The Brexit aftermath thread

[Kallisto]

It's the people of the UK that decided the type of democracy that they want. A democracy that also decided on this referendum and the binding power it may or may not have. In Germany, such a question wouldn't be put to the vote of the population. Neither would a simple majority be enough in the congregation of both houses that would be necessary to alter the constitution in such a decisive action. But that is only how we choose to have the country run for us.

What @GoblinP said is absolutely correct. They chose this. And as sad as it is for the Remainers, that's how even they want their country run. It's their choice. They are free people, free to choose a different Government.

No we did not get the type of Democracy we want. No one wants FPTP system except idiots and extremists like Dribbles or ultra Tories like Kalis because they know the right will never win again in a more proportional way. We who are not insane also know the vote was not a valid one either due to how many people (Upto 3 million people who have rights to vote in the general election) were denied the right to vote in this matter.

Things like "Democracy.", "Will of the people.", "Democratic principle." are all BULLSHIT and saying otherwise is either being ignorant of that or making excuses for it. This was not a proper democratic, law abiding, this must be followed vote. British courts even ruled saying so, but had their hands tied to stop the vote going ahead because of the nature of it being nothing more than a glorified opinion poll.

If the vote was binding it wouldn't have been a lawful vote. Courts would have thrown it out because of the denial of the right to vote in this manner to groups who have a right to vote. But they couldn't because of the nature of it being nothing more than a opinion poll.

It's not binding, if it was binding it would have been illegal. That itself shows it should never have been followed up on with how close it was due to the way it was run to give Leave an extra 5%.

[Noradin]

Ultimately it would be better for everyone if Britain had some sort of deal with the EU, and a 1 of 2 year interim where the UK still has to pay membership fees but doesn't get any new funds allocated could take some of the sting out of Brexit. Don't forget that for the most part the EU27 don't want to see the UK fall off a cliff, most of their frustrations seem to be with the UK government's gross incompetence and inability to decide what they want.

I don't think giving the UK more time to negotiate if they can be expected to just waste it will help anyone.
Right now it looks like they will fall off the cliff anyway.
I'd say, if they cannot make up their mind simply offer them he model Norway got as an interim solution to be renewed at doubling intervals three times starting with five years (then ten, then twenty) and permanent after that. Make the offer just two weeks before the cut off date and publish honest impact forecasts on the UK for the no deal solution a week before.

(And no, trippy, that isn't blackmail. )

- - - Updated - - -

No we did not get the type of Democracy we want.

If the general public of the UK did care enough they certainly could create a party just to change this and vote them in power, but apparently, they have decided that there are more important things to do. So yes, the electorate of the UK chose to keep this democratic system every election they got.

[Noradin]

The Norway model is always available to them. The Customs Union model that Turkey has is also always available to them. They are existing forms of association that they can file and get processed in just a few months if they wanted to considering there is no question of integration.

They are unlikely to take it though, thus the part about the extensions of this "interim" solution.
It still leaves it up to them to decide but calms down the whole timing problem.
If they waste our time they get longer and longer time frames to make up their mind during which they get to follow the rules so we can reduce the negative economic impact.

- - - Updated - - -

The referendum was non-binding and judged non-representative. So there is certainly no legal question of this being a democratic decision. If we are discussing the election that happened afterwards, to my knowledge no major party campaigned on a platform of overturning the non-binding, non-representative referendum. So I really cannot see why we claim that this was the will of the people.

Yes, the referendum was not a democratic decision, but unless you want to claim that the UK is not democratic at all you have to admit that it has democratic legitimacy. The ones who made these decisions were democratically legitimised after all.
The UK could have created and voted in power a party to change their whole voting system every election, but they never chose to do it.

[Noradin]

But this is not what is in question; the question was if they could create a party and place it in power within the scant few months between the 19th of April and the 8th of June to cover the need for a party that advocated a platform of not honoring the non-binding referendum which by all accounts is improbable. Perhaps people did have the option to overwhelmingly vote for the Greens or LibDems who wanted to keep the UK in the Single Market but this would both be a compromise from actually not acting upon Brexit and second would require them to be single-issue voters since many might not agree at all with the other policies of those two parties. And again the timeframe of the elections allowed for very limited reaction by the public. So no, I do not see any legitimacy in that referendum.

Well, yes, that "referendum" was merely a badly set up opinion poll.
But the politicans who made all the decisions, for example the decision to adhere to said opinion poll, these were voted into their positions and unless they broke the law somewhere along the line it follows that the electorate did in fact give them the power to do this. Maybe it was shortsighted to leave the system set up as it is, but that does not mean it isn't democratically legitimated.

Maybe now the British public will see how unsightly FPTP is and what kind of trust they can put in their established parties that took a poll that was highly controversial and just jumped off the cliff with it in fright. Hopefully this is enough incentive for them to come to their senses and do something about their political system.

In short: As your court stated: The legimacy of that "referendum" is irrelevant as long as the politicans making the decision to go with it have legal authority to do so. They were voted in and given the responsibility and authority to make such decisions. How they came by their ideas, no matter how absurd, does not matter as longs as no crimes were involved. Otherwise you would need to police thoughts.

[Slant]

No we did not get the type of Democracy we want.

Then change it. Don't wait for others to do it for you.

[Noradin]

Can you offer me historical examples of countries significantly altering their electoral systems and the circumstances in which those reforms happened? Cause I've been trying to find some and they are truly scarce not including changes on the electoral body itself (mostly expanding it by including formerly excluded parties).

Look up Australia?

[Slant]

Can you offer me historical examples of countries significantly altering their electoral systems and the circumstances in which those reforms happened? Cause I've been trying to find some and they are truly scarce not including changes on the electoral body itself (mostly expanding it by including formerly excluded parties).

Every country in Europe did it. How do you think we went from feudal systems of absolutist monarchies to our current western democratic systems? It's not like change can't happen. The UK has a strong history of democratic values, believe it or not. It's a really special kind of flavour, I'll admit, but nothing's gonna change if everyone throws up their hands in despair and goes "Oh well, nothing I can do about it..."

You don't even need to replace the whole system. Just make sure that bullshit like half assed referendums don't alter the core nature of UK relations against the better judgement of the Government, the royal family and half the country. I mean, if you need to exit, by all means exit, but have it decided at least by a two thirds majority instead of a simple majority. That's just asking for a split right through the country. Heck, NI, London and Scotland may as well secede, then England would actually be right in leaving the Union, because they would have a vast majority to exit.

As it stands, the Scots got it right. They're called Britains, but in the end it's always England deciding the fate for Scotland. I understand why they're talking about freedom all the time. Cos they haven't actually got it.

[Vankrys]

Can you offer me historical examples of countries significantly altering their electoral systems and the circumstances in which those reforms happened? Cause I've been trying to find some and they are truly scarce not including changes on the electoral body itself (mostly expanding it by including formerly excluded parties).

France switch from the fourth republic (parlement republic) to the actual fifth republic (semi-presidential republic) in 1958. Granted, the general charles de Gaule had the support of the french military at the time.

In fact, the fact that it's called 5th republic means they have been 4 republic before, as well as feudal monarchies before the revolution.

Changing government is not something uncommon.

[Slant]

Yes Slant, every country in Europe did it but as I said, there is an issue of circumstances; feudalism was collapsing because of economic forces, in many cases the transition still required violent revolution or the changes happened transitionally after the people demanded a constitution and moving from constitutional monarchies to democracies. Once you actually have a democracy at hand, how easy is it to change the way it works on a fundamental manner? The inertia is a given in any country with two major parties (like the UK is) since the legislative and executive bodies will not get a majority vote to change the method of representation that would like remove their majority. What Noradin suggested is more what I asked for; change through the judiciary, which is the body that is supposed to check the power of the legislative in the first place.

It's rather easy, to be honest. The trick isn't how you make the change. We've known that for millenia. If all else fails, burn a city or two to the ground in a revolution and chop some heads off. The real trick is... what do you replace it with? And that's the reason why you see everyone "stopping" at democracy up until now. Because as bad as it is, we've yet to come up with something better. Communism was the sister attempt to democracy and it failed. But it also shows you how we're still experimenting. I don't believe for a second that democracy is the last form of Government we'll have.

- - - Updated - - -

France switch from the fourth republic (parlement republic) to the actual fifth republic (semi-presidential republic) in 1958. Granted, the general charles de Gaule had the support of the french military at the time.

In fact, the fact that it's called 5th republic means they have been 4 republic before, as well as feudal monarchies before the revolution.

Changing government is not something uncommon.

Ah, good insight. I didn't even know that. Thanks for sharing.

[Slant]

I mean, I don't feel comfortable suggesting to @Kallisto to set London on fire. It looked cool on Hellsing I guess. . .
The court approach seems far more interesting.

I agree. I think we're past the pitchfork stuff in Europe.

[Vankrys]

I agree. I think we're past the pitchfork stuff in Europe.

didn't catalonia's declaration of independence spark some protests recently?

I mean like this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catala...02_0741_30.jpg

[Slant]

didn't catalonia's recent declaration of independence spark some protest recently?

I mean like this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catala...02_0741_30.jpg

I didn't see any pitchforks. Prove me wrong. :P

[Dhrizzle]

I don't think giving the UK more time to negotiate if they can be expected to just waste it will help anyone.
Right now it looks like they will fall off the cliff anyway.
I'd say, if they cannot make up their mind simply offer them he model Norway got as an interim solution to be renewed at doubling intervals three times starting with five years (then ten, then twenty) and permanent after that. Make the offer just two weeks before the cut off date and publish honest impact forecasts on the UK for the no deal solution a week before.

(And no, trippy, that isn't blackmail. )

I'd accept that, actually sod the time periods and let's just adopt the Norway model permanently. We might be a bit worse off than we are now but it's probably the form of Brexit that would cause the least economic damage to the UK and EU. It's also likely that a soft Brexit like that is the type the majority of people would want. If you assume that the 48% who voted Remain would prefer a soft Brexit to a hard Brexit it means if only 2% of the people who voted Leave wanted a soft Brexit that would be the majority.

[Vankrys]

I'd accept that, actually sod the time periods and let's just adopt the Norway model permanently. We might be a bit worse off than we are now but it's probably the form of Brexit that would cause the least economic damage to the UK and EU. It's also likely that a soft Brexit like that is the type the majority of people would want. If you assume that the 48% who voted Remain would prefer a soft Brexit to a hard Brexit it means if only 2% of the people who voted Leave wanted a soft Brexit that would be the majority.

not to mention people who didn't vote.

[Kallisto]

Then change it. Don't wait for others to do it for you.

When the option is never there outisde of "Well there's FPTP and then there's FPTP but we'll rename it." How does the average joe change it since we know protests never work, public talk never works, writing to your mp never works.

- - - Updated - - -

If the general public of the UK did care enough they certainly could create a party just to change this and vote them in power, but apparently, they have decided that there are more important things to do. So yes, the electorate of the UK chose to keep this democratic system every election they got.

Or if you live in the UK you have the knowledge that if you're left of centre and don't want the tories anywhere in power you either vote labour or you're practically in effect voting Tory. Sorry Greens and Lib dems you're never getting to be the First power in the UK so you're a waste of space. That's the problem with FPTP It's A or B putting into C-Z is just wasting your vote at best, helping the one further against your views at worst.

[Slant]

When the option is never there outisde of "Well there's FPTP and then there's FPTP but we'll rename it." How does the average joe change it since we know protests never work, public talk never works, writing to your mp never works.

Well, the thing is. Politicians in the UK don't do something if it will lose them votes. If they know something is highly unpopular and warrants a change, they might just do that. However, as has been shown in this thread, there are Britons who actually believe that FPTP is the pinnacle of modern democracy. As long as nobody stands up to them and tells them to stop taking the piss, preferable a Briton himself, since they never believe us about it, then there's no need to change anything for politicians, is there?

The rough road would be to just test the waters and start a new party that writes "changing the country's form of Government" on their flag. Now, they would have to have an actual program that goes beyond that, but someone has to challenge the old guard.

If nothing else helps... there's always pitchforks.

[Tinch]

Or the court. I honestly find it baffling that there is no concerted, well financed effort to contest the right of May to trigger Article 50 as advised by the referendum raised by citizens vs the state and elevated to the highest court. I know I would sue my government if it tried to take us out of the EU without a greater majority (that is counting abstentions) voting for it (and if all else fails, set something on fire).

You'd have absolutely zero basis to sue and you'd be laughed out of court.

Leave won the referendum and then the UK's elected representatives voted overwhelmingly to trigger Article 50 in Parliament, it would be an incredible abuse of power for the courts to try and overrule a completely lawful and legitimate decision.

[Shadowmelded]

Or the court. I honestly find it baffling that there is no concerted, well financed effort to contest the right of May to trigger Article 50 as advised by the referendum raised by citizens vs the state and elevated to the highest court. I know I would sue my government if it tried to take us out of the EU without a greater majority (that is counting abstentions) voting for it (and if all else fails, set something on fire).

It wouldn't work. Parliament is Sovereign, i.e. it can do pretty much whatever it wants. The case brought before the Supreme Court not long after the referendum was merely about who had the power to trigger article 50, the Government (through Royal Prerogative) or Parliament. The ruling was that it required an act of Parliament and they got one. The only solution to this is political, unfortunately most of our politicians are afraid of the electoral consequences instead of doing their job.

As it stands, the Scots got it right. They're called Britains, but in the end it's always England deciding the fate for Scotland. I understand why they're talking about freedom all the time. Cos they haven't actually got it.

Pretty much mate. That's what's so frustrating about this whole thing as well. The Scottish Government along with the other devolved Governments were asking for a triple lock on the vote, as in, it wouldn't happen unless 3/4 of the Home Nations voted in favour of it. It might have been a tad controversial in England but Cameron did have political cover to do it (all the promises during the Indy Referendum about Scotland being an equal partner and being respected more etc...). Hell, he could have painted the Scottish Government as the villains if he wanted to, I wouldn't have minded a little bit of animosity towards us if it could have prevented this fiasco. But no, apparently vilifying Scots is fine if you want to win a General Election but not for something as big as this.

[Pann]

Pretty much mate. That's what's so frustrating about this whole thing as well. The Scottish Government along with the other devolved Governments were asking for a triple lock on the vote, as in, it wouldn't happen unless 3/4 of the Home Nations voted in favour of it. It might have been a tad controversial in England but Cameron did have political cover to do it (all the promises during the Indy Referendum about Scotland being an equal partner and being respected more etc...). Hell, he could have painted the Scottish Government as the villains if he wanted to, I wouldn't have minded a little bit of animosity towards us if it could have prevented this fiasco. But no, apparently vilifying Scots is fine if you want to win a General Election but not for something as big as this.

A tad controversial? I think that is a massive understatement! Such a system would potentially mean that just over half of Wales' and NI's population (around 2.5million) would render the votes of the remaining 62.5million people meaningless.

[Slant]

Pretty much mate. That's what's so frustrating about this whole thing as well. The Scottish Government along with the other devolved Governments were asking for a triple lock on the vote, as in, it wouldn't happen unless 3/4 of the Home Nations voted in favour of it. It might have been a tad controversial in England but Cameron did have political cover to do it (all the promises during the Indy Referendum about Scotland being an equal partner and being respected more etc...). Hell, he could have painted the Scottish Government as the villains if he wanted to, I wouldn't have minded a little bit of animosity towards us if it could have prevented this fiasco. But no, apparently vilifying Scots is fine if you want to win a General Election but not for something as big as this.

That is actually quite shocking. It got rejected outright? I never knew that you guys requested that. It sounds so reasonable to have a 3/4 majority on it looked from the nations perspectives. Too bad. How's the mood in Scotland, though? I doubt you'd actually call for independence again, would you?

- - - Updated - - -

A tad controversial? I think that is a massive understatement! Such a system would potentially mean that just over half of Wales' and NI's population (around 2.5million) would render the votes of the remaining 62.5million people meaningless.

Well, yes. But the other way around isn't much better, where you're actually rendering a whole nation's popular decision meaningless. Sure, they may have a low population, but they are a country on their own after all. What's the contingency plan if the interests of Scotland and England diverge so much that they're practically irreconcilable?