Government touts Frog Bikes as post-Brexit "success" story, just months on from company blaming Brexit "friction" for £500,000 losses

The public doesn't usually have any voting rights on whether to join / ratify free trade agreements -  including the one signed for CPTPP or ones previously signed between the EU and other countries whilst the UK was an EU member state.

This of courses misses the more relevant point.

Much of the motivation of "leavers" was that the country was promised and then denied the chance to vote on join the enlarged EU *political union* - having previously only voted in the 70s to join a trading arrangement.

Blair and Brown repeatedly pledged a referendum to give the public a vote before signing the Lisbon Treaty but in the end it was signed by David Milliband unilaterally - despite the clear lack of support by the public.

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk/2007/oct/19/eu.politics1

Had Blair / Brown actually followed the democratic process it's likely we'd still be in the EU because it would have removed one of the biggest contributors to the sense of injustice that many leavers clearly had.

There were (I think) nine general elections between the 1975 and 2016 referendums. At every one, parties were able to stand with leaving the EEC/EC/EU as a manifesto commitment. At none of them did such a party even get close to winning a majority. 

That is our democratic process, and it was followed. Looked at in the round, "Europe" was simply not a major issue for voters when compared to everything else. It was only by Cameron making it salient for party-political reasons that it's become a genuine division for people (on either side) who aren't politicians or single-issue obsessives. 

My 7-y-o is going through a real phase of demanding that I state which drawing, which bit of the drawing, which colour etc I like best. I generally don't have a strong preference one way or the other, and would rather use my decision-making energies on topics more relevant to our overall well-being. I pick one because I have to, and frequently point out that it's a stupid way of governing. 

That's consistent.  The Tories didn't offer a public vote in 1973 when the UK joined the European Community. 

It wasn't until two years after we had joined that the Labour Government arranged a remain/leave referendum. 

There has never been a public vote to join the EC/EEC/EU.

The 2016 ballot was advisory, "won" by a tiny margin on the back of a campaign funded by iffy money, turned into THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE by a sympathetic press and was substantially based on proven lies. 

The referendum should never have been held, but the margin wasn't that tiny. Around 1.4m votes out of 33m cast: think of it as finishing seven miles behind the winner in a 100-mile race. 

And there's no way politically that the result could have been ignored: if Remain had won and the government said "fuck it, we're leaving anyway" you and I would have been rightly apoplectic.

I don't like it, and I hope we rejoin not much further into my lifetime. But it was the will of the people, and the vote hasn't been found to be unfree or unfair. There's something both supercilious and Trumpish about trying to delegitimise a process we don't like the result of. 

Brauchsel wrote:

There's something both supercilious and Trumpish about trying to delegitimise a process we don't like the result of. 

Don't forget what someone said about it: "If there's a big majority, like 60-40, that's the end of it. But if it's something like 52-48 for remain, it won't be over, not by a long chalk." Who was that? Why, Nigel Farage. He wouldn't have given up fighting if he'd lost so I don't see why the other side should either.

The margin was tiny though, it was actually 1.26M or 3.8% of the total votes cast, as Robert Harris (no relation) memorably said, "a majority deemed insufficient to change the constitution of the average golf club."

Brauchsel wrote:

The referendum should never have been held, but the margin wasn't that tiny. Around 1.4m votes out of 33m cast: think of it as finishing seven miles behind the winner in a 100-mile race.

The problem was Cameron, a Prime Minister Of Very Little Brain even by the standards of recent Prime Ministers, when legislating for the referendum set the outcome criterion to be a simple majority. This is unusual to say the least. Referenda are generally set up to require a *clear* majority for change - e.g. 60/40 (the actual vote was about 52/48) - coz people wanting change are almost all going to vote while those supporting the status quo often don't vote. That's human nature I'm afraid.

My own guess is we'll be back in the EU soon, but required to adopt the Euro (a good thing IMO, tho most economists seem to be against it, for as far as I can see rather suspect reasons) & without Thatcher's rebate (I think we can all agree, definitely a bad outcome; but maybe James Dyson & J. Reese-Smug & Tim Whotsit from Wetherspoons can be prevailed upon to chip in a couple of billion a year to make up for all their lies?).

I just hope & pray we don't get an FTA with the US in the meantime. Free trade with the US would utterly destroy the Britain we know today.

A super majority destroys the idea that each vote is equal.

If we had a referendum to rejoin the EU would you support a super majority being used?

I blame Clegg for jumping in the wrong bed. A Lab-Dem coalition would have killed DC as the leader of the Tories, so he wouldn't have shat the bed over his belligerent back-benchers and pushed the EU agenda and this whole debacle would have been avoided.
It might have meant the subsequent Conservative party would either cut out the more radical members of their party, or have swung further right, but either way I think there'd be fewer incompetents on those benches (for better or worse).

Brauchsel wrote:

The referendum should never have been held, but the margin wasn't that tiny. Around 1.4m votes out of 33m cast: think of it as finishing seven miles behind the winner in a 100-mile race. 

And there's no way politically that the result could have been ignored: if Remain had won and the government said "fuck it, we're leaving anyway" you and I would have been rightly apoplectic.

I don't like it, and I hope we rejoin not much further into my lifetime. But it was the will of the people, and the vote hasn't been found to be unfree or unfair. There's something both supercilious and Trumpish about trying to delegitimise a process we don't like the result of. 

The vote has been found to have been manipulated. Exactly how much Russian money went to the leave campaigns has not been determined but we know it was a lot. The intelligence report into Russian manipulation of the EU referendum (and also the Scottish independence one in 2014) has been redacted. Had there been nothing in it, as arch liar Johnson claimed, it would've been made public. We do know that Russian troll farms were very active spreading misinformation on social media in the run up to the vote. Many of the lies that the troll farms came out with spread into the public domain and I even found my Brexit voting colleagues repeating them.

So no, the vote was not free and fair.

Despite all the 'Russian money' Remain still outspent Leave significantly.

19.3m Vs 13.3m

Imagine how much more convincing the victory would have been if the funding had been fair...

It's quite amusing comparing the words and phrases used by Remain supporters in the years post referendum and the words and phrases used by Trump supporters after he lost the election.

It was won on lies, it was not the will of the people. As the people are clearly demonstrating in their rejection of the brexit reality, as opposed to the impossible to deliver brexit dream. I'm pretty sure brexit has had little, or no, effect on doing business with the likes of Australia.

don simon fbpe wrote:

It was won on lies, it was not the will of the people.

Stop the Steal!

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/02b230449f750df147b3f85fa7ce060bae0b325a/... Not the article I wanted, but the Turkey lie is a clear example of right wing lies. Interesting that byou chose an image of an insurrectionist that who believed the lies from Trump about the stolen election.

don simon fbpe wrote:

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/02b230449f750df147b3f85fa7ce060bae0b325a/... Not the article I wanted, but the Turkey lie is a clear example of right wing lies. Interesting that byou chose an image of an insurrectionist that who believed the lies from Trump about the stolen election.

Look, we've got clear tangible benefits of Brexit and just because you don't appreciate buying wine in pints, doesn't mean that it wasn't worth it.

A firm favourite of that chubby cheeked little racist rascal Churchill, aaah, the good old days.

I chose an image of a deranged Trump supporter who refused to accept the result of a democratic election. I also chose a slogan favoured by Trump supporters who refused to accept the result of a democratic election.

I juxtaposed them with your quote refusing to accept that the Brexit referendum result reflected the will of the people. Make of it what you will.

Turkey was a candidate country at the time of the referendum and in early 2016 struck a refugee deal with the EU which was expected to accelerate its membership application.

Is that nuance reflected in the poster? No.

Was it the only lie told by either side? No.

Both sides told significant lies. That's always the case in elections.

It doesn't invalidate the result.

Rich_cb wrote:

I chose an image of a deranged Trump supporter who refused to accept the result of a democratic election.

Non-binding advisory referendum ≠ election.

As you are so keen on the will of the people, you presumably feel we should rejoin the EU as since June 2021 not one poll (out of twenty-three) has shown that the British people believe that leaving was the right thing to do, with the latest poll showing 55% think it was the wrong thing to do, 33% still think it was the right thing and 12% are undecided, which has been about the average for the past eighteen months (https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/). Given that overwhelming evidence of the will of the people, do you think we should go along with it, or are you only really a champion of the will of the people when it very narrowly agreed with your beliefs on one day more than seven years ago?

Rendel Harris wrote:

Non-binding advisory referendum ≠ election.

As you are so keen on the will of the people, you presumably feel we should rejoin the EU as since June 2021 not one poll (out of twenty-three) has shown that the British people believe that leaving was the right thing to do, with the latest poll showing 55% think it was the wrong thing to do, 33% still think it was the right thing and 12% are undecided, which has been about the average for the past eighteen months (https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/). Given that overwhelming evidence of the will of the people, do you think we should go along with it, or are you only really a champion of the will of the people when it very narrowly agreed with your beliefs on one day more than seven years ago?

Here's the results of a recent poll: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/30/britons-brexit-bad-uk-poll-eu-finances-nhs

It's what some very important people wanted!  Though in some cases it seems that their money at least prefers to live elsewhere.

Sir James Dyson, (recent) Sir Tim Martin, Sir Jim Ratcliffe (Ineos) ...

I know that English comprehension is not your strong point Rendel but surely even you can't have failed to notice that the quote you've cherry picked was referring to the US presidential election?

When I referred to the Brexit referendum in the next paragraph I called it a... referendum.

I'm more than happy to follow the will of the people. All we need to do is get a party elected with a manifesto promise to deliver a rejoin referendum, then get that through parliament, then hold an advisory referendum, then win the referendum, then get parliament to vote to implement the result, then negotiate with the EU, then get parliament to vote to accept the outcome of your negotiations.

If all that was done it would be rather undemocratic of me to refuse to accept the result.

Rich_cb wrote:

I'm more than happy to follow the will of the people. All we need to do is get a party elected with a manifesto promise to deliver a rejoin referendum, then get that through parliament, then hold an advisory referendum, then win the referendum, then get parliament to vote to implement the result, then negotiate with the EU, then get parliament to vote to accept the outcome of your negotiations.

I know that political comprehension is not your strong point Rich but surely even you can't have failed to notice that there is no constitutional requirement to hold referenda on any issue at all. Parliamentary sovereignty means that any party elected to government on a manifesto of rejoining the EU would not have to hold a referendum before doing so, and that would be perfectly democratic.

That would be legal. I would argue it wouldn't be truly democratic.

It would also be entirely legal to rejoin the EU even if it wasn't mentioned in the manifesto at all or if the manifesto promised not to. I doubt many would disagree with calling that undemocratic.

Given how vociferously Remain supporters have decried leaving the EU on 'just' 52% of the vote it would be rather hypocritical to then approve of rejoining on (what would almost certainly be) a far lower percentage of the vote and when more than one issue was in the manifesto.

If the manifesto had just one item on it and if the party behind it achieved a majority of the vote then I would consider it democratic.

Rich_cb wrote:

That would be legal. I would argue it wouldn't be truly democratic.

On that basis you must believe that no decision taken by any government in the UK ever has actually been truly democratic apart from that very small handful on which referenda have been held?