4 ms·

Edit: I got a bit carried away.

andybak 8y ago
> all calls for a second referendum would be treated with utter contempt Yes but it's symmetrical. If result A then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side B If result B then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side A So no conclusion can be drawn by the fact that people are partisan. The question of whether a second referendum is a good idea is independent of the result of the first referendum.
- sievebrain 8y ago
  Let's phrase it like this. There would be nobody in parliament or government talking about a second referendum if remain had won. In fact it'd have been taken as a mandate to immediately pass more powers to Brussels, see the PESCO.
  - tim333 8y ago
    Dunno. BBC from 2016: > The question of a second referendum was raised by Mr Farage in an interview with the Mirror in which he said: "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."
    - sievebrain 8y ago
      Farage isn't an MP and parliament is dominated by remainers loyal to Labour or the Tories. You make my point for me.
  - Shish2k 8y ago
    > There would be nobody in parliament or government talking about a second referendum if remain had won Before the results were fully counted, when it looked as if remain had won, leavers were already beginning work on their campaign for a second referendum.
  - renaudg 8y ago
    Well, of course. Remain is the current, familiar situation. A Remain victory wouldn't have come with a 25% drop in the pound, rampant inflation, the worst growth rate of G8 countries, stockpiling of food and drugs, and an increasing risk to see the world order that brought about the longest period of peace (70 years) in this corner of the world, being toppled. A Remain victory would also have been obtained in spite of, not thanks to, Russian interference, fake news, and overspending by Vote Leave (as found by the Electoral Commission who referred them to the police) So yes, somehow the idea of a second referendum makes more sense in one case than in the other. Dunno why...
    - simonturvey 8y ago
      > A Remain victory wouldn't have come with a 25% drop in the pound, rampant inflation, the worst growth rate of G8 countries Why do people spout such provable nonsense?! Inflation is around the BoE target rate of 2% having just nudged down a touch (consensus forecast for Jan 2019 is 2.1%). Rampant inflation is what you see in Venezuela and Zimbabwe. A moment's thought should disabuse you of this opinion. Back in late 2015, the UK's growth was around 2.9% based primarily on fundamentals that are largely unrelated to Brexit (IT and software). Those fundamentals haven't changed so there's a high likelihood that growth is dragging due to overall negative sentiment as a result of Brexit uncertainty. Clear that fog, and growth should bounce back. The fastest way to clarity that honours the referendum result, though many don't want to hear it, is a no-deal departure with appropriate WTO exceptions based on national security assertions (de-risking essential supplies) during an FTA negotiation period coupled with the (already given) assertions on the EU citizens' right-to-remain in the UK.
- growlist 8y ago
  The point is that in the alternate scenario there wouldn't be half the establishment or more agitating to subvert the democratic will of the largest vote ever in British history, I guess..
  - tim333 8y ago
    There's something to be said for a bias towards the status quo. If it ain't broke don't fix it and all that. If the vote had been 60-40 leave I'd agree with you but it was close to 50/50 and based on some misinformation.
    - growlist 8y ago
      I'll just make the point once again: more people voted for Brexit than have voted for anything else in the UK, ever.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        That’s mostly because more people are in the UK than ever before.
    - gpm 8y ago
      There's an argument that the bias towards the status quo weighs in the other direction. People are biased towards the status quo, if 50% of people are willing to go against the status quo they are more likely to be right than the 50% of people not willing to. I actually find it really remarkable that 50% of voters were unhappy enough with the EU to go against the status quo.
- towelr34dy 8y ago
  There is a difference: If A, then result would NEVER be realistically contested If B, then result COULD be realistically contested No one would argue that if the vote were stay, we'd be seeing it again. It wouldn't happen. Not even maybe. But since the underdog won, since leave won, it is now contestable. I'm on this fence on this one, and I don't live there, so I don't have a side. But I do see each side's points.
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    > But since the underdog won, since leave won, it is now contestable. As much as our friends in parliament sometimes make it out to be, it is not purely a match. There is no "underdog" in Brexit; there is one team, the UK, with two options: remain or leave. Choosing a bad option affects everyone equally (except a few career politicians). With all the shouting and finger pointing it's easy to lose track of this fact: it is not a competition. We're in this together. We're a family, and we might be cutting off the nose to spite the face. But it has morphed into an us-vs-them issue (brexiteers vs remainers, not even immigrants), and through the lens of competition we only see the finish line.
    - towelr34dy 8y ago
      It sounds like your post is arguing without actually contradicting anything I said. I mean, your post basically is: Why can't we all just get along. While it's a noble feeling, the reality is society is fractious, and for complex and nuanced decisions such as brexit there are people who will net-net benefit and people who will net net see detriment. And 'leave option' was the underdog, you might not like to admit it but, the financial and betting markets saw it as such objectively. I'm not sure why you feel the need to try and deny this.
rtkwe 8y ago
I don't see the contradiction here. Remain was what it says on the tin stay in the EU and any desired changes happen within the system of the EU. My whole point is the leave has gone from this huge nebula of different brexits to one, the one currently negotiated by PM May. Ideally if it were possible the vote should have never been held until there was an actual deal or at least a concrete foundation. Without the actual details of a deal the referendum isn't much better than an opinion poll on the EU because there's no facts about what leave actually means before it's negotiated. Or a vote to initiate the process and another about the actual facts of the deal.
- djmobley 8y ago
  > Remain was what it says on the tin stay in the EU and any desired changes happen within the system of the EU. That's simply not true. Both remain and leave campaigns were backed up by dubious or misleading claims about what the future would look like if the UK voted to leave the EU. Those backing remain claimed Brexit would cause financial instability and require an emergency budget, that unemployment would rise, that NHS finances would be undermined, that families would be £4,300 worse off, that Scotland would immediately leave the UK, etc. David Cameron said he would stay on as Prime Minister in the event of a leave vote. None of these things happened.
  - macintux 8y ago
    > None of these things happened. Well, Brexit hasn’t occurred yet, so only Cameron’s departure has put the lie to any of Remain’s arguments.
    - djmobley 8y ago
      To be clear, the scare-mongering implied all these things would happen near enough immediately following a leave vote.
      - rtkwe 8y ago
        To be double clear a lot of those were also long term consequences too, eg: the 4300 number was by 2030.
DDub 8y ago
Is it not an implementation of double jeopardy? Since the referendum new facts have come to light, that of what an exit deal would look like. New facts should allow for a new vote. If remain had won, there would be no new facts so why would another vote be justified?
- growlist 8y ago
  Do you honestly think it is healthy for democracy if the UK is forced into remaining?
  - clappski 8y ago
    Forced into remaining by a second democratic referendum, held due to the uncovering of lies and nebulous accounting of the leave campaign that the full extent of hasn’t been fully uncovered?
    - growlist 8y ago
      There was FUD on both sides!
      - mpweiher 8y ago
        1. The proven illegal overspend by Leave was enough, according to people who model these things, to sway around 800K voters. The margin was less than that. 2. This is not about FUD. This was egregious lies: a) Daniel Hannan: “Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.” b) David Davies: "There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside." c) Michael Gove: "The day after we vote to leave we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want." d) Boris Johnson: "There will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market." Never mind the £ 350m for the NHS per week on the bus. I could go on and on and on...
        Robin_Message 8y ago
        Do you have a source for point 1? That seems incredibly important.
starshadowx2 8y ago
That hypothetical isn't equivalent though. If remain had one the referendum then everything would have just continued as normal. If there had been calls for a second referendum in that case then it would definitely just be a case of calling a vote until you win. This potential second referendum would be on voting for this actual "deal" or chance of hard Brexit. It would be voting on what May has so far been able to accomplish (or not accomplish). The first referendum was done with no idea on what was going to happen and now the British people can actually see through the lies the Brexiteers made and decide if this is what they actually want. It's much more democratic now that everyone is more aware. If leave wins again then go right ahead with the hard Brexit, it's what people want. If remain wins then the people have decided against shooting themselves in the foot.
Krasnol 8y ago
If the vote had gone the other way, the results of that would have been clear from the beginning. It would have been what the UK had. It would have been a reasonable result. The Brexit result people voted for was an illusion (others call it lies). So why not let the people vote on the actual results now? The only reason I see is the fear of the Brexiters that they would fail in a spectacular way after all those failures they delivered since the vote went through.
rconti 8y ago
If the result had gone the other way, the UK would have voted to remain in the EU. If a 2nd referendum came along a couple years later, nothing would have materially changed. It's difficult to argue that nothing has materially changed in the process of trying to actually Brexit.

> all calls for a second referendum would be treated with utter contempt Yes but it's symmetrical. If result A then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side B If result B then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side A So no conclusion can be drawn by the fact that people are partisan. The question of whether a second referendum is a good idea is independent of the result of the first referendum.

sievebrain 8y ago
Let's phrase it like this. There would be nobody in parliament or government talking about a second referendum if remain had won. In fact it'd have been taken as a mandate to immediately pass more powers to Brussels, see the PESCO.
- tim333 8y ago
  Dunno. BBC from 2016: > The question of a second referendum was raised by Mr Farage in an interview with the Mirror in which he said: "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."
  - sievebrain 8y ago
    Farage isn't an MP and parliament is dominated by remainers loyal to Labour or the Tories. You make my point for me.
- Shish2k 8y ago
  > There would be nobody in parliament or government talking about a second referendum if remain had won Before the results were fully counted, when it looked as if remain had won, leavers were already beginning work on their campaign for a second referendum.
- renaudg 8y ago
  Well, of course. Remain is the current, familiar situation. A Remain victory wouldn't have come with a 25% drop in the pound, rampant inflation, the worst growth rate of G8 countries, stockpiling of food and drugs, and an increasing risk to see the world order that brought about the longest period of peace (70 years) in this corner of the world, being toppled. A Remain victory would also have been obtained in spite of, not thanks to, Russian interference, fake news, and overspending by Vote Leave (as found by the Electoral Commission who referred them to the police) So yes, somehow the idea of a second referendum makes more sense in one case than in the other. Dunno why...
  - simonturvey 8y ago
    > A Remain victory wouldn't have come with a 25% drop in the pound, rampant inflation, the worst growth rate of G8 countries Why do people spout such provable nonsense?! Inflation is around the BoE target rate of 2% having just nudged down a touch (consensus forecast for Jan 2019 is 2.1%). Rampant inflation is what you see in Venezuela and Zimbabwe. A moment's thought should disabuse you of this opinion. Back in late 2015, the UK's growth was around 2.9% based primarily on fundamentals that are largely unrelated to Brexit (IT and software). Those fundamentals haven't changed so there's a high likelihood that growth is dragging due to overall negative sentiment as a result of Brexit uncertainty. Clear that fog, and growth should bounce back. The fastest way to clarity that honours the referendum result, though many don't want to hear it, is a no-deal departure with appropriate WTO exceptions based on national security assertions (de-risking essential supplies) during an FTA negotiation period coupled with the (already given) assertions on the EU citizens' right-to-remain in the UK.
growlist 8y ago
The point is that in the alternate scenario there wouldn't be half the establishment or more agitating to subvert the democratic will of the largest vote ever in British history, I guess..
- tim333 8y ago
  There's something to be said for a bias towards the status quo. If it ain't broke don't fix it and all that. If the vote had been 60-40 leave I'd agree with you but it was close to 50/50 and based on some misinformation.
  - growlist 8y ago
    I'll just make the point once again: more people voted for Brexit than have voted for anything else in the UK, ever.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      That’s mostly because more people are in the UK than ever before.
  - gpm 8y ago
    There's an argument that the bias towards the status quo weighs in the other direction. People are biased towards the status quo, if 50% of people are willing to go against the status quo they are more likely to be right than the 50% of people not willing to. I actually find it really remarkable that 50% of voters were unhappy enough with the EU to go against the status quo.
towelr34dy 8y ago
There is a difference: If A, then result would NEVER be realistically contested If B, then result COULD be realistically contested No one would argue that if the vote were stay, we'd be seeing it again. It wouldn't happen. Not even maybe. But since the underdog won, since leave won, it is now contestable. I'm on this fence on this one, and I don't live there, so I don't have a side. But I do see each side's points.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  > But since the underdog won, since leave won, it is now contestable. As much as our friends in parliament sometimes make it out to be, it is not purely a match. There is no "underdog" in Brexit; there is one team, the UK, with two options: remain or leave. Choosing a bad option affects everyone equally (except a few career politicians). With all the shouting and finger pointing it's easy to lose track of this fact: it is not a competition. We're in this together. We're a family, and we might be cutting off the nose to spite the face. But it has morphed into an us-vs-them issue (brexiteers vs remainers, not even immigrants), and through the lens of competition we only see the finish line.
  - towelr34dy 8y ago
    It sounds like your post is arguing without actually contradicting anything I said. I mean, your post basically is: Why can't we all just get along. While it's a noble feeling, the reality is society is fractious, and for complex and nuanced decisions such as brexit there are people who will net-net benefit and people who will net net see detriment. And 'leave option' was the underdog, you might not like to admit it but, the financial and betting markets saw it as such objectively. I'm not sure why you feel the need to try and deny this.

rtkwe 8y ago

I don't see the contradiction here. Remain was what it says on the tin stay in the EU and any desired changes happen within the system of the EU. My whole point is the leave has gone from this huge nebula of different brexits to one, the one currently negotiated by PM May. Ideally if it were possible the vote should have never been held until there was an actual deal or at least a concrete foundation. Without the actual details of a deal the referendum isn't much better than an opinion poll on the EU because there's no facts about what leave actually means before it's negotiated. Or a vote to initiate the process and another about the actual facts of the deal.

djmobley 8y ago
> Remain was what it says on the tin stay in the EU and any desired changes happen within the system of the EU. That's simply not true. Both remain and leave campaigns were backed up by dubious or misleading claims about what the future would look like if the UK voted to leave the EU. Those backing remain claimed Brexit would cause financial instability and require an emergency budget, that unemployment would rise, that NHS finances would be undermined, that families would be £4,300 worse off, that Scotland would immediately leave the UK, etc. David Cameron said he would stay on as Prime Minister in the event of a leave vote. None of these things happened.
- macintux 8y ago
  > None of these things happened. Well, Brexit hasn’t occurred yet, so only Cameron’s departure has put the lie to any of Remain’s arguments.
  - djmobley 8y ago
    To be clear, the scare-mongering implied all these things would happen near enough immediately following a leave vote.
    - rtkwe 8y ago
      To be double clear a lot of those were also long term consequences too, eg: the 4300 number was by 2030.

DDub 8y ago

Is it not an implementation of double jeopardy? Since the referendum new facts have come to light, that of what an exit deal would look like. New facts should allow for a new vote. If remain had won, there would be no new facts so why would another vote be justified?

growlist 8y ago
Do you honestly think it is healthy for democracy if the UK is forced into remaining?
- clappski 8y ago
  Forced into remaining by a second democratic referendum, held due to the uncovering of lies and nebulous accounting of the leave campaign that the full extent of hasn’t been fully uncovered?
  - growlist 8y ago
    There was FUD on both sides!
    - mpweiher 8y ago
      1. The proven illegal overspend by Leave was enough, according to people who model these things, to sway around 800K voters. The margin was less than that. 2. This is not about FUD. This was egregious lies: a) Daniel Hannan: “Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.” b) David Davies: "There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside." c) Michael Gove: "The day after we vote to leave we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want." d) Boris Johnson: "There will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market." Never mind the £ 350m for the NHS per week on the bus. I could go on and on and on...
      - Robin_Message 8y ago
        Do you have a source for point 1? That seems incredibly important.

starshadowx2 8y ago

That hypothetical isn't equivalent though. If remain had one the referendum then everything would have just continued as normal. If there had been calls for a second referendum in that case then it would definitely just be a case of calling a vote until you win. This potential second referendum would be on voting for this actual "deal" or chance of hard Brexit. It would be voting on what May has so far been able to accomplish (or not accomplish). The first referendum was done with no idea on what was going to happen and now the British people can actually see through the lies the Brexiteers made and decide if this is what they actually want. It's much more democratic now that everyone is more aware. If leave wins again then go right ahead with the hard Brexit, it's what people want. If remain wins then the people have decided against shooting themselves in the foot.

Krasnol 8y ago

If the vote had gone the other way, the results of that would have been clear from the beginning. It would have been what the UK had. It would have been a reasonable result. The Brexit result people voted for was an illusion (others call it lies). So why not let the people vote on the actual results now? The only reason I see is the fear of the Brexiters that they would fail in a spectacular way after all those failures they delivered since the vote went through.

rconti 8y ago

If the result had gone the other way, the UK would have voted to remain in the EU. If a 2nd referendum came along a couple years later, nothing would have materially changed. It's difficult to argue that nothing has materially changed in the process of trying to actually Brexit.