Democracy 101

Yes of course. Citizens are entitled to oppose the result, to do everything legally within their power to obstruct the triggering of Article 50, to advocate for a second referendum, to try to get the government to bring an Article 50 trigger bill so they can vote it down, etc. A decision having been made doesn't bind us for all time, and those who opposed it may continue to do all within their power to bring about their favoured outcome. I do believe that members of the government have a political and moral obligation to give effect to the results of the referendum, though.

But equally, it is within the rights of those who voted Leave to put psychological, moral and political pressure on those who are attempting to prevent the triggering of Article 50. It is within their rights to call Remainers bad losers, to accuse them of failing to respect democracy, of underlining how chaotic and divisive a second referendum would be.

The stakes of this decision are absolutely enormous; the most important political decision probably since the war. I would be disappointed if both sides didn't do all within their power, legally, to win; if it's as important as they claim, then of course they should.

Churchill had the right of it.

'The best argument against democracy is five minutes with the average voter'

Hmm? Sure, why do you ask?

Eventually you end up with Richard


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A bacon sandwich, a bacon sandwich! My kingdom for a bacon sandwich!

Wrong Richard.

I think the lesson learned here is that we shouldn't have referendums, especially when the motivation to hold this particular one was driven by a desire of David Cameron to appease his critics in the Tory party.

We have a system of parliamentary democracy in this country. We elect our representatives on their party's manifesto and we then leave it for them to make the decisions about running our country. Holding referenda left right and centre makes for a very terse black and white job of a world that is 5 million shades of grey.

I think people who think we need to never have referenda need to have a serious think about whether they actually believe in democracy or not.

"Left right and centre".

We had the AV referendum, the Scottish referendum, and an EU referendum since 2010. All on big issues, so hardly "left right and centre". Referendums are a good idea for big issues where there is need for a proper democratic say on something, less so for minor issues where turnout is likely to be low.

There are various kinds of democracy.

I have seriously thought about direct democracy. I don't believe in it.

Why should the general public have had a say on our membership to the EU?

Why should the general public have had a say on our membership to the EU?

In principal or just because of the specifics of getting it to be functional?

As we are now, outside an election year there is little compulsion for representatives to you know, actually do what their constituents want. That just ends up with them doing what they think is best, you are relying solely on good will for said representative not to abuse the system.

More so for a country like the UK, though I guess in principle to some extent. I don't believe that the general public have the skill or expertise to understand or know how things should be run. Myself included.

Representatives not doing what they should be doing is going to happen regardless of what year it is. This is something that should be dealt with, though I don't know how, but I don't see it as a reason to have referendums.

The public should have and have had a say on the EU - but it should be through electing eurosceptic representatives.

Extrapolating that to another rea of policy, how doyou square that with the government plan to re-introduce grammar schools?

Polling suggests that it is, at best, a contentious policy backed up with little hard evidence, yet the Theresa May government, which never faced a general election, is going to plough on anyway.

The may premiership is unusual and polls predict she would Winn comfortably.,she should hold a GE before pushing it through though.

Iif that is a major issue for you vote for a new party or person with a particular view on it, I see no need to take it to the country.



I say this as somebody informed but relatively neutral about grammar schools.

Does the presence of so called representatives actually not just make people less able to make decisions and hence only serve to reinforce the necessity of said representatives?

For clarity I don't think you could just shift over to direct democracy immediatley, people are currently wholly unprepared for such a practice. However, with a few simple but impactful changes we could see it work. Most important of course needs to be much freer and easier access to information in a non-biased way as well as giving people the skills and resources necessary to examine said evidence.

I think that people's general lack of understanding of most things makes them less able to make decisions than representatives. One would hope that representatives are informed on the issue before they vote.

How do you suppose we have un-biased information given to the public, or how we adequately get them involved and well informed?