EU Elections

I agree to an extent Jay but specifically pro Remain parties, Lib Dems, Greens and SNP garnered 39% of the vote.
I highly doubt any brexiteers voted for them.
Beyond that it's assumptions really. Of the rump Tory and Labour voters, given that those of a brexit leaning stance had nothing to lose in switching to the Brexit party I'd guess it's likely there are more Remain voters in that rump than not.
It wasn't a referendum though.
Neither was it anything like a convincing endorsement of the retention of a continued majority public opinion for brexit.

 

Sums up a lot of my thoughts. I was a remainer, albeit a pretty weak one in 2016. Now, having watched the shitshow of the last three years, I'm pretty convinced that remain is the only sensible way to go,despite the EU's many and obvious deficiencies.

 

Well, no. Brexit Party - does what it says on the tin. Change UK - change what? And they didn’t put up candidates.

That post went well.

 

Apart from the bit about calling themselves The Remain Party. Oh, and the bit about putting up candidates. Yes, apart from those things....

 

I thought remain voters were super intelligent, political genius, with the finger on the pulse of everything...? Are you now intimating that remain voters don’t look up facts and vote for whatever anyone tells them to? Funny how they didn’t put up candidates, but got 2.9% of the vote....

A quick Wikipedia search gets...

Change UK – The Independent Group (CUK[1][2][3]/TIG) is a centrist, pro-European Union political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2019, it is led by Heidi Allen. It has 11 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons. Several local councillors express support for the group although it has no official presence at local government.

Not difficult really.

 

That post didn’t go well Micky love.

 

a

Deliberately. The US forces lost slightly more men than the UK, and the majority of those were in the Pacific theatre (Total USA deaths in WW2 was less than British deaths due to the number of civilians killed in the Blitz).

Also missed out Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the other parts of the empire that everyone remembers.

 

The bit I don’t understand about this is, if it’s such a foregone conclusion that remain would win, why don’t they put it back to a vote given majority of MP’s don’t want to leave?

 

I was joking, everyone knows the Yanks won both wars cos Hollywood shows us

 

I genuinely don't know how that would work out.
If it was a genuine free vote then probably. The trouble is that MPs of both parties are running in fear of losing the brexit supporting percentage of their vote. Which is sort of why we ended up in this mess in the first place with Cameron putting party before country.
Given that the Tories are now acknowledging that not delivering brexit will mean virtually the end of their party I find it difficult to believe those particular turkeys would vote for Christmas.
On balance I think I'd prefer another referendum for that reason. Whatever the outcome I'd be happy to stick by. After the last three years if the majority still want out then fair enough.

 

Supermajorities are not uncommon in democracies, especially when it comes to a major decision. Both Florida and Colorado require a supermajority to pass legislation.

In Switzerland for example, which tends to have a referendum every time a major decision crops up, they require a double majority,whereby both the majority of people AND the majority of Cantons vote for the change. That seems pretty sensible to me, especially regarding a decision of this magnitude.

 

The parties you've mentioned are all proper political parties with policies on all issues. When we vote, we choose the party whose policies best match our ideals. That's not necessarily a 100 percent perfect fit. In fact, I'd wager for most of us it isn't. So we prioritise which policies are the most important to us. There appears to be the assumption that people have voted with Brexit being the most important policy. I'm sure for many it was. However, I've voted for the Green Party a number of times in the past. Their policy on the EU has had no bearing on this vote. It's purely about environmental issues. Despite the air time that Brexit is given, I still think tackling global warming is far more important.

 

No arguments there.

 

The big problem with another referendum is that for it to be fair, the government would have to put measures in place to stop the lies, distortions, overspending and other cheating. Nothing has destroyed the trust in politics more than the sheer crap being spouted by politicians who should know better but either don't (even after correction) or are lying to achieve their gain.

As Jonathan Swift said "Falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after it".

We urgently need to have strict measures in place for candidates, elected officials and political parties. Personally, I'd go for the 3 strikes and out rule - Lie 3 times during a campaign, and the candidate *and* party is no longer eligible to stand in that constituency. If an MP is found to be lying on 3 occasions, then the public have the ability to complain to an independent watchdog and force a bi-election (and the MP is unable to stand), etc. I don't really care if it is a minister, or even the Prime Minister, every time one of them lies, misreports their expenses, forgets to claim income, etc, it cheapens democracy.

I would give serious consideration to increasing the pay of MPs (significantly), but at the same time stopping them earning money from any other source. No £6k per month for consultancy, no directorships, no newspaper columns, no contenders to be the worst history author of all time. If they want to be a political writer or a company director, then fine, but they can't be an MP.

I'd also ban adverts on the social media platforms for the 4 weeks before an election - all adverts, not just political ones. If you leave any slack in the rules, then someone will exploit it.

 

Spot on! Finally
I voted leave and have just voted Green in the Euros. Why? Because, believe it or not, Brexit isn’t all consuming in my choices.
That’s why Corbyn needs to ‘grow a pair’ make it clear that Labour are a remain party and go to the electorate on that position. If there are people in ‘traditional Labour seats’ (whatever that means) like the Barnsley constituencies who put a party’s position on Brexit above every other single issue, he should tell them to f*ck off and go and vote for Farage.

Voters who take the position that Brexit matters more than education, health, the climate emergency, how we look after each other in this Country etc....should consider some serious psychiatric help.

 

well somehow they forged 2.9. % of the vote then, and what about your convoluted assumption that a remain party would have won? Yes it’s fair to say that everybody that wanted brexit voted for the brexit party, but adding up everybody else’s vote and pitching against that number is just manipulating figures to suit, nobody knows exactly why people voted for the other parties.

 

who's said they did?

 

Interesting how even now they still seem to. E putting the party first with Jeremy Hunt comments, think most people just want to see an end to it to be fair

 

As far as I am aware no decision to join the EU, the Euro, or ratify any EU treaty has ever required a super majority, nor any of the previous UK referendums.
It is basically a tool for those that wish to maintain the status quo. There have been a number of minimum turnout requirements though.
For anyone advocating super majorities I would say you have to ask yourself if you could argue the same case for that to be used in the Scottish Indyref.

 

I would also advocate it for the Scottish independence referendum, absolutely. It's not like a general election, the result of which can be reversed in a couple of years. Leaving the EU or the United Kingdom is a pretty permanent thing. Hence why I feel that a 51%-49% result is not really enough on which to base such a seismic change,of which none of us can fully understand the consequences.