, and they didn't. Forget about crashing markets. The idea that democracy is even functioning is under threat, and people are ready to elect authoritarians to make sure their voices are finally heard. I'm not one to make light of economic consequences--they literally ruin lives--but something bigger is at stake here. The die is cast. The consequnces of rethrowing are more perilous than letting it land.

vacri 10y ago
> The original signers to the agreement should have put in provisions requiring a supermajority vote to undo membership. They did, however, put in 'non-binding'. The referendum actually is 'give us your opinion', regardless of whether it was pitched that way. > The consequnces of rethrowing are more perilous than letting it land. Nonsense. Another referendum of "Lots of you seem to have been unaware of the extent of the ramifications of this. Let's hold another referendum to make sure that we want this, before we start down the irreversible path. This time, it will be legally binding to avoid a repeat of this action". This isn't a playground, but real affects on people's lives - it's worth being sure first. You're still asking the people for what they want, and this time they will have better educated themselves about the issues for and against.
- klagermkii 10y ago
  But you can't do a more binding referendum than this in the UK. There is no more binding than the Prime Minister promising to do something immediately after the vote. This isn't like other countries which have some kind of constitutional mechanism for holding binding referendums, Parliament always has the final say in the UK.
  - vacri 10y ago
    I stand corrected on that. But still, I think that when a large part of the populace is saying "we didn't really realise", Boris Johnson is far from happy with the fact he won, and Farage admitted in the first hours after the win that one of his primary promises was a lie (350M/week on health), it's reasonable to say "let's try this again for a confirmation". I guess that the silver lining is that for those Americans that might be watching, they'll be less likely to 'protest vote' in favour of Trump this coming election. It'll encourage his core voters, but it might discourage the swing voters, and those are the ones that count.
- dingaling 10y ago
  If these demands are truly arising from a 'concern' for democracy, why weren't people calling for a second, confirmatory referendum before the first vote was held? And would there now be such demands if 'remain' had been the decision? After all that would also have affected real people's lives, for the next ... 100 years? Surely that decision would need to have double-checked more than leaving the Union. There are no consitutional blocks to rejoining, after all, whereas binding the next two or three generations to an enormous political union seems a serious commitment that needs confirmation.
  - vacri 10y ago
    > There are no consitutional blocks to rejoining Getting 27 nations to agree to let you back into the club when you've already told them to fuck off? That's not a trivial task. Having the UK disintegrate into its constituent countries and then trying to reform it if you don't like the outcome? That's not a trivial task. The Leave vote is a significant change to the status quo, and was won by a pretty slim majority in real terms. Similarly, when one leader of Leave is not happy about the win, and another leader admits a primary promise of the campaign was a lie less than half a day after the victory, doesn't that strike you as an unstable result that should be double-checked? Checking the Leave argument in a few years can be done again and again. Checking the Remain argument can only be done once - then the UK is gone, the EU has to act harshly, and England is left having burnt all it's goodwill and political capital... and the one world-class industry England does have flees the country due to the instability (I am told that the finance industry provides 34% of the UK's GDP - that's not an applecart that you want to particularly upset, even if you hate those arses in the City)
    - internaut 10y ago
      > Getting 27 nations to agree to let you back into the club when you've already told them to fuck off? That's not a trivial task. Let's get the time scales correct here. Few people think that the European Union is something you hop into and out of occasionally. It's closer to a long contractual obligation. So that's on the order of decades, perhaps centuries. In the future things will look very different. The EU might not exist. It might be superseded. It might decline. It might become a United States of Europe. Let us not be predicting the future this far out! > Similarly, when one leader of Leave is not happy about the win, and another leader admits a primary promise of the campaign was a lie less than half a day after the victory, doesn't that strike you as an unstable result that should be double-checked? That is the nitpicking of the establishment media at work, whom have a motive to jinx the results. > the one world-class industry England does have flees the country due to the instability (I am told that the finance industry provides 34% of the UK's GDP - that's not an applecart that you want to particularly upset, even if you hate those arses in the City) Things are not as the FT and Bloomberg make them seem. Financial capital is becoming much less important in the world than it used to be. It is less effective at getting results. You see that even in Silicon Valley where companies are going public later and later, and soon enough they won't even go public but remain private forever. This is a cyclical phrase that occurs between finance and production. Is it eggs or apples in one basket-cart ? ;-)

by ellius 10y ago

vacri 10y ago

> The original signers to the agreement should have put in provisions requiring a supermajority vote to undo membership. They did, however, put in 'non-binding'. The referendum actually is 'give us your opinion', regardless of whether it was pitched that way. > The consequnces of rethrowing are more perilous than letting it land. Nonsense. Another referendum of "Lots of you seem to have been unaware of the extent of the ramifications of this. Let's hold another referendum to make sure that we want this, before we start down the irreversible path. This time, it will be legally binding to avoid a repeat of this action". This isn't a playground, but real affects on people's lives - it's worth being sure first. You're still asking the people for what they want, and this time they will have better educated themselves about the issues for and against.

klagermkii 10y ago
But you can't do a more binding referendum than this in the UK. There is no more binding than the Prime Minister promising to do something immediately after the vote. This isn't like other countries which have some kind of constitutional mechanism for holding binding referendums, Parliament always has the final say in the UK.
- vacri 10y ago
  I stand corrected on that. But still, I think that when a large part of the populace is saying "we didn't really realise", Boris Johnson is far from happy with the fact he won, and Farage admitted in the first hours after the win that one of his primary promises was a lie (350M/week on health), it's reasonable to say "let's try this again for a confirmation". I guess that the silver lining is that for those Americans that might be watching, they'll be less likely to 'protest vote' in favour of Trump this coming election. It'll encourage his core voters, but it might discourage the swing voters, and those are the ones that count.
dingaling 10y ago
If these demands are truly arising from a 'concern' for democracy, why weren't people calling for a second, confirmatory referendum before the first vote was held? And would there now be such demands if 'remain' had been the decision? After all that would also have affected real people's lives, for the next ... 100 years? Surely that decision would need to have double-checked more than leaving the Union. There are no consitutional blocks to rejoining, after all, whereas binding the next two or three generations to an enormous political union seems a serious commitment that needs confirmation.
- vacri 10y ago
  > There are no consitutional blocks to rejoining Getting 27 nations to agree to let you back into the club when you've already told them to fuck off? That's not a trivial task. Having the UK disintegrate into its constituent countries and then trying to reform it if you don't like the outcome? That's not a trivial task. The Leave vote is a significant change to the status quo, and was won by a pretty slim majority in real terms. Similarly, when one leader of Leave is not happy about the win, and another leader admits a primary promise of the campaign was a lie less than half a day after the victory, doesn't that strike you as an unstable result that should be double-checked? Checking the Leave argument in a few years can be done again and again. Checking the Remain argument can only be done once - then the UK is gone, the EU has to act harshly, and England is left having burnt all it's goodwill and political capital... and the one world-class industry England does have flees the country due to the instability (I am told that the finance industry provides 34% of the UK's GDP - that's not an applecart that you want to particularly upset, even if you hate those arses in the City)
  - internaut 10y ago
    > Getting 27 nations to agree to let you back into the club when you've already told them to fuck off? That's not a trivial task. Let's get the time scales correct here. Few people think that the European Union is something you hop into and out of occasionally. It's closer to a long contractual obligation. So that's on the order of decades, perhaps centuries. In the future things will look very different. The EU might not exist. It might be superseded. It might decline. It might become a United States of Europe. Let us not be predicting the future this far out! > Similarly, when one leader of Leave is not happy about the win, and another leader admits a primary promise of the campaign was a lie less than half a day after the victory, doesn't that strike you as an unstable result that should be double-checked? That is the nitpicking of the establishment media at work, whom have a motive to jinx the results. > the one world-class industry England does have flees the country due to the instability (I am told that the finance industry provides 34% of the UK's GDP - that's not an applecart that you want to particularly upset, even if you hate those arses in the City) Things are not as the FT and Bloomberg make them seem. Financial capital is becoming much less important in the world than it used to be. It is less effective at getting results. You see that even in Silicon Valley where companies are going public later and later, and soon enough they won't even go public but remain private forever. This is a cyclical phrase that occurs between finance and production. Is it eggs or apples in one basket-cart ? ;-)