If someone does not vote, when there was ample opportunity to do so, then they implicitly are accepting the outcome - whichever way it goes.

This actually should read "Brexit - The will of the 17m + 50m who are okay with this"

This would have read the same if the result had gone the other way: "Remain - The will of the Xm + 50m who are okay with this"

At the end of the day, there was a vote and more people wanted Brexit, than Remain. A democratic process and result.

>A democratic process and result.

Pull the other one. This isn't the BBC Have Your Say comments section. People won't just believe that because you've declared it so.

Illegal data theft: https://twitter.com/Nealb2010/status/1059068463933743104

Flagrant violations of electoral law: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/ele... - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/17/vote-leave-...

Blatant lies and disinformation on immigration: https://www.europeanlawmonitor.org/eu-referendum-topics/summ...

General lies: https://www.independent.co.uk/infact/brexit-second-referendu...

More lies: https://minutehack.com/opinions/lies-damn-lies-and-brexit

Further lies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBxWiRz6A9E

External interference and disinformation: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/17/why-is...

Seriously anyone who thinks the Brexit referendum was democratic or fair is either ignorant or naive.

And it's scandalous that the UK government hasn't properly invested everything that came out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

>> "Seriously anyone who thinks the Brexit referendum was democratic or fair is either ignorant or naive."

You may have a point about the fairness - the Government did pump in 9.3 million GBP to push the Pro-Remain position, in the form of a Pro-Remain pamphlet to every household in the UK. This, arguably, was hardly fair as the Leave side could not hope to match that level of expenditure to air their position, yet the people still voted Leave - go figure.

Well, it's more like "The will of the 17.4M + 13M who were okay with it", with the other 21.5M unable to vote due to immigration status, age, failure to register, or other reasons.

If it had gone the other way, all these points would have been exactly the same - why would it be any more/less acceptable (from a democratic process point of view)?

Normally major constitutional changes require supermajorities to pass

Not in the UK. All constitutional referendums have used 50%+1 including the original remain/leave referendum that happened a few years after joining.

I'm talking generally across the world, and not just referenda.

> the original remain/leave referendum that happened a few years after joining

That wasn't constitutional change. Nor was it binding.

This referendum was also non-binding, it's right there in the act of parliament that authorized it.

Of course once Parliament agreed to invoke article 50 the referendum became irrelevant. Parliament - specifically the Tories, Labour, DUP, UUP and UKIP mps who decided to take us out of the EU with no deal, not the referendum.

320 MPs can change the UK constitution (although there are some protections with the House of Lords), which is the anomaly globally.

how many of the 50 M have not voted because they didn't understand what they were actually voting for? The hyperbole spread in campaign[1] was just surreal. You need informed discussions before calling for a referendum not the "feely hearts over minds" bullshit.

Putting the question to the people, in a representative democracy, is a terrible idea. they should have known this after Boaty McBoatface already.

In addition UK MSM has some of the most inflaming language in all the news in Europe (and even US). I have my news.google.com set to UK by default and I switch around to other region and languages to get a more complete picture. Every country has screamy headlines. But the UK tabloids (Express, Mirror and Daily) seem to be the absolute fucking worst. Even from just reading the headlines (and knowing that it's BS) fills me with more hate than any other country's news. And I wonder: if _I_ feel so incited by this, how do Brits feel who compared to me have actual skin in the game?

[1] actually on both sides. The leave camp was infiltrated by the radical right and the left was controlled by people who were so arrogant that they'd called anyone a racist who disagreed. Those minorities who are at the fringe and work 16 hrs days (while still on the brink of homelessness) were thrown into the same pot as white-supremacists.

Yes I agree, if you don't vote (having voted in every election the last 30y and would never not vote) you're ok with the result and can't complain, but from a Remainer standpoint the framing would be "50M didn't vote for Brexit" - then I'd think their arguing would be easier.

Having watched many Commons discussions, it basically always ends with "but the 17M".

The trouble with your first point is that UK democracy feels like this:

* Vote winner — your fault, don’t get to complain

* Vote loser/2nd party — you lost, suck it up, don’t get to complain

* Vote 3rd party/spoiled ballot — you wasted your vote, don’t get to complain

* Didn’t vote — you must be OK with any outcome, don’t get to complain

* Found new party — how interesting, let’s invite you on TV even if you got 249 votes total (Lord Buckethead), but anyone who voted for you still threw away their vote

* Left country — who cares, certainly not the council who is supposed to send you a postal vote (happened to a friend of mine in the EU referendum, would’ve voted remain)

Yes. In many ways Brexit is one of those "cascade failures" we read about on COMP.RISKS; democracy has been malfunctioning for a long time, every effort to fix it has been blocked, and now we have the consequences.

+ 700000 British citizens living for 15+ years in EU countries who were not allowed to vote https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-second-referendu...

At the end of the day, about 3 million people, fully settled in the UK, were not allowed to vote on the one thing which greatly affected them and for many is wrecking their lives.

That isn't due to apathy, and it isn't democracy either.

To avoid duplication, the rest of my comment is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19451579

We are having a lot of elections this year, so one meme floats around on FB: "Bad government is that happens when good people do not vote".

I wish this is true, but I don't think it is. In my country we had incompetent and corrupted left-wing government for 13 years. Now we have corrupted and incompetent far right extremists. And voting is mandatory here.

I have zero sympathy, or concern for the voices of those who chose not to exercise their right to vote.

The 50m (not that many - see Khol's reply) had their chance and blew it, and I say that as someone who voted remain and thinks this whole thing is a disaster, and leaving either with the May deal (bad) or the hard way (worse) would both be worse than staying. However, the people had their chance and they voted to leave. That's how democracy works. It's a serious business with real consequences.

If there is a new referendum it should be about the terms under which we will leave, and that's all. Yes the May deal is crap, but any deal we cut with the EU was going to be a horrible fudge. So much for 'cutting a deal with the EU will be the easiest in human history' because 'we hold all the cards'. I have nothing but sympathy for Theresa May. She's made mistakes, sure, but anyone else would have made their own mistakes.

Glad to hear such a profound and sane reply. I feel this whole topic is just so heated up, I understand that, that it's hard to talk reasonable about it.

As a German I hope this will be some kind of a lesson for the whole EU and UK and we will hopefully have the UK back in the EU "soon" (don't know how long this might take).

But I think it's important to draw a line now and make a "Brexit". On the one hand to show the consequences to the UK and the other unsteady EU states who might think about using some kind of exit as a vague threat, but, more important, to show the people of the UK that their will and votes are respected. I think that's what's missing in lots of EU states (at least I feel this way for Germany), so this might really be a chance for all of us.

The 50m is a slightly misleading point (it includes everyone too young to vote, whatever their viewpoint) but there's a much stronger case to take into account the perspective of the 16m people who voted against this car crash.

To declare that because a poorly defined proposition sold with untruth and misdirection won out in a vote means that we can't reflect on what is now known is absurd.

If every vote in which the outcome was swayed with misdirection and untruth was invalidated, we’d have to give up on democracy completely. Every view and opinion was expressed and the electorate had plenty of opportunity to make a decision. I certainly feel I had sufficient information to make an informed choice.

I take a longer view. Democracy is a serious business and the fact the referendum decided on a specific outcome matters. Parliament agreed to hold the referendum and agreed to honour it. In the long term interests of the integrity of our nation and system of government, we should face up to and follow through on those commitments.

It wasn't just the usual 'misdirection and untruth', the Leave campaigns were found guilty of multiple crimes (and there's still more to investigate). If it had been a binding vote, it would have been invalidated.

> If every vote in which the outcome was swayed with misdirection and untruth was invalidated, we’d have to give up on democracy completely.

I would say the opposite: unless you do that, you have already given up on democracy.

> I certainly feel I had sufficient information to make an informed choice.

So do 93% of both leavers and remainers. Trouble is, these two groups disagree about which statements are true: is the EU democratic? Which is responsible for employment rights? For the level of immigration from Africa and the Middle East? How expensive is it? What benefits does it provide?

It is necessarily the case that around half the UK voters believe total nonsense. I know which side I believe, but that doesn’t really help.

>I would say the opposite: unless you do that, you have already given up on democracy.

As you say yourself, despite all that has happened, the vast majority of leavers and remainers still believe in the same choice. Most of the issues are matters of opinion, not fact. Even if leaving the EU is a disaster, many Brexiteers will believe it was only disaster because "it wasn't done properly".

My take on that is, this was a risk they chose to accept when voting for Brexit and which I chose not to accept when voting for remain. However they won the vote, so we all took that risk.

> Most of the issues are matters of opinion, not fact.

I don’t see how you can make this claim. Perhaps you have seen more mere-options than me?

The opinion that fewer immigrants will mean less crime. That our trade deal in the EU exposes our companies to unfair competition. That fewer immigrants will help preserve 'our' way of life. That we will be free to reach our own trade deals with other countries. Most of Brexit is about forward-looking hopes and expectations. I don't believe it, but it's hard to disprove because what do people even mean by 'our' culture, etc?

Hmm. I believe the two trade examples are testable (and as claims, the former false and the latter true).

The other two I will grant you, and I thank you for providing them.

I think the petition will need more than 17m (genuine) signatures before it'll have the effect it's aiming for.

Not saying the signatures so far aren't genuine, just that to have the desired effect it'll need to be reasonably free from doubt

Agreed. I thought the same while signing the original one right after the referendum result was announced — I wasn’t expecting to get what I wanted, but signed it in the hope of sending a “Of course I still love EU” message.

Has any vote ever been won by a majority of the entire population, eligible to vote or not? If that’s the standard you’re after nothing would ever pass and no government would ever be formed. Seems an unreasonable bar to set, to me.

Not in the UK, indeed the largest voter turnout of any election/referendum in the UK was...the EU referendum. Making it the largest vote for a decision in the entire history of the UK.

So best described currently as `interesting times`.

I keep hearing this claim, but I don't think it's true.

"The highest turnout recorded at a UK general election over the last 100 years was in 1950, 83.9%.", according to https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Sum...

Are you arguing relatively while others argue absolutely?

Turnout is normally given as a percentage, I think.

Either way, the 1992 general election had a turnout of 77.7% or 33,614,074, both of were larger than the EU referendum.

Sure the "50M didn't vote for Brexit" is BS as is the "but the 17M" with such a tiny margin of pro-Brexit votes.

Implicitly agreeing to the "but the 17M" frame, the Remainers lost the public discussion.

> Remainers didn't counter-frame this with "50M didn't vote for Brexit".

They did, however the response was "50M didn't vote for the status quo"

The difference between the leave and remain in the referendum was 3.8%. It's hard to picture how small is this difference, but one way to frame it could be this:

If you voted for Brexit, and you were born on any day of the year between the 14th of January and the 31st of December, your vote is matched by a vote for remain, a will opposite to yours and equally deserving of consideration.