4 ms·

The 2016 referendum was flawed in its formulation and execution, and was itself already the 2nd referendum on the topic.

lmm 8y ago
> The 2016 referendum was flawed in its formulation and execution Agreed, but having asked the question and got the answer we have to implement it if democracy is to have any credibility. > and was itself already the 2nd referendum on the topic. Hardly. The EEC was a very different institution from the EU (indeed I'd say the closest modern equivalent is the EEA or EFTA).
- jcranmer 8y ago
  > Agreed, but having asked the question and got the answer we have to implement it if democracy is to have any credibility. To paraphrase a famous quote, democracy is not a suicide pact.
  - lmm 8y ago
    There is indeed precedent for suspending democracy in times of war. Suspending it over customs arrangements seems a little more dubious.
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      Direct democracy does not scale to running a country. Effectively, the task of making, deciding, and implementing policy is very much a full-time job, and most people cannot devote the time it takes to be sufficiently informed to make decisions. Decisions that require a lot of careful policy crafting and negotiation to implement are not good candidates for referendums, especially when the cutoff is as low as 50% + 1. In jurisdictions with saner direct democracy mechanisms (say, Switzerland), there is substantial filtering of any proposals through the regular legislature process so that referendums are less "implement this policy" and more "this is something that is important to us, please figure out what needs to be done here." With respect to Brexit in particular, the government made a grave error in triggering Article 50 prematurely. May then called an early election to strengthen her negotiating position which actually weakened it instead. There is substantial cover for saying "We clearly need more time to figure out how to do this, and the March deadline is too soon to get this done. Let's pause this process for now." Sure, a lot of people will be pissed, but we're at a stage where any action (including inaction) will piss off at least 30-40% of the population.
      - lmm 8y ago
        > Direct democracy does not scale to running a country. Effectively, the task of making, deciding, and implementing policy is very much a full-time job, and most people cannot devote the time it takes to be sufficiently informed to make decisions. Decisions that require a lot of careful policy crafting and negotiation to implement are not good candidates for referendums, especially when the cutoff is as low as 50% + 1. In jurisdictions with saner direct democracy mechanisms (say, Switzerland), there is substantial filtering of any proposals through the regular legislature process so that referendums are less "implement this policy" and more "this is something that is important to us, please figure out what needs to be done here." Agreed; we should never have had the referendum in the form we did. Nevertheless, we can't undo it now. > There is substantial cover for saying "We clearly need more time to figure out how to do this, and the March deadline is too soon to get this done. Let's pause this process for now." Sure, a lot of people will be pissed, but we're at a stage where any action (including inaction) will piss off at least 30-40% of the population. I think delaying Brexit at this point has far less credibility than any kind of leave (even no deal). There's no way for it to not look like an elite stitch-up.

lmm 8y ago

> The 2016 referendum was flawed in its formulation and execution Agreed, but having asked the question and got the answer we have to implement it if democracy is to have any credibility. > and was itself already the 2nd referendum on the topic. Hardly. The EEC was a very different institution from the EU (indeed I'd say the closest modern equivalent is the EEA or EFTA).

jcranmer 8y ago
> Agreed, but having asked the question and got the answer we have to implement it if democracy is to have any credibility. To paraphrase a famous quote, democracy is not a suicide pact.
- lmm 8y ago
  There is indeed precedent for suspending democracy in times of war. Suspending it over customs arrangements seems a little more dubious.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    Direct democracy does not scale to running a country. Effectively, the task of making, deciding, and implementing policy is very much a full-time job, and most people cannot devote the time it takes to be sufficiently informed to make decisions. Decisions that require a lot of careful policy crafting and negotiation to implement are not good candidates for referendums, especially when the cutoff is as low as 50% + 1. In jurisdictions with saner direct democracy mechanisms (say, Switzerland), there is substantial filtering of any proposals through the regular legislature process so that referendums are less "implement this policy" and more "this is something that is important to us, please figure out what needs to be done here." With respect to Brexit in particular, the government made a grave error in triggering Article 50 prematurely. May then called an early election to strengthen her negotiating position which actually weakened it instead. There is substantial cover for saying "We clearly need more time to figure out how to do this, and the March deadline is too soon to get this done. Let's pause this process for now." Sure, a lot of people will be pissed, but we're at a stage where any action (including inaction) will piss off at least 30-40% of the population.
    - lmm 8y ago
      > Direct democracy does not scale to running a country. Effectively, the task of making, deciding, and implementing policy is very much a full-time job, and most people cannot devote the time it takes to be sufficiently informed to make decisions. Decisions that require a lot of careful policy crafting and negotiation to implement are not good candidates for referendums, especially when the cutoff is as low as 50% + 1. In jurisdictions with saner direct democracy mechanisms (say, Switzerland), there is substantial filtering of any proposals through the regular legislature process so that referendums are less "implement this policy" and more "this is something that is important to us, please figure out what needs to be done here." Agreed; we should never have had the referendum in the form we did. Nevertheless, we can't undo it now. > There is substantial cover for saying "We clearly need more time to figure out how to do this, and the March deadline is too soon to get this done. Let's pause this process for now." Sure, a lot of people will be pissed, but we're at a stage where any action (including inaction) will piss off at least 30-40% of the population. I think delaying Brexit at this point has far less credibility than any kind of leave (even no deal). There's no way for it to not look like an elite stitch-up.