What Did The Conservatives Achieve In...
Politics0 min ago
Pm 'must Listen' To Other Parties Over Brexit Says Cameron
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What are the chances May will listen ? After all, not listening is part of the reason that she is in the mess that she is in today.
Do bloody difficult women ( and men ) ever listen ?
What are the chances May will listen ? After all, not listening is part of the reason that she is in the mess that she is in today.
Do bloody difficult women ( and men ) ever listen ?
Answers
//Mrs May also said “Brexit means Brexit”// That doesn't mean anything.
09:56 Wed 14th Jun 2017
I'm going to have to agree with Naomi on this one, eddie. It's true that the majority did *not* vote to leave but it's also fairly meaningless, unless your main point is about voter apathy. On the night I remember thinking that 72% was a very high turnout, at least compared to the last few elections, so I never had any questions about the legitimacy of the result.
I don't think it's seriously contestable that a (slim) majority voted to Leave.
Of course, I do find it somewhat questionable that the government is choosing to interpret that result in the most extreme way possible. Imagine if the result had been 4% in favour of Remain and we'd then progressed down the road of adopting the Euro, joining Schengen and all that. Certainly I'd have felt extremely uncomfortable with that, and it seems like we are going down the equivalent route of the other side.
Of course, I do find it somewhat questionable that the government is choosing to interpret that result in the most extreme way possible. Imagine if the result had been 4% in favour of Remain and we'd then progressed down the road of adopting the Euro, joining Schengen and all that. Certainly I'd have felt extremely uncomfortable with that, and it seems like we are going down the equivalent route of the other side.
//Krom, as I see it the public were given two choices. ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’. There were no ‘ifs and buts’, nor any half-measures on offer. //
I agree, and I think that was one of the fundamental problems with the referendum. You had two different Leave campaigns which both made completely contradictory promises about what would happen if you put your cross next to "leave", and you couldn't choose whether you wanted to leave the EU but join the EEA as Johnson said he wanted to a number of times, whether you wanted total and complete disentanglement as Farage was promising with Leave.Eu, or whether you wanted leaving to be the first stage in the complete deregulation of the UK as Hannan promised.
I agree, and I think that was one of the fundamental problems with the referendum. You had two different Leave campaigns which both made completely contradictory promises about what would happen if you put your cross next to "leave", and you couldn't choose whether you wanted to leave the EU but join the EEA as Johnson said he wanted to a number of times, whether you wanted total and complete disentanglement as Farage was promising with Leave.Eu, or whether you wanted leaving to be the first stage in the complete deregulation of the UK as Hannan promised.
well presumably there was *some* consideration from both sides as to what "Leave" or "Remain" would mean for the UK and the wider world. Even if you felt that "I don't care what happens as long as we are out of the EU", that must mean that you judged the future to be less bright inside.
The Referendum question was a blunt instrument but there are shades of interpretation. We're leaving the EU, but what that will mean in practice -- for trade, immigration, future cooperation with the remaining EU, etc. -- are all to be decided. The point is that Theresa May has so far seemed to settle on the most extreme answer to all these questions.
The Referendum question was a blunt instrument but there are shades of interpretation. We're leaving the EU, but what that will mean in practice -- for trade, immigration, future cooperation with the remaining EU, etc. -- are all to be decided. The point is that Theresa May has so far seemed to settle on the most extreme answer to all these questions.
Did they? I mean, if indeed the referendum result only answers the question of Remain or Leave, then you can't garner any more information from it than that. So the idea that you can "know" what the voters meant beyond just leaving seems a bit of a stretch.
In the meantime, we have a General Election result in between, in which support for UKIP (extreme Brexit?) collapsed, support for LibDems (supersoft vanilla Brexit lite where we don't leave really at the end anyway) didn't exactly do well either, and support for May's and Corbyn's interpretations of the question (somewhat different, although overlapping on a few issues) was split about ... well, about 52/48, funnily enough, in May's favour. I don't think there's any case to be made that the country as a whole is in favour of a "hard Brexit". Or a "soft one", if it comes to that.
In short, I don't think we have any idea what the public meant when they voted to Leave. Given the Election result, it may even be that some voters voted in favour of Leave, not because they actually wanted to Leave the EU, but to stick two fingers up to the Establishment (and Cameron in particular, perhaps).
The only way to find out would be... well, I suppose to ask the electorate again. But then maybe you'd need one referendum for each question, and you'd have to present half-a-dozen different options for each, and I'm not being serious about this proposal anyway. Politicians have to interpret the result as best they can, and I'm sure that Theresa May honestly thinks -- or honestly thought -- that her interpretation was the correct one. But ultimately it's only an interpretation, and others are equally possible. Now that she's lost her majority, it is likely that she'll have to pay more attention to other, less extreme, interpretations.
In the meantime, we have a General Election result in between, in which support for UKIP (extreme Brexit?) collapsed, support for LibDems (supersoft vanilla Brexit lite where we don't leave really at the end anyway) didn't exactly do well either, and support for May's and Corbyn's interpretations of the question (somewhat different, although overlapping on a few issues) was split about ... well, about 52/48, funnily enough, in May's favour. I don't think there's any case to be made that the country as a whole is in favour of a "hard Brexit". Or a "soft one", if it comes to that.
In short, I don't think we have any idea what the public meant when they voted to Leave. Given the Election result, it may even be that some voters voted in favour of Leave, not because they actually wanted to Leave the EU, but to stick two fingers up to the Establishment (and Cameron in particular, perhaps).
The only way to find out would be... well, I suppose to ask the electorate again. But then maybe you'd need one referendum for each question, and you'd have to present half-a-dozen different options for each, and I'm not being serious about this proposal anyway. Politicians have to interpret the result as best they can, and I'm sure that Theresa May honestly thinks -- or honestly thought -- that her interpretation was the correct one. But ultimately it's only an interpretation, and others are equally possible. Now that she's lost her majority, it is likely that she'll have to pay more attention to other, less extreme, interpretations.
Jim, //if indeed the referendum result only answers the question of Remain or Leave, then you can't garner any more information from it than that.//
What information do you need to garner? Leave means leave. It doesn’t mean 'leave a bit' or 'half-leave' - it means leave. But then, as I said to Krom, you’ve no need to worry. As I've always suspected, you'll get your wish.
What information do you need to garner? Leave means leave. It doesn’t mean 'leave a bit' or 'half-leave' - it means leave. But then, as I said to Krom, you’ve no need to worry. As I've always suspected, you'll get your wish.
Well, we can batter about on this back and forth, but as the saying goes, I don't really know, and neither do you, what the British people actually wanted from the referendum result. Certainly we can't know what they wanted on the finer details. Perhaps they didn't care. In which case, again, extreme interpretations are still just that.
As kromo pointed out, is not the reverse true? Would you say that an "in" vote meant that we should abandon all of our opt-outs of EU policy such as the Euro, Schengen, etc? I'd suggest not. From my point of view, I wouldn't have minded if the UK became a little more committed to the EU project in the event of a "Remain" vote, but I don't for a second think that it's a view shared by all "remain" voters, or even most of them.
As kromo pointed out, is not the reverse true? Would you say that an "in" vote meant that we should abandon all of our opt-outs of EU policy such as the Euro, Schengen, etc? I'd suggest not. From my point of view, I wouldn't have minded if the UK became a little more committed to the EU project in the event of a "Remain" vote, but I don't for a second think that it's a view shared by all "remain" voters, or even most of them.
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