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Should we have a Second Referendum?

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I've said this before on many fora and I'll say it again (likely not the last time though :biggrin:); we've voted as a country to leave the EU a couple of years ago so we should do what the majority voted for, which is to leave. No 2nd referendum as it then removes the trust of the Government.
Reply 61
Original post by Burton Bridge
Referendums are not comparable with General Elections.

May I ask if you have read May's deal?


Why not?

I've read sections of it, can't say I've read all the pages. Why do you ask?
Reply 62
Original post by spotify95
I've said this before on many fora and I'll say it again (likely not the last time though :biggrin:); we've voted as a country to leave the EU a couple of years ago so we should do what the majority voted for, which is to leave. No 2nd referendum as it then removes the trust of the Government.


Removes trust in a Government the majority didn't vote for, with a PM who wasn't in place when the referendum took place, propped up by buying votes and yet still loses by historically unprecedented margins?

It'd remove trust in that Government?
Original post by Quady
Removes trust in a Government the majority didn't vote for, with a PM who wasn't in place when the referendum took place, propped up by buying votes and yet still loses by historically unprecedented margins?

It'd remove trust in that Government?


More like the people would trust the Government even less if they decided to back down on what the UK voted for (although I agree that the government wasn't a majority, we needed the DUP to make up the seats - yet before the second general election, we did have enough seats on our own).
Cameron should have either not done the EU referendum at all, or stuck with it no matter what the result, rather than resign and leave us in a mess.
And I'm not getting involved in further politics because it all gets messy rather quickly :tongue:
Original post by Doones
1979


So? How things were done 40 years ago doesn't mean it should be done the same way.


Original post by RogerOxon
It isn't for a censure motion - that requires a super-majority. Is that 50% of those eligible to vote, or those that voted? I could call that arbitrary.

The fact is that opinions change, otherwise we'd never have any elections. Any long process needs to take that into account, especially when detail become clear along the way. No one knew what sort of a deal would be negotiated.


There's nothing arbitrary in ruling that those who decided not to vote, do not care either way and therefore can be excluded from the decision. This is how all general elections the world over are handled.

The fact is the UK democratically voted to leave the EU. Delivering anything less, or asking them to vote again, which in reality is actually asking them to align with MPs, is clearly stating that the UK is not a democracy, but an aristocracy.
Original post by Quady
Removes trust in a Government the majority didn't vote for, with a PM who wasn't in place when the referendum took place, propped up by buying votes and yet still loses by historically unprecedented margins?

It'd remove trust in that Government?

The reality is if the UK doesnt leave the EU, then Parliament is saying that democracy in the UK counts for nothing. The people said "jump" and the MPs said "no, i'd prefer to walk/run/cartwheel".
Original post by blossomblue
The Brexit Referendum of 2016 declared that the British public voted to leave the European Union.
The vote declared that 51.9% of the public wanted to leave and 48.1% wanted to remain.
There are recent murmurings in parliament and in Britain of a potential second referendum.

What is your opinion?
Would it be anti-democratic?
What are the pros and cons of a second referendum?
Should there even be a second referendum?

YESSSS! Lets exit breixt! :virtual_bar:
Reply 67
Original post by RogerOxon
That wasn't the point.


If you voted Labour 20 years ago, are you ever allowed to change that opinion? You get to change your mind every few years on that.

What about new voters that never got to vote on Brexit? When do they get heard?
What about people that didn't appreciate many of the issues, e.g. the Irish border?


But then that is not the same vote as you had previously. We do not keep voting on the same thing ever in an election as the options change. We vote on different people, different parties and different manifestos.

The idea of a referendum is that it is a one off. Whatever you decided that day you can't change your mind. Whoever qualified to vote on that referendum that is it. There is no going back because someone was too young to vote!
Original post by nutz99
The idea of a referendum is that it is a one off. Whatever you decided that day you can't change your mind. Whoever qualified to vote on that referendum that is it. There is no going back because someone was too young to vote!

By that logic we should respect the 1975 one to stay in the EU.
Original post by geoking
So? How things were done 40 years ago doesn't mean it should be done the same way.

Where do you draw the line? A decision from 999 days ago?

The fact is the UK democratically voted to leave the EU. Delivering anything less, or asking them to vote again, which in reality is actually asking them to align with MPs, is clearly stating that the UK is not a democracy, but an aristocracy.

The issue that Parliament has is that, whilst voting to leave the EU, they cannot agree on how. The referendum didn't address that either - it's vital detail that the public have not had a say on, and MPs cannot agree on. How do you propose to address this?
Reply 70
Original post by geoking
The reality is if the UK doesnt leave the EU, then Parliament is saying that democracy in the UK counts for nothing. The people said "jump" and the MPs said "no, i'd prefer to walk/run/cartwheel".


Manchester has a mayor doesn't it?
Original post by Doones
Perhaps, except 50% of the electorate didn't vote to Leave. It was just 37%.

And see this previous referendum for precedent:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Scottish_devolution_referendum

It set a 40% of the electorate requirement (not even 50%). On that basis the 2016 referendum would also have failed.


thats assuming that everyone who didnt vote would have voted remain, for all anyone knows they could all have been brexiteers
Reply 72
Original post by Cheesus69
thats assuming that everyone who didnt vote would have voted remain, for all anyone knows they could all have been brexiteers


That assumed everyone who didn't vote would have voted to reject a Scottish parliament, for all anyone knows they could have been pro-devo.
Original post by Quady
Manchester has a mayor doesn't it?


lolwut
Original post by RogerOxon
Where do you draw the line? A decision from 999 days ago?


The issue that Parliament has is that, whilst voting to leave the EU, they cannot agree on how. The referendum didn't address that either - it's vital detail that the public have not had a say on, and MPs cannot agree on. How do you propose to address this?


Don't have a line and run government like a business that knows what it's doing. Just because something was done in a certain way doesn't mean it should be repeated for the sake of it. Reassess the best way, and go with the outcome. If we stuck to the ways of the past without scrutiny, we'd still be homophobic, sexist racists living in caes.

The reality is a lot of MPs simply don't want to leave the EU and believe they're doing the right thing by rejecting all options. Honestly, the UK should have planned for a hard Brexit from the start, but until all aspects of the government are reworked, then the UK will remain being ran by drunks, snobs and idiots.

What's the solution? Hard Brexit. There's no way in hell Parliament will ever agree on anything when they are more divided now than in the last 50 years.
Reply 75
Original post by RogerOxon
By that logic we should respect the 1975 one to stay in the EU.


Logic also tells you it is a different animal now and when we joined it was the EEC. There is no comparison between the trading market we joined to the super power that it thinks it is today.
Reply 76
Original post by Cheesus69
thats assuming that everyone who didnt vote would have voted remain, for all anyone knows they could all have been brexiteers


No it doesn't. See the already referenced 1979 Devo Referendum that set a 40% electorate requirement.

And before anyone else says but that was 40 years ago.. other countries currently have such a 40% requirement in place for referendums including Denmark.

Original post by nutz99
Logic also tells you it is a different animal now and when we joined it was the EEC. There is no comparison between the trading market we joined to the super power that it thinks it is today.


And has the deal on offer changed in the past 999 days? Nobody defined what Leave meant for the original referendum, TM's WA does now. Therefore the electorate should vote on it.

And really this is the only sensible outcome from TM's speech tonight... she was appealing to the people to support her and doesn't trust parliament to do it. The next step must be putting the WA to the People's Vote.
(edited 5 years ago)
Original post by nutz99
Logic also tells you it is a different animal now and when we joined it was the EEC. There is no comparison between the trading market we joined to the super power that it thinks it is today.

And there's no comparison between the non-existent "Leave" deal that we had during the vote and the one that we have now ..

It's unfortunate that those that want a "no deal" Brexit can't have it without severely screwing the rest of the UK.
(edited 5 years ago)
Reply 78
Just to note the #RevokeArticle50 petition now has over 300,000 signatures - nearly all in the past few hours.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584
I don’t think there should be a “second referendum” in the sense of simply repeating the question asked in the first one. The British people already expressed a response to that question, and it would make a farce of democracy if you could simply re-run a vote just because you didn’t like the original outcome.


However, the deadlock in parliament is no longer simply a question of “Leave or Remain”. Now that a particular withdrawal agreement has been negotiated, it is a question of “Deal or No Deal (or neither)”.

For that question, I think we do need a referendum. Without it, parliament will either impose Theresa May’s Deal upon us, or lead us into a no-Deal Brexit, or extend/revoke Article 50 without the public having given their explicit consent to any of these outcomes.

Without a referendum, MP’s own career aspirations, party politics, faction rivalry and parliamentary arithmetic will continue to be prioritised over the actual public interest, and this will be reflected in the final decision on Brexit.


As a side note:

Whilst it is true that most Remainers want a referendum (as that is the only chance for them to legitimately get their way), it is not true that a referendum would automatically lead to a “Remain” outcome, as people so often apparently assume. It would simply lead to whichever result is favoured by the majority of the British people at the time.

Furthermore, in order to be impartial regarding the decision as to whether or not we have a referendum, we should not assume a particular result from beforehand. We must simply determine whether or not a referendum is in the public interest. In this case, I believe it is.

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