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Comment by gutnor | Hacker News Reader

That's actually a good point and well said ... 3 years ago.

However, today you cannot make that argument with a straight face when Boris is a PM with a very weak democratic mandate, actively undermining the democratically elected Parliament, doubling down on the lies made by the campaigns, pushing for highly damaging (according to the Government own assessment) economic measure.

From the Cambridge Analytica scandal we know that the bus not only worked, but it is the tip of the iceberg of a propaganda machine without conterpart in the remain side.

I can't believe that on HN, Brexit is still seen as a "remainer" vs "leaver" problem. Brexit has exposed a much deeper rot and threat to democracy, not in the EU, but in the very heart of the UK institutions. Brexit is not a liberating process, it is a threat.

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(Lets call him "Johnson". "Boris" is either patronising or affectionate, and neither is appropriate for a head of state.)

No Conservative government has served an entire term with an outright majority since Thatcher in the 1980s. Johnson is in a sense "unelected", but his premiership is no less legitimate than that of Cameron or Major.

Like it or not, Johnson was the "biggest" voice behind the successful Brexit campaign, and it is therefore appropriate that he is tasked with making Brexit happen, and taking responsibility for its success or failure.

Its completely fair to say that Brexit is an economically stupid and possibly xenophobic project, but its not fair to say that Brexit is a threat to democracy. Brexit is exactly what democracy looks like at its best: the people forcing the ruling classes to make decisions that are against the ruling class's own interests.

EDIT: Johnson is of course the head of government, not the head of state, since the UK is a monarchy.

There is nothing about Brexit that is against the ruling class's best interests. They're the only ones who are actually going to benefit from it in the form of huge profits from shorting the pound and selling off public services. It's all outlined in Rees-Mogg snr's handbook on how to make millions out of the misery of the working class.

If we go back to the original data visualization, is that really what happened though? Especially on HN, I think we can all concede that decisions are only as good as the data they're based on. Can you honestly claim that the leave side's economic understanding matched the reality? Is it really "democratic" for the people to force action based on the carefully-crafted misinformation they've received?

I’m not sure this is true. Cameron had a majority government after the 2015 election. Prior there was a coalition government which also held a majority. May lost the majority after the snap election and had to build a coalition with the DUP and others. In Johnson’s case he doesn’t have any majority at all. It’s a weird situation that only exists afaik because of the fixed term act, as the PM can no longer trigger an election when he loses the majority. The current situation is far from normal.

Correct, the Fixed Term Parliament act was supposed to cure a government supposedly "abusing democracy" by calling an election at their whim. Well at least that seemed to be the LibDem line during the coalition.

In requiring a super-majority, and a search for a second government first it's badly broken the system. As we can see, there is a government 20 odd votes short of a majority stuck there. Stuck there having lost every vote they've called. Stuck there because they are trying to evade the extension parliament voted for, that would take EU membership beyond an election.

I am intrigued though, that neither side has made calls to repeal the Fixed Term Parliament Act, despite it very clearly not being fit for purpose.

"I am intrigued though, that neither side has made calls to repeal the Fixed Term Parliament Act"

Boris Johnson doesn't want an election. It was suggested after the first vote that he could table something that only required a simple majority, but he didn't, you cant really argue it's people against parliament, when you are (hopefully) a majority of parliament.

Those against a hard Brexit don't want an election now because it impairs their ability to do that, plus its been nicely illustrated to them why you don't want too much power to reside with the executive.

> It’s a weird situation that only exists afaik because of the fixed term act, as PM can no longer trigger an election when he loses the majority

And even then, it only exists because Johnson is overtly trying to use the disruption of an election as a mechanism to enable no-deal, which is why Parliament refuses to let him have one.

Its true that Cameron won a majority in 2015- he just didn't manage to serve a full term. John Major took over from Margaret Thatcher (and so was unelected) and then despite winning the election in 1992, lost his majority again in 1996.

So yes, it seems shocking, but the last Conservative leader to win an election and then serve a full term of majority government was Thatcher from '83 to '87

...and that was only because of the early election on the back of the Falklands dividend. They were shaping up to lose badly until then, or at best a hung parliament.

Exactly. The FTPA has been a disaster here. What should have happened was May's deal being a confidence vote back in March, so either it would have passed or we'd have had a fresh election.

> (Lets call him "Johnson". "Boris" is either patronising or affectionate, and neither is appropriate for a head of state.)

He had a brother and father in politics, Johnson is a very common surname, Boris unambiguously identifies him, and he's not head of state.

<pedantry>Boris Johnson is not head of state. He is head of government</pedantry>

Yes, good point. A digital slip of the pen. Have updated my original comment.

Brexit is not a threat to democracy in the absolute sense.

It is a threat to democracy because, after 3 years, we now know that it is a power wrestling within the ruling class, for the exclusive benefit of the ruling class. All the good reasons you may have had before and right after the referendum are irrelevant now. What Brexit is and what it is used to do is clear for all to see, and it is not a democratic excercise.

To take a less loaded example: that's like sending money to a charity "Food for Africa Children" and realising 3 years after, your money is instead funnelled into buying a super yatcht for some billionaire somewhere.

Feeding Africa Children is good, giving money to charity is good but you can no longer make the argument that "Food for Africa Children" is good, and you can no longer claim any moral high ground if you continue to support that organisation.

> ruling class, for the exclusive benefit of the ruling class.

You can't really expect to be taken seriously with nonsense like this?

You are probabaly a remainer, as am I, but you are using a remainer's justification for a re-run. And pretending leavers believe this. They generally don't.

No significant proportion of people have changed their mind. The leavers still want to leave, everyone's sick of parliament dragging this out for years.

Many remainer's are still hoping for some sort of magic unicorn waving it's horn and we'll stay in.

The time to do that was 2 years ago, not now, just get it over with already.

To be fair you don't need anyone to change their mind for the outcome to change, Leavers skew older so mortality would swing the result in remains favour.

Id agree that each side is entrenched, I still think you need to have that vote, or come up with an option somewhere between the 2 camps, not swing to an even further extreme as we seem to be doing at the moment. No deal wasn't a thing we were discussing in the run up to the referendum, it wasn't even a thing we were really discussing this time last year.

Re-run or no re-run does not change much to the threat I mention.

The problem is the post-truth targetted propaganda campaign has been de-facto legalised.

The current government behaviour, especially in a country without written constitution is similarly going to set a very bad precedent. A lot of the process works because the opposition and government are expected to behave in gentleman-ish fashion, but this government is resetting the rule to "anything is ok to stay in power".

The government is abusing its 50% of the population into distrusting Parliament and the Judiciary at every opportunity. They do the same with the civil service.

You can't expect Labour or other to "stay civil" when there is a party winning with those strategies. Maybe not at the next GE but surely the one after that, all that you see today is going to be the new normal. And that will affect the UK only major asset, its softpower. One that is gone, the future government will have to double down on the propaganda to distract the masses. If your voting power is limited to vote for "mystery candidate" with manifesto in no way grounded in reality, you have a democracy in name only.

"BoJo" Borisconi is not a head of state. Since we haven't abolished the monarchy, the head of state is Brenda.

> Brexit is exactly what democracy looks like at its best

Both democracies and markets assume informed participants for their proper functioning. If the participants are not informed or misinformed then both democracies and markets can be gamed by those “in the know” at the expense of the misinformed.

> Like it or not, Johnson was the "biggest" voice behind the successful Brexit campaign ...

This isn't true either. Nigel Farage likely wins that unenviable title.

> ... and it is therefore appropriate that he is tasked with making Brexit happen ...

That doesn't necessarily follow. His reasons for supporting / promoting Brexit have been shown to be based on falsehoods.

> ... and taking responsibility for its success or failure.

I appreciate your optimism that there remains any doubt about which of those it will be.

It's clear that this guy - Boris, Johnson, or Boris Johnson if you prefer - has not and will not take responsibility for his actions.

Claims of 'Brexit == democracy at its best' are massively misguided - they presuppose that the voters were not outright lied to (they were).

> No Conservative government has served an entire term with an outright majority since Thatcher in the 1980s

I don't understand what you're saying about John Major.

Here's the 1992 election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_Kingdom_general_el...

336 seats, out of 651, with 326 needed for a majority.

Current conservatives have 288 seats out of 650.

Yes, the current government does not have a majority, but this was due to internal strife caused by the leaver/remainer dynamic within the halls of power.

Fair enough, the UK government is rotten to the core and the lot deserve to be thrown out and strung up. But they won't be, because the UK population is frustrated, but misinformed and distracted.

The problem with your argument is this; Brexit was not a vote on the corrupt local government, it was a vote on the corrupt EU government, and changing the focus on this matter doesn't change that.

The fact that a 80% remain parliment is supposed to represent a 52% leave population is ridiculous.

The fact that the supreme court were permitted to make walking away from the negotiation table illegal, thereby making it not a negotiation but a discussion of the UK's servitude from this point onward, is a disgrace.

If you cannot walk away from a negotiation, you're not negotiating. Your discussing the terms of your slavery. The task of getting the UK out of the EU in any kind of positive way is now utterly impossible.

So I'm afraid this is a remainer vs a leaver problem, because the majority of the population ("leavers") are not represented by the majority of the government ("remainers").

That is the problem with British democracy, not the steps taken by PM Johnson to put in to affect a desicion made by the people in the referendum!

> The fact that a 80% remain parliment is supposed to represent a 52% leave population is ridiculous.

Come on now. 544/650 MP ran for a party that had Leave as a Manifesto promise in the 2017 GE.

Yes individual MP could disagree with their party and defy the whip, but that is an overwhelming cross-party majority in favour of leaving.

In comparison, no party ran with a "Remain" outright manifesto, rather with a "Let run the deal against Remain" in a confirmation referendum. Only in the last weeks, Labour has sided with the confirmation referendum, and rejected last week to campaign for remain in that referendum.

> The fact that the supreme court were permitted to make walking away from the negotiation table illegal

That's nonsense. The supreme judged the suspension of Parliament by the PM illegal. It is loosely related to No Deal.

> thereby making it not a negotiation but a discussion of the UK's servitude from this point onward, is a disgrace. > Your discussing the terms of your slavery.

That's appeal to emotion territory here.

International negotiation like leaving the EU do not have the information asymmetry where leaving the table is a real asset. As advanced economies, the threat of instability or uncertainty is enough to keep both the EU and UK in search of a win-win agreement. In addition, the UK is an important contributor to the EU budget and the USA would only too happy to step in, so it is clearly in a position of strenght ... relative to its geopolical and economic size. A good deal is achievable, just not the cakist deal that was promised.

> supreme court were permitted to make walking away from the negotiation table illegal,

No, Parliament made this happen. The Supreme Court has not ruled that no deal is illegal. The most recent ruling was that proroguing Parliament simply to stop it acting was unlawful. You've been misled by the rightwing fake news sources again.

Parliament isn't "80% remain" either, even the Labour party haven't officially given up on the idea of "Lexit" yet.

The cost of "walking away" is huge. That's what the discussion has been about. The UK could walk away from its obligations and put a fence across Ireland. Or not do so and turn NI into a VAT fraud centre. It would just be a colossally stupid and negative thing to do.

At every stage Brexiters assume we could walk away from "them". Brexiteers have never thought about what might happen if they walked away from us and put the barriers back up.

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