— Hello there, fancy a burger?
— Yeah, go on then
— OK, coming right up, btw the burger is human flesh
— Wait, I didn’t think th-
— YOU VOTED FOR BURGER
I disagree with your analogy. The UK existed just fine before it joined the EU. Leaving is not the apocalypse it’s a bureaucratic process of adjustment.
Who knows what will happen next :)
Based on tonights results Parliament skews toward remain. If they vote for a delay tomorrow (highly likely) it’s possible they can frustrate or delay Brexit to the point of a 2nd referendum.
Ah, so any promise offered by any elected official in response to any poll must always be carried out regardless of the consequences, or a failure of democracy has occurred. Somehow I don’t think even you subscribe to that view.
Brexit or no Brexit, I think you’re going to be disappointed in your “full independence from the EU”, at least if history is any guide. Leaving is just the start, the UK is going to want a trade deal with the EU.
So now they’re just doubling down on all sides. My way or chaos is what May is saying.
This was a nationwide referendum where the government promised to implement the result. I don’t know what else to say.
That government no longer exists.
Edit: Also, I’m skeptical that the then government made any such promise. From Wikipedia:
The European Union Referendum Act required a referendum to be held on the question of the UK’s continued membership of the European Union (EU) before the end of 2017. It did not contain any requirement for the UK Government to implement the results of the referendum. Instead, it was designed to gauge the electorate’s opinion on EU membership.
It’s entirely possible but the start is to actually leave the EU. Parliament can’t even get that right at the moment.
I would agree that it’s not the apocalypse, though there’s probability that people will die from it, one way or another, depending on how it goes. However, the logic of the UK existed just fine is also true for electricity, home refrigeration, medicine, etc. :D
The UK existed just fine before electricity or the internet as well. Times and the world change.
EDIT: To be clear, I’m not trying to imply that the UK would turn into a Mad Max type of scenario or resort to cannibalism or anything. Just saying that just because the UK existed fine before the EU doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to cause major pain leaving the EU now.
EDIT 2: I didn’t see Darth already used the electricity thing, I’m so slow! :)
I don’t see how you can equate these things. The EU a bureaucratic construct.
I agree, although it’s not an ideal scenario. This is one of those cases where people made a decision - possibly based on bad information or poor decision making, but still a decision - and should be held accountable.
Leave, with no deal since clearly no deal acceptable to all sides it possible. Give it six months. Then do another referendum on whether to petition to rejoin. Any guesses on the results of that one?
So’s the UK. So’s our entire legal framework. The UK has spent 40 years living inside this construct, changing it to what’s better for the UK, the economy adapting to being inside this construct, etc.
Of course it’s possible to live outside it. It’s just that 40 years of integration are hard to turn back without pain. Of course, the pain might be worth it, that’s for the British to decide…
They’re not equatable. You’re right, they’re very different things. It’s more just an example of how the world is different now than it was then. Yes, everyone got along fine without the internet and people were still able to live out their lives. But now that the internet is a thing and it is embedded in the way we do things from online shopping to financial transactions to you name it, I think you will agree it’s not a trivial thing to simply unplug a country from the internet and just do without, even though we all lived fine without it before.
That’s why I brought it up in response to you saying the UK existed and did fine prior to the EU. It sure did, but that does not mean that exiting the EU – especially without a well-thought out plan on how it is all going to work – is going to be fine now that it has been part of that entity for some time. No, I don’t think leaving the EU would be nearly as disruptive as unplugging from the internet or abolishing electricity, but I think it can and likely will have some major consequences. I think this will be especially true for the next several years after a hard exit.
I think my timeline would be different. Give it a few years then another referendum but I would find that acceptable. That way the original referendum result is upheld and it gives people another say. I would support that position.
I think draxen is correct in one way in that No Deal Brexit is the outcome (of the possible outcomes in reality) that the UK voted for in 2016.
Yes, voters were lied to. Yes, there was vast propaganda and misinformation. Yes, voting for No Deal Brexit was intensely foolish. But it is, IMO what they voted for.
The referendum was on “leave the EU” versus “remain in the EU” and any reasonable voter with halfway decent critical thinking skills with even a modest knowledge of history would know there was no way that the EU would ever agree to any kind of one-sided non-reciprocal “the UK get’s to have it’s cake and eat it too” type of super-awesome-all-the sovereignty-of-going-solo-PLUS-all-the perks-of-multi-lateral-cooperation fantasy deal. The voters were deceived to a large degree but that’s the problem with democracy: they still voted for it and now IMO they need to own that.
Second, from a legalistic “legislative interpretation” standpoint, the correct interpretation of the “leave” versus “remain” referendum question is that, since the terms of the question did not include any deal, the plan language of the referendum includes No-Deal Brexit. In fact, a truly hardcore legalistic interpretation is that only No Deal Brexit would satisfy the wording of the referendum (which is a big reason why May is such as idiot).
Note, I am not advocating for No Deal Brexit; I hate the idea and would never have voted for it, or for “leave”. But I do think that, sadly, this is what the idiot voters of the UK, using their sovereign democratic power, in all their laughable foolishness, voted for.
So let them bear the burdens of the natural and foreseeable consequences of their voting actions.
I mean, sure, if sanity prevails and article 50 is revoked I’m all for that, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, which means No Deal Brexit is coming. And it was IMO pretty much inevitable.
Troy to Vietnam to Brexit. So nuts.
That is brilliantly put.
I think a decision can either be democratic or unchangeable, but not both. If the country cannot change its mind - either through MPs, or another vote - it’s no longer a democracy.