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> ultimately you have to respect the vote to an extent Disagree here. A 52% majority is no basis for far-reaching, long-term constitutional change (even if the

by gmac 5y ago

> ultimately you have to respect the vote to an extent Disagree here. A 52% majority is no basis for far-reaching, long-term constitutional change (even if the 52% _hadn't_ been systematically lied to, and the change in question _didn't_ represent pure national self-harm).

blowski 5y ago
Reading this thread is like reading a "tabs vs spaces" flamewar. I voted and strongly supported remain. We left. Let's move on (e.g. start a campaign to re-join or some other future) rather than re-hashing the same arguments over and over and over and over again.
jeffwass 5y ago
Also, the referendum was legally non-binding.
- drcongo 5y ago
  And Leave Means Leave was a Russian funded operation who are now deleting all their online accounts and likely burning paper trails.
- messe 5y ago
  No referendum can be legally binding in the UK due to parliamentary sovereignty there. Even if parliament were to create a referendum that stated it was legally binding, they could simply repeal or amend it, as parliament is unable to bind future parliaments.
- blibble 5y ago
  this is a common talking point amongst those that don't understand that in the UK a legally binding referendum is not possible, at all, ever it's a direct consequence of parliamentary sovereignty parliament can make any law except those which bind parliament (which a legally binding referendum would do)
  - corney91 5y ago
    Parliament can pass the bill before the referendum, for example in the AV referendum. The great benefit doing it that way is the voters will be clear about what's being voted on.
    - blibble 5y ago
      and that wasn't legally binding either if parliament didn't want to implement it: it could have passed another act that repealed the first personally, I find the "it wasn't legally binding" argument to be sophistry of the worst kind
      - corney91 5y ago
        You could say that about any law though. It was as legally binding as anything else Parliament passes.
        blibble 5y ago
        yes which is why stating "it wasn't legally binding" like it's abnormal or some sort of important insight is disingenuous
        corney91 5y ago
        I don't think it's disingenuous, because there's a material difference between the approaches in 2011 and 2016. In 2011 we had no doubt about what we were voting on, Parliament had already debated it. In 2016 the vote was had with no confirmed details and Parliament then needed to work out exactly what the public wanted. They're both done now so I'm not saying this because I think the outcomes should be revisited, but I hope we can learn from them for any future referendums.
        blibble 5y ago
        having a plan to execute is separate from being "legally binding" separately: the EU refused to negotiate at all until Article 50 was triggered, so what you're asking for was essentially impossible
ricardo81 5y ago
Well, I wouldn't disagree with what you're saying. Living in Scotland, we had a separate (independence) referendum and the ensuing fallout from that. I was out of the country for that one but saw the same kind of systemic mass media leveraging of cherry picked ideas. All said, I think the UK should be more aligned with the EU here and play its part in securing the well-being of Ukrainian citizens. We (I think, as in the West and/or democracy) are united in recognising Ukrainians rights to self-determination
eynsham 5y ago
A <<50% majority of the population elected a parliamentary majority to allow India and Ireland independence; it would similarly now be the obvious mechanism to allow Scottish independence, and if there were to be an Act of Union would be the obvious mechanism there. An elected government has the right to pass legislation, and in Britain legislation can do and is everything. Cameron promised a referendum which, not in law but in practice, would be binding. We voted for the referendum, and voted the wrong way, alas. Brexit is certainly national self-harm, but that’s the right of voters. If they don’t want to use their brains, or to prioritise ends alien to people like me, that’s also entirely within their rights. There is no national consensus that we should move to any other constitutional régime, and in the absence of one, absurd as they are, our Diceyan notions are not so beyond the pale that simply in themselves they are illegitimate. If I am prepared to recognise the Thatcher ministry as having a legitimate democratic basis—and I certainly am—then the far more limited damage of Brexit certainly doesn’t make me inclined to question these aspects of the British democratic setup. (I do have some sympathy to attempts to smuggle in a constitution through the backdoor via the Act of Union and Scots law though.)
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  > Brexit is certainly national self-harm, but that’s the right of voters. Are people really not aware that the brexit referendum and last two US presidential elections were heavily manipulated by Putin to weaken NATO and the EU so he could do exactly what he's doing right now?
  - blibble 5y ago
    can you explain how having the UK inside the EU would have prevented Putin invading Ukraine?
  - gadders 5y ago
    I think that is a conspiracy theory. Russia certainly seems to be doing better under Biden than Trump.
  - eynsham 5y ago
    As I said, if fellow voters don’t wish to use their brains, that’s up to them. Of course, I regret that they have caused themselves harm—I also regret that they have caused me harm to some extent, although probably less, due to my socioeconomic position. Focusing on Putin is the infantile response of, in my case, a British élite who have run out of ideas and who would rather put up with idiocy like Brexit than implement a proper welfare state.
blibble 5y ago
> A 52% majority is no basis for far-reaching, long-term constitutional change if victory in a direct plebiscite isn't a legitimate basis for long-term constitutional change: what about all the EU treaties that made long-term constitutional changes without any sort of referendum (e.g. Maastricht, Nice, Lisbon)? did those have a legitimate basis?
- kergonath 5y ago
  The 1975 referendum was not decided by a 2% margin (the result was ~68% in favour). To get it from the horse’s mouth, “in a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way”. Of course Farage thought he would lose when he said that, but the “we won by 1.8%, just suck it up” talking point is pure hypocrisy.
  - blibble 5y ago
    it's hard to argue against the position that the state of the EEC in 1975 was anything other than legitimate given it was directly approved by the electorate the same cannot be said for the subsequent treaty changes, especially if one considers the 2016 referendum to be an illegitimate basis for reversing the changes (and the EEC of 1975 was very, very different to the EU of 2016)
- EForEndeavour 5y ago
  > if victory in a direct plebiscite isn't a legitimate basis for long-term constitutional change The question is not whether a referendum outcome should legitimize change. The question is whether using the threshold of simple majority (50%) makes sense. Many constitutional changes throughout the world require a supermajority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority
  - blibble 5y ago
    I'd agree but then I'd counter with the fact that a super-majority wasn't required to join the EU (EEC in 1975), so why is it fair that a supermajority would then be required to leave it? stacking the odds in Remain's favour in this way would definitely have been seen as illegitimate (I'm also certain that the majority of people stating that the UK leaving the EU should have required a super-majority would be against requiring a super-majority to rejoin, in the unlikely event that ever happens...)
fennecfoxen 5y ago
> Disagree here. A 52% majority is no basis for far-reaching, long-term constitutional change Especially one with a bunch of negotiations and interpretations and unknowns and fantasies and dire consequences attached to it. Referendum-driven democracy of this sort is a disaster area. People shouldn't have been allowed to vote directly on this kind of a proposition until it had been negotiated in detail.
pacifika 5y ago
Yup and 5 million people that can vote in a general election weren’t allowed to vote.
- blibble 5y ago
  the franchise was exactly the same as for general elections
  - jlokier 5y ago
    General elections don't affect the people who were not allowed to vote nearly as much. The Brexit outcome (not just the vote but political decisions afterwards rejecting all "soft" versions) has literally stripped citizenship rights and rights akin to citizenship from millions of people who were not allowed to vote on their own future. My take on democracy is that the people most affected by a major decision must be allowed to contribute to the decision. If they are excluded at scale, then it's not democracy, it's just a vote by one group of people to control another.
    - blibble 5y ago
      the UK is hardly unique in that votes on constitutional changes are reserved for citizens (+ a few extras due to the country's complicated history) changing the franchise in this way you have suggested would have been seen as the Remain campaign changing the rules to benefit itself, and would not have been accepted > The Brexit outcome (not just the vote but political decisions afterwards rejecting all "soft" versions) has literally stripped citizenship rights and rights akin to citizenship this is a (yet another) common misconception: EU "citizenship" is really quite limited, and is not at all the same as national citizenship I think without exception: every right has been grandfathered in for those that were living in the UK at the time, for all intents and purposes "EU citizenship" has simply been renamed for those present in the UK prior to leaving
      - jlokier 5y ago
        > the UK is hardly unique in that votes on constitutional changes are reserved for citizens (+ a few extras due to the country's complicated history) I agree with you, letting the people most affected have a say wouldn't have been accepted, and that's usually how these things go. I argue that it's still unethical and fails the basic principle of democracy, though. I personally do not respect the result as honouring the civic principles underlying democracy, but I respect that most people take a cruder "my team won" view, and if the 51% foxes vote to eat the 49% hens for dinner, that's democracy to them. > I think without exception: every right has been grandfathered in for those that were living in the UK at the time, for all intents and purposes We were talking about the vote being denied to UK citizens abroad too - UK citizens affected by Brexit who had no say. They don't have anything like the rights they used to have. I've found it interesting for years that when rights are mentioned, most people focus entirely on non-UK citizens in the UK, not the lost rights of UK citizens. But a huge section of the UK population used to travel freely and work, and are deeply unhappy at losing their personal EU rights and seeing access to jobs they used to do closed, and (in my experience) even more distressed that their children won't grow up able to exercise those freedoms to travel, study and work abroad in the way that they themselves were. I guess people who didn't exercise those rights tend not to think about them, and people who did are on the losing side of the result.
pugets 5y ago
What exact precedent are we trying to set here? Every national election has potential long-lasting effects. It’s always argued by the losing side that the winners are misinformed.
eptcyka 5y ago
52% of voters, not even 52% of the population.
- deleted 5y ago
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azth 5y ago
Isn't that how democracy literally works? Giving a random person off the street the ability to vote leads you to these results. No surprises honestly.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Yeah a 67%+ majority would seem to have been better requirement

by gmac 5y ago

blowski 5y ago

Reading this thread is like reading a "tabs vs spaces" flamewar. I voted and strongly supported remain. We left. Let's move on (e.g. start a campaign to re-join or some other future) rather than re-hashing the same arguments over and over and over and over again.

jeffwass 5y ago

Also, the referendum was legally non-binding.

drcongo 5y ago
And Leave Means Leave was a Russian funded operation who are now deleting all their online accounts and likely burning paper trails.
messe 5y ago
No referendum can be legally binding in the UK due to parliamentary sovereignty there. Even if parliament were to create a referendum that stated it was legally binding, they could simply repeal or amend it, as parliament is unable to bind future parliaments.
blibble 5y ago
this is a common talking point amongst those that don't understand that in the UK a legally binding referendum is not possible, at all, ever it's a direct consequence of parliamentary sovereignty parliament can make any law except those which bind parliament (which a legally binding referendum would do)
- corney91 5y ago
  Parliament can pass the bill before the referendum, for example in the AV referendum. The great benefit doing it that way is the voters will be clear about what's being voted on.
  - blibble 5y ago
    and that wasn't legally binding either if parliament didn't want to implement it: it could have passed another act that repealed the first personally, I find the "it wasn't legally binding" argument to be sophistry of the worst kind
    - corney91 5y ago
      You could say that about any law though. It was as legally binding as anything else Parliament passes.
      - blibble 5y ago
        yes which is why stating "it wasn't legally binding" like it's abnormal or some sort of important insight is disingenuous
        corney91 5y ago
        I don't think it's disingenuous, because there's a material difference between the approaches in 2011 and 2016. In 2011 we had no doubt about what we were voting on, Parliament had already debated it. In 2016 the vote was had with no confirmed details and Parliament then needed to work out exactly what the public wanted. They're both done now so I'm not saying this because I think the outcomes should be revisited, but I hope we can learn from them for any future referendums.
        blibble 5y ago
        having a plan to execute is separate from being "legally binding" separately: the EU refused to negotiate at all until Article 50 was triggered, so what you're asking for was essentially impossible

ricardo81 5y ago

Well, I wouldn't disagree with what you're saying. Living in Scotland, we had a separate (independence) referendum and the ensuing fallout from that. I was out of the country for that one but saw the same kind of systemic mass media leveraging of cherry picked ideas. All said, I think the UK should be more aligned with the EU here and play its part in securing the well-being of Ukrainian citizens. We (I think, as in the West and/or democracy) are united in recognising Ukrainians rights to self-determination

eynsham 5y ago

A <<50% majority of the population elected a parliamentary majority to allow India and Ireland independence; it would similarly now be the obvious mechanism to allow Scottish independence, and if there were to be an Act of Union would be the obvious mechanism there. An elected government has the right to pass legislation, and in Britain legislation can do and is everything. Cameron promised a referendum which, not in law but in practice, would be binding. We voted for the referendum, and voted the wrong way, alas. Brexit is certainly national self-harm, but that’s the right of voters. If they don’t want to use their brains, or to prioritise ends alien to people like me, that’s also entirely within their rights. There is no national consensus that we should move to any other constitutional régime, and in the absence of one, absurd as they are, our Diceyan notions are not so beyond the pale that simply in themselves they are illegitimate. If I am prepared to recognise the Thatcher ministry as having a legitimate democratic basis—and I certainly am—then the far more limited damage of Brexit certainly doesn’t make me inclined to question these aspects of the British democratic setup. (I do have some sympathy to attempts to smuggle in a constitution through the backdoor via the Act of Union and Scots law though.)

KennyBlanken 5y ago
> Brexit is certainly national self-harm, but that’s the right of voters. Are people really not aware that the brexit referendum and last two US presidential elections were heavily manipulated by Putin to weaken NATO and the EU so he could do exactly what he's doing right now?
- blibble 5y ago
  can you explain how having the UK inside the EU would have prevented Putin invading Ukraine?
- gadders 5y ago
  I think that is a conspiracy theory. Russia certainly seems to be doing better under Biden than Trump.
- eynsham 5y ago
  As I said, if fellow voters don’t wish to use their brains, that’s up to them. Of course, I regret that they have caused themselves harm—I also regret that they have caused me harm to some extent, although probably less, due to my socioeconomic position. Focusing on Putin is the infantile response of, in my case, a British élite who have run out of ideas and who would rather put up with idiocy like Brexit than implement a proper welfare state.

blibble 5y ago

> A 52% majority is no basis for far-reaching, long-term constitutional change if victory in a direct plebiscite isn't a legitimate basis for long-term constitutional change: what about all the EU treaties that made long-term constitutional changes without any sort of referendum (e.g. Maastricht, Nice, Lisbon)? did those have a legitimate basis?

kergonath 5y ago
The 1975 referendum was not decided by a 2% margin (the result was ~68% in favour). To get it from the horse’s mouth, “in a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way”. Of course Farage thought he would lose when he said that, but the “we won by 1.8%, just suck it up” talking point is pure hypocrisy.
- blibble 5y ago
  it's hard to argue against the position that the state of the EEC in 1975 was anything other than legitimate given it was directly approved by the electorate the same cannot be said for the subsequent treaty changes, especially if one considers the 2016 referendum to be an illegitimate basis for reversing the changes (and the EEC of 1975 was very, very different to the EU of 2016)
EForEndeavour 5y ago
> if victory in a direct plebiscite isn't a legitimate basis for long-term constitutional change The question is not whether a referendum outcome should legitimize change. The question is whether using the threshold of simple majority (50%) makes sense. Many constitutional changes throughout the world require a supermajority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority
- blibble 5y ago
  I'd agree but then I'd counter with the fact that a super-majority wasn't required to join the EU (EEC in 1975), so why is it fair that a supermajority would then be required to leave it? stacking the odds in Remain's favour in this way would definitely have been seen as illegitimate (I'm also certain that the majority of people stating that the UK leaving the EU should have required a super-majority would be against requiring a super-majority to rejoin, in the unlikely event that ever happens...)

fennecfoxen 5y ago

> Disagree here. A 52% majority is no basis for far-reaching, long-term constitutional change Especially one with a bunch of negotiations and interpretations and unknowns and fantasies and dire consequences attached to it. Referendum-driven democracy of this sort is a disaster area. People shouldn't have been allowed to vote directly on this kind of a proposition until it had been negotiated in detail.

pacifika 5y ago

Yup and 5 million people that can vote in a general election weren’t allowed to vote.

blibble 5y ago
the franchise was exactly the same as for general elections
- jlokier 5y ago
  General elections don't affect the people who were not allowed to vote nearly as much. The Brexit outcome (not just the vote but political decisions afterwards rejecting all "soft" versions) has literally stripped citizenship rights and rights akin to citizenship from millions of people who were not allowed to vote on their own future. My take on democracy is that the people most affected by a major decision must be allowed to contribute to the decision. If they are excluded at scale, then it's not democracy, it's just a vote by one group of people to control another.
  - blibble 5y ago
    the UK is hardly unique in that votes on constitutional changes are reserved for citizens (+ a few extras due to the country's complicated history) changing the franchise in this way you have suggested would have been seen as the Remain campaign changing the rules to benefit itself, and would not have been accepted > The Brexit outcome (not just the vote but political decisions afterwards rejecting all "soft" versions) has literally stripped citizenship rights and rights akin to citizenship this is a (yet another) common misconception: EU "citizenship" is really quite limited, and is not at all the same as national citizenship I think without exception: every right has been grandfathered in for those that were living in the UK at the time, for all intents and purposes "EU citizenship" has simply been renamed for those present in the UK prior to leaving
    - jlokier 5y ago
      > the UK is hardly unique in that votes on constitutional changes are reserved for citizens (+ a few extras due to the country's complicated history) I agree with you, letting the people most affected have a say wouldn't have been accepted, and that's usually how these things go. I argue that it's still unethical and fails the basic principle of democracy, though. I personally do not respect the result as honouring the civic principles underlying democracy, but I respect that most people take a cruder "my team won" view, and if the 51% foxes vote to eat the 49% hens for dinner, that's democracy to them. > I think without exception: every right has been grandfathered in for those that were living in the UK at the time, for all intents and purposes We were talking about the vote being denied to UK citizens abroad too - UK citizens affected by Brexit who had no say. They don't have anything like the rights they used to have. I've found it interesting for years that when rights are mentioned, most people focus entirely on non-UK citizens in the UK, not the lost rights of UK citizens. But a huge section of the UK population used to travel freely and work, and are deeply unhappy at losing their personal EU rights and seeing access to jobs they used to do closed, and (in my experience) even more distressed that their children won't grow up able to exercise those freedoms to travel, study and work abroad in the way that they themselves were. I guess people who didn't exercise those rights tend not to think about them, and people who did are on the losing side of the result.

pugets 5y ago

What exact precedent are we trying to set here? Every national election has potential long-lasting effects. It’s always argued by the losing side that the winners are misinformed.

eptcyka 5y ago

52% of voters, not even 52% of the population.

deleted 5y ago
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azth 5y ago

Isn't that how democracy literally works? Giving a random person off the street the ability to vote leads you to these results. No surprises honestly.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Yeah a 67%+ majority would seem to have been better requirement