[Politics] Brexit - 9 years on, time for a poll ?

Rdodge30 · Feb 13, 2025

Thunder Bolt said:
Nobody did because the Referendum Act 2015 stated the referendum was advisory only. There was no mandate to forcibly leave the EU, which is why Cameron ran away when he realised what he had done.
Theresa May then tried to push through her red lines without Parliament, but failed because Gina Miller took her to court, stating that Parliament is sovereign, not the Prime Minister.

Whyever would we have a referendum and not comply with the result? What sort of democracy sets a referendum and then doesn’t enforce the result?

Thats Like saying if the result had been remain we could’ve left because it was only advisory.

A1X · Feb 13, 2025

Just to clarify, all referenda in the UK system are only advisory unless they have a direct impact on the election of members of the House of Commons. Those are the rules.

So the only "mandatory" referendum we have had in the UK for a very long time was the AV referendum in 2013(?).

That's not a statement one way or the other on following the mandate given or not, that's the constitutional facts of the matter.

Speaking personally, it was fairly obvious that the mandate of the referendum had to be delivered, as it was the result arrived at democratically. You can argue how Out "Out" is, but we nevertheless had to be at least seen as leaving the EU (or the political element of it at least). It was not necessarily inherent that we had to leave the Customs Union or Single Market, as there are other nations which are members of at least one or both of these entities without being official members of the EU (Norway, Switzerland, Turkey etc.). However, the UK Government did not decide to do that and that is therefore the path the UK took.

However, the mandate of the referendum existed only as far as the point we left, therefore the "will of the people" was delivered at 23.00 on 31st January 2020. From that point onward, there is no "set will" of the population which has to be followed, the mandate was delivered and the mandate expired. Therefore, there is no democratic barrier to rejoining the EU in any capacity. You could argue that this is not something the public has voted for in any party manifesto, and that would be a perfectly accurate statement to make and it is likely rejoining should be preceded by a party winning an election with it in it's stated aims.

Rejoining in full would be my preference, as I think the positives far, far outweigh the negatives, including joining the Euro and Schengen (which I do not see as a negative at all, FWIW). I accept that that's an unrealistic aim at least in the short to medium term, however I believe joining the Single Market should be a priority (even over a Customs Union). That is where the vast majority of the benefit would be gained for the minimum required effort.

Thunder Bolt · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
Whyever would we have a referendum and not comply with the result? What sort of democracy sets a referendum and then doesn’t enforce the result?

Thats Like saying if the result had been remain we could’ve left because it was only advisory.

Vote Leave broke the law. It was admitted by Theresa May's KC (then QC) James Eadie in the High Court. It should have been annulled and would've been so, if it hadn't been advisory.
A referendum based on lies is illegal. You got the result you wanted but we are all suffering from it.

Even Farage says it has failed.

Rdodge30 · Feb 13, 2025

Thunder Bolt said:
A referendum based on lies is illegal. You got the result you wanted but we are all suffering from it.

I voted remain

However the country voted leave and that’s the end of it.. I took a shower, had a drink and moved on.

You cannot possibly go to the country and not enforce the result- how would you feel if the result was remain but the government then left?

Thunder Bolt · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
I voted remain

However the country voted leave and that’s the end of it.. I took a shower, had a drink and moved on.

You cannot possibly go to the country and not enforce the result- how would you feel if the result was remain but the government then left?

The criminal investigations should have started straightaway, either way, not have to be forced out. Remainers were accused of all sorts of nonsense for pointing out the lies.
Good for you, you obviously didn't realise the implications whilst having your shower.

Rdodge30 · Feb 13, 2025

Thunder Bolt said:
Good for you, you obviously didn't realise the implications whilst having your shower.

I did indeed realise the implications but we can’t simply overturn votes because we don’t agree with the results although there are those on this thread who would

Pavilionaire · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
I voted remain

However the country voted leave and that’s the end of it.. I took a shower, had a drink and moved on.

You cannot possibly go to the country and not enforce the result- how would you feel if the result was remain but the government then left?

It's not the end of it if the country is permanently 5% short on it's budget, year on year immediately following Brexit.

If we discovered a brand new source of revenue like North Sea Oil 2.0 then - I agree - we shut the f**k up and get on with it, but the country is f*cked. Have you been to a hospital lately?

Harry Wilson's tackle · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
I suppose it all depends on what the party’s actual position is. There is apparently a very large workforce behind the scenes of government gearing up to renegotiate terms with the EU and if that is and always was his intention, then to declare the opposite in the manifesto is at best dishonest at worst corrupt.

Almost every poll quoted on here shows a large majority of the country are ready to return to the EU so it would make little sense to declare you will keep the country outside of the EU in order to gain power as it would seem that is the last thing the country wants.

Only time will tell what this governments intentions are.

Cameron gets a lot of grief over Brexit but it was in the Conservative manifesto that he would hold a referendum, the country voted him in and he held a referendum. He told the electorate exactly what the cost would be to the country if we left and he was proven right.

Do you think Starmer should replicate the political suicide of Cameron and offer another refrendum?
There will be no new referendum on Europe for the life of this parliament.
Starmer has not been dishonest, whatever he may wish for in the long term.

If Starmer were to give you what you want (presumably): a new referendum...
Would you vote 'stay remained' to punish Starmer's dishonesty, or back his dishonesty and vote 'rejoin?'

It is time to move away from tooth gnashing for the moment I feel, and hope that HMG can navigate us through these choppy waters....
until some sort of navigable land (and EU-again landing) comes into sight.....
the nation needs to be ready to embrace the nettle.....it is far away from that.....
people need to feel more pain and deduce it is the fault of Brexit....
and not the fault of Labour for 'tanking the economy' (failing to reap the rewards of Brexit - which will be the Tory and Reform line for the forseeable).

Harry Wilson's tackle · Feb 13, 2025

GoldstoneVintage said:
Sorry to hear this. Reminds me of 2016 when I found out that one of my friends had voted leave. I was incredulous when he told me his reason was 'because of all the bureaucracy'!

One of my friends did the same.
He told me last year it has been a massive mistake.

However, he is a businessman with real issues....
not some lardy chump obsessed with foringers and 'controlling our boarders'

Harry Wilson's tackle · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
Whyever would we have a referendum and not comply with the result? What sort of democracy sets a referendum and then doesn’t enforce the result?

Thats Like saying if the result had been remain we could’ve left because it was only advisory.

As has been stated repeatedly, the referendum was advisory.
And of course we wouldn't have left if the referendum result had been remain.
None of the grown ups in parliament wanted to leave.
It was all agitated by bat-shit-mental back benchers.
And extraparliamentary grifters like Farage.
The 'bastards' as John Major had called them.

I'm disappointed you don't seem to have understood the narrative.

But given the swiftness you had a shower and moved on it has clearly not really had much traction with your interests.
Which is good, because the promised sunny uplands had little traction with anyone who was informed.

Harry Wilson's tackle · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
I did indeed realise the implications but we can’t simply overturn votes because we don’t agree with the results although there are those on this thread who would

Nobody on this thread wants to 'overturn votes'.
Those of us who remembered the vote was advisory were annoyed but resigned that we would have to leave after the result.
(Even though some of us pleaded we not, shaking our tiny fists at the gathering clouds)
Even before the vote, the narrative had been stolen by Farage and, later, by the other grifter, Johnson.
There were threats of 'people on the streets' had we not made to leave.
(with the same people going 'on the streets' who patriotically attacked police and mosques last summer)
Johnson. A man who did not decide which side to back till the eve of the vote when he realized which side was going to win.
By then it was obvious even to me so I'm sure Johnson with all his polling data knew.

Johnson was a conviction politician only in as much as he should have been convicted.

Rdodge30 · Feb 13, 2025

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
Nobody on this thread wants to 'overturn votes

You’re mistaken there, even you can’t speak for everyone!

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
Those of us who remembered the vote was advisory were annoyed

As far as I am aware ALL referendums in the UK are advisory as they are not legally binding instruments??

However - much straw clutching from yourself sir.

Harry Wilson's tackle · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
You’re mistaken there, even you can’t speak for everyone!

As far as I am aware ALL referendums in the UK are advisory as they are not legally binding instruments??

However - much straw clutching from yourself sir.

Erm, you implied if not explicitly stated the referendum was legally binding.
If it isn't legally binding then people were right to 'remoan' after the count triggered a departure with zero plan.

Some referendums are indeed legally binding if that is how they are constituted.
This one was not.

I appreciate you are not very interested in any of this so perhaps if you feel moved to make points you might do a bit of research?
Just a thought.

But feel free to flex your whimsical opinion.
This is perfectly within the 'rules' of NSC :wink:

Rdodge30 · Feb 13, 2025

All referendums are advisory Harry

Referendums are not binding, so the Government is not required to follow up with any action afterwards

My point is don’t have one if you’re not going to implement the result …. I mean why would you? Why have a referendum and ignore the result…. Well you’ve all voted for Scotland to secede the Union … we will take that on board when we discuss it in parliament but actually, no we won’t be doing that after all

I would say can you imagine that? But clearly some on here can !!

Harry Wilson's tackle · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
All referendums are advisory Harry

Referendums are not binding, so the Government is not required to follow up with any action afterwards

My point is don’t have one if you’re not going to implement the result …. I mean why would you? Why have a referendum and ignore the result…. Well you’ve all voted for Scotland to secede the Union … we will take that on board when we discuss it in parliament but actually, no we won’t be doing that after all
I would say can you imagine that? But clearly some on here can !!

Your second point is reasonable, and I do agree (even though I carped about it at the time, but because there was no plan how to leave; it struch me as a referendum on whether to allow people to flap their arms in order to fly).

But your first statement is factually false.

Was the EU referendum “advisory”? - Full Fact

A referendum can be legally non-binding but, arguably, politically binding.

fullfact.org

"The referendum was not legally binding. There’s no one source that can prove this statement true (although here’s a respectable one). That follows from the fact that the European Union Referendum Act 2015 didn’t say anything about implementing the result of the vote. It just provided that there should be one.

In other countries, referendums are often legally binding—for example, because the vote is on whether to amend the constitution. The UK, famously, doesn’t have a codified constitution.

A UK referendum will only have the force of law if the Act setting it up says so. In practical terms this would mean someone would be able to go to court to make the government implement the result. The Alternative Vote referendum in 2011, for example, was legally binding in this way."

Harry Wilson's tackle · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
All referendums are advisory Harry

Referendums are not binding, so the Government is not required to follow up with any action afterwards

My point is don’t have one if you’re not going to implement the result …. I mean why would you? Why have a referendum and ignore the result…. Well you’ve all voted for Scotland to secede the Union … we will take that on board when we discuss it in parliament but actually, no we won’t be doing that after all
I would say can you imagine that? But clearly some on here can !!

ps - I'd enjoy having a long chat with you about politics and society over several beers.
I like it when people are willing to keep digging.....sometimes they unearth unexpected gems :thumbsup:

Happy Exile · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
All referendums are advisory Harry

Referendums are not binding, so the Government is not required to follow up with any action afterwards

My point is don’t have one if you’re not going to implement the result …. I mean why would you? Why have a referendum and ignore the result…. Well you’ve all voted for Scotland to secede the Union … we will take that on board when we discuss it in parliament but actually, no we won’t be doing that after all
I would say can you imagine that? But clearly some on here can !!

Well…in an advisory referendum isn’t the result advice rather than legal or constitutionally enforced instruction? So the sensible, adult thing to do would have been to listen to the advice people wanted to leave and look into it more than made up slogans on a bus, come up with a structured plan and an approach and a cost benefit analysis and only then do a constitutionally and legally enforced referendum to ask if that’s what people really wanted.

Thunder Bolt · Feb 13, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
All referendums are advisory Harry

Referendums are not binding, so the Government is not required to follow up with any action afterwards

My point is don’t have one if you’re not going to implement the result …. I mean why would you? Why have a referendum and ignore the result…. Well you’ve all voted for Scotland to secede the Union … we will take that on board when we discuss it in parliament but actually, no we won’t be doing that after all
I would say can you imagine that? But clearly some on here can !!

Debate would’ve started on what Out actually meant. There were bold statements it didn’t mean leaving the Single Market.
Boris Johnson and his cabal voted against everything Theresa May opted for. She almost lost her election, and had to bribe the DUP to get a very slim majority.
None of it was a simple in or out, shower or no shower.

Weststander · Feb 13, 2025

Anyway, looking forward, how and when do we get to join the customs union?

Lever · Feb 14, 2025

Rdodge30 said:
Whyever would we have a referendum and not comply with the result? What sort of democracy sets a referendum and then doesn’t enforce the result?

Thats Like saying if the result had been remain we could’ve left because it was only advisory.

Oh dear, I will try and explain..... the result was 'we're out' but no one including the chancer Boris ('I just wanted to win an argument) Johnson knew what to do with his 'victory'; people who voted for it did so for a range of different, sometimes conflicting reasons! We left of course but there was no plan as to what to do next and Remainers realised that was seriously bad for the country

'Complying' with the referendum result was effected, but that left the vast majority dissatisfied and angry - and we have never really recovered

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