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Comment by topbanana | Hacker News Reader

However, 17,410,742 voted to leave

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_Kingdom_European_U...

Those 17 million voted for many different versions of leaving, different sets of changes to our relationship with Europe (many of those were impossible or illusory -- based on lies). All those who voted to remain voted for essentially the same thing, to maintain our current relationship with Europe.

After 1995's near disastrous referendum in Quebec, the Canadian federal government added requirements that a clear majority on a clear question was required for secession (known as the Clarity Act).

Even though it is a Canadian law, I cannot help but see Brexit through it's lens. It is a lesson that I wish the UK learned through our experiences rather than their own.

Isn't this how most of democratic elections work with many different faces of leader and their different set of plans targeted to different groups of people. Does the burden to separate lie and misinformation from truth along with the responsibility to choose the best not lie with electorate?

The difference between an election and a referendum of this type is that in four years there'll be another one, so even if everyone realises they were wrong an opportunity will be along in not too long to reverse that decision.

You can't really compare an internet petition with a government operated referendum.

The point of petitions like these are to poll for public interest in lieu of a government sanctioned response.

People have a feeling of being dragged against their will at the moment; there is no consensus, and that's mainly the fault of Theresa May who, by not reaching a consensus across the house and the different positions on Brexit, has just created a situation where no one is satisfied by the outcome of the negotiations. She should have reached across the house and the political spectrum, across Leavers and Remainers, to reconcile the country and reach a compromise that was acceptable for everyone; instead she defined extremist red lines that haven't changed since the first very day she took office, assumed these red lines were the redlines given by Leave voters, and ignored the rest of the electorate... She does not even respect the votes of the Parliament, and comes again and again with the same deal with a single strategy: running down the clock.

At the end of the day, the country is now more divided than ever, and for some (including myself), the only voice we have left against this nightmare is to sign a petition.

It was never possible to reconcile those differing opinions. This isn’t like trying to agree which pub to drink at or restaurant to eat at - where people agree on a fundamental point of going somewhere but are in the mood for different specifics. This is topic where people have fundamentally contradictory core beliefs.

This kind of tribalism is at the sort of level where people discuss religious beliefs or football clubs (man does that cause so many pointless arguments)

That was only around half of voters. Right on the knife edge.

They tend to quote the raw number, and not the percentage, so it makes it sound like it's the entire population that voted for the current situation.

And 16,141,241 voted to stay. It's very close that some of `yes` voters might change their mind after the disastrous Brexit process.

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