UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit

Albion said:

The idea that underlies democracy is that the people choose, not that they choose well.

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When people cheat in a vote it isn’t democracy. The Leave campaign (we now know) was fraudulent.

LionL said:

When people cheat in a vote it isn’t democracy. The Leave campaign (we now know) was fraudulent.

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All politicians cheat, lie and use hyperbole to get you to vote their way. If you don't recognise this, you're naive and deserve to get cheated.

Nithavela said:

All politicians cheat, lie and use hyperbole to get you to vote their way. If you don't recognise this, you're naive and deserve to get cheated.

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Lies and hyperbole are one thing. However:

• Vote Leave broke the Law
• Leave EU broke the Law
• Russia interfered successfully
• Cambridge Analytica hacked the poll
• No Deal was not the proposal

The referendum result should not be accepted because of this.

LionL said:

Lies and hyperbole are one thing. However:

• Vote Leave broke the Law
• Leave EU broke the Law
• Russia interfered successfully
• Cambridge Analytica hacked the poll
• No Deal was not the proposal

The referendum result should not be accepted because of this.

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Just take it as a lesson in cynicism.

Nithavela said:

Just take it as a lesson in cynicism.

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Hard to do, when the future of our country depends on it.
No, I will not accept the results of a fraudulent vote.

ThievingMagpie said:

Fron my conversations with brexiters it's mainly about having a cake and eating it, also notions of "taking back control" without any real understanding of what "control" means.

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Tories ran out of real ideas a long, long time ago... the world no longer belongs to them. This is about the Right's last gasp for power and demagoguery, regardless of the consequences.

FireDragon76 said:

Tories ran out of real ideas a long, long time ago... the world no longer belongs to them. This is about the Right's last gasp for power and demagoguery, regardless of the consequences.

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Yeah, I work in central government - in cultural funding so nothing too controversial but I haven't felt inspired for quite a while. It's just been austerity, then Brexit, now likely more austerity. None of our leaders have had any vision besides marginally increasing or maintaining growth. I'm incredibly bored of Brexit, which is tragic because it has such an insane impact on everything.

Albion said:

Perhaps, but kind of rationalization can be used to sidestep just about any popular vote, right?

The idea that underlies democracy is that the people choose, not that they choose well.

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If you realise that the door you are about to step through leads to a 300' drop onto jagged rocks and not the public toilet you were expecting, it makes sense to pause and, at the very least, ask for a parachute.

If you are the only person affected by that situation, I supposed you might reconsider.

In other words, the analogy doesn't work as a lesson about democracy. No, it doesn't.

Albion said:

If you are the only person affected by that situation, I supposed you might reconsider.

In other words, the analogy doesn't work as a lesson about democracy. No, it doesn't.

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Correct. If you are suicidal you just keep on walking, thinking your intention was to walk through the door, rather than go to the toilet. The public voted to go to the toilet, not to walk through the door.

Albion said:

If you are the only person affected by that situation, I supposed you might reconsider.

In other words, the analogy doesn't work as a lesson about democracy. No, it doesn't.

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More an argument against democracy than against anything else.

Ophiolite said:

Correct. If you are suicidal you just keep on walking, thinking your intention was to walk through the door, rather than go to the toilet. The public voted to go to the toilet, not to walk through the door.

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Now THAT analogy I consider defective on its face. The plain fact is that the people get to have what they have chosen when a vote occurs in a democracy. Unless there is some specific constitutional provision for nullifying the outcome of the vote, it stands...like it or not.

And if such a constitutional provision exists, it never says that the losers get to change the outcome simply because they are unhappy about the reasoning that the voters used when deciding how to vote.

.

Albion said:

... if such a constitutional provision exists, it never says that the losers get to change the outcome simply because they are unhappy about the reasoning that the voters used when deciding how to vote.

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The voters' reasoning was sound. We were promised:

• An extra £350,000,000 per week to the NHS,
• That “The free trade agreement we will have to do should be one of the easiest in human history,”
• That "we hold all the cards at the negotiating table,"
• That “Not a single job would be lost because of Brexit,” (thousands have been lost already)
• That "Britain will have access to the single market after we vote Leave.”
• That “The idea that our trade will suffer... is silly.”

Bojo himself said, “There will continue to be free trade and access to the single market”
There was no mention of an Irish border, or of queues at our ports which will block our roads, or of shortages of fresh food and medicines.

These are just a handful of the lies they fooled us with. We demand a second vote.

Albion said:

Now THAT analogy I consider defective on its face. The plain fact is that the people get to have what they have chosen when a vote occurs in a democracy. Unless there is some specific constitutional provision for nullifying the outcome of the vote, it stands...like it or not.

And if such a constitutional provision exists, it never says that the losers get to change the outcome simply because they are unhappy about the reasoning that the voters used when deciding how to vote.

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Informed democracy is likely to have better end results than democracy by chance, and certainly better than democracy by manipulation. I don't see any value in holding up some notion of information free, essentially random, feelings based voting as a useful or valuable ideal. The referendum reversal in Switzerland is a case in point: Court overturns referendum as voters were poorly informed ... in Switzerland
People were not given what they needed to make an informed choice, so the referendum was revisited. There is no doubt that Boris and other pro-Brexit campaigners misled the public. Now, the information is at least out there - people might choose to ignore it, but no-one can say they don't have access to the information needed to assess the pros and cons. A 2nd referendum could go either way, but there are enough reasons to value a second, informed, vote over one based on a lot of phony hoo-ha.

LionL said:

These are just a handful of the lies they fooled us with. We demand a second vote.

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They will demand a third vote if Brexit loses your second vote, and you will then have to agree that that is fair--unless you are going to violate everything you are arguing now is fair and "democratic." But I wonder....

Albion said:

They will demand a third vote if Brexit loses your second vote, and you will then have to agree that that is fair--unless you are going to violate everything you are arguing now is fair and "democratic." But I wonder....

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If Leave won a second referendum then we would have to do so. That's only proper as this time the electorate know the facts. However, if such a thing happened I (and millions like me) would campaign to rejoin the EU - just as the hard right campaigned for us to leave despite us choosing to join in a referendum originally.

Tom Farebrother said:

People were not given what they needed to make an informed choice, so the referendum was revisited.

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According to the article you provided, that is the first time that this has happened in Swiss history, so I don't think we can make it be the new definition of Democracy. And the re-vote was ordered by the court, so it isn't parallel to what the "sore losers" in the Brexit matter want done in the UK, anyway.

In addition, it apparently rested upon a question of transparency involving the government itself, not just that the political factions campaigning for or against the measure might not have been entirely accurate in their claims.

Albion said:

According to the article you provided, that is the first time that this has happened in Swiss history, so I don't think we can make it be the new definition of Democracy. And the re-vote was ordered by the court, so it isn't parallel to what the "sore losers" in the Brexit matter want done in the UK, anyway.

In addition, it apparently rested upon a question of transparency involving the government itself, not just that the political factions campaigning for or against the measure might not have been entirely accurate in their claims.

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Yes, it isn't a new definition of democracy. Defintions of what that means vary a lot. A lot of firsts recently, this is a major event in UK history, a likely precipitating event for the break up of the UK, so not something to be seen through based on incomplete understandings.

Any third referendum is likely to be determined by parliament, not the courts in this case, following which an informed public will vote, which could go either way. 'Sore losers' rather understates the gravity of the possible post-Brexit scenarios.

Understatement of the year goes to your 'not entirely accurate' statement however. Entirely inaccurate is closer to the mark - £350bn more to spend on the NHS? Campaigns are won and lost on a handful of words. Get the right slogan, true or not, and you're more than halfway there. Never underestimate the power of an emotionally laden message to turn people's brains into creators of alternate realities.

What are some facts?

Brexit is likely to have a number of serious impacts :

On science: Graphene inventor Andre Geim: No-deal Brexit would destroy UK science
A no-deal Brexit could lead to a catastrophe for science in the UK


(Boris visas for scientists is a wholly inadequate response to this, according to leading UK scientists)

London's primacy as an international financial hub could survive, or could go down the tubes:
Can the City survive Brexit?

A great strain on the UK's relationship with Ireland, the consequences of which could be lasting and of the most serious nature:

Most disastrous perhaps, the ultimate effect on the UKs healthcare system:

(this is very incomplete list. According to the UKs top medical professionals a no-deal Brexit will literally lead to the deaths of significant numbers of people. Of course, you can take Boris's word over our top Drs if you like -what do they know?)

What does Brexit have to offer? I can't find anything to convince me that it is anything more than a pointless waste of time and money. Those leading the Brexit campaign all stand to made large personal gains from it ( Brexit leaders prove that the campaign to leave the EU was entirely driven by self-interests )
But for anyone else? Vague assertions about sovereignty are utterly meaningless; trading one set of trading partners with all of the attached obligations for another has nothing whatsoever to do with sovereignty. The Queen, who I swore allegience to, is all for the EU. All of the other characters involved have nothing to add to the UKs sovereignty. If Farage and the like are so concerned with the idea, why have they secured themselves EU citizenships? Why has Dyson moved his operations to Singapore? The Brexiteers ability to override facts with some basic jingosim in the minds of so many is a predictable but sad reality.

US misunderstandings of the whole scenario are typified by Pence's crass and poorly informed notions, as can be seen in the responses of the Irish press: HuffPost is now part of Oath

Tom Farebrother said:

Yes, it isn't a new definition of democracy. Defintions of what that means vary a lot. A lot of firsts recently, this is a major event in UK history, a likely precipitating event for the break up of the UK, so not something to be seen through based on incomplete understandings.

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Yeh, yeh. All of this is just because I observed that it isn't democratic to throw out the results of an election for the reason that the losing side is upset that it lost and so would like to have a "do over."

Such an observation really shouldn't be the occasion for launching a big debate.