Remain Camp & Gina Miller

Do you have any evidence that the public like referendums? It's far more about party management that popularity IMO

Poll the public on virtually any question and they'll tell you they want a referendum on it.

That said, your analysis is also fairly accurate. Governments hold referendums to get out of a politically sticky situation (the Scottish independence referendum, the Brexit referendum) or to provide entrenchment and greater popular acceptance for a position (Belfast Agreement, 1975 EU referendum, devolution referendums).

Poll the public on virtually any question and they'll tell you they want a referendum on it.

That said, your analysis is also fairly accurate. Governments hold referendums to get out of a politically sticky situation (the Scottish independence referendum, the Brexit referendum) or to provide entrenchment and greater popular acceptance for a position (Belfast Agreement, 1975 EU referendum, devolution referendums).

It makes me wonder about the decision for challenging the Referendum to leave the EU by Gina Miller.

Gina said in her media and press interviews that "Parliament was sovereign and should make the decision". Hang on one second.....if you believe Parliament is sovereign - meaning that it is the final arbiter of legislation that affects the United Kingdom.....then why didn't you vote leave ?. The majority of brexiteers voted so that Parliament could remain sovereign and have the final say in what legislation is enacted ( and not the European Parliament ). It just makes Ms Miller's declaration that parliament is sovereign sound hypocritical. Parliament is only sovereign for people who voted remain when the same Parliament will hinder the decision to leave Europe.

If the Referendum had decided that we remain in Europe, would Ms Miller have taken the matter to the Supreme Court - meaning it's Parliament to decide whether we remain in Europe and not the government ?......I think not.
Equally importantly, where was the referendum to take us in to political union with Europe ?.

Whatever the motives for taking the action I think it was the right thing to do and I voted Leave. In the end the referendum did all it needed to do - it showed the politicians what the public mood was: fairly closely split but a majority wanted to leave. Which is why we are going to leave and even Remain supporting politicians are generally onside with that.

However, there was an important principle here. I voted Leave not because I was bothered about too much immigration or "EU red tape" but from the principles of democracy. The UK has a long history of parliamentary democracy and a history of being a nation state. In the past 40 years we have transferred powers away from the UK parliament to the EU at an unprecedented rate and the EU wanted to carry out many of the functions of a nation state, when people didn't regard it as a nation state. Agreeing shared standards to facilitate a bigger market is one thing, but things like setting control of borders at EU level just don't have democratic consent from the British people and they never did. That kind of thing should be set by a nation state and although no political system is perfect, the UK's parliamentary democracy is a good one and one I would trust more than the EU system, hence my vote to Leave.

However, there is another sinister threat to our democracy, which is that the government wants to increase its executive powers to do things without parliamentary scrutiny, which means without the consent of the elected representatives of the people, which takes government away from the people. This triggering of Article 50 without going through Parliament was one of those incidences, and although it has been sold in the frothing right wing press as an attempt to subvert democracy, this was an attempt by the government to subvert UK constitutional law, and it has been reined in by the judges. We should be proud of this, because it shows that no matter how aggressively the PM tries to whip up the press or denounce her opponents as traitors to the will of the people, this is the UK, and we have an independent judiciary to make sure UK constitutional law is followed.

We will have to watch very carefully when the government tries to sign trade deals - because trade deals pose many of the same issues that the EU (which was basically a massive trade deal) brought us: the signing away of sovereignty over various things, typically constraints to make laws in certain areas in the name of "harmonisation" with a foreign market. Those trade deals will be massively important to our future economic prosperity and also our ability to rule ourselves, but government may try to sneak them through without parliamentary scrutiny because it wants to get deals signed quickly even if some parts are bad for the UK, so they can say "hey look we are doing deals."

Leavers need to be on the ball for this. It is only because of years of challenging the EU, when it was off the radar of most of the electorate, that they managed to get a referendum. For me the main benefit is that it restores power to the UK parliamentary democracy and means that British people get to vote directly on the representatives that have a say in all the laws that govern them. We should resist any attempt for government to set the precedent of overreaching its powers and avoiding being held to account by Parliament.

Also even if you are a Conservative supporter and don't mind the idea of Theresa May overreaching her powers to "get things done" without Parliament, once that precedent is set, it applies to future governments. What happens if a Labour-SNP-Lib Dem coalition sneaks in with a narrow majority and a left wing government wants to start overreaching its powers to bypass Parliament to get through its agenda. Maybe it could act quickly to sign us back in the EU by accepting the Euro and Schengen area, and make Scotland independent...?

I can't remember all the numbers now, but whenever Britain was voting against stuff in the EU we were overruled all but once. That doesn't happen with treaties.

It makes me wonder about the decision for challenging the Referendum to leave the EU by Gina Miller.

Gina said in her media and press interviews that "Parliament was sovereign and should make the decision". Hang on one second.....if you believe Parliament is sovereign - meaning that it is the final arbiter of legislation that affects the United Kingdom.....then why didn't you vote leave ?. The majority of brexiteers voted so that Parliament could remain sovereign and have the final say in what legislation is enacted ( and not the European Parliament ). It just makes Ms Miller's declaration that parliament is sovereign sound hypocritical. Parliament is only sovereign for people who voted remain when the same Parliament will hinder the decision to leave Europe.

If the Referendum had decided that we remain in Europe, would Ms Miller have taken the matter to the Supreme Court - meaning it's Parliament to decide whether we remain in Europe and not the government ?......I think not.
Equally importantly, where was the referendum to take us in to political union with Europe ?.

This post has made me sort of hopeful about leaving the EU. I'm not fundamentally against the idea leaving the EU it is just that the vocal part of the Leave side has always been op repungent to me and stands for so much I dislike.