General Election 2017 Poll.

[Corky34]

So if you're a minority, say Luxembourg or Belgium, and you want policy A, but France, Germany and (until Brexit) the UK prefer policy B, guess what happens? Yup, B.

While I've not looked into how it works in practice the EU voting rights are meant to be designed to countenance that, smaller nations population wise get a disproportionate larger share of the vote specifically to prevent larger nations overriding smaller nations.

Personally I'd be in favor of a proper form of proportional representation (not that AV mess that was proposed a few years ago), politics is about the affairs of the people, that's everyone not just the largest minority, as difficult as it maybe for the politicians politics should be about reaching a consensus (IMO) that everyone can accept, treating politics like the parent child relationship doesn't work in a modern society.

[Xlucine]

While perhaps true, FPTP does at least have the .... feature (I was going to say "advantage", but it isn't always) .... that it generally provides a government with a mandate to do things. Depending, of course, on whether they are things you (or I, or everyone else) that may be perceived as good, or bad. But at least radical action can be taken, when needed, whereas PR, in it's various invocations, can easily result in paralysis .... whech can be good or bad, depending on your perspective, and what it wants to do.


@cheesemp - Well, one criticism of the EU is precisely the inertia, and back-room horse-trading required to get ANYTHING done. It takes an age to get anything past all the various special interest groups (called countries), and you STILL end up with a dominant two or three effectively running things. So if you're a minority, say Luxembourg or Belgium, and you want policy A, but France, Germany and (until Brexit) the UK prefer policy B, guess what happens? Yup, B.

Ask Yanis Faroukakis (former Greek Finance Minister, and excuse spelling) how much Greece's vote mattered, small way or not.

All that changes with PR/AV is a tendency to inertia, and a lot of decisions made in back-room deals, out of public scrutiny altogether. There's a reason a lot of us voted 'no' to AV.

I've yet to see a voting methodology that doesn't have major drawbacks.

I wouldn't call FPTP really capable of delivering a proper mandate. Typically it's 30-40% of voters wanting a certain party - that's not even a plain majority. Factor in those who didn't vote for whatever reason, IIRC the current parliament got in with 24% of registered voters supporting them, and it doesn't look like a firm statement either way. With how tiny the margins are, I think it's safe to say the british people really want paralysis & inertia.

EU is very good at letting minority opinions hold up things, just look at the british voting record

[jim]

It's 'easy' provided it doesn't breach the ECHR treaty. The Human Rights act is basically in implementation of that law. British law should go farther than that to protect rights. Something like the US Bill of Rights would be ideal, provided it weren't ignored.

I know it's not exactly what you're talking about, but Britain has a Bill of Rights. In fact, it heavily influenced the US Bill of Rights.

Although, when I was last in the National Archives in DC, no-one appeared to have told the Americans because they kept banging on about Magna Carta.

[Saracen]

I wouldn't call FPTP really capable of delivering a proper mandate. Typically it's 30-40% of voters wanting a certain party - that's not even a plain majority. Factor in those who didn't vote for whatever reason, IIRC the current parliament got in with 24% of registered voters supporting them, and it doesn't look like a firm statement either way. With how tiny the margins are, I think it's safe to say the british people really want paralysis & inertia.

....

Well, even Blair's 1997 landslide victory was on less than 31% of the electorate, yet it gave him a huge majority of seats - 418 out of 660-ish. And that "landslide" was despite very nearly 70% of the electorate not voting Labour.

But that's my point. FPTP and the 'party' system locks us pretty effectively into a "two-party plus protest vote" scheme. If you happen to support one of the protest votes, the best you can do is tactical voting, but inevitably, you'll ultimately be disappointed as the best you can do is get someone you didn't want a bit less than someone else that you REALLY didn't want.

Given that, maybe being the largest minority is about the only mandate they need, because you get more than any other "party" position, and it does produce, usually, a clear winner.

Paraphrasing Churchill .... FPTP is the worst method of deciding an election known to man, except for all the others.

Maybe, in this internetted, connected world, decisions ought to be made hundreds of micro-referenda? Ask the peopke directly.

[Saracen]

....

EU is very good at letting minority opinions hold up things, just look at the british voting record

I still dispute the notion of a €60-100bn divorce bill. I think they ought to pay us to go.

[Saracen]

....

Personally I'd be in favor of a proper form of proportional representation (not that AV mess that was proposed a few years ago), politics is about the affairs of the people, that's everyone not just the largest minority, as difficult as it maybe for the politicians politics should be about reaching a consensus (IMO) that everyone can accept, treating politics like the parent child relationship doesn't work in a modern society.

Well, how do you reach a concensus on, say, Brexit? There are lots for whom nothing short of leaving will do, and they aren't going to change their minds, and others for whom nothing other than staying in is acceptable, and they aren't changing minds either.

Not everything is capable of being brought to concensus.

[Corky34]

The very reason Brexit has become so polarising is because no consensus was achieved, if the politicians had spent some of the 44 years they spent moaning about the EU reaching an agreement on what Brexit actual meant in practice we wouldn't find ourselves in the situation we're currently in because people would have know what leaving the EU involved, there wouldn't be court case after court case, there wouldn't have been a white paper published 6 months after the vote, and many of the reasons given for leaving the EU would've like the £350 million to our NHS would have been debunked.

However addressing your main point that not everything is capable of being brought to consensus I'd disagree as all reaching a general agreement on something takes is time and talking, and time was very limited in the run up to the referendum.

[wazzickle]

I still dispute the notion of a €60-100bn divorce bill. I think they ought to pay us to go.

Dispute away, but it's a legal matter, I'm not sure our disputing could lend any weight to the idea either way.

[kompukare]

The very reason Brexit has become so polarising is because no consensus was achieved, if the politicians had spent some of the 44 years they spent moaning about the EU reaching an agreement on what Brexit actual meant in practice we wouldn't find ourselves in the situation we're currently in because people would have know what leaving the EU involved, there wouldn't be court case after court case, there wouldn't have been a white paper published 6 months after the vote, and many of the reasons given for leaving the EU would've like the £350 million to our NHS would have been debunked.

Well, I believe for the leave campaign being vague and imprecise was not an accident. They were just doing doing what Lanky noted about FPTP:

I agree that FPTP is contributing to the issues we see at the moment. It requires a party with aspirations of power to try and be all things to all people. That is plainly impossible so we end up with vague non-answers and identity politics which is less likely to put any voters off.

At the end of the day, despite the black & white of the results there weren't 17.4 million voters who agreed on what leave meant just as there wasn't 16.1 million who agreed on what staying meant. To maximise the leave vote and cash on the feeling of being unrepresented, not listened to, services deteriorating etc. (most of which are of course due to Westminster not Brussels), the leave campaign did well to not talk of specifics.

And to be (somewhat) fair to them, the contingency planning for what was to happen if the vote was no was something the government of day should have prepared for; instead Cameroon bolted as soon as the results was known. In fact, unless the whole UK civil services is incompetent, I am sure some senior civil servants would have mentioned this.

[TheAnimus]

At the end of the day, despite the black & white of the results there weren't 17.4 million voters who agreed on what leave meant just as there wasn't 16.1 million who agreed on what staying meant. To maximise the leave vote and cash on the feeling of being unrepresented, not listened to, services deteriorating etc. (most of which are of course due to Westminster not Brussels), the leave campaign did well to not talk of specifics.

I really dislike this narrative that people only voted leave because they were lied too. Both sides were telling porkies, to suggest one was more egregious than the other is probably just one's own bias. I voted remain but cringe at the thought of the promise of the "emergency punitive budget" that was threatened.

[Saracen]

The very reason Brexit has become so polarising is because no consensus was achieved, if the politicians had spent some of the 44 years they spent moaning about the EU reaching an agreement on what Brexit actual meant in practice we wouldn't find ourselves in the situation we're currently in because people would have know what leaving the EU involved, there wouldn't be court case after court case, there wouldn't have been a white paper published 6 months after the vote, and many of the reasons given for leaving the EU would've like the £350 million to our NHS would have been debunked.

However addressing your main point that not everything is capable of being brought to consensus I'd disagree as all reaching a general agreement on something takes is time and talking, and time was very limited in the run up to the referendum.

But politicians, with relatively few exceptions, didn't want to give us a say, so why on earth would they talk about what Brexit involved? I mean, BOTH major parties, them being the only ones that could have taken us out, spent most of the last three decades avoiding the subject and taking us further in, without ANY mandate from the people.

To see what I mean, look at what we voted on in the exit referendum in the mid 70s, and especially on the PROMISES made about what the EC DIDN'T involve. Then look at 'progress' towards a united Europe, mostly via Maastricht (John Major) and Lisbon (Blair/Brown), but also more minor treaties and day-to-day 'erosion' of those promises, all without giving US any say.

Had those self-same politicians had the balls to, first, make the case and second, flaming well get a mandate then I firmly believe we'd have EITHER:-

- exercised sufficient brakes and/or veto to keep the EU as more economic and less politically interfering, OR

- we'd have had a series of arguments, domestically, about signing up for each stage of the EU agenda, and most likely, signed on.

Then, with a public mandate, the UK wouldn't have been the moaning minnie at EU councils for or 30 years, and there wouldn't be a seething resentment by sceptics that the EU had, largely speaking, been done TO US, and by our OWN DAMN LEADERS.

In other words, speaking as a long-term eurosceptic, our politicians weren't part of the solution, but mainly, they were the problem. And THAT is why, IMHO of course, UKIP gained so much popularity, and why now that we have Brexit, it's promptly evaporated again.

Moving on a stage, about "politicians", even as a long-term EU-sceptic, I adamantly held off making a decision, or locking myself into a mindset, waiting and hoping (in vain, it turns out) for a calm, rational, fact-based adult discourse from our glorious leaders (HAH!) about pro's and con's of Brexit, and what did those stonking great idiots deliver? Stupid statistical manipulations and condescending sound-bites, by BOTH sides.

I mean, £350m a week? Come on, Boris. And as for Osborne's ludicrous projections of the economy in 20 or 30 years if we left, he proved, again and again, he couldn't reliably predict the economy six months hence WITHOUT a dramatic and unprecedented move like Brexit to account for.

While there were certainly issues with the Brexit camp's claims, like that £350m, what we deserved from Remain, which included both Government and most of the Opposition, was a rational discussion of both benefits AND drawbacks, and the balance, not a patronising and ludicrous campaign of fear.

And the complete mismanagement of the Remain camp by Cameron, Osborne, etc, treated us to a masterclass in absence of leadership, just as Major and Blair/Brown had by signing us up to Maastricht and Lisbon without a mandate to do so. The irony, of course, is if they'd had the guts to seek a mandate, and held referenda, there's a very good chance they'd have won, and if so, we wouldn't be Brexiting now. Politicians? Muppets, all.

[scaryjim]

... to suggest one was more egregious than the other is probably just one's own bias. ...

I'm not convinced either side outright lied. AFAICR Remain didn't actually use a single fact in their entire campaign, so they couldn't have lied (not that that's a defense, mind). Leave made liberal use of actual facts, but misrepresented a number of things, most notably the size of the UK contribution to the EU. Both campaigns were awful, but Leave was probably objectively more dishonest. Nigel Farage probably did the most damage, but of course he wasn't officially part of the Leave campaign, as he was at pains to point out when people pulled him up on it.

Remain really needed to focus on the positives, the places that actually benefit from the EU (I suspect that if you calculate the proportional input to the UK treasury v the proportion of EU spending in the UK most regions actually benefit directly from the UK's membership); but doing that would've meant admitting that the government wouldn't be willing to match the funding those things receive from the EU. And since the leaders of the Remain campaign were the very politicians who wouldn't fund the regional development programmes properly.... *sigh*

[Saracen]

Dispute away, but it's a legal matter, I'm not sure our disputing could lend any weight to the idea either way.

it's legal, but more than that. And as leaked memo's showed, even the Commission's own legal advisors advised, the €100bn bill is unenforceable, and there are serious issues with the €60bn.

But more than that, article 50 stipulates, explicitly, that on expiration of the two-year clock, in the absence of either an extension agreed by ALL parties, or a deal, then ALL EU treaties cease to apply to the leaving party.

At that point, by what legal framework is a bill enforceable? It's then a political matter, not a legal one.

Is that a good way to exit? No, of course not. Not for either side. But it is an option if the Commission decides, presumably at the behest of member states, to seek to bend us over for a firm financial rogering, 'pour encourager les autres'.

So no, it's not a legal matter. Not ultimately. There simply is no international bailiff the EU can go to to enforce collection of what they assert, but we dispute, is the bill. Not if article 50 expires without a deal.

[Saracen]

....

At the end of the day, despite the black & white of the results there weren't 17.4 million voters who agreed on what leave meant just as there wasn't 16.1 million who agreed on what staying meant. To maximise the leave vote and cash on the feeling of being unrepresented, not listened to, services deteriorating etc. (most of which are of course due to Westminster not Brussels), the leave campaign did well to not talk of specifics.

....

The whole nature of a referendum is, essentially, to make a binary choice. The discussion as to what each option means is supposed to have taken place before voting day.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, can argue now about what voters meant by leave, because the only options available were Leave or Remain. The campaigns, by both sides, either did or should have, depending on how you see it, made clear the range of implications of both, and if unhappy with what Leave might result in, then the vote should have been remain, unless even more unhappy with what Remain might involve. We never seem to consider that.

A vote for Leave is a vote to get the best possible outcome in Leaving, but to LEAVE, regardless. Period.

Many Remainers now like to pretend, for example, that Leave meant staying in the single market and nobody said it meant Leaving. And that's unmitigated cobblers. I have video recordings, from the likes of Marr, Sunday/Daily Politics and Newsnight, of Cameron and Osborne saying that, and using it as a threat that it would involve that, and Boris, Farage and, IIRC, Gove, among others, all pointing out that the EUs position means we WOULD leave the single market, and tgat legally we'd have to leave at a minimum those parts of the Customs Union that preclude us making our own international trade deals.

Anybody that thinks these weren't spelt out, by both sides, wasn't paying attention.

So, clearly, the exact nature of leaving cannot be spelt out before leaving, or indeed, even now, because it's subject to negotiations yet to even start, but the broad strokes of those major policy fundamentals certainly were spelt out, and by both sides, several times.

[wazzickle]

But politicians, with relatively few exceptions, didn't want to give us a say, so why on earth would they talk about what Brexit involved? I mean, BOTH major parties, them being the only ones that could have taken us out, spent most of the last three decades avoiding the subject and taking us further in, without ANY mandate from the people.

Right, but part of the point of a representative democracy is that we hand over power to the officials we've decided are best-placed to make decisions for us, especially in matters too complex and important for the wider electorate to comprehend accurately. If you leave everything up to the people, quite aside from the practical issues, you allow in populist ideas rather than good ideas.

[wazzickle]

Many Remainers now like to pretend, for example, that Leave meant staying in the single market and nobody said it meant Leaving. And that's unmitigated cobblers. I have video recordings, from the likes of Marr, Sunday/Daily Politics and Newsnight, of Cameron and Osborne saying that, and using it as a threat that it would involve that, and Boris, Farage and, IIRC, Gove, among others, all pointing out that the EUs position means we WOULD leave the single market, and tgat legally we'd have to leave at a minimum those parts of the Customs Union that preclude us making our own international trade deals.

I would imagine they're more likely referring to the variety of video clips available online of hardcore leavers like Daniel Hannan stating categorically that leaving the EU did not mean leaving the single market.