With the UK parliament totally unable to make any decision on Brexit and now a laughing stock in Europe if not everywhere else, this topic is surely worth revisiting. Any responsible Prime Minister having suffered the humiliation of historically the largest ever defeats in parliament would have resigned before now. Mrs. May has totally lost control of her party and is flailing like a demented cod out of water. Four of her cabinet voted against her yesterday and would normally have resigned. They have not – at least not yet. In the past, a general election would have been called. But May and her acolytes know full well that that will turf her party out of power. The power play is pathetic.Captain Kirk wrote:For "anti-Brexiteers" read Remoaners. Lost the argument, lost the vote and now want to usurp that democratic process by having a Mulligan. I honestly think they'll get it too. Win the re-vote and democracy in the UK is officially dead and buried.
Let’s agree that during the referendum debate both sides lied and both sides omitted to tell the electorate some of the issues that would be an inevitable result of their vote– e.g. the effect on the Northern Ireland border which could negate the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement that has been vital in keeping the peace for more than 20 years. Frankly, I don’t believe either group had even thought about that – and it is now rightly a huge issue.
Whatever the shenanigans, the leavers won. But their elected representatives have shown themselves totally incapable of delivering the exit. They have spent almost three years spending massive quantities of their time and public money shuttling between London and Brussels, and yet with the deadline only 2 weeks away they remain totally incapable of agreeing on almost anything. Not unnaturally voices about a second referendum are being raised as the only way out of that impasse.
I have never been convinced about the death of democracy nonsense put about by the Brexiteers. It implies that electors have fixed views and that these views never change over time – even a relatively short time and even though they were not aware of the full effect of what they were voting for.
People vote for a wide variety of reasons. And they frequently change their minds. Margaret Thatcher was a duck dead in the water in the middle of her first term as PM. Her party was polling 32%. Unemployment was high and rising, and industrial relations were a disaster. Thatcher refused calls from within her own party to do a U-turn. Then Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. After winning the war, Thatcher won the election with a much enhanced majority. In the space of two years, a lot of voters had simply changed their minds. That happens all the time in a functioning democracy.