Earlier today I posted a piece about referendum’s vote to leave Europe, and stated that I think a minimum two-thirds majority should have been set as the requirement for the decision to be considered valid. Michelle, one of the great posters on this blog, has told me that there is a petition before parliament for another referendum to be held if the majority is under 60 per cent and the percentage of people voting is less than 75. It’s at:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215
I’ve already voted for it, as has Joanna, one of the other fine commenters here. I would also encourage others to sign it. This decisions is so fundamentally important to this country’s future, that there must be an absolutely clear majority for a ‘leave’ vote to be even remotely acceptable.
The future of the United Kingdom, and particularly in Northern Ireland, the lives of our fellow citizens depend on it.
Tags: 'Michelle', Brexit, Joanna, Northern Ireland, Parliament, Petitions, United Kingdom
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
June 25, 2016 at 4:55 pm |
Thank you Beastie you have made my day mentioning me in your article!
Maybe this might give the “leave” voters, who may be regretting their vote, another chance! Also a “remain” win and scameron gone, 2 birds, 1 stone, it would mean win win!!!
June 25, 2016 at 5:52 pm |
My pleasure, Joanna! 🙂 Yeah, it would be great to have got rid of Cameron and remain in. But I’m not sure we’ll be that lucky. Nice thought, though!
June 26, 2016 at 12:01 am
Hi Beastie the count on the petition is now 2,678,233 quite impressive, I just hope this petition works.
Thank you Michelle, I know about it because of you
June 25, 2016 at 5:27 pm |
I voted leave and I don’t regret it. I do think that it is pathetic that some people can’t accept the result of a democratic referendum.
June 25, 2016 at 5:47 pm |
I take it that you don’t mind being lied to?!!!
June 25, 2016 at 6:22 pm
Of course I mind being lied to, which is why I voted for independence.
June 25, 2016 at 5:50 pm |
Also, blatant Lies are Not democratic, not in the least!! These lies will last for generations, is that really the right lessons to teach the next generations, that lying is acceptable?!!!
June 25, 2016 at 6:26 pm |
My parents’ generation were lied to that the EEC was nothing more than a Common Market, when all along it was a stepping stone to a political union. Left-wing Labour MP Peter Shore warned the electorate what the agenda really was but most wouldn’t listen to him, which is why for the past 41 years we have been trapped in a European superstate:
June 25, 2016 at 7:35 pm
I lived abroad for 20 years, worked, volunteered, voted in 2 other European country’s elections and never felt trapped, however, the sad and subtle class system and island mentality in the UK is entrapping.
We have much bigger problems to deal with and they don’t recognise man-made borders e.g. climate change.
June 25, 2016 at 7:41 pm
So screw democracy then and all hail the post-democratic era!
June 25, 2016 at 8:15 pm
No one here is advocating the abandonment of democracy. If you notice, the petition is not for the referendum to be ignored out of hand. It is merely that, in a case like the future of Britain, both as part of the European Union and very existence as a multinational state itself, needs to be very carefully considered.
Countries like America have set similarly levels for what constitutes an acceptable majority for changes to their constitutions. And Brexit fundamentally alters the position of UK in many respects. It’s because of the magnitude of the decision and its effects that a very clear majority is needed.
Now, as for our parents’ generation being lied to about the nature of the EU, I actually agree with you. If you read the parapolitics magazine Lobster, there are a number of articles on how the vote to get us into the Common Market was manipulated, and the various political and corporate groups involved. I’m also not blind to the faults of the EU, as I’ve made very clear in one of the article’s I’ve put up today.
However, Britain has been part of the European Union for nearly forty years now. Over half of our trade is with it, and we have derived many benefits from membership. All of these advantages will be scrapped, the positive thrown out with the negative, once we leave.
And I don’t trust the leaders of the ‘Leave’ campaign – not Boris Johnson, not Nigel Farage, not Michael Gove nor Priti Patel. All of them wish to reduce this nation to some kind of off-shore European sweatshop. And so I’m opposed to Brexit.
June 26, 2016 at 2:50 am
So what you are saying, is that two wrongs make a right? nice ethics to pass on?
June 26, 2016 at 10:31 am
No I am not, because there was nothing wrong with the referendum in itself. Project Fear, peddled by Cameron, Osborne and the EU, failed.
On beastrabban’s point re trade, we run a huge deficit with the rest of the EU, so it would be very foolish of the EU to even contemplate trade tariffs (if WTO rules allow them anyway). The real leaders of the Leave campaign were the people, not the politicians. This trend is happening over Europe. There are only two options for the EU, a peaceful demerger or a violent implosion. Brexit, with referenda in other countries, points the way to the former.
June 25, 2016 at 10:58 pm |
One person I know, I think has voted leave because he resents paying taxes for unemployed people with substance issues who won’t get help! and illegal immigrants
1) what makes him think that is going to change
2) How can he possibly know what his taxes are paying for.
I don’t understand that resentment, but I don’t think he ever considered that his pension would be at risk, was that ever talked about as one of the pitfalls?
June 26, 2016 at 8:54 am |
Hi Joanna, the tabloid press were terrible lie sellers, here’s the best summations I have read thus far on that topic, when the ‘news’ papers present myth on a large scale and that is believed how can democracy function: https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/power-without-accountability-in-our.html
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-triumph-of-tabloids.html
Your point 1 above – well said – immigration was also a lie seller: http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/four-things-brexit-campaigners-have-already-uturned-on–W1OT88vaNZ
June 26, 2016 at 1:38 pm |
Hi Michelle, Shouldn’t those blatant lies be cause for a new referendum? politicians lying should be Against the law, otherwise how do we possibly teach the younger generation that it is best to be honest? Instead they are saying dishonesty gets you through and allows you to survive!!
June 26, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Hi Joanna,
Dishonesty and spin comes with territory at Westminster, I agree people should have been seriously informed, but when I read such things as “I voted to stop more migrants coming from Iraq” there’s a lot of informing to do, btw the second referendum petition looks as though it’s been sabotaged by false addresses (including false thousands from Vatican City!!) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36634407
More importantly as the policy lies of the Leave camp are revealed which new Conservative leader would actually pick up the poison chalice and enact Article 50?
June 26, 2016 at 10:23 am |
This may interest you all, from Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan’s twitter feed. Granted the source is Sky News. Of the 18-24 age group only 36% bothered to vote, yet those who did are blaming older voters, not their own peers:
June 26, 2016 at 1:44 pm |
`Many more younger people might have voted, had truth been told rather than outright lies!!!
June 26, 2016 at 3:31 pm
Oh for goodness sake.
June 26, 2016 at 1:15 pm |
If I remember correctly weren’t the tories dead set against young people being allowed to vote?!!! Old enough to marry yes, old enough to starve through sanctions yes, but voting no!!
June 26, 2016 at 3:45 pm |
Calm down everyone and read this excellent article by Larry Elliot in the Guardian, which explains why so many economically disenfranchised people voted for Brexit:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/26/brexit-is-the-rejection-of-globalisation
Re-running the referendum is not going to alter the hard facts of what is wrong with the EU and why people voted as they did.
June 26, 2016 at 4:09 pm |
Aren’t you calm then astute angle?
If referring to the Graun for me this article makes more sense: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/divided-britain-brexit-money-class-inequality-westminster
On that Larry article – Odd that some people who didn’t understand the consequences of an out vote and were told a pack of lies by a group of neoliberal right wingers with a confused mandate had then correctly deliberated over their place in a ‘globalised’ world and decided it was the EU that needed a kicking.
June 26, 2016 at 4:13 pm
And if people haven’t had a stomach full of opinions on the reasons for Brexit here’s another:
http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/thoughts-on-the-sociology-of-brexit
June 26, 2016 at 6:17 pm |
Yeah, Astute Angle, I’m aware of the many left-wing reasons for leaving the European Union, and why so many did so. There’s a plethora of them over at the site of the radical left magazine, CounterPunch, and also at Lobster. These point out that the EU has not succeeded in keeping the peace in Europe, and that the Eurozone in particular was geared to economic policies set by the Germans. These stress very low inflation as a result of the German’s experience of macroinflation in the 1920s, which contributed to the demise of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis. This, however, damages the economies of other, smaller countries, which don’t have the same features as the German. These nations can only become competitive through cutting back on their welfare states and massively shedding jobs, as has been inflicted on Greece, Italy and elsewhere by the Troika.
This does not, however, change any of the basic facts about the leadership of the ‘Leave’ campaign and their intentions. Ordinary people certainly voted for Brexit, as we’ve seen, and I’ve no doubt many of them were strongly involved in the campaign. By the leadership was very obviously right-wing Tories and ultra-Tories: Gisela Stuart, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Priti Patel. These are not ordinary people living in council houses or suburban estates. They’re rich Tories, and the policies they embrace are those of the right, not the Left. Farage was caught attending a Republican convention in the US with a load of Tea Partiers, for heaven’s sake. If the campaign’s leadership had been taken by the Labour party or the trade unions, I might have agreed with you. But the Labour party backed remain, as did most of the trade unions. The majority of the activists knocking on doors might have been ordinary people, but the leadership were, and still are, right-wing, elite Tories.
June 26, 2016 at 6:31 pm |
Now let’s go further, and examine your suggestion that the EU would be foolish to put up trade tariffs if Britain has a trade deficit. That might be the case, but nevertheless, the EU could very well decide to do so. They may conclude that wrecking the British economy as a deterrent to other countries considering leaving the Union might be worth the trade losses, or that, regardless of whether such measures harmed European exports to Britain, it had to be done to stop Britain undermining the common European economy from outside. Either way, multinational companies are already showing that they’re not prepared to take the risk. Mike over at Vox Political has already put up examples of various firms, including banks, that are planning to move their headquarters to Ireland or Frankfurt because of Brexit.
As for your statement that there was nothing wrong with the original referendum decision, I beg to differ. 52 per cent is not, in my opinion, a sufficiently clear mandate. We can argue about this till the cows come home, but I feel that if the situation were reversed, and the Remain campaign had won by such a low margin, ‘Leave’ voters would also be demanding a recount or a rerun of the entire referendum.
As for the contention that more young people might have voted if there hadn’t been so much lying, as Joanna says, she might have a point, if generally and not specifically about the Brexit campaign. Politics has become notorious for the amount of sheer, egregious lying. It’s undoubtedly cleaner now than it was earlier in the century, but nevertheless a generation of voters has grown up acutely aware that their elected representatives lie to them without scruple. It’s been the case ever since Margaret Thatcher and her wretched press secretary, Bernard ‘Don’t Call Me ‘Spin Doctor’ Ingham, through Mandelson, Alistair Campbell and New Labour, and now David Cameron, whose very background is in PR, a profession devoted to spin and manipulation of the facts. As a result, people are politically disaffected and alienated. It’s why so many people in America voted for Trump and Sanders, and over here wanted Corbyn to lead the Labour party, because they sound authentic compared to the carefully scripted and stage managed performances of their political rivals.