Brexit

[HylianSwordsman]

fatslob-:O said:

HylianSwordsman said:

Again, you seem to be missing the concept here. The idea is that some people may feel that if they can't have a hard Brexit with no deal, they'd rather not have a Brexit at all, and had they understood that from the beginning, they may have voted Remain. Similarly, Northern Ireland seems to be of the opinion (if I'm understanding things correctly) that they wanted to leave, but ONLY on the condition that it not be a hard Brexit, so they might want to choose Remain as a second option as well, since if they'd known that May would be this incompetent in securing a deal, they might have never chosen leave. Plenty of people might have a Brexit preference, but just want some sort of Brexit, so long as the end result isn't Remain, people like you. And of course, plenty of people might decide that upon closer inspection, leaving doesn't seem so scary after all, and since a lot of the threats have already been baked into the stock market and companies that are going to flee Britain to stay in the EU have largely already done so, Remainers might have a better idea now what sort of Brexit they want if it comes to that, or might have changed their mind and would pick one of the Brexit options as their first choice. But I suppose your fear of people changing their minds is the main reason you're against this. But that seems silly to me, because if they changed their mind, it's because they got new information that gives them a more informed opinion that led them to change their mind. Why should that not be allowed to be reflected in the referendum? It just seems to me like the result of the second, designed as I explained before, would be the most accurate read of the will of the people of the UK. It allows them not only to express their opinion as fully informed as could honestly be expected, but also to indicate preferred conditions of compromise if they can't have their exact way, and indicate preferred conditions on the way Brexit plays out, if it comes to that. It's to me the most honest way to make sure the final policy most closely reflects what the UK would be most pleased with, which seems to me like the point of a referendum.

Again, if you respected the principles of democracy then everyone needs to come to terms with the result. You take the institutions that exist in western liberal democracies for granted so you still have yet to understand why a result cannot be overturned by a follow-up election. Make no mistake that I'm not missing any concepts, however it is you that needs to understand why we cannot break precedent so easily and that a different election format is not a justification for doing such ... 

Northern Ireland wanted to remain, they didn't want to leave but if they had to leave they wanted to do so under the condition of having no Irish backstop since the protestant unionists which are still currently in political power wanted to be in a strong relationship with the union of kingdoms (UK), however a proposed customs check by the EU between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK threatens this unity since Northern Ireland would be treated very differently and the protestant unionists don't want that ... (the DUP would rather ditch the single market than have a border with the rest of UK) 

The conservative party is in a coalition with the DUP so it's not that Theresa May is necessarily bad at securing a deal but it's that she can't compromise on the backstop proposal unless she wants to risk losing in a vote of confidence ... 

As far as changing minds are concerned, people do change their minds but the precedent of respecting the democratic result means that an election cannot be overturned with another election and that is final. Just as the 2016 US presidential elections was a close race, Americans must come to terms with Trump and the same should apply to the British with Brexit. If the British people still want to change their minds then do so after the fact that they've already left the EU but don't run down their own precedents or institutions in the process with it ... 

You seem to be much more out of touch with the principles of democracy. Democracy simply means rule by the people. If they want to overturn a previous result, they can. Especially something with direct democracy like a referendum. In the United States we have something called the Congressional Review Act that allows a newly elected congress to undo things just done by a previous administration. This is fine because those previous things were done by democratically elected officials, and the new things are being done by new representatives. Both courses of action are being done by people acting on a platform that people then voted to represent them, so overturning previous results is fine. So there's an example of it being done with a representative democracy mechanism, but for direct democracy, the case is even stronger, since it is the directly stated, absolute will of the people (nonbinding or not, this is what the result of a referendum is understood to represent). Furthermore, if we simply had to come to terms with a specific elected official, impeachment wouldn't be an option. If we simply had to come to terms with results, recounts wouldn't be an option, nor would court challenges based on suspicions of electoral fraud.

Besides, if you're so insistent that this betrays some kind of precedent, then perhaps you could work out a deal with the EU to instantly reenter, so that for a fraction of a second, on March 29th, they'd be out, but immediately be back in again, thus fulfilling both referendums, strictly speaking. I mean if you admit that a second referendum could be held, just that it couldn't stop the results of the first referendum, there's no reason the second referendum couldn't be held now, but the conditions of the "Remain" option instead be "Rejoin" and a deal worked out with the EU to make that rejoining instant. I'm sure the EU would be interested in having the UK rejoin, especially if it were done so seemlessly.

Thanks for the clarification on Northern Ireland.