#99

Wasn’t this supposedly why it took 9 months to trigger A50, preceded by parliamentary debates and votes?

#100

Ah, but with Will Quince’s new campaign to cap parking fines at a tenner, you can park anywhere you like cheaper than doing it legally now. Just stick it on the inside lane at Parliament Square rather than going to one of those £50 a day jobs in Soho.

#102

No cos as established up there one option is a disaster and the other isn’t.

If they had a vote on teaching creationism instead of evolution is schools and creationism won narrowly would you say it should be accepted or would you point out that facts massively weigh to one side of the argument. Same with Brexit; facts favour remaining.

Most people aren’t rabid quitters. Most leave voters did so for other reasons (see my post above). And I don’t give the slightest fuck about the hardcore racist ukip types and have no respect for their opinions so why would I feel we need to respect their vote? Esp when it’ll fuck the country for generations.

And ukip are dead in the water and have never been a strong political party. They had one MP and only cos he switched parties. A strong media manipulator as leader sure but I think Farage has had his fun and will get back in his hole soon enough. Even if he doesn’t there’s no indication that ukip would gain any more seats than they had and if brexit’s cancelled then chances are anti EU sentiment among the general population would go down as people now realise the benefits of membership.

#103

And if everyone does it and refuses to pay, the costs of recovery will outstrip the contribution to the Exchequer. Get in.

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#105

yeah this is true. it feels like that was one of those arguments people were clinging to in the immediate aftermath in their disbelieving shell-shock but that everyone should really have moved beyond by this stage.

#106

Weren’t most of those debates about whether they had to go via parliament in the first place. Certainly nothing on the full ramifications of brexit is the reasons why people might have voted that way.

#108

Oh yeah, whether they’d accept it as a reason is another thing and I don’t think they would.
But their understanding of democracy is that’s it’s like a football match, you have a winner and the loser gets over it and not a constant exchange of ideas.

But just cos people misunderstand the game doesn’t mean you have to play by their rules.

#109

Some of the debates were. Not many of the wider ones were reported though, no.

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#110

I assume this is tongue in cheek because my experience is there is a group of people out there who genuinely do believe in the ‘benign dictatorship’ and they’re all absolute misanthropists.

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#111

ha yeah. stalinist twitter has some real freaks its sort of fascinating in a sick way.

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#112

It seems like the point where Lexit nutters and right-wing old white men join up.

#113

Except the Remain campaign did play by those rules. That’s the whole problem.

Cameron didn’t have to have a referendum at all. Given that he chose to, he certainly didn’t have to cast it as a “once in a generation decision”, “a straight democratic decision”, call it “decisive” the very next day, or say that he would trigger Article 50 immediately following the referendum.

All of those comments undercut the whole “it was only advisory” argument. Yes, legally and technically it was. Morally, politically and in the eyes of most of the public, it most certainly wasn’t, and neither side treated it as such until we lost.

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#116

Yes Cameron’s a complete fuckwit and ballsed the whole thing up massively. No argument there.

But why keep making a mistake just cos you started by making one.

#117

The short version?

Because :

  • trust in politicians is at an all time low and they don’t have the political capital to tell the public to fuck off.
  • Neither of our major parties can do it without putting themselves out of government for decades.
  • As @xylo aludes, you can only keep making people feel disenfranchised for so long before they take matters into their own hands.
#118

•trust in politicians is at an all time low and they don’t have the political capital to tell the public to fuck off.

But not all of the public want brexit. More and more people will want to remain and a party who had the balls to stand up and say that would get massive support.

•Neither of our major parties can do it without putting themselves out of government for decades.

See above, backing remain isn’t a way to the political wilderness, presiding over leaving probably is.

•As @xylo aludes, you can only keep making people feel disenfranchised for so long before they take matters into their own hands.

People are disenfranchised and yes that’s part of the reason they voted to leave. But if leaving will disenfranchise them even more it seems perverse to carry on with it cos of ‘that’s what they want’. Any party backing remain now would have to say they had heard the ‘cry for help’ and will tackle those issues. And I’m sure a lot of other leave voters prob down care that much about being members or not, they voted with a shrug not understanding the ramifications. If you point out things will be a lot better by remaining then they will be happy (if they even notice at all) Brexit was a vote that happened a year ago, their lives have moved on. As you say people are politically apathetic and lots of people think we’ve already left.

#120

I guess the point we’re discussing is whether brexit should/could be overturned. I think it can/should and don’t agree with the reasons why people (leavers) say it shouldn’t.

#122

The LibDems got 7.4% of the vote.

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#123

Yeah we agree :slight_smile:

More just discussing the potential points for arguing for/against.

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#124

We have a first past the post system.

#126

So a “a party who had the balls to stand up and [advocate remain] would get massive support.” isn’t true, and isn’t true because we have a FPTP system?

I think we are in agreement then.