Britain Sets Date for EU Referendum -- Brexit

[Big Guy]

What? You're saying we can keep voting until the desired result is achieved? Is that democracy?

You do what you can until you can convince those who you chose to represent you to pass legislation that you feel is required.

For an example, it is generally accepted that if the question of capital punishment came to a referendum then it would pass. Our representatives understand this but do not act on it.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/02/08/majority_of_canadians_support_return_of_death_penalty_poll_finds.html

Edited July 12, 2016 by Big Guy

[betsy]

You do what you can until you can convince those who you chose to represent you to pass legislation that you feel is required.

For an example, it is generally accepted that if the question of capital punishment came to a referendum then it would pass. Our representatives understand this but do not act on it.

Well, it is an assumption to say that capital punishment would pass unless we do have the referendum.

But if we do have a referendum and capital punishment won by landslide - I wonder if our representatives wouldn't be forced to act on it.

Edited July 12, 2016 by betsy

[Big Guy]

Well, it is an assumption to say that capital punishment would pass unless we do have the referendum.

But if we do have a referendum and capital punishment won by landslide - I wonder if our representatives wouldn't be forced to act on it.

I think they may or may not. I think it is telling that no political party is prepared to have a referendum or plebiscite on the issue. I guess the point I was trying to make was that in our constitution, a referendum is not binding. Majority public opinion does not "force" a government to do anything. The government which ignores the results of a referendum does so at its peril.

History tells us that it is not a good idea to have a referendum if you are not sure of the results. Ask Jacques Parizeau.

[-TSS-]

I wonder if under the new rules of aiming at as fixed-term parliaments as possible the new PM even has a right ot call a snap election.

Do I remember right that didn't you in Canada also change the rules regarding early election so that there has to be a serious crisis or no confidence vote for government to call an early election?

[Wilber]

I wonder if under the new rules of aiming at as fixed-term parliaments as possible the new PM even has a right ot call a snap election.

Do I remember right that didn't you in Canada also change the rules regarding early election so that there has to be a serious crisis or no confidence vote for government to call an early election?

I like fixed terms but they can only work when there is a majority government.

[TimG]

History tells us that it is not a good idea to have a referendum if you are not sure of the results. Ask Jacques Parizeau.

People fall into two categories:

1) Those who believe a referendum on certain key questions is a necessary part of a modern democracy;

2) Partisans who like referendums when they allow the people to overrule governments they don't like but oppose them when 'their team' is in power.

IOW, what are the chances that you would be OK if the Harper government tried to change the way votes are counted without a referendum? I say next to zero.

Edited July 14, 2016 by TimG

[Big Guy]

...

IOW, what are the chances that you would be OK if the Harper government tried to change the way votes are counted without a referendum? I say next to zero.

Why are you trying to make this a partisan issue?

Referendums are not binding, have never been and will never be. We have a parliament which is elected to make decisions based on a process which includes a formal hearing of all sides of an issue.

Call it a referendum, a plebiscite or whatever - it is an attempt by someone with an agenda to satisfy an agenda by masking it as a binding will of the people.

It is not.

[JamesHackerMP]

Well this is a first: the United Kingdom declares independence from somebody else!

[JamesHackerMP]

https://www.facebook.com/hipstorians/photos/a.1448145472063755.1073741829.1448143138730655/1763473537197612/?type=3&theater

[TimG]

Call it a referendum, a plebiscite or whatever - it is an attempt by someone with an agenda to satisfy an agenda by masking it as a binding will of the people.

No. They are attempts to resolve the most contentious issues by directly asking the people they actually think instead of inferring their desires based on a vote for a party. It is quite inane to suggest a vote for Party X means every voter supports every policy that the party may support. A referendum allows voters to show that they disagree with their elected representatives. Edited July 15, 2016 by TimG

[Bonam]

The EU's problem is that it went wide before it went deep. What it needed to do was start with a smaller number of countries that were willing to join a tighter union, where they are states belonging to a federal government. Then, if the advantages of such an arrangement became obvious to their neighbors, they would freely join. Instead, the EU started as a loose trade association and quickly expanded to include a wide range of countries with disparate cultures, and only then tried to implement ever greater centralized decision-making.

[BC_chick]

It looks like the May is going be delaying Brexit until a 'UK appaoach' is established with Scotland.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_578bd0b8e4b03fc3ee513f56

This is gonna get messy.

[Argus]

You want to know why the British voted to leave the incompetent, spineless EU? Why the right wing is gaining more and more support in France and throughout Europe?

Nothing demonstrates it better than this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaiJawAUyJ0

Edited July 26, 2016 by Argus

[Big Guy]

It looks like the May is going be delaying Brexit until a 'UK appaoach' is established with Scotland.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_578bd0b8e4b03fc3ee513f56

This is gonna get messy.

I believe its not going to happen. It requires the British Parliament to pass legislation to invoke article 50. There is on obligation to do so and I do not think there are enough votes to pass it.

[SpankyMcFarland]

We are in for a long story here:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/09/norway-may-block-uk-return-to-european-free-trade-association

Edited August 10, 2016 by SpankyMcFarland

[marcus]

You want to know why the British voted to leave the incompetent, spineless EU? Why the right wing is gaining more and more support in France and throughout Europe?

Nothing demonstrates it better than this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaiJawAUyJ0

Maybe people should be voting for their countries to stop wars and stop backing dictators which are the major reasons people are getting out of hell holes.

[Argus]

Maybe people should be voting for their countries to stop wars and stop backing dictators which are the major reasons people are getting out of hell holes.

Poverty is the main reason most of those people are leaving, not wars. Turkey has actually talked about giving them citizenship, but they don't want to live in Turkey, they want to live in wealthy Europe.

Edited August 13, 2016 by Argus

[marcus]

Poverty is the main reason most of those people are leaving, not wars. Turkey has actually talked about giving them citizenship, but they don't want to live in Turkey, they want to live in wealthy Europe.

The instability that wars create have a direct correlation with poverty and economic set back.

An entire generation has lost a decade of its life, and the country has only begun to face the social costs it will have to pay... economy and rapid economic development have probably been set back two decades.

link

Instead of whining about these people escaping the crap that we helped to create through our wars, sanctions and backing of dictators, you should put that energy in voicing your opposition to our destructive foreign policies.

Edited August 13, 2016 by marcus

[-TSS-]

I must say that there is almost nothing that gives me more pleasure in the schadenfreude-way than the British complaining about immigration as invasion. Hahaa, many of those people seem totally oblivious to their own country's history. Absolutely zero sympathy for them! Let London sink into a third world cesspool!

Too bad that I have relatives living in London but no can do.

Edited August 13, 2016 by -TSS-

[Bryan]

I must say that there is almost nothing that gives me more pleasure in the schadenfreude-way than the British complaining about immigration as invasion. Hahaa, many of those people seem totally oblivious to their own country's history. Absolutely zero sympathy for them! Let London sink into a third world cesspool!

Too bad that I have relatives living in London but no can do.

Please. Nobody is responsible for the actions of their ancestors.

[eyeball]

They are when they defend and rely on them to justify maintaining the advantages they conferred over those who became disadvantaged.

[Bryan]

Definitely not. You can't control what someone did before you were born, and you have no control over when or where you are born.

With regards to TSS's point about immigration -- those people were born in the UK as it exists now, not when it was an Empire. They can be independently for or against immigration without respect to the UK's previous imperial actions because they had nothing to do what that. And nothing in their lives today has anything to do with it either.

[eyeball]

Definitely not. You can't control what someone did before you were born, and you have no control over when or where you are born.

With regards to TSS's point about immigration -- those people were born in the UK as it exists now, not when it was an Empire. They can be independently for or against immigration without respect to the UK's previous imperial actions because they had nothing to do what that. And nothing in their lives today has anything to do with it either.

Our institutions had control and still do. Our institutions imperial and otherwise exist to convey values across generations and these according to a growing body of jurisprudence in the Common Wealth include taking responsibility for their past actions. If addressing the consequences of this inconveniences people living in the present then it behooves them to adjust their attitudes towards how they can better control their institutions so these can't create such problems for people living in the future.

That would be us and our responsibility.

Its only people in the future who have no control over what's happening.

Edited August 14, 2016 by eyeball

[Bryan]

Its only people in the future who have no control over what's happening.

We are those people "in the future".

We had no control over what happened in the past, and we are in no way responsible for it.

Not. At. All.

[eyeball]

We are those people "in the future".

No, we're in the present.

Now what about our institutions? Who's responsible for them and when?