Why it's time to accept the fact that Brexit may never actually happen

Can we stop claiming 52% is any sort of clear majority? 52% doesn't mean "most people want this", it means "the country is evenly split, so we flipped a coin, and it came up Leave". You need much more than 52% of the population behind you to have a revolution (of any sort).

There's a reason that most functional democracies have a constitution can only by changed by meeting a higher bar than simple majority: it's too important, too sensitive, and too irreversible to be decided without something closer to consensus. I would argue that that logic applies here.

What a 'revolution'. Each and every politician who spearheaded this has since quit in cowardice.

edit: Most, as Johnson remains as Foreign Secretary.

While I certainly agree with that, I would also think that a lot of people that wanted peaceful revolution no longer want it; these are not the types of determined people that turn to violent revolution.

The Brexit was a piece of political propaganda, sold as something easy and hugely beneficial. When it becomes clear that the promises will not come to fruition, few will want to pay an even greater price. The Brexit leaders have all quit their jobs, there's no more leadership pushing this forward.

No one is blocking the Brexit. The Leave campaign simply cannot figure out how to make it work. They lied about almost everything in their entire campaign, so it's not really hard to see how it wouldn't actually work.

I mean look at the 2 main people who were driving the Leave campaign - they both resigned! When your leadership doesn't even want to see the Brexit through, you know you have a problem.

Revolution is a young man's game. In this case if you look at the demographics of the vote it was old people who voted to leave.

In another ten years this vote probably would have gone the other way.

In fact I'm really confused as to who such a complex geopolitical strategy decision was put in front of the citizenship in the first place. "What if they say yes?" Is the sort of question your government should be able to answer before asking the question. If they can't then maybe they shouldn't be making geopolitical strategy decisions either.

If you want a revolution, that's the one you need. Elect some grown ups instead. Then send us your all of the old leaders because they're still doing better job than mine.

What revolution?

The vote is a reflection of discontent but it has no political articulation whatsoever. No plan. No actual idea on how to run a successful government that can ameliorate the issues at hand.

Votes of discontent tend to generate a lot of trouble on the short term, but give a little time and we're back to business as usual because, hey, it turns out actually governing is a hell of a lot more complicated than complaining about things and it turns out that bureaucrats who have been at it for a few decades are actually not the dimwits that are portrayed in the media.

I have very little sympathy for the established political parties, but it's very clear that there is very little in the way of actual plans and solutions outside of the status quo either.

Heck my impression is that this only became an issue more because of a strange interplay of Tory outliers with with a very small but loud group of brexiteers and UKIP politicians who preferred to misinform and pander to a voting bloc rather than having to deal with real, difficult problems.

"Legitimacy" is a fundamental idea our political system (in most of the world) is based on. I think it is underestimated how fragile this legitimacy is (or the meta-idea that a government must have legitimacy). If the political class continues to ignore the wishes of the people, the people will stop giving them legitimacy - and do what ever the fck they please to put it bluntly. We are not facing a revolution - the extreme scenario is rather a failed state, or a "area of reduced governance". The light scenario is a massive power gain for populist parties.

Note, I'm very much pro-EU and anti-Brexit. But I believe it would be madness to ignore the referendum.

The most pragmatic solution would be one that let's everybody keep their face. Find a solution that de facto leaves the status quo unchanged, but de jure let's Britain leave. Maybe formalize the special statuses Switzerland and Norway have, and give Britain an associate status. Or let Britain leave and change the statutes to allow England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland to become individual members. Or or or... I'll leave it to the EU bureaucrats to figure out.

Labour MPs are trying to eject Corbyn because they were never happy he was elected leader of the party in the first place. They wish they could take a page from the Conservatives and select a new leader without the people's voice.

> knowing that they will be saved

I think this is a big reason why Brexit in the UK and Trump in the US have such large backing. Not saying I agree with either of them -- but people feel ignored, and the establishment's response is to call them ignorant.

If we decide we need to "save the majority from themselves" is it still a democracy?

> Not leaving will create a moral danger. Wouldn't it?

I'm not seeing it.

> It will make it too easy for people to vote according with their guts knowing that they will be saved.

Sure, it will make people take non-binding single-issue policy referenda issued as a sop to get people to vote for a party in a general election despite disagreement on an important point with the policies of that party far less seriously.

OTOH, the main effect that has is making such non-binding referenda far less likely to actually be offered in the first place, forcing people to seek to consider the whole of their policy preferences in general elections, resulting in governments that better represent the public will including the way it balances priorities between preferences in different policy areas.

> It will also empower anti-EU parties in other countries in EU.

So far, I've heard people argue that: (1) Britain voting to stay in the EU, given the special deals it already had on top of the special deals that were negotiated condition on the Brexit vote failing would empower anti-EU parties in other countries in the EU, (2) Britain voting to leave the EU, independently of what happens later, would empower anti-EU parties in other countries in the EU, (3) Britain actually leaving the EU would empower anti-EU parties in other countries in the EU, (4) Britain not actually leaving the EU after voting for Brexit would empower anti-EU parties in other countries in the EU, (5) Britain getting favorable treatment in negotiations for post-EU status if it left the EU would empower anti-EU parties in other countries in the EU, (6) Britain getting unfavorable treatment in negotiations for post-EU status if it left the EU would empower anti-EU parties in other countries in the EU

I tend to discount such claims when presented without a credible argument to how they would do so compared to alterantives...

It would be a disaster for British Democracy. Imagine if the reverse happened.

I would also regard the morning after regrets with a grain of salt. The political establishment (Labour & Tories) were against leaving. The politically influential corporate sectors (especially banking) were against leaving. The media was generally against leaving. The leavers are pretty underrepresented, it would seem. It's not surprising that leave voters seem to have vanished, or changed their minds.

Some may have, but even if there was a massive swing (say from 52% to 45%), the un-regretful leave voters are half the country. They won the vote. How can they trust democracy if they are "robbed" of their democratic right.

Not leaving will create a mockery of democratic process. It would delegitimize the EU, & even the British polity.

Britain is a representational democracy; they vote for MPs who enact their will, not direct votes on single issues like Brexit.

Majority rule without checks and balances is mob rule.

And a simple majority can take away something that 49% of the population thinks is important. This is where your democratic utopia goes to die.

Open voting is a blame shedding trick. If 'everybody' agreed with your bad idea then it's not your fault when the consequences happen. Even if you were the one who put it in people's heads in the first place.

As a citizen of a country in crisis, who to blame might be of some importance, and organized media will certainly get you fixated on that aspect. But maybe the fact that there's a crisis is a little more important, and you should try to avoid then in the first place instead of just having an audit trail.

What you claim such a high risk and costly endeavour that it's ridiculous to contemplate it happening in the span of 10 years. Organizations collapse long before they have such large reforms, and we're talking about a union of a couple dozen countries that given the opportunity for reform, would pull a dozen different ways with no consensus.

It was a non-binding referendum so technically they can quite literally pretend it never happened.

I think it is already spawning change. It's waking up the complacent establishment who thinks they can keep shitting on the working class. The right wing is already capitalizing on this by blaming the problems on immigrants. Hopefully, the left wing wakes up too and brings forth some candidates who can address the real root causes instead of blaming it on immigration.

I assume "free trade" is possible without allowing open immigration...

That's how democracy works. You elect people so they decide things for the people. Sometimes they can in turn elect other people. It's impossible to put everything up for vote (and the results would be disastrous unless the majority of the population would be highly educated).

I'm sad to see you downvoted, I completely agree with you.

> and the EU continues its legacy of greed, stupidity and incompetence in every area it involves itself i

Citation needed

Democracy is not a right, it's a responsibility. That means if you want to decide for yourself you have to actually educate yourself on the ramifications of the decisions.

Nobody on the Brexit camp even had a plan on how to leave. That's not democracy that's just a tantrum.

"Sure, what a better move from an organization that is more and more compared to the USSR"

By whom, exactly ?

Geniuses like Farage ? By The Sun and the Daily Mail?

I think most people accept that it isn't the best idea to allow a simple majority to have unlimited power. Just because you can get 50.01% of the people to vote for something doesn't mean it is 'undemocratic' to not do it.

In the United States, for example, we have a constitution that explicitly sets out rules for what a majority can't do. I don't think setting limits on what the majority can do means that people have 'lost the right to decide for themselves'.

If the British Parliament decides to drag their feet on brexit, that doesn't mean they are preventing people from deciding for themselves; the people decided to vote those MPs into office!

> Sure, what a better move from an organization that is more and more compared to the USSR than completely ignore the result of a direct consultation of the citizens

Are you talking about UK?