Well, Nigel Farage immediately claimed after the vote was finished that he lied about one of the key statements made during the campaign (£350M/week to be spent on NHS instead of EU). Does that qualify as a major fact changing?

That promise was not in any way made by Farage, it was made by Boris Johnson and co.[1] [2] I don't like Farage, and I hate the leave vote, but his criticism of it was honest given that he was definitely not the one who made the promise.

For what is worth, he was criticising them (though not sure about this specific point) from before.[3]

1. http://leftfootforward.org/2016/05/boris-johnsons-brexit-bus...

2. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3584627/The-Boris-bl...

3.http://www.politico.eu/article/nigel-farage-ukip-leader-vote...

As an outsider, this didn't surprise me very much, so I wouldn't count it.

I mean, it's obvious that even though the UK may be paying more money to the EU than it receives, there are other ways in which the UK massively benefits from the EU, which will be gone after Brexit is done. So that money isn't all available.

It is also not very unusual for politicians to promise more than they can keep.

It was a huge lie, after immigration it was probably the biggest vote winner.

Personally I think the Leave voters just realised that what they thought was an irrelevant naming convention is going to have serious hardships in store.

Seriously: Johnson & Farage, the lead personalities of the Leave campaign have come out and said the £350 million doesn't exist. Others are saying, from the Leave campaign that we'll maintain the status quo with European trading. I'd love for us to take it back, but if they were going to do that they shouldn't have campaigned to leave.

The Bank of England had plans for handling the financial downturn, uncertainty, and avoiding panic. Seems that none of the politicians for Leave bothered to think beyond the vote itself.

Politicians campaigning on a specific point should face prison for fraud when they U-turn on this scale. I'm not happy just to shrug and say 'what scoundrels, eh'; it's bloody criminal, far worse than any of the normal criminal frauds.

> here are other ways in which the UK massively benefits from the EU,

See Cornwall, who voted leave but now want the money that they were getting from the EU to be protected.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-cornwa...

> It is also not very unusual for politicians to promise more than they can keep.

It's unusual for the lie to be so blatant, repeated so often, so obviously wrong, and retracted immediately after the polls close.

Here's a picture of Boris by a sign created for the Leave campaign. It says "Let's give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week"

https://twitter.com/mgtmccartney/status/746245181532418048

Here's a picture of their campaign bus. That says "We send the EU £350 million a week. Let's fund our NHS instead"

https://twitter.com/mgtmccartney/status/746245181532418048

There's a bunch of interviews with Leave campaigners saying this money would go to the NHS. (And also being challenged on it).

Here's Farage, on the morning of the results, explaining that saying it was a "mistake" to say the £350m per week would go to the NHS.

https://twitter.com/GMB/status/746218028195426305

If you want to have a re-vote after every referendum/election wherein one of the campaigning politicians lied, you might as well live in the polling station, as that's where you'll be spending all your time.

Also. It was a referendum, not an election. Farage wasn't officially representing "The NO Party" or making official policy statements. He's not even a member of parliament, never mind the government. So what he said or didn't say before the vote had about as much official standing as what your postman of milkman said —even if it did get airtime because of his notoriety.

Please try and think things through just a wee bit, before making such naïve suggestions.

The petition isn't specifically asking for a 2nd referendum. It asked for a rule to be added to the one that has now already taken place.

(Post edited after I was corrected about the petition's original creation date)

The petition was set up before the first brexit vote. It's just people are voting for it now.

What if after seeing the results, plunging markets, Farage admitting the £350m to the NHS thing was BS, Calais saying they'll move the refugee camps to the UK by refusing to allow the UK border control to operate in France, there is now a majority wanting to remain? Should they ram through the exit against the public wishes because they were successfully conned in the first referendum?

(removed inaccurate post)

2016-05-23

That's a month before

Oh dear! Too focused on the LSBs. Thanks

Ah - you may be correct.

Democracy works however the people subject to it decide it works. To the extent that's not true, it's not democracy at all.

That is true, but not very enlightening as such.

The petition is signed by fewer folks than those that voted to remain in the EU, so it could "just" be a fraction of those that already voted calling for a second referendum. That's not the same as the people collectively deciding something different than before.

Well they could always do a recount.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...

Or is 4% enough of a difference to eliminate errors?

It was well counted. That's not going to change things.

Personally I think a (major) referendum should be voted twice even with just a week difference.

A lot of people most probably didn't vote because they assumed the result from the pre-vote pools and for other various reasons. Now everyone is alarm, they won't be leaving it up to chance.

If they didn't vote because they assumed some result, perhaps they are not as passionate about their position and should not get to vote a second time.

Quite a lot of the not voting were young people who had not figured the logistics of registering a month before and so on. The oldies who votted for brexit had mostly voted before and so were pre registered and know the procedure which slewed the results.

Maybe we should not lend a lot of weight to the opinions of adults who have not figured out how voting works

The same thing could be said to people that vote but don't understand what they are voting about. A lot of of the Exit votes were a way to express disappointed to the state of things of their lives.

Another referendum is unlikely, but the next elections might have the same role.

What if the next elected prime minister is elected on the promise of staying in the EU?

It's quite probable that the next general election will be after the UK leaves the EU. The next prime minister will probably be whoever wins the Tory leadership election this summer, since the Tories have an outright majority.

That's an option. I'm trying to check voter data against constituency data to see if it would be possible for remain voters to vote for a party with a remain stance and win a majority. Cameron was elected with 36?% of the vote so having 48% should be doable. You would only need to contest England and Wales as the SNP and Irish MPs would support the motion. It also keeps it all nicely democratic rather than overturning a majority vote we use the existing political system to have a mandate from the people to ignore the result.

> What if the next elected PM is elected on the promise of staying in the EU?

They won't win the election on that promise alone, and having a full-fledged campaign alongside this kind of promise is a HUGE gambit. Many people would be unwilling to risk a good chance at winning the election over one campaign promise.

I think a set number of multiple referendums, say best of 3, would be a more reliable way of judging the opinion of the population.