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Re:UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for pe... by misnome on Thursday March 21, 2019 @07:18AM (#19450991)
> surely the original referendum counts as being listened to in some way?

Even ignoring all the illegality and fraud about the referendum, and ignoring that because it was advisory large portions of british citizens living abroad were prevented from having a say, and ignoring the arguments about 16-year-olds who it would be directly affecting because of the time lags, and ignoring the arguments around the fact that the process/success has been wildly, wildly different than promised,

Ever since the referendum 50% of the population of the UK has had no representation in Parliament and government, whilst being endlessly parroted at that it is the "will of the people" and simultaneously being blamed for everything going predictably wrong.

Democratic governments aren't supposed to have one vote then completely ignore the rest of the population.

Re:UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for pe... by frutiger on Thursday March 21, 2019 @09:47AM (#19452251)
There are lots of things to unpack here.

Your original claim was that the people had "[not been] listened to in any way". My singular claim was that in fact they had been listened to at least in some way.

> Even ignoring all the illegality and fraud about the referendum

Something is illegal if deemed so by law and potentially affirmed by courts. If this is indeed the case, there should be proceedings that show this to be so. Something doesn't become illegal just by declaring it as such.

> large portions of british citizens living abroad were prevented from having a say

This is merely an anecdote, but I am a Brit living in the US and I got the chance to submit my Remain postal vote.

> ignoring the arguments about 16-year-olds who it would be directly affecting because of the time lags

This is the nature of every election and every vote. e.g. the poll tax was introduced in 1990 which had widespread ramifications for years to come, and impacted many people that couldn't vote in the prior 1987 general elections. The referendum is no different. This is just the way of democracy.

> Democratic governments aren't supposed to have one vote then completely ignore the rest of the population.

The government actually held a second vote - the general election requested by May in 2017. In that vote, despite winning a smaller plurality, the Tories were still re-affirmed. If everything you say is true, then the popular will would have selected Labour as an overwhelming majority. While the Tory victory was marginal, they still beat Labour.

Re:UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for pe... by warbucks on Thursday March 21, 2019 @07:43AM (#19451154)
Why such an important decision wasn't required to be 60/40 to pass completely baffles me. Almost as much as how the referendum is treated as some iron-clad decision while passing at 51/49.
Re:UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for pe... by repolfx on Thursday March 21, 2019 @01:04PM (#19454660)
Classic Remainer logic. If Leave had won 61/39 it'd have become "for such an important decision it should have been 75/25 to pass".

The reason decisions like elections use a simple majority is that otherwise it'd be a small minority of people oppressing the will of the majority, which is unstable, and otherwise known as dictatorship.

Re:UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for pe... by thefounder on Thursday March 21, 2019 @09:44AM (#19452209)
Nothing good happens when you cancel election results. See all these African countries with elections canceled...you better make sure the vote is not frauded in the first place.

As far as I'm aware nobody got convicted(unlike in the U.S) so your fraud argument is weak even today. I can see a second referendum on no-deal vs May's deal though.

Re:UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for pe... by bookofgreg on Thursday March 21, 2019 @03:30PM (#19456349)
Their fraud is well known amd documented. Here are some of the fines against the leave campaign for breaking the law.

Vote Leave fined for election fraud. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44856992 Leave.EU fined for election fraud. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44080096 Labour Leave fined for undeclared donations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47623595 Vote Leave fined for unsolicited texts using football lottery to gather details. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47623413 Eldon Insurance and Leave.EU fined for data breaches when misusing company email data. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl...

Re:UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for pe... by misnome on Thursday March 21, 2019 @06:31PM (#19458005)
So whats the argument against a dictatorship? The people voted for the leader once, therefore they should legitimately have lifetime rule.

Or, re-calling a general election after 1.5 years. Didn’t ‘the people’ already decide?

How about if they were promised one thing, and voted for it, and it turned out to be impossible and based on lies and fraud?