The Brexit referendum thread: potential consequences for GB, EU and the Brits in CH

[marton]

	Quote:	Mikers
	For a laugh run through it. Judge rules mps must vote. Mps vote to remain. What do you do next given 52% of the people who voted did vote to leave? It's a real question.

Fixed that for you.

My real question is "why was it a "non binding" referendum"? I do not know but it certainly allows for the possibility of a reversal.
It also maybe complicates the legal situation. If there is no Parliament vote on invoking Art. 50 then does a non binding referendum provide a sufficient legal basis to invoke?

[Mikers]

	Quote:	Blueangel
	No it doesn't! I'll repeat again... They omitted the word 'majority'. We can speculate on whether that omission was deliberate or not, and I strongly suspect the former because it's a classic 'get out' clause. There will have been an very expensive team devising the exact and precise wording of the ballot paper, and I'm not inclined to believe this was an oversight on their part. As the wording stands, the government also has to act upon what 48% of the voting populace chose. Now do you begin to see why the legality of this situation is rocky at best?

If it had been 52-48 the other way round would you have demanded that the government act in the interest of those 48%.

Go on, say it. Say "Why yes I would". because im sure thats what you would would have said.

[marton]

	Quote:	amogles
	I don't know. A massive upturn in UKIP support maybe?

Maybe but UKIP seems to be in full self destruct mode at the moment

The leader who replaced Farage resigned after 18 days. One of the candidates for the job is claimed to have been in a fist fight with another party member?

[marton]

	Quote:	Mikers
	If it had been 52-48 the other way round would you have demanded that the government act in the interest of those 48%. Go on, say it. Say "Why yes I would". because im sure thats what you would would have said.

Well Farage already said that before the vote

[Mikers]

	Quote:	amogles
	But in that case, if the judge says that parliament must have a vote, he is effectively saying they can vote but the outcome must be yes, and by extension if it isn't they will simply ignore that and pretend they have a majority anyway. Sounds like Soviet-era democracy. Otherwise they might say the question was mis-stated and misleading and that the government didn't have the right to formulate the question that way and therefore the entire vote is invalid.

Yes so it sums it up where we started really: The attempt to reverse it uses any kind of legal or scientific attempt to say the wording was invalid and so it must be invalid.

I think leaving Europe is going to hurt, a lot. Poor people will get poorer and Britain will be worse off. But it is what people voted for when asked. no amount of weasling around will change that. we have to do it, it is the will of the people.

[Blueangel]

	Quote:	marton
	If there is no Parliament vote on invoking Art. 50 then does a non binding referendum provide a sufficient legal basis to invoke?

Absolutely not!

This government has already overturned a legally binding County Council vote "because it was in the best interests of the country as a whole". If they can do that, anything's possible.

	Quote:	marton
	Well Farage already said that before the vote

And after the vote. At least while he thought he had lost.

[Blueangel]

	Quote:	Mikers
	If it had been 52-48 the other way round would you have demanded that the government act in the interest of those 48%. Go on, say it. Say "Why yes I would". because im sure thats what you would would have said.

Trust me, you will never hear those words in my broad Wigan accent. I'd be instantly disowned and deported to Cheshire, or worse...Surrey!

I don't 'demand' anything. Merely pointing out the glaringly obvious looseness of the language used in advising the electorate on such a vital decision.

I'm old school. I've sat on a few national wage negotiation committees in my time. I like things to be in plain English and legally watertight. When you read any contract, you look for what is there, then you read it again to look for what isn't there. In negotiations, you listen for the double negatives and non committal language from your counterpart. If they say...

"Maybe we could possibly look into this further" = don't hold your breath.

"The government will implement what you choose" = ...depending on who you are and how we feel at the time, and if any of us are actually left in office by that point.

	Quote:	Mikers
	The attempt to reverse it uses any kind of legal or scientific attempt to say the wording was invalid and so it must be invalid.

There's nothing scientific about it, and not a lot of jiggery pokery required, to work out out that the referendum was as legally binding as an opinion poll. None of the wording was legally binding and the government went to great lengths to cover themselves with numerous soundbites and press releases emphasising that it wasn't legally binding.

As this is most likely the biggest economic decision taken by the UK in the 21st century, it needs to be based upon something more substantial than '8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas'.

[marton]

	Quote:	Blueangel
	Trust me, you will never hear those words in my broad Wigan accent. I'd be instantly disowned and deported to Cheshire, or worse...Surrey! I don't 'demand' anything. Merely pointing out the glaringly obvious looseness of the language used in advising the electorate on such a vital decision. I'm old school. I've sat on a few national wage negotiation committees in my time. I like things to be in plain English and legally watertight. When you read any contract, you look for what is there, then you read it again to look for what isn't there. In negotiations, you listen for the double negatives and non committal language from your counterpart. If they say... "Maybe we could possibly look into this further" = don't hold your breath. "The government will implement what you choose" = ...depending on who you are and how we feel at the time, and if any of us are actually left in office by that point. There's nothing scientific about it, and not a lot of jiggery pokery required, to work out out that the referendum was as legally binding as an opinion poll. None of the wording was legally binding and the government went to great lengths to cover themselves with numerous soundbites and press releases emphasising that it wasn't legally binding. As this is most likely the biggest economic decision taken by the UK in the 21st century, it needs to be based upon something more substantial than '8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas'.

All true but it is starting to look like May was a closet Leaver so I doubt there will be any reversal. Unless they completely fail to agree a decent negotiating position.

[Jim2007]

	Quote:	Blueangel
	This government has already overturned a legally binding County Council vote "because it was in the best interests of the country as a whole". If they can do that, anything's possible.

It is not the same thing, the sovereign parliament could over rule a council, just as they would be free to ignore an advisory referendum, but a PM who tries to work around the sovereign parliament could result in a constitutional crisis.

[Mikers]

	Quote:	Jim2007
	It is not the same thing, the sovereign parliament could over rule a council, just as they would be free to ignore an advisory referendum, but a PM who tries to work around the sovereign parliament could result in a constitutional crisis.

Constutional crisis ? That's not a constitonal crisis. A government ignoring the result of a referendum, now thats a constitutional crisis.

[marton]

We need to take Brexit seriously - according to an Ipsos MORI study today;
in Britain, immigration is the number one worry, and we have the highest reported level of worry about immigration of any country included in the study (42%).
A higher level of worry than Germany despite their million plus refugees

Source

Clearly if people are so worried it is difficult for any Govt. to make logical or factually based decisions.

[Phil_MCR]

	Quote:
	The president of the European Council has told the UK that the only real alternative to a “hard Brexit” or clean break from the EU is to remain a full member of the bloc.

https://www.ft.com/content/df4885fa-...8-d3778b55a923

so everyone quit whining about hard brexit, because the likelihood is that is exactly what will happen.

[Reb77Br]

	Quote:	marton
	We need to take Brexit seriously - according to an Ipsos MORI study today; in Britain, immigration is the number one worry, and we have the highest reported level of worry about immigration of any country included in the study (42%). A higher level of worry than Germany despite their million plus refugees Source Clearly if people are so worried it is difficult for any Govt. to make logical or factually based decisions.

Are there any surveys out there about how worried people were about immigration before the referendum campaign began?

[eddiejc1]

I think people are avoiding the really important question concerning Brexit.

Is Marmite available in Switzerland?

	Quote:	Reb77Br
	Are there any surveys out there about how worried people were about immigration before the referendum campaign began?

Probably, but it is one of the two main issues (together with who runs the country - Juncker or the UK Government) and the people who keep going on about the economy are missing the point. The people who voted for Brexit don't listen.

And it's not just in the UK, look at what Francois Hollande has written:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...-unwanted-imm/

[marton]

	Quote:	Reb77Br
	Are there any surveys out there about how worried people were about immigration before the referendum campaign began?

This is as near as I can find

[marton]

	Quote:	Phil_MCR
	https://www.ft.com/content/df4885fa-...8-d3778b55a923 so everyone quit whining about hard brexit, because the likelihood is that is exactly what will happen.

Expressions of legitimate concerns is not whining.

[Reb77Br]

	Quote:	marton
	This is as near as I can find

That's interesting, thanks. The blue line seems to be not much higher than it was when it spiked (why?) in 1978/79, although net immigration is much higher. I wonder what they mean by "mentions". In the media, perhaps? I still wonder how many people are genuinely concerned about EU immigration because of personal experience, as opposed to having an innate fear or dislike of foreigners stoked by the media and politicians.

[Urs Max]

	Quote:	marton
	Fixed that for you. My real question is "why was it a "non binding" referendum"? I do not know but it certainly allows for the possibility of a reversal. It also maybe complicates the legal situation. If there is no Parliament vote on invoking Art. 50 then does a non binding referendum provide a sufficient legal basis to invoke?

In any state the sovereign holds the ultimate power, he alone can decide what laws are to be implemented, voided, changed, etc, (assuming in the first place the rule of law does exist in said state) without asking someone else.

The UK is not a democracy, it's a constitutional monarchy. In a monarchy the monarch (the Queen in the case of the UK) is the sovereign. As a consequence British nationals aren't citizens but rather British subjects. As long as the nationals are the subject of some superior power they can not be the sovereign, and thus can not order that some law be created/changed/nixed or action be taken merely by deciding so. There may be variations to this in case of parliamentary monarchies, but being monarchies I think this also applies to them.

Probably not even the parliament could have made the vote binding because the British monarch has the last say in many cases, and certainly in just about everything affecting foreign relations.