Disagree here. A 52% majority is no basis for far-reaching, long-term constitutional change (even if the 52% _hadn't_ been systematically lied to, and the change in question _didn't_ represent pure national self-harm).
Brexit is certainly national self-harm, but that’s the right of voters. If they don’t want to use their brains, or to prioritise ends alien to people like me, that’s also entirely within their rights. There is no national consensus that we should move to any other constitutional régime, and in the absence of one, absurd as they are, our Diceyan notions are not so beyond the pale that simply in themselves they are illegitimate. If I am prepared to recognise the Thatcher ministry as having a legitimate democratic basis—and I certainly am—then the far more limited damage of Brexit certainly doesn’t make me inclined to question these aspects of the British democratic setup. (I do have some sympathy to attempts to smuggle in a constitution through the backdoor via the Act of Union and Scots law though.)
Are people really not aware that the brexit referendum and last two US presidential elections were heavily manipulated by Putin to weaken NATO and the EU so he could do exactly what he's doing right now?
Halting immigration would do more for nationalism and unity, not weaken it. These might sound bad but you need them badly if you're planning on any real wars.
I wouldn't exactly give Trump credit for that, but I think we need to be honest about the timeline here..
if victory in a direct plebiscite isn't a legitimate basis for long-term constitutional change: what about all the EU treaties that made long-term constitutional changes without any sort of referendum (e.g. Maastricht, Nice, Lisbon)?
did those have a legitimate basis?
the same cannot be said for the subsequent treaty changes, especially if one considers the 2016 referendum to be an illegitimate basis for reversing the changes
(and the EEC of 1975 was very, very different to the EU of 2016)
The question is not whether a referendum outcome should legitimize change. The question is whether using the threshold of simple majority (50%) makes sense. Many constitutional changes throughout the world require a supermajority:
but then I'd counter with the fact that a super-majority wasn't required to join the EU (EEC in 1975), so why is it fair that a supermajority would then be required to leave it?
stacking the odds in Remain's favour in this way would definitely have been seen as illegitimate
(I'm also certain that the majority of people stating that the UK leaving the EU should have required a super-majority would be against requiring a super-majority to rejoin, in the unlikely event that ever happens...)
All said, I think the UK should be more aligned with the EU here and play its part in securing the well-being of Ukrainian citizens. We (I think, as in the West and/or democracy) are united in recognising Ukrainians rights to self-determination
Giving a random person off the street the ability to vote leads you to these results. No surprises honestly.
it's a direct consequence of parliamentary sovereignty
parliament can make any law except those which bind parliament (which a legally binding referendum would do)
The great benefit doing it that way is the voters will be clear about what's being voted on.
if parliament didn't want to implement it: it could have passed another act that repealed the first
personally, I find the "it wasn't legally binding" argument to be sophistry of the worst kind
which is why stating "it wasn't legally binding" like it's abnormal or some sort of important insight is disingenuous
They're both done now so I'm not saying this because I think the outcomes should be revisited, but I hope we can learn from them for any future referendums.
separately: the EU refused to negotiate at all until Article 50 was triggered, so what you're asking for was essentially impossible
The Brexit outcome (not just the vote but political decisions afterwards rejecting all "soft" versions) has literally stripped citizenship rights and rights akin to citizenship from millions of people who were not allowed to vote on their own future.
My take on democracy is that the people most affected by a major decision must be allowed to contribute to the decision. If they are excluded at scale, then it's not democracy, it's just a vote by one group of people to control another.
changing the franchise in this way you have suggested would have been seen as the Remain campaign changing the rules to benefit itself, and would not have been accepted
> The Brexit outcome (not just the vote but political decisions afterwards rejecting all "soft" versions) has literally stripped citizenship rights and rights akin to citizenship
this is a (yet another) common misconception: EU "citizenship" is really quite limited, and is not at all the same as national citizenship
I think without exception: every right has been grandfathered in for those that were living in the UK at the time, for all intents and purposes "EU citizenship" has simply been renamed for those present in the UK prior to leaving
I agree with you, letting the people most affected have a say wouldn't have been accepted, and that's usually how these things go. I argue that it's still unethical and fails the basic principle of democracy, though. I personally do not respect the result as honouring the civic principles underlying democracy, but I respect that most people take a cruder "my team won" view, and if the 51% foxes vote to eat the 49% hens for dinner, that's democracy to them.
> I think without exception: every right has been grandfathered in for those that were living in the UK at the time, for all intents and purposes
We were talking about the vote being denied to UK citizens abroad too - UK citizens affected by Brexit who had no say. They don't have anything like the rights they used to have.
I've found it interesting for years that when rights are mentioned, most people focus entirely on non-UK citizens in the UK, not the lost rights of UK citizens. But a huge section of the UK population used to travel freely and work, and are deeply unhappy at losing their personal EU rights and seeing access to jobs they used to do closed, and (in my experience) even more distressed that their children won't grow up able to exercise those freedoms to travel, study and work abroad in the way that they themselves were. I guess people who didn't exercise those rights tend not to think about them, and people who did are on the losing side of the result.
this is the very much the norm for democracies
off the top of my head: Ireland won't let EU citizens vote in referendums (or for president), France won't let EU citizens vote for president (and so-on)
> We were talking about the vote being denied to UK citizens abroad too - UK citizens affected by Brexit who had no say.
the franchise is still quite generous (you can vote for 15 years without being resident)
(anecdotally... everyone I know that voted from abroad voted Leave)
Especially one with a bunch of negotiations and interpretations and unknowns and fantasies and dire consequences attached to it. Referendum-driven democracy of this sort is a disaster area. People shouldn't have been allowed to vote directly on this kind of a proposition until it had been negotiated in detail.