You can organize this with one referendum, which is:
1. Would you like to do another referendum on leaving the EU?
A) Yes
B) No
2. Great-Brittain should leave the EU
A) Yes
B) No
If people still want Great-Brittain to leave, then they bought themselves some time and otherwise this whole brexit thing has been resolved.
Some things should be left to experts.
This is the major criticism of direct democracy.
Thing is, we elect MPs exactly so they can express their views in parliament. They're supposed to be experts, or at least they are given resources to consult experts on matters that affect their constituents. They are resolutely not for representing their constituents' views - that's why they publish a manifesto of what they want to do and we are asked to vote on it every 5 years. Of course, part of an MP's job is to consult their constituents, but they are not bound whatsoever to represent the majority view of their constituents. Apparently 93% of the public apparently don't understand this; the same public that were asked to decide whether to stay in the EU or not...
Economists could perhaps answer some small parts of it - like "will this be net plus for the economy over next 5 years", but even then I'd imagine there would be little consensus.
Questions this huge are really the sort of thing that should be put to the unwashed masses. They know as much as anyone else - not much.
There's an interesting idea for a method of government based on the distinction between values and policy results.
> In "futarchy," we would vote on values, but bet on beliefs
https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
In my opinion 'should the UK stay in the EU' would very definitely be a question of policy not values. It would actually be pretty difficult to disentangle the brexit question into meaningful values.
You could say it's about 'sovereignty', but the UK parliament is as sovereign as it ever was - as the very fact that it's currently leaving demonstrates. In fact for the pure self-interested, short term version of sovereignty, the right thing to do is to plough your own furrow, taking advantage of the benefits and ignoring what you don't like until you are finally kicked out of the EU, which is something we might well see some other EU countries do. Any more nuanced understanding of sovereignty would realize that sovereignty is how we describe an entity that is able to enter into and keep agreements, and exercise infuence on other actors, not one that is unable to because it might restrict its freedom of action. Just as for humans, the end result of refusing all bonds is not freedom, it's extreme restriction. And that's not even considering the strain that leaving the EU puts on relationships with Scotland and Northern Ireland. It wouldn't surprise me at all if down the road brexit ends in break-up. Sovereignty takes on a bit more nuance when you're simultaneously denying it to your constituent members by leaving.
You could say it's about 'migration', but that's not a proper value either. I suspect that people who complain about migration have values to do with crime, economics, and needing to be around people 'like them'. The only thing about those values, is that for most of them, migration is exactly the wrong thing to be worried about. As 'experts' know, migrants are less likely to commit crime, and more likely to pay taxes than the native born.
I don't think the UK should be leaving the EU for policy reasons. I believe that it's in the interests of the UK, of Europe, of the world to resist the forces trying to disintegrate Europe (I've read enough history to know what happened last time). I think many of the disagreements I have with people who think it should leave are at the level of reality - things that could be established by fact.
Trying to claim that it's motivated by differences of values is part of what is making the issue less clear.
Of course this is all made extra difficult by the fact that the whole thing has been horrendously mishandled. The government has repeatedly and continually believed things for long periods of time about negotiating with Europe that are simply untrue. It was obvious from the start that this was going to be complicated, and pressing the button to start the ticking timebomb you're sat on top of, is not a great way to negotiate either. Whether you want Brexit or not, invoking article 50 before anyone knew what it meant was the height of idiocy.
This is generally not true. We elect representative so they can express our views. We don't care what their views are, except to the extent that their views might impede them from expressing our views.
>'The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgement is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmmo...
I don’t really buy the expertise argument. Who gets to choose the experts?
For me it’s about accountability. If you want to get a job done, vote for a party that has that thing in their manifesto, and hold them to delivering on it. The problem with direct democracy is, who is responsible for delivering the policies? How can they be accountable for the outcome, if they didn’t formulate or even agree with the policy?
Choose a government and then let them govern. Scrutinise them, challenge them, hold them to account on the things they committed to. That’s how our (British) democracy should work. The reason we’re in this mess is because parliament is being coerced into implementing a policy most parliamentarians disagree with, and even the interpretation of what the referendum meant is up for grabs.
If we can’t agree anything else, can we at least agree not to do anything this way again?
Similarly, people make the individual choices to purchase an apple or invite someone into their home.
EU participation is just this choice at scale, and the British people have every right to vote on it directly.
It should not be.
If they represented the Brexit correctly, and instead asked the real question “Would you like your life to get worse in pretty much every possible way?”, then how many people would have voted yes?
Your rephrasing is not only hyperbolic but also just a theory. Obviously people would answer no. You might assume people are dumber than they are. Perhaps they are weighing factors you are not which lead them to believe that brexit will not have the outcome you think it will.
> Perhaps they are weighing factors you are not which lead them to believe that brexit will not have the outcome you think it will.
I am almost positive this is the case, but I unfortunately doubt that most of those factors are grounded in reality.
I don’t believe there are many experts that believe Brexit is in any way a good thing, and for me those opinions just hold a lot more weight than those of populist politicians.
Because of herd immunity, this is not just a personal choice but a public health matter. It's no more their choice to use vaccines than it is theirs to drunk drive.
On the one hand, you're right, the people are sovereign and should not have their rights trampled by an unelected hegemony.
On the other hand, people are stupid, and often too stupid to be trusted to make decisions related to complex matters on which the general person is not an expert.
Worse, bad actors have figured out how to exploit freedom of speech to weaponize this stupidity. So we're now in a position where a fundamental human right is also the direct cause of significant human misery.
And yet here we all are, living with the results of the professional experts who know everything. If they are all experts in all things they vote on, why is everything such a mess all of the time?
But I think it only really works when you have a government saying "we propose to do X, but we'll only do it if the people consent in a referendum".
What doesn't work at all is having a referendum offering a major change that the government proposing the referendum thinks is a bad idea.
Sure, but this is true of all issues. It doesn't distinguish brexit in any way.
The usual thought is that that's how things are supposed to be. If you withheld the franchise to people who were qualified to exercise it, almost nobody would be allowed to vote.
It is an amazing constitutional step to rip this up and start holding referendums!
Insofar as the things they vote on are laws and they are disproportionately professionals in law, that's not entirely true.
In the US, the rules that govern the law are set by judges, not by representatives.
I understand the downvotes as this idea seems silly, I did not mean to propose a silly idea or an idea for fun. I simply don't know the fundamental reasons as to why this idea is silly.
It might come as a shock: but I really am this naive. Let that sink in, an HN member, not interested that much in politics, who does not understand why this would not be a remotely feasible way out other than heuristically knowing it's not a good idea.
I daresay I'm not the only one.
If I'd have a vote in GB, then I'd have voted to stay. I am pro Europe and as a European, I was actually showing people this Kurzgesagt video [1] about why voting for or against the EU is important (apparently I have friends and family, some of them highly educated, who are even less interested in politics than I am).
---
I'll read the comments now, I'm sure I'll be better informed after this reading session.
Referenda are great for when you have a specific plan of action, and the question is just "implement this plan: yes or no".
Anything less, and nobody is clear what anybody was actually voting for. There's a reason Parliament votes on legislation after it's written, rather than before.
You say that, (Even if it is a joke) but here in the UK, this is exactly the same as the 'People's Vote' that gives the final say to the people on how the Brexit process should progress, despite the UK already voting leave in 2016. Democracy doesn't care on how 'close' the result was, the people voted to leave and that should be respected.
This vote is an instruction from the electorate for parliament to deliver the referendum result and in anyway reversing it, undermines the democratic process. When the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 happened, they accepted the result to remain and that was that.
If another referendum goes through and it was leave again, how many times do you need to accept the result? 2? 6? or 19? You might as well roll an unfair dice if you want to hold another referendum.
- the referendum was an advisory, non-binding one.
- the electoral commission has found the Vote Leave campaign in breach of electoral law and referred them to the police.
From a moral one :
- Nearly every single argument the Leave side had put forward has been shown to be a lie.
- Foreign interference.
- Every single opinion poll in the past two years has shown that people had changed their mind and would now vote Remain.
Since sovereignty is often put forward as a reason to leave the EU do you not see the irony in that statement?
It was an 'advisory referendum' according to the act of parliament that instituted it. Referendums cannot be binding on parliament in the UK, or parliament would not be sovereign any more!
> When the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 happened, they accepted the result to remain and that was that.
Well no they didn't. 'They', meaning the people of Scotland I presume, elected the Scottish National Party to 56 of the 59 seats available to Scottish MPs in the election 2 years later. The SNP actively campaign to leave the UK. Democracy is not an event, it is a process.
Well, the UK votes on the government at least every 5 years. Do you think that that is undemocratic? Should everyone just say 'we'd be ignoring the will of the people if we just kept voting until we got the right answer'.
And after all, there was a referendum in 1975 on joining the EEC, but now brexiteers seem to want out of it. Are they denying the will of the people?
That seems like the kind of argument only someone who is scared that they no longer hold a majority opinion might make.
It is long standing British democratic tradition that national referendums are unconstitutional.
A binary yes and no is too polar with a large greyscale of real-life opinions and preferences.
In the Brexit vote a few years ago (on the most miserable birthday I ever had) 48% voted for one option, 52% voted for all the other options combined [1].
It already has been resolved. People voted for "Leave", so let's do that now as fast as possible. There's no reason in voting until you like the outcome.
I have written it before: I'm totally against the Brexit but people wanted a vote, got a vote and the result is clear. While this might have negative consequences for quite a few people, this vote can't be ignored.
The UK must leave the EU as soon and hard as possible with all the consequences this brings with it, including border controls and no deals whatsoever with the EU.
This will on the one hand be a positive sign for the people: Votes are not useless and the will of the majority is accepted. The outcome might be bad, but that's a common problem with votes at all.
On the other hand this will be a good sign/valuable lesson for lots of other European countries. Quite a few are struggling with the concept of the EU and might ask themselves why they are a member of the EU and what they might get out of it. Let the UK be an example to them.