Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Arakhor]

Parliament's job is to reflect the people's will, not oppose it.

Parliament's job to to debate and either pass or reject legislation brought before it. If "the people" disagree, they can elect new members.

Let's not keep on whipping out the populist verbiage, simply because you're actually in a super-slim plurality for a change.

 

[JohannaK]

No, it is acknowledging that while the system works just fine, it blocks the representation of large sections of the population. They did recently have a referendum on the matter of the voting system in which change was rejected, and that is only unfortunate.

It must be also acknowledged that if the system is a reflection of its own evolution and such evolution has been inexorably piloted by elites, it is not necessariky preoccupied with representation but simply the semblance of it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Parliament's job to to debate and either pass or reject legislation brought before it. If "the people" disagree, they can elect new members.

Let's not keep on whipping out the populist verbiage, simply because you're actually in a super-slim plurality for a change.

Hypocrisy (and even hippocracy*, i suppose) cuts both ways though, cause as you know under the ludicrous english system of FPTP you will have only 1 MP of glorious Ukip voting there. Whereas you know that they represent over 10% of your public and would have literally voted for brexit as a bloc.

*There is nothing stronger than a Nephelocentaur.

 

[Arakhor]

I've said before, probably in this very thread, that FPTP is not very democratic at all.

 

[Takhisis]

The point now seems to be that judges are appointed to rule on cases brought to them, which they are empowered and mandated to do, and nobody ever approves of it. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't, so, from their perspective, I would say it is better for them to actually perform their function.

Let me simplify.

Parliament's job is to reflect the people's will, not oppose it.

If you want to prevent Parliament from deciding on this matter because people with 30-odd percent of the vote got more seats in the Commons than the other 60-odd combined, I would gladly agree.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

According to a YouGov poll, more and more Brits are coming round to the idea of Brexit – including Scots.
Any ‘frustration of the process’ by Remainers or the Courts (on legal technicalities) will not go down well with the public it seems.

From the Telegraph:

According to YouGov, the public is now committed by three to one to respecting the referendum, however they voted, and making Brexit work. In Scotland, that view holds too, by 2:1 – with an even larger proportion of Remain voters resolved to seeing Brexit through, than across the rest of Britain. Just 30% of Scots back Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP in seeking to frustrate the process.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

.....

 

[Manfred Belheim]

When you put it that way, yes, I would agree that TF's statement was indefensibly hyperbolic. However, after comments by Edward and others that I have seen, it would seem that at least some people didn't care whether the economy tanked or not, provided that Brexit went ahead.

I don't think "didn't care" is entirely accurate. I think it was inevitable that the pound would drop and there would be other economic consequences of leaving the EU. How could such a big change not lead to such an effect? The question is how bad you think that downturn is likely to be, and whether or not you consider that a price worth paying. Some people (a lot of people) obviously did. That doesn't mean they voted for that (and only that) as if that is something they actually wanted to happen, it was just a necessary evil and unavoidable side-effect.

As for the civil rights concern. To me that one seems much, much more tenuous and I don't really give that one much credit.

Hyperbole can be a rhetorical device as well as an over-reaction.

Indeed. Don't really have a problem with it, I was just hopeing to make sure we have an evenly-balanced hyperbole scale.

 

[Arakhor]

According to a YouGov poll, more and more Brits are coming round to the idea of Brexit – including Scots.
Any ‘frustration of the process’ by Remainers or the Courts (on legal technicalities) will not go down well with the public it seems.

"Frustration of the process"? Really now. Quite how the Government refusing to consult with Parliament on the major matter of breaking half a tonne of laws stretching back up to 40 years is not also considered "frustrating the process" is anyone's business.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

"Frustration of the process"? Really now. Quite how the Government refusing to consult with Parliament on the major matter of breaking half a tonne of laws stretching back up to 40 years is not also considered "frustrating the process" is anyone's business.

You hit the nail on the head there – 40 years of laws passed during which we the people had no direct say in the EU whatsoever. Finally, finally, finally after (nearly) 40 years we have a say and the Bremoaners and the Courts do all they can to put a spanner in the works.
You have had not much more than 40 days of frustration – you should try 40 years!

I doubt very much if Maastrict, Amsterdam, Lisbon and others would have gone through (as is) if we the people of the UK had had a direct say.

 

[Agent327]

You haven't voted in 40 years? Quit complaining then. And 'the courts' just do what they are supposed to do, oh 'traitors of the people' (Seriously, Nazi language? That's a wee bit older than 40 years...)

Your Brexit campaigners neglected to inform y'all about due process? Tsk tsk...

 

[JohannaK]

Seriously Mega Tsunami, if you wanted to speak you should have gone to the polling station. EU elections are every five years, and unlike British elections your vote actually matters no matter where you are.

 

[Takhisis]

40 years of laws passed during which we the people had no direct say in the EU whatsoever.

Nevermind this European Parliament thing then. Unless you mean that Nigel Farridge does not represent the British electorate?

 

[Traitorfish]

No, it is acknowledging that while the system works just fine, it blocks the representation of large sections of the population.

There's the additional problem of how you define "representation". A lot of people who voted for Brexit also voted for MPs who opposed Brexit, who ran on pro-EU platforms for pro-EU parties. Some constituencies that produced pro-Brexit outcomes by large margins also elected anti-Brexit MPs by large margins. The question then becomes, is an MP's loyalty to those who elected him, to his constituency as a whole, or to the positions he ran on? First-past-the-post not only limits who is represented, it also limits how far they are represented, because voters are forced to make more and deeper compromises than they are under a proportional system, but MPs as much as voters are caught in that Gordian knot of uncertain loyalties.

The general election is suppose to serve as a mechanism for turning the imprecise and vaguely fascistic concept of the "popular will" into a functioning political regime, and if the current system does not do that, "system" describing both the formally-defined mechanisms and the acknowledged standards of practice, which include MPs at least pretending to uphold their campaign platform in the absence of a sudden and dramatic change in circumstances, what's the alternative, and how far is the onus on individual MPs to begin constructing it?

From the Telegraph:

According to YouGov, the public is now committed by three to one to respecting the referendum, however they voted, and making Brexit work. In Scotland, that view holds too, by 2:1 – with an even larger proportion of Remain voters resolved to seeing Brexit through, than across the rest of Britain. Just 30% of Scots back Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP in seeking to frustrate the process.

Out of interest, do we have a link to the YouGov poll/polls in question? Seems to be behind a paywall in the Telegraph article, if there is one.

 

[Mouthwash]

the imprecise and vaguely fascistic concept of the "popular will"

Vox Populi, Vox Dei wasn't invented by Mussolini. The concept of popular will was around for quite some time before fascism.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

From the Telegraph:

According to YouGov, the public is now committed by three to one to respecting the referendum, however they voted, and making Brexit work. In Scotland, that view holds too, by 2:1 – with an even larger proportion of Remain voters resolved to seeing Brexit through, than across the rest of Britain. Just 30% of Scots back Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP in seeking to frustrate the process.

YouGov, despite the "gov" in the name, is just a market research company. If you can find it, Dave Gorman did a nice little investigation into how (un)reliable some of their stats are. They may be in this case though, hard to say. We'd probably get a better idea of the true numbers if we had some sort of... I don't know... official national poll on the question or something, if one could be arranged.

 

[Traitorfish]

Vox Populi, Vox Dei wasn't invented by Mussolini. The concept of popular will was around for quite some time before fascism.

And what an uncanny prediction it was.

 

[Mouthwash]

And what an uncanny prediction it was.

I thought you Marxist-types were for that sort of thing. I mean, organized by class instead of nation, but that's just a technicality.

 

[Traitorfish]

I thought you Marxist-types were for that sort of thing. I mean, organized by class instead of nation, but that's just a technicality.

As Joe Hill observed, "'the people' and the working class have nothing in common". A union, a committee, a council, these are concrete assemblies of people, speaking for themselves and nobody more than themselves, but who's ever met "the people"? I've never encountered them, nor have they ever asked for my opinion. I've been told about them, these "people", but none of the those who've done the telling have met them either, they all heard it from someone else in turn, and I suspect that person, too, may have been working from hearsay, so I'm wary of trusting my fate to something I've merely been assured exists. There's a reason so many communists are atheists, after all.

 

[Mouthwash]

As Joe Hill observed, "'the people' and the working class have nothing in common". A union, a committee, a council, these are concrete assemblies of people, speaking for themselves and nobody more than themselves, but who's ever met "the people"? I've never encountered them, nor have they ever asked for my opinion. I've been told about them, these "people", but none of the those who've done the telling have met them either, they all heard it from someone else in turn, and I suspect that person, too, may have been working from hearsay, so I'm wary of trusting my fate to something I've merely been assured exists. There's a reason so many communists are atheists, after all.

So why do you feel that you know anything about how the proles, a subset of "the people," are going to act?