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Comment by pmorici | Hacker News Reader

People seem to think this vote is the final word but my understanding is that it isn't legally binding and the final decision is up to elected politicians. That's why you saw the prime minister say he would resign. He supported staying and by him resigning new elections will be held.

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Yes that's right. It's not legally binding and the whole exit process only starts when the government invokes article 50 of the EU treaty, which is the exit process and lasts 2 years.

Cameron (the PM) talked about not invoking article 50 straight away, so maybe there's a glimmer of hope for us that voted to stay in that we still have time for further discussions.

'A glimmer of hope?' That what, democracy won't be carried out?

The discussions happened. Democracy played out. We lost.

Isn't this totally anti-democracy? Despite it not being legally binding, it seems totally in contrary to the people's will. I don't understand positively talking about going opposite of what people voted for.

It seems especially odd since it's usually the Leave side that's accused of being fascist.

Or is the idea to do more polling until a favourable outcome is received?

voted for by a 4% margin. don't kid yourself about what democracy actually represents - it's not a united will.

i wonder how many of those 4% will even be alive + not senile by the time this plays out.

They already appear to be senile..

While I agree with what you say, there is very little of what I consider democracy involved in our media manipulated first past the post system. When the winning side basically backed out of their promises within hours of the result is it really democratic?

The only election to be held will be a Tory leadership election, not a general election.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/who-will-be-our-n...

The UK votes for constituency members of parliament, not a prime minister.

The PM resigning does not result in new elections. The Conservative party will vote on a new leader and that person will become the new PM until 2020. (As things stand).

You're right that it's not a binding vote, but there's no possibility that MPs would not start the process of Brexit.

Cameron possibly just wants to avoid the clusterfuck of the next two years. Along the lines of Boris made this bed, let him sleep in it.

EDIT: And he's not resigning as a politician (which would trigger a by-election for his seat), he's only resigning as PM.

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