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Comment by matthewmacleod | Hacker News Reader

I don't think that's a fair assessment of the situation.

Yes, there was a referendum – but it wasn't a good one. It was advisory only – i.e. not binding – there was a narrow margin, no minimum turnout or majority requirements, and no concrete plan which was being voted on, or even any set of proposals from government. Two of the four countries in the UK voted to remain in the EU.

It think it's wholly reasonable to question a decision of such huge magnitude being made on the basis of a referendum in those circumstances.

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However the majority of the people who voted (and remember here that the turnout was higher than most UK elections) voted to exit which clearly included border controls.

Border controls cannot be achieved without leaving the single market, so if we're honouring the democratic process this is the only possible path.

The was no reference to border control in the referendum ballot.

it was a key stated pledge of the leave campaign, so unless you were watching some other referendum campaign the suggestion that border control had nothing to do with it is disingenuous at best.

In case anyone wants to argue that immigration wasn't a key part of the leave campaign... https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/27/eu-referend... a key pledge related to immigration directly and another was closely associated

> it was a key stated pledge of the leave campaign

Which leave campaign? There was a few of them and they didn't give a consistent message. None actually have any power to implement anything so how can they make pledges anyway?

Also, that link has the picture of the bus as the first image... a 'pledge' completely based on lies that was dropped literally minutes after the vote.

Let me ask you a question. Do you honestly believe that a big part (if not the key part) of the leave campaign (pick any one you like) wasn't about immigration and border control?

I'll tell you what, we can talk about the efficacy of the various leave campaigns when the NHS gets its 350 million a day and we have 'Sovereignty'.

I note that I'm afraid you didn't even attempt to answer my extremely straightforward question.

See I'm not a brexiter/leaver/whatever (Personally I think it's a terrible idea), but it's blindingly obvious to me that a lot of leave voters (maybe even the vast majority) thought the main issue was immigration and that Mrs May had a choice either exit the single market, or basically ignore the result of the referendum, she chose the former and not the latter.

Soft brexit (i.e. EEA-like access) plus spend the next 10 years figuring out a better exit deal would have been an option.

UK spent 40 year entangling with the EU, disentangling cleanly in 2 years is a pipe dream.

It is still a possibility though; declaring for hard brexit could very well be a negotiating tactic (as in 'nothing left to lose') as May hinted to the possibility of a transitional agreement.

I entirely agree the 2 year timeline is massively unrealistic (downside to something being written in a treaty agreement with no intention of it ever being excercised)

The challenge for me is that soft-brexit is basically no brexit 'cause EEA access == sign-up to the four fundamental freedoms and accept the primacy of EU law, which seems to cover most of the things that the leave campaign wanted to get rid of.

As you say this could well be a negotiating tactic though, and no-one will really know until they start the negotiations. I think it's entirely possible that once the details are fleshed out people might seek to change it.

Soft brexit would only be a transitional state, with a set timeline or undefined. The hard brexiters would grumble at the former and be completley against the latter though.

Is it the same article that claims that the leave campaign also promised access to the single market and that reports that the foreign secretary declared that 'the leave campaign had made “contradictory” and “mutually incompatible” promises to the British people'?

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