EU Elections

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Richard
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Re: EU Elections

Postby Richard » Sun Jun 02, 2019 11:16 am

seahermit,

You say that in ancient Greece referendums were the device of demagogues used to decide simple issues.
Clement Attlee famously remarked that referendums are ‘the device of demagogues and dictators’.
The definition of a demagogue is a leader who gains popularity in a democracy by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation. (rings a bell to my mind - Farage).

Referendums should be held when the electorate are in the best possible position to make a judgment. They should be held when people can view all the arguments for and against and when those arguments have been rigorously tested. In short, referendums should be held when people know exactly what they are getting. So legislation should be debated by Members of Parliament on the Floor of the House, and then put to the electorate for the voters to judge.
The 2016 referendum did not show true democracy in action at all, there was an absence of meaningful debate and the circulation of dubious claims.
Advocates of a referendum never demonstrated the existence of a popular appetite on a scale they claimed, and therefore never established definitively why there should be a referendum on this precise issue. Why, then, was the referendum needed? And if it was, were there not a wide variety of other matters on which such votes might be held?

Whether its democratic basis was sound or not, the referendum took place on 23 June 2016. The ‘leave’ side won.
The bare majority support for ‘leave’ among those who voted has created a scenario in which a myriad of outcomes are entirely possible but the electorate cannot be said to have communicated any instruction as to the specific outcome it favours.
In other words voting leave may have been achieved by people with differing views on all the numerous and quite different ways in which to comply with their (unknown) wishes.

cbe
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Re: EU Elections

Postby cbe » Sun Jun 02, 2019 12:44 pm

At the risk of boring you completely, I will repeat - the referendum presented a clear and binary question to the electorate. The Prime Minister of the day said that his government would honour the result. The decision was made but The Establishment did not like the answer and so from that day (nearly THREE years) they have been trying to overturn that decision.
First of all they tell us that 'Brexiteers' were too thick to make the choice. Then they said that people didn't understand what was involved, though it is strange that they thought the only ones who didn't understand were those who gave the wrong answer. Then we are told there needs to be a second referendum (now the plebs know how difficult all this is they will surely change their minds) and then when that didn't play well with the millions who voted Leave they decided it would be better to call it a confirmatory vote. So that you, the people, can decide whether any terms agreed are acceptable to you.
It is an insult to everyone's intelligence for anyone to suggest that all the obfuscation is anything but a determination to stay within the EU.
The final insult is the suggestion that if there were another vote (or 'when' as our 5th column say) 'Remain' should be one of the questions ???? NO - that decision has been taken. We will
leave the eu - there is no doubt about that and we will leave properly and not with something like the Prime Minister's so-called Withdrawal Agreement.

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Richard
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Re: EU Elections

Postby Richard » Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:14 pm

cbe,
The problem with referendums is that they often boil complex decisions down to simplistic binary either/or choices, and are not always a good way of getting at nuance or at the wider ramifications of a decision.
In other words leave did not state leave without a deal and thus you have the current impasse in a nutshell.
Nobody said vote on whether you want a no deal Brexit, Brexit with a deal or remain.
That would have sorted out the mess we are now in.

Referendums don't have to be strictly binary affairs, some can offer multiple choices, some can offer follow-up questions, some can build in checks and balances, such as a two-thirds majority being required to pass, or a certain percentage of eligible voters being needed to validate a yes vote.
And some, like the Irish abortion referendum of 2018, can be preceded by a useful fact-finding Citizen’s Assembly, to assure that the electorate is in possession of quality impartial information when they come to making their decision.

I would blame, if anything, the lack of clarity by those who drew up our referendum but then again we have had very few referendums and other countries, operating more sophisticated question choices, have used them a lot more.
But also consider this:
in Britain, the few referendums that have been called have been done so not for reasons of national imperative but for party political reasons: a party leader, unable to brook compromise over a towering issue (usually Europe) effectively contracts out the decision-making process to the people.

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Richard
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Re: EU Elections

Postby Richard » Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:14 pm

At least it looks like we are now heading in the right direction.
Not staying in was never likely and doing a deal has been thoroughly defeated.
As Andrea Leadsom says, "the Withdrawal Agreement Bill is dead - the EU won't reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and the UK Parliament won't vote for it".
That leaves an exit by whatever means possible but you can't blame T. May for trying it on as the binary referendum did not rule a deal out.

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seahermit
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Re: EU Elections

Postby seahermit » Mon Jun 03, 2019 3:57 am

It is true I used an incorrect term - I did not mean "rabble-rousers", I meant leading politicians who addressed the gathered assembly of citizens and outlined their arguments, the population then decided which way to vote. The Athenians were a well-educated and closely knit community, much better informed about important issues than many people are nowadays in our large and complicated societies.

None of this alters the fact that there was NOT "an absence of meaningful debate", nor did the advocates of the referendum fail to demonstrate an appetite for it. I am not sure what planet you have been inhabiting but your memory of recent history is decidedly shaky. Wide debate of the issues to do with the EU went on for several years, the fact that a lot of incorrect claims were made and exaggerated statements were put out is irrelevant - the basic truths were out there for anyone bothering enough to do some proper research and enquiry. In addition, opinion poll after opinion poll over several years made it clear that many of the population were demanding a referendum.

You think I have something personal against you - I do not, but there is no point in your participating in the argument if you blatantly ignore known facts and the reality of recent events.

The fact that the electorate did not communicate (nor was asked for) the specific kind of Brexit it favoured is again quite irrelevant. The referendum revolved around a perfectly honest and straightforward question: In or Out? How the resulting verdict was to be implemented, with all its complications, was not a matter the electorate could reasonably be expected to grapple with - it is a matter for politicians and administrators. Which comes back to the nub of the problem - the politicians have signally failed to honour the referendum verdict and have even expressed their intention to reverse it if possible.

Someone here inferred that he felt insulted - I feel the same and angry and more cynical about politicians than I have ever been.

cbe
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Re: EU Elections

Postby cbe » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:08 am

Richard - your first paragraph encapsulates everything that Remainers have been saying and doing for nearly three years. I would just point out that you and people pushing this bogus line ARE the problem. As regards referenda not having to be binary, of course not, but this one WAS. It was a question decided by the Electoral Commission and put in such a way that no one could be in any doubt - IN or OUT. Even I from the frozen North could follow such a simple question.
You go on to say about all the various things that could have been done - such as stipulating a certain majority needed for a decision to be acceptable. It was - a simple majority such as in General Elections was needed and indeed for the decision to form a Welsh Assembly. The only reason there is ANY question at all about this is because the WRONG answer was given - as our friends over the water say - suck it up. Yes I can blame Theresa May - she was a Remainer and she gained the PM job without any vote from the party after various machinations eliminated everyone else. Her job was to keep us in - in all but name.

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Richard
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Re: EU Elections

Postby Richard » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:30 am

seahermit,

I have never thought you have anything personal against me.
However you do seem to think that if you say something often enough in a disparaging and arrogant way, with respect to others views, that it carries some sort of weight.
The long history of accusations against the EU is common knowledge, it doesn't mean that membership should be overturned by a referendum unless, of course, anything better had been found and ready in-the wings to be implemented. The referendum was party-political, that makes it even less satisfactory. Being a simple binary choice further compounds the problem.
Despite your lofty assertions I feel there were glaring democratic deficiencies in the run-up to the vote.
Despite high levels of interest throughout the campaign, people felt consistently ill-informed and many people simply did not trust the veracity of certain claims made by both sides.
Additionally, both sides were viewed as highly negative by voters.

The binary In or out was the problem because it failed to address what sort of 'out' or 'remain'.
You say that is up to the 'pollies' to sort out and yes, that much is true, they have realised that thousands of choices and decisions have to be formulated, discussed and presented but without cross-party talks to achieve a consensus solution this binary referendum may never be resolved to anyone's satisfaction.
At least now we have cast out the idea of doing some sort of 'deal' and probably a 'no deal' option also. But where does that leave us?

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seahermit
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Re: EU Elections

Postby seahermit » Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:44 pm

I don't at all understand what you are saying. I have only said once, not "often enough in a disparaging and arrogant way" that you are ignoring how recent events actually evolved. I am not opposing your "views" - your statements were not views but an incorrect factual account of the run-up to the referendum.

It is true that the issues in question before the vote were complex and hard to understand - everyone felt that, but how does that invalidate the vote? Should general elections never take place because the issues are complex and need to be studied and thought about by the voters? It's nonsense of course, we have to do the best we can and make do with what information is publicly available.

Again, all of this is quite irrelevant and side-tracking. The vote is done and past, we have to deal with the situation here and now and, as CBE says, the only reason there is a problem is because the referendum result was unacceptable to many politicians and they are trying to ignore it. THAT is the problem, anything else, including what you claim happened in the past, is diversionary and waffling.

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seahermit
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Re: EU Elections

Postby seahermit » Mon Jun 03, 2019 1:04 pm

As an aside, I am intrigued by Donald Trump's interference in the Brexit debate. None of his business of course, he should not be publicly seeming to try to influence British politics - if he made some passing personal comments e.g. in some interview, that would be more permissible.

But then I am not sure many people take Donald Trump too seriously, so it probably doesn't matter much! He is in my opinion a bit of a clown, erratic, temperemental and somewhat childish. I don't see him being looked back on as one of the USA's greatest presidents ..

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Richard
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Re: EU Elections

Postby Richard » Mon Jun 03, 2019 1:34 pm

seahermit,

Obama as he jetted into Britain in 2016, just before the referendum, urged the UK to stay in the EU.
Many outside leaders expressed opinions on the matter.
However, as you might well say, it's all history and in any case nothing of the sort has affected or will affect decisions made in Parliament.
In the meantime we are still inside the EU, despite the chaos resulting from the attempts of a populist to whip up the support of people who believed that immigration could be stopped and billions recouped as well as regaining sovereignty.
The self-same sovereign powers of Parliament are yet keeping us inside the EU, that is surely a display of democracy.


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