Therefor all the marches, petitions etc. are always/can be ignored in the context of "but the will of the 17M".
"Don't Think of an Elephant!" is now such an old book, and still a lot of people haven't read it. Brexiteers have read it it seems.
This actually should read "Brexit - The will of the 17m + 50m who are okay with this"
This would have read the same if the result had gone the other way: "Remain - The will of the Xm + 50m who are okay with this"
At the end of the day, there was a vote and more people wanted Brexit, than Remain. A democratic process and result.
Pull the other one. This isn't the BBC Have Your Say comments section. People won't just believe that because you've declared it so.
Illegal data theft: https://twitter.com/Nealb2010/status/1059068463933743104
Flagrant violations of electoral law: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/ele... - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/17/vote-leave-...
Blatant lies and disinformation on immigration: https://www.europeanlawmonitor.org/eu-referendum-topics/summ...
General lies: https://www.independent.co.uk/infact/brexit-second-referendu...
More lies: https://minutehack.com/opinions/lies-damn-lies-and-brexit
Further lies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBxWiRz6A9E
External interference and disinformation: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/17/why-is...
And it's scandalous that the UK government hasn't properly invested everything that came out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
You may have a point about the fairness - the Government did pump in 9.3 million GBP to push the Pro-Remain position, in the form of a Pro-Remain pamphlet to every household in the UK. This, arguably, was hardly fair as the Leave side could not hope to match that level of expenditure to air their position, yet the people still voted Leave - go figure.
> the original remain/leave referendum that happened a few years after joining
That wasn't constitutional change. Nor was it binding.
This referendum was also non-binding, it's right there in the act of parliament that authorized it.
Of course once Parliament agreed to invoke article 50 the referendum became irrelevant. Parliament - specifically the Tories, Labour, DUP, UUP and UKIP mps who decided to take us out of the EU with no deal, not the referendum.
320 MPs can change the UK constitution (although there are some protections with the House of Lords), which is the anomaly globally.
Putting the question to the people, in a representative democracy, is a terrible idea. they should have known this after Boaty McBoatface already.
In addition UK MSM has some of the most inflaming language in all the news in Europe (and even US). I have my news.google.com set to UK by default and I switch around to other region and languages to get a more complete picture. Every country has screamy headlines. But the UK tabloids (Express, Mirror and Daily) seem to be the absolute fucking worst. Even from just reading the headlines (and knowing that it's BS) fills me with more hate than any other country's news. And I wonder: if _I_ feel so incited by this, how do Brits feel who compared to me have actual skin in the game?
[1] actually on both sides. The leave camp was infiltrated by the radical right and the left was controlled by people who were so arrogant that they'd called anyone a racist who disagreed. Those minorities who are at the fringe and work 16 hrs days (while still on the brink of homelessness) were thrown into the same pot as white-supremacists.
Having watched many Commons discussions, it basically always ends with "but the 17M".
* Vote winner — your fault, don’t get to complain
* Vote loser/2nd party — you lost, suck it up, don’t get to complain
* Vote 3rd party/spoiled ballot — you wasted your vote, don’t get to complain
* Didn’t vote — you must be OK with any outcome, don’t get to complain
* Found new party — how interesting, let’s invite you on TV even if you got 249 votes total (Lord Buckethead), but anyone who voted for you still threw away their vote
* Left country — who cares, certainly not the council who is supposed to send you a postal vote (happened to a friend of mine in the EU referendum, would’ve voted remain)
That isn't due to apathy, and it isn't democracy either.
To avoid duplication, the rest of my comment is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19451579
The 50m (not that many - see Khol's reply) had their chance and blew it, and I say that as someone who voted remain and thinks this whole thing is a disaster, and leaving either with the May deal (bad) or the hard way (worse) would both be worse than staying. However, the people had their chance and they voted to leave. That's how democracy works. It's a serious business with real consequences.
If there is a new referendum it should be about the terms under which we will leave, and that's all. Yes the May deal is crap, but any deal we cut with the EU was going to be a horrible fudge. So much for 'cutting a deal with the EU will be the easiest in human history' because 'we hold all the cards'. I have nothing but sympathy for Theresa May. She's made mistakes, sure, but anyone else would have made their own mistakes.
As a German I hope this will be some kind of a lesson for the whole EU and UK and we will hopefully have the UK back in the EU "soon" (don't know how long this might take).
But I think it's important to draw a line now and make a "Brexit". On the one hand to show the consequences to the UK and the other unsteady EU states who might think about using some kind of exit as a vague threat, but, more important, to show the people of the UK that their will and votes are respected. I think that's what's missing in lots of EU states (at least I feel this way for Germany), so this might really be a chance for all of us.
To declare that because a poorly defined proposition sold with untruth and misdirection won out in a vote means that we can't reflect on what is now known is absurd.
I take a longer view. Democracy is a serious business and the fact the referendum decided on a specific outcome matters. Parliament agreed to hold the referendum and agreed to honour it. In the long term interests of the integrity of our nation and system of government, we should face up to and follow through on those commitments.
I would say the opposite: unless you do that, you have already given up on democracy.
> I certainly feel I had sufficient information to make an informed choice.
So do 93% of both leavers and remainers. Trouble is, these two groups disagree about which statements are true: is the EU democratic? Which is responsible for employment rights? For the level of immigration from Africa and the Middle East? How expensive is it? What benefits does it provide?
It is necessarily the case that around half the UK voters believe total nonsense. I know which side I believe, but that doesn’t really help.
As you say yourself, despite all that has happened, the vast majority of leavers and remainers still believe in the same choice. Most of the issues are matters of opinion, not fact. Even if leaving the EU is a disaster, many Brexiteers will believe it was only disaster because "it wasn't done properly".
My take on that is, this was a risk they chose to accept when voting for Brexit and which I chose not to accept when voting for remain. However they won the vote, so we all took that risk.
I don’t see how you can make this claim. Perhaps you have seen more mere-options than me?
The other two I will grant you, and I thank you for providing them.
Not saying the signatures so far aren't genuine, just that to have the desired effect it'll need to be reasonably free from doubt
So best described currently as `interesting times`.
"The highest turnout recorded at a UK general election over the last 100 years was in 1950, 83.9%.", according to https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Sum...
Either way, the 1992 general election had a turnout of 77.7% or 33,614,074, both of were larger than the EU referendum.
Implicitly agreeing to the "but the 17M" frame, the Remainers lost the public discussion.
They did, however the response was "50M didn't vote for the status quo"
If you voted for Brexit, and you were born on any day of the year between the 14th of January and the 31st of December, your vote is matched by a vote for remain, a will opposite to yours and equally deserving of consideration.