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Lest we forget, all of this started because one man wanted to win an election: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-21148282 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politic

• nradov 6y ago
  It's disingenuous to blame one man. The majority of UK voters preferred to leave. They appear willing to pay the price. If David Cameron was wrong to give UK voters the option of leaving, are the leaders of Norway and Switzerland also wrong for failing to give their voters the option of joining? Seems like a double standard.
  • scotty79 6y ago
    The thing is nobody asked voters again since then to see if they haven't changed their mind. Mistake of Cameron was asking without the ability to ensure asking again when costs of leaving become apparent to the public.
    • nradov 6y ago
      How many times should voters be asked to vote on each issue? Everyone loves democracy until the voters make the "wrong" choice.
      • alisonkisk 6y ago
        52-48 is a poor democracy. 48% of the demos ("half") didn't get a cracy. And the 52 were plainly lied to by the politicians who claimed to have a Leave plan but followed up with 4 years of mass confusion and a last minute rushed agreement 11 months after it was due. A good democracy finds a compromise that gets a much larger majority vote.
        • sanity31415 6y ago
          Democracies are ruled with the consent of the governed. The majority of the British people withdrew their consent to be governed by the EU.
        • RestlessMind 6y ago
          Sweden joined EU with a 52.3-47.7 vote. Malta's vote was 53.6-46.4. Should those countries have another round of voting as well before they are admitted to EU?
          • LordIllidan 6y ago
            As it turns out, Malta did just that - the referendum result was not accepted by the opposition party, and it was settled by an early general election.
            • megablast 6y ago
              Same in the Uk really.
          • scotty79 6y ago
            If it turned out that it will be horrible costly mess then sure, you'd want to ask again if they still want to do it.
        • disabled 6y ago
          Agreed. The EU is where countries go after empire, and is a solution to that problem (along with all of the lost wars and preventing more lost wars). It also deals with the populism problem far better than America, for example. The UK is going to become a Russian and American playground when Brexit occurs. It will be a paradise for oligarchs to play the populace even more. Oligarchs thrive from the chaos of these sorts of situations and especially financially. I understand why Americans want to come to the UK. A lot of them come for the sole purpose of having access to better and guaranteed healthcare (you can have good insurance and still owe tens of thousands to millions if you have either cancer or a rare disease and both are statistically common—-also the third leading cause of death is believed to be medical errors according to Johns Hopkins and others—-you can go to the best institutions and still very easily die unnecessarily in the US as that kind of statistic cannot be evaded), but the lifespan of the UK population is going to lag hardcore compared to other countries on the European continent, especially ones in or aligned with the EU. Getting UK citizenship can be hard too. They are not immigration friendly at all, unless you were an EU citizen (at least in the past). There are some really esoteric rules, and there are people who have been denied citizenship for having a misdemeanor moving traffic violation, with no arrest or criminal record, who paid the fine on time. If you really want to have access to the UK, become a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the EU. By being an EU citizen, you can live/work/retire in over 30 European countries, including all of the EU countries. It is far easier to become an Irish citizen too. They are also very pro-EU. Not only that, citizens of the Republic of Ireland have rights to live/work/retire in the UK due to a common agreement.
      • scotty79 6y ago
        Not how many times but how often. And the answer is, as often as is needed to ensure that lawmakers are aligned with the public on particular issue, before they do something costly and possibly irreversible.
      • mantap 6y ago
        Systems of democracy require legislators to vote often, frequently on the same issue several times. For instance, in the UK a bill has at least a first, second and third reading. In a direct democracy, where voters take on the role of legislators, voters are certainly expected to vote on the same subject more than once. Of course, the UK isn't a direct democracy. And that is exactly the problem. People in the UK generally don't understand how direct democracies work, and forgivably so since there's no constitutional law regulating direct democracy in the UK, only subjective feelings.
      • onion2k 6y ago
        How many times should voters be asked to vote on each issue? Just once, but "Do you want to leave Europe in general, without knowing the deal?" and "Do you want to leave on these specific terms that will have this specific impact on the UK?" are different issues.
        • nradov 6y ago
          That wasn't as available option. The EU was unwilling to negotiate a provisional exit deal prior to the UK referendum. And after the referendum passed and was implemented by Parliament, there's no way the EU would have negotiated a binding deal if it could have been vetoed by a second UK referendum.
      • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        It's not black and white. Voters can vote 'yes' once, but you have to vote 'no' a hundred times. No is never no. Its 'not yet'. So there's a tremendous constant pressure to change things. Thus it seems reasonable to put some brakes on some of the 'yesses'.
        • nradov 6y ago
          Things can change again. In theory the UK could rejoin the EU. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens in a few decades after the demographics shift. Younger UK voters were generally in favor of remaining in the EU.
      • maest 6y ago
        The ideal answer is, clearly, closer to continuous voting rather than voting a single time. Circumstances change all the time, so voting a single time makes no sense. Arguably, that's why certain issues should be decided with a supermajority only. That way, you allow for some people to change their mind without affecting what the majority thinks.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
      • tacocataco 6y ago
        So should all elected representatives should serve life appointments? Huge tangent, I started searching if joining the EU (European Economic Community) was a simple majority or a super majority and wound up here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-09-05/debates/580694B7-CD84-4929-8DCF-BAF46D47AF64/ExitingTheEuropeanUnion https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-09-05/debates/580... it's fascinating to me to read how optimistic people were about brexit in 2016. Hope it's ok if I link what I'm reading. Just trying to catch up as a 'merican.
    • timthorn 6y ago
      Not in a referendum, but both a European election and at least one general election provided evidence to suggest that the voters hadn't changed their minds.
    • shard972 6y ago
      Since when do we redo elections to see if people changed their minds? Seems like its only when a progressive type of person doesn't get their way under democracy.
      • jodrellblank 6y ago
        We redo elections every ~4 years in the US and UK to see if people changed their minds, don't we?
    • fortnum 6y ago
      That is not exactly true. There was no second referendum, but there were two general elections and in both the party pushing for Brexit decisively won. Labour would have probably stopped Brexit and people could have voted for them, but they did not.
      • scotty79 6y ago
        What people shown is that local politics matter to them more than EU membership. Very few people decided to forget their political preferences just for 'probably'. So fair enough. UK citizens probably earned what they got into.
        • yardstick 6y ago
          The British electoral system is fundamentally broken in its first past the post system. It disenfranchises millions of voters in safe seats throughout the country. My seat is super safe, hasn’t changed hands since 1974, possibly longer. Still, the 25% of voters who didn’t support the winner won’t have their voices heard, and in other marginal electorates it’s just under half of the voters underrepresented. The solution for the UK (and US) would be to adopt a proportional representation voting system. Not the single transferable vote of Australia like what was proposed years ago. I’m talking about Mixed Member Proportional representation (MMP), used in NZ and other countries. You have two votes, one for your local MP and one for a party. They don’t need to be for the same political group. Parliament is then made up of a combination of electorate MPs and party vote MPs (roughly two thirds electorate one third party). So even if you are in a safe seat, at least one of your two votes still counts. It makes coalitions more likely, which means more viewpoints are considered. In NZ this has led to parties like the Greens having a bit of influence in govt, whereas under FPTP those green voters were completely disenfranchised. More info https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428085/election-2020-our-mmp-voting-system-explained https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428085/election-2020-our...
      • techsupporter 6y ago
        > Labour would have probably stopped Brexit and people could have voted for them, but they did not. Except that Labour did not campaign on stopping Brexit; quite the opposite. Corbyn (who, depending on who you ask, is possibly a bigger Euroskeptic than David Cameron ever was) pointedly did not position Labour's election stance as being anti-Brexit. That was up to the LibDems who, in a FPTP system, were not going to win anyway largely because everyone still hates them over the college fees reversal. Corbyn's Labour party always insisted that it would negotiate the "best possible Brexit," one that was more or less a "soft Brexit" but, just like the Tories, still a Brexit with all that entails. People were pleading with Corbyn to do exactly as you described and make the GE a mini-referendum on Brexit by Labour campaigning to reject Brexit...but Corbyn didn't.
    • Iwan-Zotow 6y ago
      Surely asked and answered - BoJo, well-known Brexit guy, led conservative party to decisive victory in 2019 elections and rightfully became PM How much more are you going to ask?
      • ed_elliott_asc 6y ago
        The 2019 election was less a vote for bojo and brexit and more not a vote for corbyn
    • ern 6y ago
      I don’t have any strong opinions about this since I’m not from the UK (if anything I’d probably be mildly pro-remain), but the Conservatives scored a fairly convincing victory in the 2019 General Election. I’d say that is strong evidence (Labour weakness aside) that the British public didn’t change their minds about Brexit.
    • desertedisland 6y ago
      The voters were asked three times: one referendum and two general elections, the last of which was won overwhelmingly by the party which had a single message - to 'get brexit done' - and lost by the party which denied the democratic wishes of every single region in England except London.
      • yardstick 6y ago
        The general elections aren’t a fair representation of voting in Brexit again. Labour’s policy and leadership was always unclear on their Brexit position, and the party itself and especially its leadership was perceived (or unfairly portrayed, you pick) by many as too extremist left for many centrists to stomach voting for. The only fair vote on Brexit is a referendum, and we botched the parameters of that (52% yes means in a room of people the person opposite you disagreed with your decision, not a great place to start!)
    • zionic 6y ago
      Misleading garbage narrative from 2016. The last elections were a landslide for a reason: the voters wanted Brexit. You can disagree all you like, but they want it.
      • katbyte 6y ago
        52% is a landslide?
        • gorgoiler 6y ago
          In a first-past-the-post representative democracy enthralled with partisan party politics, one party having a majority of 80 votes over all others combined is a landslide. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/UK_House_of_Commons_2020.svg/1280px-UK_House_of_Commons_2020.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/UK...
          • Symbiote 6y ago
            Though they got the 80 seat majority with less than half of the popular vote (43%).
  • preommr 6y ago
    It's completely fair to blame Cameron because he absolutely bungled the process. If they had come out with a clear outline of what was to be expected, then things would be different. There were all kinds of different narratives such as how it would be the 'easiest [deal] in human history'. Not to mention how poorly everything was formulated. The referendum should've been a lot clearer in it's goals and limits. It's not a joke, it's not possible to be brash with such things because you can't redo it because then it becomes a matter of just redoing things until the party in power gets what they want. Cameron didn't take it seriously because he was so confident that it wouldn't come to pass. In some ways, I am genuinely not surprised that Brexit happened when you have a large coalition of people that wanted hard brexit, people that thought it would be over and done with in one night, people that bought into the lies of british politicians about the EU because it's a convenient scapegoat. If the options outlined were May's plan, no-deal or staying in the EU, things would've been very different. Goddamn David Cameron.
    • yardstick 6y ago
      All very good points. I also think it’s crazy that the UK would even hold a referendum with a 50% threshold on such a key aspect of the country. Try make a change to the American constitution and you’re looking at 66% support in both houses and 66% of the states backing it. That is the right way to do it IMO for such fundamental changes.
      • aembleton 6y ago
        It wasn't a binding referendum. Parliament could have not voted to go ahead with leaving the eu.
        • pjc50 6y ago
          Indeed. The binding vote was the elections afterwards, in which less than 40% of the public voted Tory, giving them absolute power of decision.
          • 6y ago
  • mkl 6y ago
    A very small majority. It seems crazy to make such a massive change when nearly half the voting population is against it. If the threshold had been 70% or something, that might make more sense.
    • aembleton 6y ago
      It wasn't binding. MPs could have voted to reject the outcome of the referendum.
      • mkl 6y ago
        Yes, but they chose not to. That's what I'm objecting to. With a 52-48 referendum vote, it seems to me that the situation is so unclear that keeping the status quo is the only sensible option.
        • djmobley 6y ago
          It was a decisive victory for Leave, and it was made very clear to everyone voting that it was a once-in-a-generation referendum, the outcome of which would be respected.
          • mkl 6y ago
            Well, the 2016 referendum doesn't seem very decisive, but you're right that the later election amounted to the population saying "yes we really mean it".
      • djmobley 6y ago
        MPs would then have been voted out for overruling the will of the people. There was a referendum. Remain lost. Last year we had another General Election, with the Conservatives campaigning on a platform to get Brexit done, and they won decisively.
        • Symbiote 6y ago
          Did they really win decisively with 43% of the vote? Labour + Lib Dem was about the same amount.
  • wesleywt 6y ago
    It's really amazing how a very slight majority is able to upend the country for generations. There should have been a series of referendums.
    • mehrzad 6y ago
      The implementation of referendums needs serious reform in many democracies. My home state of California is still dealing with the effects of several propositions from generations ago but at least we get to revote on them sometimes by petitions. The UK feels tyrannical in comparison.
      • nradov 6y ago
        The Brexit referendum in 2016 was merely advisory and non-binding. The real implementation was done by Parliament.
    • oska 6y ago
      Voters are typically quite conservative when being asked whether to change something in a referendum. To win majority support for a substantial change is a very big ask. I think it's right for them to be naturally conservative and, following on from that, it is then quite sufficient for the threshold to be 50%, as that demonstrates a very significant desire for change across the population.
  • boomboomsubban 6y ago
    When you vote to join the EU, you know what the trade deal and various other treaties will be before you vote. You are provided with the options of keeping things as they are or accepting EU laws and treaties. Voting for Brexit provided none of that information, which is why it was wrong. It was a vote between keeping things as they were, or dunno we'll figure something out. The vote should have been whether they should negotiate a potential Brexit deal and then hold another vote to decide whether they leave.
    • gorgoiler 6y ago
      There is a strong moral argument behind your idea. In practice the commitment of the EU to The Union precluded any countenance of a member leaving. The punitive nature of current negotiations shows that much is true and, to be fair, it’s not as if the other parties involved are any less entrenched, ideologically. It would be like asking a vegetarian to prepare you a roast turkey Christmas dinner while telling them you’ve yet to decide if you’ll be staying for lunch, or not.
    • aembleton 6y ago
      The UK voted to join the eec, which then morphed into the eu with various treaties. By the time of the Lisbon treaty, the UK was promised a referendum. That promise was then broken, probably because France, the Netherlands and Ireland all had referendums and all voted against the eu constitution which then became the Lisbon treaty. The prime minister was rightly worried that the UK would vote against it. Ireland got a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, and so it passed. France and the Netherlands didn't get a referendum on that and I expect there is some resentment in those countries still because of it.
  • mongol 6y ago
    No it is not. It was a gamble and a political failure of enormous proportions. He needs to own it, it was him that lead the UK down the Brexit path
    • aembleton 6y ago
      Every party voted for it except the SNP. Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Green Party also had it in their manifestos that they would hold a referendum on our membership of the eu.
• sourabhforu 6y ago
  With all due respect, its naive to blame stupidity of masses on one person. People voted to leave...
  • baby-yoda 6y ago
    with all due respect, the masses used democratic process to come to a decision. im not a uk citizen and far from an expert on brexit but is it not disingenuous to call that decision "stupid" when there is not yet any proof as to whether or not it is lacking intelligence? if one is so quick to cast judgment on something which is not yet provably good/bad, will one also be just as quick to retract that judgment in the future if it ends up being of a different result?
    • sourabhforu 6y ago
      Fair enough. I will modify the above to say that its stupid in my opinion. And i sincerly hope that i am really proven wrong. It would be tragically costly if i am proven right
• LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  Yeah, let’s blame the man for solving a divisive issue using democracy.
• gorgoiler 6y ago
  Brexit is part of Cameron’s personal tragedy but they are two different arcs that converged only for a moment in time.
• incog_nit0 6y ago
  You're correct, Cameron did miscalculate but to blame him entirely forgets the mood of the country and the political parties in 2010. There was a lot of talk about leaving the EU in the run up to the 2010 election from of course the usual suspects like Farage but also from Cable and Clegg (leaders of the lib dems). According to the source below: > To the best of our knowledge, the Liberal Democrats were the first of the three major UK parties, including Labour and the Conservatives, to campaign for a referendum on EU membership. Only party which didn't push for an EU referendum in the 2010 run-up was Labour. https://fullfact.org/europe/lib-dems-first-call-eu-referendum/ https://fullfact.org/europe/lib-dems-first-call-eu-referendu...