As a pro eu person from nl(if that even exists) i would prefer not to give uk a hard time to come back on their decision. And even íf they really quit: we still have to work together. It is in interest of all of us to have the uk with us. It is just impossible to negotiate for brexit and cherry pick all the good parts of the eu, while not doing something in return. They will end up with a eu type of deal, with a few minor things stripped off. Or a hard brexit, which may not even happen.
It is a shitty situation, which starts to affect my life as well. I have some stocks on a company “degiro” which has its license in the uk. This is a problem because i am unsure what is going to happen. I moved my investments to a broker with dutch bank accounts and licenses.
Honestly the problem isn't Brexit itself. I don't agree with that policy, but it's possible to see how it could be executed in a constructive and honest fashion. If we were able to accept that there are benefits to EU membership, but that we were willing to give those up in exchange for theoretically greater sovereignty, the situation would be better. If we were working towards a scenario that was minimally damaging, while importantly being honest about the tradeoffs, then the country would make some progress.
Instead we have an absolute catastrophe of untruth circulating. Large parts of the party of government appear to be aiming for a no-deal, cliff-edge event, claiming that everything will be fine. A huge share of the population seem to think that "no deal" means "status quo" instead of "immediate large-scale problems".
I don't know how we deal with that. We're genuinely in the time of post-facts, post-truth politics, and I don't know that we currently have the tools to fix that.
> They will end up with a eu, with a few minor things stripped off.
Maybe. They had that already
The rules for winning were known before the votes were cast, just like in 2016 in the USA. Do the do-overs stop as soon as you get the result you want?
How open are you to the idea of a third, fourth and subsequent referenda on Brexit should a second one happen? Or would you declare the second one as "final" if it achieves whatever result you desire?
That is certainly what happened in Ireland: Nice 1 was rejected in 2001, a year later after an intensive, one-sided government propaganda fest Nice2 was passed.
Similarly in Denmark, Maastricht Treaty 1 and 2 were held in subsequent years (1992,3)
I think there are other examples. A glaring one is the Greek Bailout referendum where people voted to tell the EU to stuff off, but again, their government knew better.
For me, this argues that governments, whether national or supra-national will ignore the popular vote and there should be more referenda. Obviously there needs to be some sort of pre-referendum polling to indicate whether exists a reasonable proportion of the population that is interested in the Question of What to Name Brian`s Cat. And there should probably be some safe majority (5%? 10%) of turnout required.
This is a meaningless argument. To the extent it is not, the way to bring it closer is to enable to people to have more say.
> How open are you to the idea of a third, fourth and subsequent referenda on Brexit should a second one happen? Or would you declare the second one as "final" if it achieves whatever result you desire?
The key part of my argument is that no decision is ever final in a democracy, so I will accept whatever number of referendums there is support for. If there is a push for an ongoing series of referendums it is a sign that the flaw is the questions being asked: Nobody bothers to seek compromises. It should have been clear from the beginning, for example that given a narrow "Leave" result in the Brexit referendum, given that most Remain voters would likely (but it's a shame this was not asked) prefer the softest possible Brexit if Leave were to win, and that some Leave voters would also prefer a soft Brexit, in the case of a Leave result, the most democratic outcome almost certainly would be one of the softest possible alternatives.
If politicians can't come up with referendum questions that make people stop wanting to change the outcome, then it is evidence they're not doing their jobs.
> I think there are other examples. A glaring one is the Greek Bailout referendum where people voted to tell the EU to stuff off, but again, their government knew better.
I think your examples are fundamentally flawed. The Danish Maastricht vote, for example, let to substantial guaranteed opt-outs before the second vote. That Denmark were able to secure those opt-outs was a direct result of putting the treaty to a referendum, and the swing in the subsequent referendum was big enough to make it clear to opponents a second one would not be viable for some time.
Similarly Nice was rejected on a crazy low turnout and with concerns over security policy being a major factor. The latter issue was resolved through guarantees before the second referendum. Again I'd argue that this reflected a genuine change, and that a major concern of those voting no the first time was addressed.
But as you say, there should probably be more, rather than less. Part of the problem is the lack of a defined process for instigating one.
> The swing in the subsequent referendum was big enough
> crazy low turnout
Given the harshness and stridency of your evaluation of my attempt to remind you that the UK is quite unlikely to pose such questions in a referendum I think it's fair to echo your own criticism back... and then some!
I think you've failed to make the case that there are any countries besides Lichtenstein which operate democratically, or propose even roughly what counts as reasonable margins or mechanisms.
I think you have failed to grasp that change ratchets towards centralized power and that the Brexit was a horrible mistake in which the operators of this machinery temporarily took their eye off the ball.
Calling for a second referendum without specifying the exact terms under which referenda should be callable is just an attempt to have another roll of the dice, no matter which side of the Brexit issue one is on.
W.r.t. Nice specifically, both turnouts were low. And now it looks as though Ireland will be dragged into a "common defence pact" although they will not be "part of an EU army. ( The only recent example of a high turnout that I can remember was Norway... in which a clear majority decided they wanted to retain independence from the EU in a large number of areas. )
I do agree that no decision _should_ ever be final in a democracy though and that there should be democracy (not constitutional monarchy with electoral representation, nor representative democracy in a republic or any other of the not-democracies).
That is the only argument I've been making. Everything else above is irrelevant to my arguments.
I know it’s easy to pretend that Brexit got a massive majority but really it didn’t. It was just 52-48%.
A large number of us didn’t vote for it and still don’t want Brrexit.