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Web Petition For 2nd EU Referendum Draws Huge Interest (ap.org)
From an Associated Press report:An online petition seeking a second referendum on a British exit from the Europe Union has drawn more than 1.6 million names, a measure of the extraordinary divisiveness of Thursday's vote to leave the 28-nation bloc. The online petition site hosted by the House of Commons website even crashed Friday under the weight of the activity as officials said they'd seen unprecedented interest in the measure, which calls on the government to implement a rule that stating if that if "remain" or "leave" camps won less than 60 percent of the vote with less than a 75 percent turnout "there should be another referendum."According to reports, this is the biggest surge of support Parliament's website has ever seen. Looking at the keywords people were hitting up on Google after the news first broke, it was clear that a considerable portion of the population was clueless about the whole situation.
Require? Not sure. But it got one: 67% yes in 1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975
The result was very narrow. The turn-out was relatively low for such an important decision.
That turns out not to be the case. The turnout was 72.21%, and the number of votes cast for "Leave" was 17,410,742 - the highest number of votes ever cast for one candidate or option in any British election. While the margin of victory was a relatively narrow 3.8%, that represents over 1.25 million votes.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The £13.7 billion figure comes from the disproven £350m/day figure (£350m * 365 = £12.8b) that Nigel Farage has described as "a mistake" because it's from *before* the rebate and subsidies; once you take into account the rebate and subsidies it's actually about half that. You are right about the EU choosing who gets the difference, although again that's not the whole picture as most of the money is allocated to projects that would have needed to come out of the public purse anyway - in practice, it's a money-go-round that attempts to make people feel good about the EU because of all the "EU funded" signs when their taxes would have paid for it anyway. Assuming no changes to the level of taxation, there's undeniably going to be more money per annum in the UK public purse once we leave the EU, but after things like additional import/export duties and other potential costs of leaving the EU are factored in, it's anyone's guess as to how much is going to be available to be spent on things like the NHS - and it's going to stay that way at least until all the post Article 50 treaties are hammered out.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
European here. Contrary to your belief (as probably induced by the somewhat biased media reports), many European civilians are not mourning at all. Many of us are happy to finally see EU dictatorship come to a halt. The Brits will do fine outside the EU. And so will many other countries.
EU is a failed project, perhaps good for the elite and large companies, but it sucks for ordinary citizens. Unlimited import of society-wrecking hordes, unreal money pits, total neglect for ordinary citizens, destruction of carefully crafted wellfare systems, pensions down the drain, job losses, and mind-boggling burocracy. That's EU for us. This project should return to being an economic powerhouse, without the common currency and without tens of thousands of useless, overpaid burocrats.
The Brits have taken the lead. Will it hurt? Sure! But better to cut the ties now then to stay aboard a ship heading for the cliffs. I expect other countries to follow. The Clash had this in their lyrics: "If I go there will be trouble.. If I stay it will be double!!"
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
How cute, the democratic result didn't go our way so we'll make a new referendum with skewed option balance. This surely will make our way the only way!
Well not really, the petition states:
We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum.
The petition does not state how the new referendum should be phrased. What is most interesting is that this petition was started a month ago by an ex political student who supports Leave. This is not the only Leave supporter to suggest a second referendum if the vote was close. Of course now they have got the result they wanted, suddenly no more are needed. ;)
The leave side suggested many things like taking back control of our borders, sovereignty and saving money but there is no plan and no definition of what leaving the EU means. When people realise that immigration will be about the same, that things cost more and the short term financial volatility harming the UK. They may feel that the Leave campaign "promises" were a bunch of wishful thinking
The most dangerous drug