U.K. Parliament Gives Theresa May Permission to Start Brexit

EDIT: It appears the UK has some problems too [1], and being Australian where voting is a legal requirement, easy to enroll and difficult to drop off the register, my perspective is perhaps a bit harsh.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2015/feb/...

I'm sorry to hear of your situation, but I hardly think it's relevant to the discussion.

That idea makes sense in true proportional representation system, but in a first-past-the-post system then strategic-voting becomes important (as voting-for-beliefs is an immediately suboptimal strategy), and therefore if voters know who is currently in the lead and alter their voting behaviour then surely that's a good thing for democracy?

In other words, bemoaning the result of a democratic referendum as a sad day for democracy, and attributing it to your side not showing up on the day, makes no sense and plays into a long-running theme that when the left wins it's a success for democracy and when the right wins it's a failure of democracy.

It's unclear to me how one gets from there to "the UK would be better equipped to handle EU-originating recession from outside the EU", especially as it's not yet Euro-using.

One reasonable point I heard was that if you're voting to stay in on economic grounds, you're essentially betting that the benefits of closer trade with EU partners will outweigh the costs from restricted trade with non-EU partners. If the ability of those EU partners to trade effectively is significantly reduced, for example because they're dealing with a new Eurozone financial crisis, then the cost/benefit ratio could change significantly.

Another is that with almost everyone else in the EU either already in the Eurozone or planning to join it, EU policy would inevitably be built around protecting the interests of the Eurozone if crunch time arrived, but that wouldn't necessarily be in the economic interests of the few remaining non-Euro member states.

Isn't the EU budget available easily online?

I think it's the "not audited" part, and evidence suggesting various dubious "redirections" of the funds, that upset people here.

The UK doesn't get £8bn of value from being part of the EU. Given the size of the tax basis from financial services (£66bn/annum), and that the UK is the EU's defacto financial and service center, and that passporting rights will likely evaporate when we leave the EU, this seems faintly ridiculous.

The City is a major international centre for financial services, providing them to both EU and non-EU consumers. This demonstrates the demand for those services from around the world and the UK's ability to provide competitive services whether or not the consumer is also in an EU member state. This in turn suggests that businesses in other EU member states would continue to want to use the services regardless of the UK's membership.

UK politicians would be able to better distribute this £8bn than EU civil servants. Evidence to support this is scant on the ground.

But at least the UK politicians are then accountable for how they spend the money, and UK reporting standards will apply so the facts will be known.

There are legitimate concerns about democratic deficit within the UK, as well.

Certainly, and many who voted Leave also advocate electoral reform at home. But two (or more) wrongs do not make a right.

The EU parliament represents an effective third chamber, but only the second in the UK that's directly elected. I don't see how one can reasonably claim that a democratic deficit is being reduced by decreasing the proportion of lawmakers who are elected.

In the UK, the Commons has primacy over the Lords. This is enshrined in law and the power is actually used occasionally.

In the EU, there is no such primacy of the European Parliament over the Commission or Council, and even after the Lisbon Treaty the real power is concentrated in the latter parts of the EU administration.

When asked for examples, people tend to come up with bendy bananas

On the contrary, when Remain advocates criticise this point all they ever seem to come up with is something about bananas that was debunked long ago. However, there are countless other regulations that are real and just as silly. (I've seen many extensive discussions about this area, and giving my personal opinion for a moment I actually have a lot of sympathy with this particular argument.)

There's also absolutely no evidence that UK politicians would come up with better or less onerous regulation.

But what evidence would anyone reasonably expect there to be at this point? As long as the UK is part of the EU, it's subject to the EU regulations anyway, so in many cases there is neither the need nor the power for the UK government to act unilaterally. No-one knows what would happen if that changed, but it doesn't make the existing problem any less. And again, at least UK politicians would be directly accountable to the electorate for whatever regulations they did or didn't make.

Reducing the size of our negotiating power is unlikely to result in better trade deals.

The EU is trying to negotiate a trade deal on behalf of more people, but it's also trying to negotiate a trade deal in the interests of 28 member states at once, even though sometimes those member states will have very different goals or priorities.

In any case, given that the EU managed to take 7 years to complete a trade deal with Canada, and has repeatedly failed to produce a useful trade deal with the US after many years and huge costs trying, the EU's competence in making trade deals at all is suspect.

Baseless scaremongering.

That's not really a counter-argument. Many of the influential national leaders within the EU and obviously the EU's own leadership have openly advocated greater integration on economic, diplomatic, defence and other matters. Even if the UK has theoretical safeguards such as veto powers, its position will not be tenable if it is repeatedly a thorn (possibly the only thorn) in the side of the other member states, and its bargaining position could be significantly weaker after a Remain vote because the threat of leaving would be gone. You don't normally join a club if you don't agree with its principles and you object to many of its rules, but this could increasingly be the situation the UK found itself in.

Sure, the message written on the bus could have gone into more detail, but it would be a bit ridiculous to put small print on the side of a bus. The point is to have a short, snappy message that quickly gets a point across and can be read from a distance. Further details were available from the website, on leaflets, etc..