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Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

Just an outsider's opinion, but I think that they had a vote. They probably should not have voted "Leave", but they did. So now you have to get on with the business of implementing the will of the people.

It might come out just as the author has outlined, or it might not be that bad, or it might be far worse than even the author has envisioned. The thing is, whatever the consequences and benefits are, they are consequences and benefits for which the people voted. I think as democratic stewards and public servants, the only thing you can do is implement the Brexit to the best of your ability. Even in the face of the many grave personal reservations you may hold as to the wisdom of that Brexit.

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Two things. First, the UK is a representative democracy ruled by Parliament and if Parliament decides they don't want to do something they don't have to and the way for the people to indicate their displeasure is to elect new people to Parliament.

Second, the will of the people is a nebulous thing. Brexit won with slightly more than half the vote but that was in 2016. Since then many Brexit voters have died, many new people on the Remain side have come of age, and people have learned new things. It's very likely that if they had another referendum now people would vote to stay in the EU.

It is also very likely that, if a new referendum reversed the result, it would do so with an equally slight margin to the original referendum. And that would solve nothing. We can't have referendums until we get it "right" (or until we get a large enough margin).

As to the change in the public opinion, polls have shown that many people who voted Remain don't actually want a second referendum, they just want to "get on with it" and implement the results of the first one. My intuition is that the vast majority do so out of a misguided belief that a democratically taken decision cannot be overtaken democratically, that not implementing the result of the referendum (even if they disagree with it) is undemocratic and that parliament is obliged to follow the results of the referendum even though it was not binding (i.e. they don't understand the words "non-binding"). In other words, they misguidedly believe that the democratic thing is to go ahead with the Brexit, regardless of any circumstances, changed or not. And they are prepared to fight for democracy with all their might, even if they don't really understand it. Therefore many would probably vote "Leave" in a second referendum, thinking they were doing the right and principled thing. And if the decision was reversed, these same Remainers would descend on the streets and riot, and demand the heads of the Enemies of the People who dared oppose themselves to their will.

In short, having another referendum now would create even more chaos than the first.

For the record, I'm an EU immigrant to the UK and Brexit seriously spoils my ointment. I'm as anti-Brexit as it's possible to be. However, I don't think a new referendum is a solution. I don't think there is any solution- no realistic ones anyway. The country put a pistol to its temple and pulled the trigger. Now we're in the time between the gun having gone off and the bullet hitting.

There is no turning back :(

The promises of Parliament and the will of the people regarding Brexit were about as clear as it gets in any democracy. Parliament voted to have the referendum. The referendum was simply and clearly expressed (though not at all detailed), each side had months to state their case, and the results were uncontroversial. Parliament followed the referendum with a vote to trigger Article 50. Subsequent elections resulted in a pro-Brexit government. What more could you possibly want in a democracy? To reverse course now - or to just keep having a referendum or revotes until the "right" result is achieved - would express total contempt and disregard for democracy itself. Such total disregard for the will of the people occurred following referenda on the EU Constitution in France and Ireland. The EU's anti-democratic actions were one of the main arguments of the Brexiteers.

>> To reverse course now - or to just keep having a referendum or revotes until the "right" result is achieved - would express total contempt and disregard for democracy itself.

Ah, yes. There is no democratic way to overturn a democratically taken decision. And it is the peple who are sovereign, not Parliament. That's how the story goes.

Many UK citizens who voted Remain have a poor understanding of the procedures of their own democracy. This is the fault of the political class of course, who have long wished to keep their voters misinformed and apathetic, the better to control them. Inevitably, this is now coming back to bite them. Along with everyone else.

For the record: in the UK, Parliament is sovereign (i.e. they can do whatever they decide) and democratically taken decisions are routinely overturned, e.g. when a new government is elected every 5 ish years.

I certainly wasn't advocating for any sovereignty of the people outside of or above Parliament. The point is that Parliamentary elections and Parliamentary votes have aligned with the pro-Brexit result of the referendum.

Parliament voted to trigger article 50, and subsequent elections (still very recent) resulted in a pro-Brexit government.

The only democratic way now for Parliament to overturn the democratic decision on Brexit would be for a party to run on an anti-Brexit platform and win the next elections, then take a vote to reverse course. But, to repeat, there just were elections, this didn't happen, and nothing fundamentally new has happened since the elections that would lead to any change if elections were held again now.

> each side had months to state their case

With one side directly and openly lying, and breaking funding laws in the process.

> and the results were uncontroversial

Anything BUT controversial.

>> each side had months to state their case

> With one side directly and openly lying, and breaking funding laws in the process.

Both sides lied and, even more so, misled, and the Remain side had the bullhorn of the government and media on their side. Such lying and misleading happens in every vote everywhere. The premise of democracy is that, with a free press and open debate, voters are capable of sorting through competing claims and deciding. The Brexit debate was as free and fair as it has ever gotten anywhere.

>> and the results were uncontroversial

> Anything BUT controversial.

I've heard universal consensus that the referendum votes were collected and counted fairly. The implications are what have been controversial, not the results of the referendum itself.

> It's very likely that if they had another referendum now people would vote to stay in the EU.

AIUI this is, while an article of faith for many on the "remain" side, entirely unsubstantiated.

Unfortunately, representative democracy decided that it wasn’t strong enough to deal with the issue itself and decided to hold a referendum. Right or wrong, it finds itself weakened, compounded by the most ill-judged election call in a long time.

But let's say the 48% that voted to remain in the EU had grown to say 55% that didn't like the sound of the Brexit deal being hashed out and would prefer the status quo. Would it be reasonable for our politicians to try and use the levers of government to reverse course to represent the new will of the people?

At the end of the day I don't think the public were qualified to answer the question as it was posed. There were too many unknowns and too much false information. We elect people to represent us because we believe they are qualified to do so.

There's a reason we'd never see this in a referendum:

What should the income tax rate be for UK citizens? [ ] 0% [ ] 10% [ ] 20% [ ] 40%

> But let's say the 48% that voted to remain in the EU had grown to say 55% that didn't like the sound of the Brexit deal being hashed out and would prefer the status quo. Would it be reasonable for our politicians to try and use the levers of government to reverse course to represent the new will of the people?

You can't keep asking the people until they give the answer you want and then seize on that. Holding another referendum after say 10 years have passed seems reasonable.

> At the end of the day I don't think the public were qualified to answer the question as it was posed. There were too many unknowns and too much false information. We elect people to represent us because we believe they are qualified to do so.

I agree. But, Cameron having chosen to hold the referendum, his party is duty-bound to implement its results.

> his party is duty-bound to implement its results

And what are the results? To leave with no deal?

In any case it is NOT legally bound. But it acts as it was.

> And what are the results? To leave with no deal?

To leave the European Union one way or another, since that was the question they asked and the answer they got. With whatever deal they believe best for the country and its people, which may or may not end up being no deal.

> In any case it is NOT legally bound. But it acts as it was.

The government's legal obligations come from its duty to the people, not the other way around.

> The government's legal obligations come from its duty to the people

There is no such obligation in UK law. Partly because we're a constitutional monarchy.

Again, though, the law is a formalisation - an abstraction, a simplification - of people's relationships and behaviours. The Queen signs the laws written by the people's representatives not because she's legally obliged to but because she realises that it's her duty as head of state on a level far more fundamental than the written code of laws (and, ultimately, because if she didn't we'd have a second civil war).

Until the 1973 Northern Ireland referendum they generally were seen as unconstitutional throughout our history. Thatcher famously agreed with Atlee that referenda were a device of dictators and demagogues[0].

There is nothing to prevent any government, or any future government going against a referendum result. Parliamentary sovereignty means no restriction can be placed on any future administration changing the law.

[0] https://www.economist.com/special-report/2015/10/15/herding-...

Is that a legal argument or are you saying that repeated votes would be ugly politics?

THERE WAS NO VOTE.

First, the famous referendum was advisory, and in no way obligated the government to do anything. Technically it was just slightly serious than a public opinion poll.

Second, the question was too unclear, and it was not clear what will happen in the case of a "leave" vote.

Third, the result was too inconclusive -- a 4% difference is too small to base such strong decisions on, especially after such a short campaign with so many irregularities as this one. [0]

And finally, even if the result required the government to act on it, there was no provision that it has to happen so soon. For a serious "brexit" there should be more time to negotiate and reach a solid deal.

[0] http://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pd...

Out of curiosity, can you envision saying the result was too close to call, the campaign was too short, the public was too uninformed, etc., if the result of the referendum was "Remain?"

The rightwing press would absolutely be doing that on your behalf if it was a narrow loss. But - and this is the important thing - we wouldn't now be discussing stockpiling food and medicine.

Why did you say "on your behalf?" I don't identify as right-wing and I am not a citizen of the UK

But Parliament did vote to pursue Brexit and trigger Article 50 following the referendum.

You're right that the referendum did not legally compel Parliament to this vote, but many MPs thought that it ethically compelled them to it, and for good reason: The entire premise of the referendum was that Parliament would act on the results. The referendum didn't just pop up like a random opinion poll; it was years in the making, came about as a result of political negotiations, and followed a high-profile months-long campaign.

Elections were just held following the Article 50 vote precisely to give voters a second chance to express their view on Brexit, and this resulted in maintenance of a pro-Brexit Tory government.

By "irregularities", you seem to imply corruption in the conduct of the referendum. Which exactly are you referring to? Your link provides no guidance.

> implementing the will of the people

> best of your ability.

Leaving aside the plain lack of ability from those running the show, as written this is a mandate for the "Norway option" - EEA and free movement, ECJ etc, but not actually in the EU. This is basically as close to the status quo as possible except we'd give up our ability to vote on EU rules and just have to accept them.

However, when this is suggested, a whole bunch of Brexiteers respond with outrage.

> Leaving aside the plain lack of ability from those running the show, as written this is a mandate for the "Norway option" - EEA and free movement, ECJ etc, but not actually in the EU

I'm pretty sure opposition to free movement was a key underpinning of Brexit support, so I don't think the Brexit vote can be seen as a mandate for the “Norway option”.

Also, not sure that that's an option that would actually be in the table for Britain; from the European side, it makes a lot of sense to support that as an option on the way (deeper) to into the European system, but not on the way out.

> I'm pretty sure opposition to free movement was a key underpinning of Brexit support

Probably, but was it on the ballot paper? No. Was it in the manifesto? (which manifesto of the multiple Leave campaigns, or the Conservative 2017 one?) This is why we're in a mess, for every option people appear saying that it's not what they voted for.

And it's true. For every option, there are people who, when they voted Leave, weren't voting for that.

So you have a slight majority who voted Leave. But they were (in their own minds) voting for different flavors of Leave. You don't have a majority behind any particular kind of Leave.

Therefore there is no possible way to do this that will satisfy the majority of people. That's going to be problematic.

But because the terms of an exit, under the laws of the EU, are not up to the departing nation, voting Leave meant accepting a hard Brexit —which could result no matter what the British government negotiating position was—was, even if not th best result, both acceptable and preferable to the status quo ante. There's no other reasonable interpretation of a vote for Leave.

> There's no other reasonable interpretation of a vote for Leave.

I wonder how many of the people who voted Leave thought that was true.

Now, you can say that it doesn't matter, because they had opportunity to inform themselves before the vote. It's not like the rules around Article 50 have changed since the vote. But still, I wonder how many of the Leave votes really meant "Leave, even if it's a hard Brexit". (I can't prove any of this, of course...)

> but I think that they had a vote.

Norway also had a vote on the EU. I was also close. "No" won.

What Norway didn't implement was a "winner takes all" approach. They're not in the EU. They're not in the Customs union. They are in the EEA. Everybody wins, everybody loses, but nobody feels like their wishes have been completely ignored.

There is no reason the results of the Brexit referendum couldn't have been interpreted like that. It's not like there's only one seat that can be filled by one person and there has to be a loser. It's not an election.

I think for a lot of participants there does have to be a "loser" - it's been turned into a "culture war". That's where things like refusing to accept ECJ jurisdiction seem to be coming from. That's why there's such a nasty edge to the whole thing, and such a refusal to engage in compromises that might move the thing forwards.

I don't think it's a case of "having to be a loser". Rather the nasty edge is coming from a loss of confidence that the (upper-middle-class, college-educated) political class will represent the people - and not without reason, given how our political and social elites (still!) dismiss any concern about immigration as nothing but stupid racists, as seen in this very article.

So what are the non-racist fact-based concerns about EU freedom of movement migration? Why is leave voting highly correlated with not actually having high levels of EU migrants in the area?

To forestall the public services argument, to a large extent the public services are made out of immigrants, especially in health and social care.

I'm no fan of May and this is probably giving her too much credit (and oversimplifying) but is it possible she's nailing this?

Her "Brexit means brexit" and "No deal is better than a bad deal" rhetoric has kept the hardline Brexiteer tories from throwing her overboard. But maybe after a 'long, hard fight' she gives a theatrical sigh and accepts the Norway deal. Everyone gives a resigned shrug and we don't have country-wide riots.

As I said in another post here, since people who voted Leave had different ideas of what they meant by Leave, there is no possible way to do this that will satisfy even the majority of people. A compromise that leaves most people feeling not too dis-satisfied may be the best possible outcome.

Will of the people? European citizens, even with the permanent residence that you can get after 5 years of Uk residence, could not vote. Uk citizens living abroad for more than 2 or 3 years couldn’t vote. Indians and all the other from commonwealth could vote. Indians, without having the slightest idea of what is Europe, voted en masse for leave. Obviously the two other groups would have voted for remain. So there was no “will of the people” expressed, it was just a rigged referendum.

Every other time nations have had disappointing or unplanned referendum results, such as those nations that require referenda on EU treaties, there's been a second vote by way of confirmation. I don't think anyone has ever had a third attempt "to get the right answer". :)

Ireland voted against the Nice treaty in 2001, 54% against. A year later 62% voted in favour of it on a higher turnout.

It is inconceivable that a second EU referendum in the UK would vote leave.

So, what happened in the year between the referenda?

Yes, the treaty was changed for the Irish. Ireland then voted about the changed treaty, not the original one.

If they'd gone for a second referendum the UK could have negotiated from a position of relative strength ("guys, we have to offer them something, they voted to leave").

The government might have come out the other side looking relatively good, like Mrs Thatcher's after renegotiating the rebate. It certainly wouldn't have been worse than this farce.

Same with the Scotland referendum, iirc that was also close. After the Brexit vote, fuck yes does Scotland want to separate from the UK.

The problem is that it wasn't a legitimate vote, free off outside influence. The Russian troll factory was hard at work influencing the outcome of that referendum. So what's the actual will of the people?

You need to prove that. It hasent been.

Proving in court will be hard. But surely you've seen the smoke?

Then there is really no case. Even smoke need a place of origin if you can't even point to that and show how it was done not just by circumstantial evidence but actually shoving the data to support it then it's just guessing, in this case highly biased guessing.

Brexit is no different than what is seen in many other places throughout Europe, a fight against globalization so unless Russia has developed some magical abilities to mind control large parts of Europe and the US which no other nation in this world is able to copy then I would say that the smoke you see is our own.

By that standard, voting is impossible. There was plenty of outside influence in favor of Remain, too, including the President of the US campaigning in favor of Remain and threatening trade war actions if they did Brexit, and I don't think it would exactly a fair characterization to say that the EU itself quietly stood by and waited for the will of the people of the UK to be revealed. Votes will never be hermetically sealed from the outside world.

The apparent spending violations are probably a stronger case for the vote being tainted.

Outside influence doesn't invalidate a national referendum. If Russians convinced Brits to leave the EU, that still means that Brits wanted to leave the EU.

I'm not saying to let them do as they wish, but on the face of it, you can't call it a perversion of democracy. It's a perversion of communication networks.

Don't forget there's considerable interest in the funding and behaviour of the leave campaign, who appear to have broken several laws.

Or that under 18s weren't allowed to vote, even though they're going to be disproportionately affected.

What good is a vote if the choices aren't honestly presented?

What vote in any democracy has not been surrounded by misrepresentations by advocates of different sides? There was no censorship in the Brexit campaign. All sides were free to make their case for months during the campaign. There were plenty of false and misleading claims on both sides, as well as attempted debunking of these claims on the opposing sides. The Brexit debates were far more thorough, fair, and civil than anything you ever see in the US or most other democratic countries. The notion that the electorate shouldn't have been trusted to sort through all of this, and requires a set of true facts cultivated by some elite group, undermines the entire premise of democracy.

You should ask the people the same question again, now that they've had some time to inform themselves of what "leaving the EU" really means.

I wouldn't bet any money on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority would now vote Remain.

Why "should" the Brexit referendum get the special privilege of a "do-over?" I have no idea how the law works over there but surely that would set some sort of terrible precedent?

I have zero skin in that game but the idea that people can espouse the virtues of democracy one minute only to make endless excuses as to why the result of a wholly democratic vote is wrong, invalid, or otherwise "deserves" a do-over the next minute makes zero sense to me as an American.

Either you trust the will of the people or you don't.

Nobody should trust the will of the people. That's why we have representative democracies and not direct democracies.

The Brexit referendum shouldn't get a special "do-over". Instead, the result should be ignored because leaving the EU is a bad idea regardless of the people's will.

I'm sure a majority of the people have many other terrible ideas that they agree with, especially when you only need 51% of those who care enough to vote to constitute a "majority".

Trusting the will of the people is the philosophy of a lynch mob, not a government.

Yes. A referendum on restoring the death penalty in the UK would likely get a strong yes vote. In that case the people's will would be wrong. The most important feature of democracy is that it gives enables people to remove governments without violence. The ability to choose or influence what govts do is secondary.

I agree completely w.r.t. representative democracy vs. mob rule... yet, "the result should be ignored because leaving the EU is a bad idea regardless of the people's will" makes zero sense to me. I have seen arguments for and against Brexit, so where does this authoritative "Brexit would definitely be bad and any result other than Remain should be ignored" come from?

The authoritative view that Brexit is a bad idea comes from the fact that is was sold almost entirely with lies and xenophobia, and even then barely got a majority.

I would not consider Brexit an authoritatively bad idea if the leave campaign had been more scrupulous and the vote had a larger margin of victory.

"We pay £350 million per week to the EU"

"We will be able to stay in the single market"

"Migrants are overrunning the country"

"We are not a sovereign state as long as we are a member of the EU".

> Nobody should trust the will of the people.

How then, should the people rule themselves?

I don't think "the people voted wrong, so we'll make them keep voting until they vote right" is the answer to anything. That kind of elitist, we-know-better-than-you attitude is, in my foreign opinion, a part of why Britain voted for Brexit in the first place - because they were sick of Brussels treating them that way.

At the same time, it seems to me that both "hard Brexit" and "soft Brexit" proponents voted Leave, because of the way the question was written on the ballot. We're going to get either a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, but not both. So if we get a hard Brexit, say, do the people who wanted a soft Brexit want that? Should their Leave vote count as authorization for a Leave that isn't of the form that they wanted?

But if they re-vote once the deal is known, they're going to get accused of "re-vote until they vote right". May is going to have to show more skill than she has so far to keep that from gaining traction.

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