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It's even a bit sillier than that. David Cameron promised a dumb thing to get elected, on the assumption that he'd be in another libdem coalition, and the libdems wouldn't allow it. Then he got a majority. And campaigned against his own dumb thing.

Not only was it expected to fail at referendum, but the referendum itself was never really meant to happen.

> What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway").

It went very much the opposite; they went for almost the most extreme possible version of the thing. A lot of people voting for Brexit had been sold on, basically, Norway's status (effectively in the EU, but can pretend not to be, and has its own rules on fish and can have whatever weird passports it wants). This is part of why support for it evaporated so quickly (the last time any serious poll showed staying out as having more support for rejoining was early 2022); the delivered product was simply not what most people had been sold.

Little did they know that the UK effectively already had Norway's status and then some, what with all the special privileges they were granted in the EU.

BUT THE FISH.

(The British fisheries industry actually largely suffered due to Brexit, as British people don’t eat much fish, especially the fish available around Britain, and the industry was largely dependent on exports. But it’s the thought that counts, I suppose.)

> What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway").

There was an attempt.

A campaigner managed to get the courts to issue a verdict that the referendum was not binding, and Parliament must then have a vote on whether or not to implement the result. Remain voters rejoiced and lauded her as a hero. Brexit voters demonised her as an enemy of democracy.

Parliament then duly voted to implement the result.

(Edit - looking back this may have been counterproductive. The argument that the referendum was not legally binding could have continued for some time, maybe even long enough to try to change something. But forcing a parliamentary vote to affirm the result put all that to bed)

Which was, procedurally, the correct course of action: the referendum was non-binding, because the UK's constitution only allows for non-binding referendums. Parliament is sovereign, whether you and I like it or not (and I'm generally ambivalent about it).

Given one of the major themes of the leave campaign was "restoring parliamentary sovereignty", it's darkly ironic that leave also campaigned against parliament actually using that sovereignty, and indeed came closer than anyone else (including the EU) to restricting parliamentary sovereignty.

I wouldn't call it ironic. The forces behind Leave were - still are - far-right nationalists and wannabe autocrats. They consider democracy an annoyance - ideally a temporary one.

Their idea of sovereignty is telling everyone else what to do. They wrap this up in flags and Sptifire biscuit tin patriotism for the poorly educated, but it's all for show.

What they want is unlimited power over others. The EU has always been an obstacle to that.

The different nationalists - the Republicans in the US, the Putinists in Russia, the Zionists in Israel, the Brexiters in the UK, the Saudi oil imperialists - are all tentacles of the same creature, and more likely to cooperate with each other against their native populations than act independently.

> (kind of funny those legal arguments never came up BEFORE it could even be put up for a vote, again showing the level of confidence on display)

Actually, IMO, it shows one of the weaknesses of our legal system.

The courts can't rule on something that someone's talking about doing. They can only rule on actual legislation.

It would genuinely be great if there were a formal legal process for writing a bill, submitting it to some particular court (maybe the top state appeals court?) for review, and only after that review letting it be voted into law.

I think that's a bit of the purpose of the scientific service of the parliament (e.g. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaftliche_Dienste_des_..., not sure how this is called in other countries)

Also you can ask anyone you like about your legislative proposal, including the judges of a court.

>What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way

All that happened was that Britain exchanged limited Eastern Euro immigration for unlimited non-EU immigration.

https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/2060561179408548029