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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

A parliament that HAS to choose among N possible futures or else the one of those N that is least popular wins.

Yet they seen convinced that the only thing they can do is do yes/no votes to reach a majority for one of the N alternatives. If this is for legal/constitutional reasons (it most likely is) then it’s a horrible mistake to not have realized this and corrected it.

Parliament needs a simple and legal way to swiftly select the most popular option among N options where none have a majority. This isn’t a dangerous legal loophole - the acceptance of such an N-way tie and the selection of the N options can still be decided with majority.

There should be a ranked or Condorcet vote and the winner should be enacted. It should have happened a year ago at least.

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Well, archaic voting practices are constitutional practice. But the UK constitution is 'unwritten'. That means these practices could be easily changed, given the will.

In Westminster, voting usually happens by each MP physically moving into one of two lobbies. That is a very time consuming process, that can easily take twenty minutes per vote. There are no ballots, let alone a computerised voting system.

That the recent indicative votes happened on paper is extraordinarily modern. Preferential voting would clearly be a step too far.

It's not a complete innovation. Voting on paper has been the practice for some divisions for some time (deferred divisions where instead of voting immediately, MPs vote on paper the next day).

Thanks for the explanation. Still, it is absurd they don't use paper (or computers) for all votes.

Quaint maybe but I would not go so far as to say absurd. There is something to be said for physically getting up and indicating your choice that way. Seems to me to give more weight to the process. Pushing a button seems rather clinical by contrast. Plus I am sure they appreciate the piss break.

I find the divisions quite entertaining. At least they don't run the risk of pressing the wrong button when voting.

> Preferential voting would clearly be a step too far.

I believe that's planned for Monday

> If this is for legal/constitutional reasons (it most likely is)

It's not. It's for completely pragmatic reasons.

The bind they're in is that, even if they select a winner, the process doesn't stop there. There will be subsequent votes on primary and related legislation to pass before we're completed.

Unless there is a majority for a way forward, or enough MPs are willing to concede that their objections aren't actually principled, much of that legislation is likely not not pass.

And, to my understanding, there were discussions about priority voting for the alternatives. It is conceivable that that will still occur. But it just moves the intractability to a different stage (much like splitting out the political declaration is doing).

The way actual parliament's work is not the way they formally work. Parliamentary debates and votes are the formalities. Actual discussions, compromises, strong arming and decisions are made outside of this, usually within parties and/or coalitions.

When that fails, this.

"There should be a ranked or Condorcet vote and the winner should be enacted."

I believe this is the plan for Monday if the PM's deal doesn't go through today. I.e. list the options you will accept in order of preference.

Isn't Monday too late? Doesn't the agreement with the EU stipulate that there needs to have been some real progress by today to justify extending until May 22, and if no real progress occurs by today, no deal Brexit occurs April 12?

The April 12th deadline is conditional on the PMs deal, if that doesn't go through then May 22nd is the current date at which no deal exit will occur if nothing else happens, i.e. that's the current letter of the law. So the vote(s) on Monday are about finding an alternative to no deal before May 22nd. Even if they agree on an option, the EU can still refuse and stick with no deal on the 22nd.

Edit: See comments below - I got the dates wrong.

You have it backwards.

With a deal, the deadline is May, allowing time for some of the necessary domestic legislation.

noted, thanks.

No worries. It is incredibly easy to get confused. As you know, the backdrop is MPs spouting nonsense, who are not held to account effectively by domestic media.

Also the April 12th deadline gives some time for EU elections to be arranged in the UK, which will be a necessity of any delay now.

Note: I use the word deal to mean the withdrawal agreement, which is an agreement on how we leave, not on the future direction.

Deadlines April 12 -- if mays deal has passed, extended to May 22 to allow domestic legislation to be passed to implement the deal

If not passed by then, then uk leaves with no deal

However May's government can ask for an extension at any point up until April 12th. This extension will rely on the UK participating in the EU elections. Those elections can be held if announced by or on April 12th -- there's a reason it's that day and not April 3rd or 19th.

It's almost certain we'll be looking at a long delay, and either a referendum or general election

That’s almost it, but there’s one extra point.

If the deal isn’t passed today, the April 12th deadline is for the UK to come up with a new suggestion.

If the deal fails, the UK could request a longer extension, or even revoke article 50.

The EU has strongly signaled that they’d be open to adjusting the political declaration in favour of a customs union, for example. If the UK were to vote for that early next week, it could in principle be agreed on both sides fairly quickly.

The main EU requirement is that to avoid a no-deal exit on April 12, the UK has to actually do something different, not simply ask for more time. If the UK requested time for a general election or a second referendum, that would probably be accepted by the EU (although it’s not guaranteed).

But does that vote carry any legal weight or is it just indicative? Don't you still have to have an actual Aye/No vote on a specific question for it to become law? I easily see many scenarios where a motion clearly wins a Condorcet vote but still cannot get a simple majority in parliament when put to a vote.

If the ranked vote produces a clear winner, I think the hope would be that (given the short deadlines and immense public pressure) it would fairly easily pass a straight aye/no vote too. Why would a majority want to vote it down? To the contrary, you’d expect some naysayers to switch just to get it over with and to end up on the winning side.

It’s slightly risky but overall seems like a reasonable approach to me, in the circumstances.

If the last round of indicative votes are anything to go by, they winner would probably the Labour plan or the Customs union, both of which the Prime Minister are against. So either of these winning will almost certainly trigger events leading to new general election and the ´Conservatives know that. So the real question is how many Conservatives want to fight a general election now with their party in the state that it is and what are they willing to gamble to avoid that.

Voting against your PM on an issue you disagree on is one thing. Actually bringing down your government is quite another.

Yes, that’s the tricky bit.

There should have been an election already. I think it was dishonest not to bring down the government in the recent vote of No Confidence, since it was and is blatantly obvious that absolutely nobody has confidence in Theresa May’s government. But they feared letting Labour in.

Edit to add: I would have thought some emergency compromise might work, eg a moderate Tory who backs the consensus plan as PM, maybe Corbyn as deputy, maybe Keir Starmer as Brexit secretary. Get the Brexit process on an even keel now, agree to call an election later.

That’s probably unthinkable on all sides, though. I feel like Corbyn in particular doesn’t actually care much about Brexit either way, and is much more focused on just winning an election and getting a Labour government in.

But they feared letting Labour in.

Or more specifically they fear letting Corbin in. I imagine that if a more center-left, pro-Europe 'Blairite' MP was Labour leader then perhaps some of the more moderate pro-Europe Conservatives might have been willing to give it a punt.

I'm not in the UK. How bad is Corbyn? How much damage is it worth doing to the UK to avoid Corbyn becoming PM?

There should be a ranked or Condorcet vote and the winner should be enacted. It should have happened a year ago at least.

I agree, but how many legislatures around the world actually work like that? Certainly not the UK or USA.

Who knows, maybe this fiasco will spur on voting reform in the UK parliament! Apparently they already use STV for committee positions, so it’s not unthinkable. I thought Wednesday’s use of approval voting in the main House was a very promising step in the right direction.

Any normal legislature should be able to say OK we are stuck who is in favor of getting out of this by unconventional means? The unconventional means is “we will find an option by some informal process such as Condorcet, and all representatives that agree this process is a good idea agree to later support the winning option in the formal vote”.

So it’s enough to find a majority for the method/process, and the selection of options to use. There is no need for a majority for a single option.

So at no point would there be anything but normal yes/no votes with normal majority requirement in the legal sense.

It’s a bit like how some US states can agree to put their electoral college votes to the majority winner.

I agree in principle but I still think you’re being over-optimistic and glossing over details.

The bar is (sadly) very low for people to say “this voting system is too complicated, nobody will understand it!”

You say “Condorcet” as if that’s a complete solution, but there could be a preference cycle with no way to break it. You’d need to pick a specific method, like STV, and every method has flaws.

This is a very intense situation, where many people feel like they’re under intense pressure, with very short deadlines. On top of that, it’s being done in public, and everybody is juggling multiple concerns (doing the right thing in the short term versus long term, helping the country, helping their party... Being seen to help their country and/or party, protecting their own careers, etc etc)

Overall I think it’d be very difficult and risky for Parliament to adopt even a slightly novel voting system at the last minute, even to resolve a major crisis.

Well, if futureFoo and futureBar are very similar, they could end up attracting similar numbers and effectively cancel each other out.

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