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Comment by c7DJTLrn | Hacker News Reader

There's no way it will happen, the damage has been done and besides, the politicians don't want it.

The referendum should've been nullified when the scale of political interference via social media in 2016 came to light. Also, 52% to 48% is not a resounding "yes" and should not have been considered as one.

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Or a second referendum held once the terms of the actual withdrawal deal were known, and fell far short of the Leave campaign's promises of, in effect, retaining all the benefits of membership. The EU was still declaring at that point that were the UK Parliament to vote to end the Article 50 process and retain membership, they'd be willing to forget the whole thing.

>Or a second referendum held once the terms of the actual withdrawal deal were known

Exactly, nobody voting for Brexit even knew what they were voting for! Many just had some nebulous, fantastical idea of independence from some "evil" organisation in Brussels.

Actually a lot of politicians and media were talking about something like the EFTA (Norway, etc) arrangement with the EU--and this is what a lot of voters wanted. So they ended up with something vastly different from what they wanted [and would have voted Remain if they had known what the final result was going to be.]

To be fair, this made absolutely no sense. It would have been less harmful yes, but a large financial power like the UK would never have accepted being a rule taker.

I mean that happened anyway, but at least they don't need to keep all of the laws.

Honestly, I never understood why EFTA made any sense for the UK (although as an Irish person I'd have been very happy if they went that way).

More to the point 2/4 countries in the UK voted remain and got dragged out of the EU anyway.

I suppose they could dissolve the United Kingdom.

the UK is unitary state, not a federation or confederation

the previous sovereign states that were dissolved to form it are called "countries" for historical reasons

the referendum was 1 person 1 vote

populations:

  - Scotland and NI (voted Remain): 7.5 million
  - England and Wales (vote Leave): 60 million

allowing 7.5 million to override 60 million, simply because they physically live in an area that was formerly a different state several hundred years ago would be disenfranchisement on a vast scale

not to mention completely undemocratic

> allowing 7.5 million to override 60 million, simply because they physically live in an area that was formerly a different state several hundred years ago would be disenfranchisement on a vast scale

Like how in the Electoral College here in the US, one vote in Wyoming can have almost two orders of magnitude more impact than a vote in California when it comes to electing senators, as each state gets two regardless of population [0]. Similarly, when one looks at the extent of gerrymandering, it’s clear that the winners, and especially one party in particular, love to redraw the lines to cherry-pick the voters that will elect them while excluding others that might challenge them [1]. For presidential elections, the difference between a Wyoming voter’s say and the average say of a voter from any other state is around 3.18:1. Worst-case is of course California, where it’s about 3.6:1 when compared to Wyoming, or said another way, a vote here is worth 27.7% of a Wyoming vote. [2][3]

    0. https://wallethub.com/edu/how-much-is-your-vote-worth/7932

    1. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2021/nov/12/gerrymander-redistricting-map-republicans-democrats-visual


    2. https://fairvote.org/archives/the_electoral_college-population_vs_electoral_votes/


    3. https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/how-much-voting-power-do-you-really-have-in-your-state

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