I dunno how many people it takes before it's clear the democratic will of the populace isn't settled.
Had it been a decisive victory, then people would still be entitled to protest. Though they'd have the right to raise their case, if protests and petitions remained confined to a small number, one could legitimately argue that a second vote would be undermining democracy. That would be indeed a case of voting again and again until the correct outcome was reached. Additional votes when it's clear that none are needed could indeed be said to be suspicious, even perversely anti-democratic.
But it wasn't decisive at all, it was marginal. Protests have been sustained and escalated ever since. Petitions have shown that the mood has changed. New information has been presented that wasn't available previously. So I don't see how on earth a second vote undermines democracy in this case. If the people want another vote, which they very clearly do, then denying them another choice is clearly undemocratic.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45926996
What is democratic and not is decided based on convenience.
ReplyDeleteIf The EU can do 2 votes to get in the EU , it can do 2 votes to leave.
ReplyDeleteAs an American its really strange you can do a constitional change with one single Plebiscite .
Just to change the law of Massachusetts By PLebiscite you have to get something ratified 2x.
and then it must still get approved by the Legislature
( and the Governor can reject it )
To nominate a USA constitutional amendment it must get voted on 2x . ( and get 3/4 states and voted on Congress )
I dont like the idea of merely moving the goalposts to overturn a Plebiscite , but it violates multiple Republican Principals the way it was set up.
( and The EU never minded forcing as redo of votes ) .
Constitutional changes ought to have more hurdles than a mere law.
At the very least the Final Deal needs to be put up for Plebiscitite and if its not what the people wanted Reject it
Piero FilippIN Well I imagine in a Venn diagram, the area of overlap between democratic, convenient, and sensible would be rather small...
ReplyDeleteA few thousand out of how many millions?
ReplyDeleteAdam Black Technically we can't do it with just a referendum. Leaving the E.U. requires new legislation. The Supreme Court ruled that only Parliament can change the law, which famously resulted in the Daily Mail attacking the judges as enemies of the people. Still, the ruling stands, so the MPs do have to vote to ratify the result (which was non-binding, so legally they have no obligation to do so). And then it has to get through the Lords, though they have limited, "revisory" powers rather than the ability to make sweeping changes. So it's not quite that one vote does everything. That said, the Tories have been doing their damnedest to make it so despite there being no real mandate.
ReplyDeleteJeff Liggett About 700,000. In the context of a protest this is huge by any standards.
ReplyDeleteAdam Black: Well, UK is still not formally a republic. In a dire need, they can abandon all precedents and blame the Royal Prerogative. Remember when the Queen meddled in Australia's politics by sacking the PM?
ReplyDeleteAndres Soolo 5 years ago in Canada
ReplyDeleteAdam Black: I'm eagerly waiting for the Queen to sack the Brexit minister(s).
ReplyDeleteAndres Soolo wait what?
ReplyDeleteWhat's been bizarre is that it seems that both parties have committed to Brexit.
ReplyDeleteAre any of your MPs calling for an abort to Brexit? How are MPs selected by their party? Do you have primaries? Can you fund a primary challenge against Pro-brexit labour candidates?
Chris Greene It's complicated.
ReplyDeleteThere's a breakdown of how MPs voted on the referendum here :
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35616946
Pretty much everyone was against it apart from half the Tories, or so it seemed. However, this disguises a highly lacklustre campaign by Labour, whose leadership is at best ambivalent and at worst are closet Brexiteers. It's hard to be sure which, but they continue to fight for a general election and not a second referendum, thus completely missing that this is the issue in British politics.
AFAIK, only the Lib Dems are actively against Brexit, but even they are only calling for another vote. The SNP's position appears to be mired in confusion after the last election : they're no longer sure what their main appeal is. Independence ? Anti-austerity ? Anti-Brexit ? Dunno. So they're non-committal. I'd at least credit them with being coherent enough to be able to play politics with this issue, whereas Labour, so far as I can tell, are only doing avoiding it because they genuinely don't have a sodding clue.
Each party has its own rules as to how candidate MPs are chosen. The rules as to how Labour chooses them are currently yet another political minefield, with pro-Corbyn members wanting change to make the process "more democratic" whereas the anti-Corbyn faction think this is just a power grab.
Honestly it's just all such a stupid mess that I want to kick out the whole lot of 'em and vote for a completely new set of MPs.