Countdown started .... Article 50 notice served

[Ttaskmaster]

<cough> Compulsory Voting</cough>

You should only be elligible to vote once you have completed a term of Federal Service.
Remember: Service guarantees citizenship.
Would you like to know more...?

I very nearly didn't vote myself, partially because both campaigns were so underhanded I really didn't want to give either of them my vote.

You should have spoiled the ballot.
As I understand it, those who claimed they voted Out in objection to the whole thing should have done the same, because those spoiled are still counted and because there's not an option for "neither, you lying bunch of cretins", so spoiling effectively registers that you have opinion and that your opinion is none of the options presented are what you want... so I'm told, anyway.

[scaryjim]

I think the most galling thing for me was the manic back-track from King Leave himself - before the referendum a 52% vote for Remain would be "unfinished business", but afterwards a 52% vote for Leave is "the will of the people".

So, as much as it galls me to agree with Farage, on this on instance i'm going to back him up - a 52% vote is not a clear mandate to a course of action. The issue here is that it's being treated as a clear mandate for action on a course that no-one has actually seriously considered previously, and we've rushed headlong into it with no idea what the outcomes may be.

I think it's pretty clear that when the referendum was called there should have been more thought about the government/parliamentary response to a leave vote. Most MPs were elected on a "not leaving the EU" platform, after all. Clearly the vast majority of MPs didn't expect a leave vote - including the Leave campaigners, judging by their faces on result morning. Of course, Cameron said they'd act on the result of the referendum in his campaign leaflet (despite the referendum being advisory), which was an act of such arrogance and stupidity I can still scarcely believe it. So you have a statement, in writing, that the government would take a course of action that none of them had bothered preparing for. Utter stupidity all round.

A more sensible approach would've been to make it clear that the referendum was not binding, but would be used to inform future government policy, including the possibility of leaving the EU should the nation vote that way, but that it would sytart the process of planning for a future departure, not the process of actually departing. I personally would've stated that Article 50 would not be invoked in the term of the current parliament, giving my party plenty of time to shift tack and campaign on a leave the EU platform at the next party having had 4 years to develop a reasoned, costed and workable departure plan. It would also have been useful evidence for future negotiations with the EU, showing the depth of eurosceptic feeling within the UK.

What there absolutely should have been, is a set of thresholds that would've triggered definitive action. 55% Leave for Article 50 within the life of this parliament. 55% Remain to take the discussion off the table entirely. A purely advisory referendum strikes me as the ultimate waste of money.

Bottom line, we have parliament for these kinds of decisions. We had an opportunity in 2010 to make parliament more representative and we rejected it. An AV-elected parliament in 2015 might have had a much greater mandate to leave the EU. And under any circumstances the continuous increase in UKIP vote was sufficient to make it clear that EU membership was becoming a more important topic for many voters.

But the way this has all been handled? Utter farce.

[scaryjim]

... those spoiled are still counted ... so spoiling effectively registers that you have opinion ....

Not strictly true. Spoiled ballot *are* counted, but they're excluded from the calculation of the results. So while they're technically different from just not voting, they have the same impact on the outcome. Had all 12 million people who didn't vote turned out and spoiled their papers, the result would still have been 51.9% in favour of Leave.

Of course, if we suddenly hit an election where 10%+ of all papers cast were spoiled, it might send some kind of message to the politicians. But ultimately all it would really do is make the counters work harder on election night...

[peterb]

And most of this could have been avoided if only Tony Blair/Gordon Brown had held a referendum on the Lisbon treaty...

[Ttaskmaster]

Not strictly true. Spoiled ballot *are* counted, but they're excluded from the calculation of the results. So while they're technically different from just not voting, they have the same impact on the outcome.

Well as I understood it... which I understand better now, though!

[Top_gun]

It's worth saying that London, being a pro-EU, had suffered floodings and storms which affected its turnout on the day of the referendum.

[OilSheikh]

I complained about all these riff-raff plebs from East Europe in 2013 and you guys laughed and mocked at me.
4 years later, we are here ....

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I complained about all these riff-raff plebs from East Europe in 2013 and you guys laughed and mocked at me.
4 years later, we are here ....

Its going to be ironic when they start limiting immigration from Asia too,which is actually quite a lot of people - after all wait until UKIP and co start saying most of the fundamentalists attacking the UK are coloured people. It only takes more terror attacks from people of the wrong colour for the attention to focus on them. You might want to ask your own parents and relatives about some of the stuff said in the 60s and 70s about migrants from South East Asia.

[Corky34]

I complained about all these riff-raff plebs from East Europe in 2013 and you guys laughed and mocked at me.
4 years later, we are here ....

Even David Davis, the Brexit secretary is laughing and mocking you as he said...

“In the hospitality sector, hotels and restaurants, in the social-care sector, working in agriculture, it will take time. It will be years and years before we get British citizens to do those jobs.

“Don’t expect just because we’re changing who makes the decision on the policy, the door will suddenly shut – it won’t.”

And no we're not hear as "hear" is going to take at least another 2 years, possibly longer.

[hb904460]

I complained about all these riff-raff plebs from East Europe in 2013 and you guys laughed and mocked at me.
4 years later, we are here ....

Are they the ones who are now working as doctors, nurses, engineers, hauliers, mechanics etc who are helping to keep this country running?

[Phage]

Just going to <cough>Leave</cough> this here

https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/statu...64377959309314

[TooNice]

so what do you do?

stand in Parliament square with a poster for 10 years?
Go to war with your government?

If the majority vote it in, you have to live with it, no?

Couldn't a political party (UK in Europe or something along those lines) be formed, and function much like the UKIP did, but in the opposite direction? It might not make a difference for decades, but IF Brexit voters are predominantly from an older demographic, the majority and minority might change in the future.

Not that I am inclined to get into politics. What -I- will do is sit back and watch how things unfolds in the coming years. The UK isn't my only home, and if I find the outcome of Brexit to be undesirable, I will just take my future elsewhere (to the hurrah of those who complain about how overcrowded the UK has become I am sure). Fortunately, I can still choose a place where the majority vote for values that matches my own.

[Corky34]

An inverse UKIP party would probably be lambasted for being undemocratic and accused of trying to thwart the will of the people, apparently all remoaners are meant to slink off into the shadows and not participate in the democratic process for the next 40 years, just like the Eurosceptics did after the first referendum.....Oh wait!

[SeriousSam]

An inverse UKIP party would probably be lambasted for being undemocratic and accused of trying to thwart the will of the people, apparently all remoaners are meant to slink off into the shadows and not participate in the democratic process for the next 40 years, just like the Eurosceptics did after the first referendum.....Oh wait!

That would be the referendum to take us into the EEC I assume, which was never going to turn into anything more than a free trade block... oh wait

[scaryjim]

Couldn't a political party (UK in Europe or something along those lines) be formed, and function much like the UKIP did, but in the opposite direction? ...

Erm ... that would be the Lib Dems, pretty much - expect they have more than one policy. The horrors they allowed as part of the 2010 coalition got them royally kicked in 2015, but they'll now present themselves as the party of EU re-entry (or potentially of negotiating a retraction of the Article 50 notice if such a thing is possible) and campaign strongly on that, knowing that a Corbyn-led Labour won't touch it with a barge pole.

It should get them all of their old supporters back, plus if they have time to spread the message well they might pick up some of the younger pro-EU voters who like Corbyn's politics but are probably disappointed with his stance on the EU.

16 million people voted to remain in the EU. On current evidence, the Tories are now going to realign to Euro-scepticism, UKIP should disband before the next election (after all, we will have left the EU by then so they'll have no reason to exist), and Labour appear to be doing their best to implode horribly (not sure if we'll see a party split or just mass defections to the Lib Dems, but I'd expect one of those outcomes in the next 2 years). That may well leave just the Lib Dems offering the option that ~ 16 million people voted for in the referendum. That's 5 million more votes than the Conservatives got in 2015. Landslide would be an understatement if all those people decided to vote Lib Dem....

[Corky34]

That would be the referendum to take us into the EEC I assume, which was never going to turn into anything more than a free trade block... oh wait

Very true but we always had control over how far the EEC turned into something more than a trading block, at every election just like now we choose to elect politicians who where either in favor or against expansion of the EEC, those are the same politicians BTW that many people claim they've taken back control from because if they do something they don't agree with they can vote them out, judging by what people say taking back control hasn't worked very well in the past.