So this is where we find ourselves:
1. This Conservative government currently has a majority of 16.
2. Investigations are underway in 20 Tory seats into alleged electoral fraud.
3. Without those seats, this government would not have had a majority to trigger the referendum (about which see point 7).
4. The Tories’ manifesto in 2015 said “Yes to the Single Market”. It also said they wouldn’t raise National Insurance Contributions. Breaking one promise could bankrupt thousands of businesses and put millions out of work. Breaking the other promise might raise a bit of much-needed extra revenue. They want to break both, but have u-turned on only one. Can you guess which?
5. Both the official and the unofficial Leave campaigns are being investigated for breaking electoral law. Oh and by the way both Leave campaigns lied incessantly, as a matter of recorded fact.
6. We had a referendum in 1975 on whether to join the EU. The UK chose to join, by 67% to 32%. The people had spoken.
7. But for 40 years a group of europhobic extremists refused to accept “the will of the people” and campaigned constantly for the UK to leave the EU. In 2016, they finally got their way. The 2016 referendum was all about appeasing the far right fringe of the Conservative Party, afraid they’d lose activists to UKIP. This is no way to make serious decisions about the future of the country.
8. Leave won by 51.9% over 48.1% on a 72% turnout – so only 37% of the electorate voted to Leave. Young people, overseas British voters, non-British UK resident taxpayers were disenfranchised and could not vote, despite the enormous implications for these groups.
9. Leading Leave campaigners said “this would be far from over” if Remain won by 52% over 48%. The same campaigners, having contested the last referendum’s result for forty years, call us traitors for refusing to accept this – I’m searching for the right word here – “shitshow” and try to silence us.
10. Modern democracies typically demand a two-thirds super majority as a necessary and sufficient condition for significant constitutional change.
11. This government (see point 3 for its legitimacy) says “no deal is preferable to a bad deal” but says it has not costed the impact of “no deal”.
12. The government (see point 3) refuses to give the British Parliament a vote on the final Brexit deal. (Note that the oh-so-undemocratic European Parliament will get a say on the final Brexit deal. But not the UK’s parliaments, national or regional.)
13. The government (see point 3) refuses a second referendum to let the people decide on whether to accept the final deal.
Still think the UK is a model of democratic good governance?
Not only will the EP get a vote on the deal, but likely also the French, German etc all the way to the Maltese Parliament.
Well probably not on the brexit deal which is qmv, but yes the subsequent trade/association deal will need ratification by MS parliaments and quite possibly trigger a couple of referendums too…
UK was already a member in 1975, that referendum followed a fake re-negotiation of the membership terms by the Wilson Goveernment, very similar to the ploy recently tried by Cameron. Most UK elections and sometimes Commons votes have been nobbled by UK politicos in recent years. As Farage said on his LBC radioshow lasr evening from Califotnia, among those were several by-elections in the run-up to the General Election in 2015.
Osborne & Cameron approached the 2015 Generl Election on the assumprion another Tory led Coalition (as they preferred) would be the most likely outcome, so blithely made the EU Referendum promise. Their party then set about buying the General Election by the Battlebus strategy & direct nobbling of Farage in Kent.
The EU Referendum vote on 23 rd June 2016 was recognised by the voters of the UK as their first opportunity of rectifying having been lied to and conned in 1975. They grabbed at it. Probably one of the very few really honest votes of my 72, year lifetime for the UK. As such it must stand at almost any cost.
The above is pure opinion of this observer.