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> I feel the UK were wrong to leave [..] Whether it was the correct decision or not, it was done via a democratic vote. Now the leaders of the UK look to entan

by bArray 18d ago

> I feel the UK were wrong to leave [..] Whether it was the correct decision or not, it was done via a democratic vote. Now the leaders of the UK look to entangle the UK into the EU structure that is evidently against their mandate.

vidarh 18d ago
The vote was to leave or stay - there was no mandate for or against a specific relationship to the EU before even considering how drastically opinions have shifted since.
- rgblambda 18d ago
  And there was considerable debate prior to the referendum within the Leave camp as to whether to go for a "soft Brexit" (close regulatory alignment) or "hard Brexit" (what the final deal ended up being).
  - vidarh 18d ago
    Indeed parts of the leave movement explicitly used as an argument that a soft Brexit was possible, including explicitly airing the possibility of a Norway-style EEA membership. Given how close the result was, it's highly unlikely that there wouldn't have been greater support for a very soft option than for what we got.
- bArray 18d ago
  > no mandate for or against a specific relationship to the EU Then do you not support another vote that provides this option? > how drastically opinions have shifted since There is a way to conduct a poll that represents the engaged electorate - have another vote.
  - vidarh 18d ago
    I'd fully support a vote if rejoining was one of the options. It's pretty clear from polls that support to rejoin is far stronger than the support for Brexit was (in June, it was 55% for vs. 34% against, vs. 59% in support of a closer relationship and 20% against, and 29% supporting the current relationship). But in the meantime it is also entirely unambiguous that there is a clear mandate for a closer relationship - the gap is so huge (much larger than the support for the current status quo ever was) that there's no real need for another vote for that and voters can punish parties that support it at the next general election.
    - bArray 16d ago
      > I'd fully support a vote if rejoining was one of the options. Of course it would be, but people would need some kind of understanding on what basis that would be on. > It's pretty clear from polls [..] I think there is only one way to know for sure. > But in the meantime it is also entirely unambiguous that there is a clear mandate for a closer relationship [..] People of the UK do not hate Europe, but there is evidence to suggest that people of the EU do not view the people of the UK favorably [1]. But I think the point of sovereignty and cost is a big one. [1] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/yougov-survey-eu-crisis-uk-120914688.html https://uk.news.yahoo.com/yougov-survey-eu-crisis-uk-1209146...
exceptione 18d ago
That mandate has quite changed, even more when you look at the non-retired cohorts. Reintegration with the EU will take plenty of time.
- bArray 18d ago
  Has it? It would take another vote to show it for sure, and the current government is simply not wanting to ask the people.
snowpid 18d ago
The majority of UK inhabitans wants to rejoin the EU. It is indeed democratically legitime.
- bArray 18d ago
  If only there was a type of nation-wide poll that could be conducted to make such claims so strongly. Maybe we pick a single day, each side makes their cases to the people, and then they cast their choices to be counted. But I guess it can't be done.
flaburgan 18d ago
Democratic vote which has since then been proved to be heavily influenced by the Cambridge Analytica campaign, so which probably did not reflect the actual opinion of the population. It was a manipulated vote.
- bArray 18d ago
  I remember the UK government at the time spent £9.3 million of taxpayer's money to push a pro-EU leaflet out [1], not to mention a concerted effort from the news media. It's not as if there was not strong campaigning happening on both sides. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-EU_leaflet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-EU_leaflet
nayroclade 18d ago
The current UK government was also elected by democratic vote, so they have a mandate that postdates the referendum. You can argue their mandate is invalid due to the first-past-the-post system, but in that case the original decision to hold a referendum, and all subsequent governments that negotiated the terms of the EU exit are also invalid, since they all derived from first-past-the-post elections.
- bArray 18d ago
  The current UK government have a mandate with regards to running the UK more generally, but leaving the EU was its own very clear message. There was a vote in 1975 to continue EU membership, and again in 2016 [1]. It very much feels likely something that should only be undone on another vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_the_United_King...
dgellow 18d ago
The vote wasn’t binding and had a low turnout. Not really a good example to point to for democratic voting
- phatfish 18d ago
  It wasn't binding so the normal procedure and checks around a referendum could be ignored. Like disenfranchising the British citizens living in the EU. Democratic indeed...
  - bArray 18d ago
    It was just an exercise in testing the mood of the nation, don't you see? Just like a general election, if the electorate vote the wrong party, it is perfectly fine to just ignore the result. The vote was non-binding due to the sovereignty of parliament [1]. It means that if a war broke out or the economy crashed, they would not be forced to continue at great detriment to the UK. But it doesn't mean that the vote was a mere suggestion - anybody who suggests such doesn't understand democracy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_Kingdom_European_U...
    - phatfish 17d ago
      Fair enough, the "advisory" nature of referendum in the UK does have clear reasoning that i wasn't fully aware of. However the idea of it being "advisory" was itself exploited, and used to make people think that Brexit would't happen anyway, even if the vote was to leave. My suggestion was not that the referendum shouldn't stand because it was "advisory", but that there should have been rules applied around a referendum that could affect peoples lives so much. But, there are no such rules it seems, the majority in the Commons gets to decide that. Which is why (almost a million?) British citizens in the EU were not allowed to vote, which doesn't seem very democratic. And Europeans who were born in the UK and lived their entire life here. It was a referendum of the the right sort of British citizen.
      - 16d ago

by bArray 18d ago

vidarh 18d ago

The vote was to leave or stay - there was no mandate for or against a specific relationship to the EU before even considering how drastically opinions have shifted since.

rgblambda 18d ago
And there was considerable debate prior to the referendum within the Leave camp as to whether to go for a "soft Brexit" (close regulatory alignment) or "hard Brexit" (what the final deal ended up being).
- vidarh 18d ago
  Indeed parts of the leave movement explicitly used as an argument that a soft Brexit was possible, including explicitly airing the possibility of a Norway-style EEA membership. Given how close the result was, it's highly unlikely that there wouldn't have been greater support for a very soft option than for what we got.
bArray 18d ago
> no mandate for or against a specific relationship to the EU Then do you not support another vote that provides this option? > how drastically opinions have shifted since There is a way to conduct a poll that represents the engaged electorate - have another vote.
- vidarh 18d ago
  I'd fully support a vote if rejoining was one of the options. It's pretty clear from polls that support to rejoin is far stronger than the support for Brexit was (in June, it was 55% for vs. 34% against, vs. 59% in support of a closer relationship and 20% against, and 29% supporting the current relationship). But in the meantime it is also entirely unambiguous that there is a clear mandate for a closer relationship - the gap is so huge (much larger than the support for the current status quo ever was) that there's no real need for another vote for that and voters can punish parties that support it at the next general election.
  - bArray 16d ago
    > I'd fully support a vote if rejoining was one of the options. Of course it would be, but people would need some kind of understanding on what basis that would be on. > It's pretty clear from polls [..] I think there is only one way to know for sure. > But in the meantime it is also entirely unambiguous that there is a clear mandate for a closer relationship [..] People of the UK do not hate Europe, but there is evidence to suggest that people of the EU do not view the people of the UK favorably [1]. But I think the point of sovereignty and cost is a big one. [1] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/yougov-survey-eu-crisis-uk-120914688.html https://uk.news.yahoo.com/yougov-survey-eu-crisis-uk-1209146...

exceptione 18d ago

That mandate has quite changed, even more when you look at the non-retired cohorts. Reintegration with the EU will take plenty of time.

bArray 18d ago
Has it? It would take another vote to show it for sure, and the current government is simply not wanting to ask the people.

snowpid 18d ago

The majority of UK inhabitans wants to rejoin the EU. It is indeed democratically legitime.

bArray 18d ago
If only there was a type of nation-wide poll that could be conducted to make such claims so strongly. Maybe we pick a single day, each side makes their cases to the people, and then they cast their choices to be counted. But I guess it can't be done.

flaburgan 18d ago

Democratic vote which has since then been proved to be heavily influenced by the Cambridge Analytica campaign, so which probably did not reflect the actual opinion of the population. It was a manipulated vote.

bArray 18d ago
I remember the UK government at the time spent £9.3 million of taxpayer's money to push a pro-EU leaflet out [1], not to mention a concerted effort from the news media. It's not as if there was not strong campaigning happening on both sides. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-EU_leaflet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-EU_leaflet

nayroclade 18d ago

The current UK government was also elected by democratic vote, so they have a mandate that postdates the referendum. You can argue their mandate is invalid due to the first-past-the-post system, but in that case the original decision to hold a referendum, and all subsequent governments that negotiated the terms of the EU exit are also invalid, since they all derived from first-past-the-post elections.

bArray 18d ago
The current UK government have a mandate with regards to running the UK more generally, but leaving the EU was its own very clear message. There was a vote in 1975 to continue EU membership, and again in 2016 [1]. It very much feels likely something that should only be undone on another vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_the_United_King...

dgellow 18d ago

The vote wasn’t binding and had a low turnout. Not really a good example to point to for democratic voting

phatfish 18d ago
It wasn't binding so the normal procedure and checks around a referendum could be ignored. Like disenfranchising the British citizens living in the EU. Democratic indeed...
- bArray 18d ago
  It was just an exercise in testing the mood of the nation, don't you see? Just like a general election, if the electorate vote the wrong party, it is perfectly fine to just ignore the result. The vote was non-binding due to the sovereignty of parliament [1]. It means that if a war broke out or the economy crashed, they would not be forced to continue at great detriment to the UK. But it doesn't mean that the vote was a mere suggestion - anybody who suggests such doesn't understand democracy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_Kingdom_European_U...
  - phatfish 17d ago
    Fair enough, the "advisory" nature of referendum in the UK does have clear reasoning that i wasn't fully aware of. However the idea of it being "advisory" was itself exploited, and used to make people think that Brexit would't happen anyway, even if the vote was to leave. My suggestion was not that the referendum shouldn't stand because it was "advisory", but that there should have been rules applied around a referendum that could affect peoples lives so much. But, there are no such rules it seems, the majority in the Commons gets to decide that. Which is why (almost a million?) British citizens in the EU were not allowed to vote, which doesn't seem very democratic. And Europeans who were born in the UK and lived their entire life here. It was a referendum of the the right sort of British citizen.
    - 16d ago