OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[roger_ramjet]

A general election is completely different from a referendum and anyway my point wasn't about a majority of those votig it was a challenge to the assertion that the people of Britain had spoken when actually they haven't, a 52% majority is not "the people of Britain" by any measurement.

As for the american electoral system, firstly it not a two horse race, though I agree the other horses hardly count, but its not simply a percentage of the vote either, its an electoral college system and whilst its not a system i'd favour they aren't voting on a single issue they are lecting a president who is thne kept in check by a separtely elected congress!

My issue is that by all the evdience I've seen most of the 37% who voted haven't a ****ing clue what they voted for and what will happen - as an illustration I've just had a conversation down the paper shop, where the owner, not someone I'd call a dumb person, tells me "The european court have ruled Brexit illegal"! WTF? Its not even close to the truth about whats happened and that is really scary!

My response was directed at Mangara, not you, Swale! Thats what the little quote thing at the top is designed to infer......

[swaledale]

Lets stop hanging on to this 37% rubbish please....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36616028

If anything, this shows how our nation is truly split. Ironic how those in Scotland don't want to be ruled by London, and shows how the rest of England's & Wales' views differ from London's.

Elephant in the room is of course that London is largely populated by foreign persons or close dependants of.

44.9% white british, so yes non white british in a minority but hardly largely populated by foreign persons?

[swaledale]

My response was directed at Mangara, not you, Swale! Thats what the little quote thing at the top is designed to infer......

Pardon me for having an opinion, its a forum I can respond if i want!

[ramAnag]

Roger...for someone who voted 'Remain' you can't half adopt some strange stances.
At a General Election most seats will be fought by the usual suspects...Labour, Conservative, Liberal, UKIP and a couple of other, even more bonkers, parties, for the sake of argument, the 'I Don't Like Darkies Party' and the 'Wear Something Silly To Show Off Party'.
Then throw in the more significant parties representing Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and is it any wonder that the eventual Government ends up being elected via the support of only around 30% of the electorate?
At a Referendum, or at least the last one, we were presented, ludicrously imo, with two choices...Remain or Leave. Even with just two choices we have a situation where, out of an electorate of around 47 million just 17.5 million voted to Leave and yet now we are meant to blindly accept that this is democracy at work.
Now okay, I accept that 17.5m is marginally greater than the 17m who actually voted 'Remain', of course I do, but you too must surely accept that the support of a mere 17.5/47m (37%) provides no sort of a mandate for the Government to impose such change on the rest of us.
You say, 'the system is the system, the rules are the rules, they were predefined'. Fair enough, but what was also pre-defined was that the result of this Referendum was advisory and not binding. Parliament must take account of the Referendum result...both Parliament and the Government must take account of the fact that a significant proportion of the population (over one third) are unhappy with the situation over immigration, have concerns over the development of a single European State, believe the EU to be too bureaucratic etc.
That, however, according to the 'rules' and the 'system' does not mean that we must follow the road to seeming ruin and accept that the votes of a 37% 'majority' are suddenly binding on the Government. They are not and never have been.

[claw84]

We will leave the EU and why not???? This country has stood on its own for nearly a thousand years, people who wish to remain in the failing EU should grow a pair and face the future with confidence and stand together. The doom mongers are wrong.

[Gaspode]

Take what you say on board Gaspode, but I struggle to see how when 63% of the electorate don't actively support something and when 35% are actively opposed to it we still continue to push forward legislation of this magnitude claiming it to be 'the will of the people'.

It patently isn't and while it might be too late to suggest that the conditions for what constitutes a democratic majority (equivalent to 51% of the electorate or more) should have been spelled out better, it isn't too late, despite IDS's ill advised rant, to remind everyone that the outcome of this Referendum was never anything more than advisory.

But when you say 63% didn't support leave, you're assuming that the people who didn't vote were effectively saying they liked the status quo (so voting to remain by proxy (even though a remain vote was anything but a vote to carry on as we are)). That's not a leap you can take with any credibility as we have no idea what the missing 28% would have voted for if they had been forced to - they may have all voted leave - or they may have all voted remain - or they may have been split down the middle in the same proportion as those that did vote - we just don't know.
And to follow through your argument, it's just as easy to add those missing voters to the leave numbers and state that 65% didn't actively support remain and 37% are actively against remaining.
The terms of the referendum and how it would be measured (a majority of those that voted) were clearly defined before the vote took place. Complaining after the event that not enough people voted or that it should have been calculated another way because it didn't provide the 'correct' answer doesn't solve anything - we've voted leave and we need to make it happen - the court case and other pettiness from some MPs (Clegg!) and some in the Lords actually damages the country by delaying the triggering of Article 50 and continues the uncertainty that businesses hate so much. If the country is going to make a success of becoming independent it needs everyone on-board - the people worrying the most about the consequences are the ones that are actually increasing the risk of failure.......

[ramAnag]

Of course I'm not assuming that 63% were all in favour of the status quo and I accept your point about the 'missing' 28%. But neither can you assume that those 'missing' 28%, or even a significant majority of them, are in favour of 'Brexit'.
The situation is, imo, that we have gone through a very ill advised and poorly thought through Referendum process where cases were presented via a web of lies and deceit to an electorate that is insufficiently politically aware to be able to make an informed decision and we now have a situation where we are all meant to blindly follow a result agreed by just 37% of the electorate.
That makes no sense at all to me but yesterday's High Court decision thankfully means that Parliament - not just the Government/Cabinet - will at least have the opportunity to represent us as far as the implications and manifestation of the possible, or even probable, Brexit conditions are concerned and that, again imo, can only be a good thing.

[Gaspode]

I hear what you're saying, but you're repeating the argument that the result shouldn't be binding because just 37 % of the electorate voted for it - at the end of the day, pretty much everyone over the age of 18 had the right to vote - if they didn't take up that right (apathy, couldn't decide, whatever....) then they have made that choice and handed over responsibility to make a decision to those that did vote - and of that 72% that did vote, more wanted to leave than wanted to stay - the same rules would have applied if only 2% of the population had gone out to vote. That's why the terms were clearly set out and why the result stands.
I agree entirely about the quality of debate, but don't forget when putting your faith Parliament, that it was Parliament who agreed to run the referendum, the question that was asked and the terms of the referendum result....

[ramAnag]

I hear what you're saying, but you're repeating the argument that the result shouldn't be binding because just 37 % of the electorate voted for it - at the end of the day, pretty much everyone over the age of 18 had the right to vote - if they didn't take up that right (apathy, couldn't decide, whatever....) then they have made that choice and handed over responsibility to make a decision to those that did vote - and of that 72% that did vote, more wanted to leave than wanted to stay - the same rules would have applied if only 2% of the population had gone out to vote. That's why the terms were clearly set out and why the result stands.
I agree entirely about the quality of debate, but don't forget when putting your faith Parliament, that it was Parliament who agreed to run the referendum, the question that was asked and the terms of the referendum result....

Thanks for being so civilised about it but, just to be clear...actually what I am saying is, 'the result shouldn't/can't be binding' because the result of any referendum is only advisory unless stated otherwise. It wasn't stated otherwise and therefore isn't binding.
On the subject of the 37%, I'm saying that there are no circumstances at all where 17.5m out of almost 47m can be said to represent the 'voice or will of the people'.
Unfortunately at the end if the day though, I have to admit I entirely share your disillusionment with the vast majority of the politicians who make up Parliament.

[swaledale]

But when you say 63% didn't support leave, you're assuming that the people who didn't vote were effectively saying they liked the status quo (so voting to remain by proxy (even though a remain vote was anything but a vote to carry on as we are)). That's not a leap you can take with any credibility as we have no idea what the missing 28% would have voted for if they had been forced to - they may have all voted leave - or they may have all voted remain - or they may have been split down the middle in the same proportion as those that did vote - we just don't know.
And to follow through your argument, it's just as easy to add those missing voters to the leave numbers and state that 65% didn't actively support remain and 37% are actively against remaining.
The terms of the referendum and how it would be measured (a majority of those that voted) were clearly defined before the vote took place. Complaining after the event that not enough people voted or that it should have been calculated another way because it didn't provide the 'correct' answer doesn't solve anything - we've voted leave and we need to make it happen - the court case and other pettiness from some MPs (Clegg!) and some in the Lords actually damages the country by delaying the triggering of Article 50 and continues the uncertainty that businesses hate so much. If the country is going to make a success of becoming independent it needs everyone on-board - the people worrying the most about the consequences are the ones that are actually increasing the risk of failure.......

Its not doom mongering its an appraisal of the facts, there is all this hogwash about doing deals and trading with countries outside the EU, exactly what do we make these days that these countries are going to be wanting to buy? Where do we do the bulk of our trading? The Eu. Which is one of our biggest earners? Services, who do we deal with? The EU - the complex interelationship with the Eu is not going to be disentangled quickly nor would it be to our benefit if it was.

There seems to be this simple faith that we can rewind a few decades and be what we were a long time ago, which kind of misses the point about how a modern economy works!

Of course we can stand alone, just as long as your all happy to accept fewer jobs, a poorer economy and a lower standard of living!