[JumpCrisscross]

> EU rules don't allow article 50 to be reverted

Those rules can be changed by the unanimous opinion of European states. Practically speaking, the deal Britain had before is gone. It might be able to re-enter if it gives up its asterisks, though. Bone-headed move by its people, either way.

[danpalmer]

> Bone-headed move by its people

By a minority I'd like to clarify. 51.8% voted for it, of a 72% turnout, of an electorate that is only around 69% of the population.

That works out at around 25% of the population voting for it.

[SllX]

This type of turnout is not uncommon in democratic states with voter turnout in the UK in particular hovering around that figure[0] since 1945. Yet they still decide laws, amend constitutions, control their military and command a domestic monopoly on sanctioned violence.

By the laws and constitution[1] of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the people voted for Brexit.

[0] http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin...

[andy_ppp]

I mean sure, but I'd personally assume people who didn't vote are happy with the status quo. Huge constitutional changes should be difficult.

[SllX]

I prefer not to make assumptions, particularly as it relates to the finicky nature and opinions of millions of people. It actually doesn't even matter what the people who didn't vote think because they removed themselves from the voting pool and lost the only ground they had to stand on when they had their personal chance to prevent Brexit from happening.

The result came out to be what it was maybe because they chose not to vote, maybe if they had voted it would have been a different result and yet they still chose not to for whatever reasons made sense to them at that time on that day.

I also agree huge constitutional changes should be difficult, but so far Brexit has overcome every challenge and roadblock including a democratic referendum that may not have been the right referendum to hold, that may have even set the threshold too low, and yet it was what it was, with the ground rules declared in advance including the simple majority requirement, and still passed. Clearly the people in favour of Brexit were the more determined part of the voting public to make their voices heard.

Whether it was the political will of the people that did vote, or the political apathy of the people that didn't, that hardly matters now.

[danpalmer]

I agree it was legal, I'm just clarifying that it was not all of us who voted for it (or who thought there should have been a public referendum).

[dkersten]

> of a 72% turnout

If the other 28% disagree, then they really should have voted against...

[eertami]

It shouldn't have been a vote without requiring a Supermajority and it certainly shouldn't have been a vote without a third, alternative option.

[lucozade]

> It shouldn't have been a vote without requiring a Supermajority

Works well on the internet. Bad idea in practice. You have to remember that the government didn't want a referendum. They wanted UKIP neutered and the issue put on the backburner.

If there had been a referendum with anything other than a straight majority, and Leave won a straight majority, all hell would have broken loose. It would likely have split the Tory party and made Farage the most important politician in the country.

Similar argument goes for a 3rd option. They didn't want a sensible alternative, they wanted a "put up or shut up" straight fight. Same as had occurred in Scotland. These referenda (and the AV vote before that) were to put constitutional issues to bed not to find alternatives.

[rweir]

It shouldn't have been a vote without an actual /plan/. "Would you like to 1) no change or 2) SUMMARY OF A DETAILED PLAN INCLUDING E.G. WHETHER THE U.K. REMAINS IN THE SINGLE MARKET OR THE CUSTOMS UNION OR HAS A HARD 1980s STYLE BORDER WITH IRELAND ETC" is one thing. "Would you like 1) no change or 2) some vague thing everyone can project their desires upon and scrawl fantasies on the side of a bus" is not a great way to make policy decisions.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Young people were excluded from the referendum vote.

Certain demographics living outside of the UK - who are normally allowed to vote in elections - were excluded from the referendum vote.

A non-trivial number of ballots for foreign residents were sent out too late to be counted.

The original Parliamentary Act for the referendum explicitly defined it as advisory.

Most referenda are run on the basis that a super-majority is required for any significant constitutional change.

The suggestion that the referendum was truly representative and binding is an horrific travesty of democracy.

[blibble]

I don't think you could be more intellectually dishonest if you tried

> Young people were excluded from the referendum vote.

same franchise as a general election, and the past AV referendum

> Certain demographics living outside of the UK - who are normally allowed to vote in elections - were excluded from the referendum vote.

same franchise as a general election, and the past AV referendum

> A non-trivial number of ballots for foreign residents were sent out too late to be counted.

too few to have have changed the outcome (Leave had a majority of more than 1.2 million)

> The original Parliamentary Act for the referendum explicitly defined it as advisory.

the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty means it is impossible to have a truly binding referendum: they are all advisory as nothing can bind parliament, even a referendum result

> Most referenda are run on the basis that a super-majority is required for any significant constitutional change.

all past UK referendums have been 50%+1, as was the Scottish independence referendum

you might not like the result, but it was still perfectly legitimate

[tom_mellior]

> it is impossible to have a truly binding referendum: they are all advisory as nothing can bind parliament, even a referendum result

That may be the case in theory: Even if Parliament made a law saying a referendum was binding, it could later undo it. But they didn't even pretend it was binding, although there was a precedent from the alternative vote referendum, which was explicitly binding according to the act authorizing it.

That also would have saved all the High Court hoopla that followed.

[Silhouette]

That isn't a very strong argument.

The enabling legislation for the referendum infamously didn't say anything about the specific consequences of a decision either way. In particular, and contrary to comments by someone else in this discussion, it also didn't say anything specific about being binding or not on any specific party to do any specific thing.

However, in the debates on the legislation, MP after MP, up to and including government ministers, stood up in the House and said that they intended to give voters the final say in the decision. You can read this in Hansard, and it was really very clear what those MPs thought they were voting for.

The leaflet, distributed to all households in the UK by the government at taxpayers' expense, also gave a very clear and unambiguous statement to the same effect. Absent evidence to the contrary, it seems reasonable to assume that ordinary people voting in the referendum also thought they were voting for what had been described in the official information about it.

The whole non-binding issue only really hit the headlines after the fact, when it started to look like the losing side in the referendum's best opportunity to overturn the result. That's also the time when lots of people in the UK who weren't constitutional lawyers suddenly started being experts on parliamentary sovereignty. (If you want to really heat up a discussion, ask some of those people where the principle of parliamentary sovereignty comes from, throw in a few difficult questions about whether it has any robust legal foundation or democratic authority at all, and then point out that even if it does the principle itself has nothing to do with Parliament being sovereign over the people but rather over other branches of the government.)

I'm actually a moderate when it comes to Brexit itself, but I do have an intense dislike of using sophistry to undermine democracy and civilised government, and I'm sorry to say that there has been more of that than I've seen at any time in my adult life since the Brexit issue became so divisive.

[tom_mellior]

> That isn't a very strong argument.

Not sure what you're referring to. The fact that there was precedent that MPs could have copied and pasted to be on the safe side and avoid the Supreme Court having to decide? It's their job to make good laws, not just to give speeches suggesting what their unwritten intentions may be.

> The leaflet, distributed to all households in the UK by the government at taxpayers' expense, also gave a very clear and unambiguous statement

Yes, but as we know, the entire point of the court case was that that statement was not the government's to give.

> The whole non-binding issue only really hit the headlines after the fact

That may well be, but it does not invalidate the legal argument behind it.

Don't take my word for it. Don't take the words of "lots of people in the UK who weren't constitutional lawyers". Take the Supreme Court's. Do you really think its ruling is "using sophistry to undermine democracy and civilised government"?

I understand that you dislike the way these debates have developed. I don't understand why you don't blame this on the MPs who had the power to prevent it.

[Tech-Noir]

> Most referenda are run on the basis that a super-majority is required for any significant constitutional change.

What percentage was required in the Scottish independence referendum?

What percentage was required in the EU/EC exit/remain referendum of 1975?

What percentage was required in the referendum to join the EU/EC in the first place, in 1973?

(The latter being a trick question. There was no referendum to join at all, zero, yet a majority being required (and achieved) to leave is deemed a "horrific travesty of democracy" by people who voted differently.)

[Tech-Noir]

> That works out at around 25% of the population voting for it.

Correct, newborn babies were denied a vote. What percentage of the British population voted to Remain in the EU, out of curiosity?

[danpalmer]

And those who will _on average_ die before we leave, voted overwhelmingly in favour of leaving, tipping the balance.

[presidente20]

That's right, lets disregard the views of the people with life experience in favour of a bunch of highly impressionable, inexperienced teenagers.

[cuckcuckspruce]

Should those people be excluded from every vote or only the votes whose outcome you disagree with?

[Tech-Noir]

What point or argument are you making here? Old and terminally ill people shouldn't have a vote?

[Zenst]

Not all the population qualified to vote as they are not UK nationals.

There again, statistics often get skewed to fit a narrative-for example: take 100 people and 99 earn barely minimum wage, the 100th is a footballer and paid millions a year. WIth statistics you can claim that those 100 people contribute lots as high earning tax payers. Which highlights how statistics can and do get abused to fit a narrative.

[presidente20]

That's massive by the standards of modern democracy. Can you name any issue which more people have voted on? Far less people than that vote in most governments.

[inopinatus]

Yes I can. Here in Australia we've just held a non-compulsory national poll (technically a survey not a vote, although it's been debated in public as though it were a plebiscite) on making the legislative changes to permit same-sex marriage. The turnout is 78.5% of eligible voters, thereby exceeding the Brexit voter participation rate.

NB: The comparison may be confounded by local behavioural standards. Participation in this survey wasn't compulsory, but Australia has mandatory voting in most local and national elections. So there may be a prevailing culture of compliance. Nevertheless, a cursory review of the popular press suggests the turnout is substantially higher than that expected by most pundits.

[akhatri_aus]

People could be more passionate about the issue. With Brexit people didn't care as much. Im even doubtful it will really make much of a difference looking at it backwards 10 years from now.

[presidente20]

I had no idea. My claim was clearly hyperbole but I think the substance of the point still stands... it was a high turnout.

[Nursie]

I dislike this argument.

By that line of reasoning, every government we've had in my lifetime has been illegitimate, elected only by a tiny minority of the population.

[danpalmer]

I'm not saying it wasn't legitimate or legal, just that _most_ of us did not vote for it, which is why I felt "bone headed people" was too much of a generalisation.

[JumpCrisscross]

With power comes responsibility. The flip side of suffrage is responsibility. Abstaining from (or casting a blank ballot in) an election or referendum is, practically, dividing your vote amongst those who show up.

(Someone who is not eligible to vote is not really one of a country's people. They're its visitors, children, felons, what have you.)

[mattgibson]

It's arguably more significant in this case as those that didn't vote were around 75% in favour of remain. It's not common to hear of such a differential between the intentions of those who did not vote compared to those who did.

Had everyone voted, remain would have won by a large margin.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/10/24/brexit-is-not-the-w...

[PeachPlum]

That's the thing about referenda, if you want to have a say in the outcome, you have to cast your vote, not sit at home

Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs by Command of Her Majesty, February 2016

2.1 The result of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union will be final.

[ZeroGravitas]

There is a key difference betwen "this is the will of the people" and "this is the will of the people that we allowed to vote, and who found the time to make it along on the day".

People aged 16-18 and people living abroad are two groups that had no option but to sit at home and are both considered anti-Brexit.

[MarkCole]

British Expats living abroad were allowed to vote. As long as you lived in the UK within the last 15 years you can vote in Elections and Referendums.

[dragonwriter]

That argument sets no principle for declaring a government illegitimate, so you should really have started the second paragraph with “By my hostile reimagining of that line of reasoning...”

[neilwilson]

But about 76% of the population didn't vote to stay. So that is why we're leaving - by a massive majority I hasten to add.

Two can play stupid percentage games.