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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.
This is how government works. Keep having referendums until the voters get it right.
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Yeah really. *I had no idea that Trump would actually become president just because I voted for him!*
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I came here to say that as well. Most "country-altering" things in the USA (constitution changes, adopting new states, etc) are done with a 2/3 supermajority, usually at the state level. It isn't a perfect solution, and you could argue 2/3 is arbitrary, but it's got to be something. Making sure there's a really solid majority behind the biggest decisions seems like a good idea.
As an American watching from across the pond, I was surprised a mere majority was sufficient.
I'd prefer a united Ireland and an independent Schotland in the EU and a high Trump-like wall between Scotland and England to secure the EU outer frontiers, like the Brits always wanted. :-)
Germand car companies repatriating their English car factories (Mini, Vauxhall, Rolls Royce, Bentley etc) is a given, 5 Chinese banks already moved to Luxemburg, others will follow.
It will be a mighty small empire when this is finished.
You had plenty of time to research the issue *before* the vote.
They did. And people chose to leave. This is just butthurt remainers trying to fuck the system until they get the result they want, regardless of majority opinion.
Willful ignorance and frustration. There have far too many interviews with people who admitted to not paying any attention to the media coverage because they either didn't care what the talking heads thought or because they wanted to be told the facts and make an informed choice rather than listen to politicians launching personal attacks on each other. Both campaigns actually did present some cherry picked "facts" to support their case, but the rebuttals were either lost in the noise or came too late.
I do agree that the reason the result went the way it did is apathy though. Apathy on behalf of the politicians who have ignored the growing disconnect between themselves and the electorate rather than trying to address it, and apathy on behalf of all the voters who couldn't be bother to look up a few things for themselves, or even vote. Given the impact and importance of the vote I'm still amazed that the turnout was a "mere" 72% which, while well above a typical general election turnout, pales compared to the 84% turnout of the Scottish independence referendum.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
If 50.1% decided a super majority was justified.
The result was very narrow. The turn-out was relatively low for such an important decision. A lot of people are expressing regret, the victorious side instantly reneged on a number of promises and the predicted economic meltdown that people didn't believe would happen happened.
Yep. Lots of reasons to disavow a democratically voted referendum.
Can you think of any reason why disavowing the vote would be bad?
I don't have a dog in this fight, but a (Brit) friend asked me about this a couple of months ago. The conversation went like this:
Him: Should I vote for the UK to leave the EU?
Me: Yes, absolutely.
Him: Why?
Me: Because if you don't, nothing will change
Expounding on that last bit, note that if the vote had happened 5 years ago the results would probably have been 55% stay/45% leave. If you'd done the vote 10 years ago it would have been 60% stay/40% leave, and the poll actually taken in 1975 was 67% stay/33% leave.
Leaving the EU right at this moment may seem like a bad idea, but from the historical perspective it's the most efficiently timed revolution that's ever been.
It's clear that being part of the EU was causing a slow buildup of problems for the English people. Dissatisfaction was on the rise, and there were valid reasons for wanting change.
The EU is blithely unsupportive of the needs of its members - it's like any government who, once they are in power, tends to ignore the needs of its people. Looking at Greece as an example, it's clear that the EU puts the needs of the banks ahead of the needs of Greece as a country. As many people pointed out, the EU could have just let Greece default and the banks take a loss. That would have been the best outcome for Greece and its people, but the banks...
The EU management saw the referendum coming and did nothing about it. They could easily have swung the vote by making concessions.
And note that earlier, Cameron went to the EU to ask for some relief. It's my understanding that not only did they say "no", they treated him disrespectfully. (And probably were chuckling to themselves saying "what 'ya gonna do - leave? HAH HAH HAH!)
And now I hear that even if the UK manages to reverse the referendum, France, Germany, and Brussels won't let them. The EU in general didn't like the UK to begin with, are glad to see them go, and will enforce the referendum in any case.
Really, it was a bad situation and there'll be tough times at first, but when the dust has settled I think you'll see that this is much better for the English people.
Oh, and about "this is sooooo bad", note that no one has accurately described the flip side of the situation. John Oliver's treatment of the flip side could be summed up as "yes, it's not perfect". It was clear that he, and all the woo in the media, was trumping up all the disadvantages of leaving without addressing or even describing the reasons people wanted to leave.
Lots of people used extreme rhetoric to try to get people to stay (Cameron's various statements were particularly transparent), and it was transparently bullshit.
Once the dust settles, I think the UK will be stronger, more secure, and more satisfied.
Ironically the remainers don't understand that this would have been our only democratic vote, the EU Commission is a quango.
And fools keep trying to tell me that Europe run by a Quango is democratic. FML.
Thursday was a victory for democracy, it's a shame that most of the voters on both sides were pretty clueless about what they were actually voting for or against beyond the letters EU.
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If you can make it to the US Senate, they'll pay you a bribe of up to $7.7million.
http://thinkprogress.org/polit...
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is the thing people alway get wrong about the NRA, they put so little money into campaign donations and 'gifts', less than many lobbyists. What the NRA fights with is their ability to get asses in the seats. NRA members vote. They go to protests. They go to caucuses and rallies. They go pretty much anywhere they are told they need to go. And their platform is single issue; namely any kind of gun control is a take over of the constitution or a slippery slope leading there. It's easy to put into sound bites and their membership believe it fully and feel like they responsibility as citizens is to stand between the Second Amendment and armed militia in the streets coming to take their guns, They honestly believe that - not because they are stupid but because the NRA pounds it into them through every means possible. So they have a **VOTING** army at their disposal - and that is the power they use to control politicians who want to keep their jobs instead of doing them. If you want to blame the NRA for something, you need to understand this. Otherwise you're bringing a knife to a gun fight.