The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I find it quite remarkable that Ms Truss is reportedly giving any old dodgy opinion poll primacy over a mandate to have a referendum, and a mandate achieved by voting within two parliaments in overlapping terms.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
So she did, Maths and Further Maths
When was the last time someone was PM with some basic maths skills ?
Brown, Thatcher, Major was a banker
Thatcher, I agree.
Not sure being a banker means you understand basic maths. I thought Brown was a historian.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Electing a leader who can be booted out at any moment is a bit different to creating a new sovereign state.
It is, and There are decent reasons for winning thresholds, other countries use them as well. But having not had them previously, it being deemed unnecessary in some vital votes, it's a bit dodgy to impose as a transparent wheeze to making it harder for the other lot to win.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament.
Even the 2016 Leave vote was irrelevant by itself, hence Parliament refused to implement Brexit for 3 and a half years after the referendum result until the Conservative majority of late 2019
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
We will eventually get a revolutionary Corbynite as PM, not because of what Starmer does but as a revolutionary reaction to the Tory party becoming a gerontocracy that ignores the views of the young. Ignore them for too long, and they will sooner or later search out for incorrect radical options, whilst at the same time, increasingly the middle aged will also have been ignored too.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
If you don't want any more referendums then don't elect parties committed to them, like the SNP in Scotland or the Tories in 2015.
Referenda only occur if Parliament votes for it, so that's still Parliamentary action.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
Rishi Sunak won the MPs round, had the highest members %vote of any runner-up this century and held the second top government job for most of the last three years…
…will Truss really not offer him a substantial cabinet role?
Rishi Sunak won the MPs round, had the highest members %vote of any runner-up this century and held the second top government job for most of the last three years…
…will Truss really not offer him a substantial cabinet role?
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
No doubt you also feel that Scottish independence could only be justified by a referendum. which we are not having any more of ever.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
No it isn't, Holyrood is just a subsidiary Parliament to Westminster Westminster could scrap tomorrow if so minded. Westminster and Westminster alone has the final say on the Union, Holyrood is just a subsidiary Parliament for some Scottish domestic policy
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
We will eventually get a revolutionary Corbynite as PM, not because of what Starmer does but as a revolutionary reaction to the Tory party becoming a gerontocracy that ignores the views of the young. Ignore them for too long, and they will sooner or later search out for incorrect radical options, whilst at the same time, increasingly the middle aged will also have been ignored too.
And that revolutionary Corbynite PM will ignore the views of the young as well. And ruin their futures.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yet another argument for AV, of course.
Options pre EU ref: - One Direction (go full Euro/ever closer union) - Status Quo (stay) - Nirvana (EEA/EFTA type deal) - Dire Straits (leave with a hard Brexit deal) - Madness (no deal) Rank according to preference order. Job done, no arguments*
*possibly some quibbling around the edges on names of options...
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Fair point on scope.
But the original poster believes (incorrectly) local planning committees have carte blanche to do what they want regardless of national planning policy as locals must decide, yet the Scottish parliament is nothing of consequence. Thats hardly fair.
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
It shows how strong the left-wing ratchet that Thatcher talked about is.
1990s Conservatives used to argue vehemently against having a minimum wage, but are now calling Liz Truss the most right-wing PM for a century because she might possibly want to repeal the working time directive.
I don't see where you are coming from here with your linkage of the minimum wage to the WTD.
Back when the WTD was harmonised across the EU, the company I worked for lobbied for the opt out that was included in our UK version. Our staff who wanted to work more than 48 hours in a week opted out.
The benefit of the WTD is that employers could not sack employees who refused to work unreasonable hours. Repealing the WTD is not for the benefit of UK workers.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
You aren't John Howard are you? He tilted the Australian Monarchy Referendum massively to "no change" by insisting that the type of Republic had to be on the table for the referendum. A bit like the Leave camp having to spell out *exactly* what type of Brexit the UK would have before the referendum date was set.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
We will eventually get a revolutionary Corbynite as PM, not because of what Starmer does but as a revolutionary reaction to the Tory party becoming a gerontocracy that ignores the views of the young. Ignore them for too long, and they will sooner or later search out for incorrect radical options, whilst at the same time, increasingly the middle aged will also have been ignored too.
If a Labour government is in power under Starmer after winning the next election and becomes unpopular the movement will be back to the Tory opposition not Corbynites.
One of Truss' first acts will be to cut NI anyway which does sod all for pensioners as they don't pay it
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
No it isn't, Holyrood is just a subsidiary Parliament to Westminster Westminster could scrap tomorrow if so minded. Westminster and Westminster alone has the final say on the Union, Holyrood is just a subsidiary Parliament for some Scottish domestic policy
That's osnly because your lot say it that way. in any case you're getting excited again.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
We will eventually get a revolutionary Corbynite as PM, not because of what Starmer does but as a revolutionary reaction to the Tory party becoming a gerontocracy that ignores the views of the young. Ignore them for too long, and they will sooner or later search out for incorrect radical options, whilst at the same time, increasingly the middle aged will also have been ignored too.
And that revolutionary Corbynite PM will ignore the views of the young as well. And ruin their futures.
They will ruin their futures further sure, but not deliberately ignore them. If you are concerned by a future far left government, as I am, then your ire should primarily be directed at the divisive age based policies of the Tory party, for that is what will ferment the success of the Corbynistas.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
We will eventually get a revolutionary Corbynite as PM, not because of what Starmer does but as a revolutionary reaction to the Tory party becoming a gerontocracy that ignores the views of the young. Ignore them for too long, and they will sooner or later search out for incorrect radical options, whilst at the same time, increasingly the middle aged will also have been ignored too.
If a Labour government is in power under Starmer after winning the next election and becomes unpopular the movement will be back to the Tory opposition not Corbynites
So hubristically thought the Labour Party but the opposite happened. The public rejected the self styled "moderate" Tories but went instead for the supposed extreme Tories instead of the Opposition.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
No doubt you also feel that Scottish independence could only be justified by a referendum. which we are not having any more of ever.
In some ways I do agree with HYUFD - as a body politic we are not designed for referenda. It was Cameron's desire to take multiple issues out of parliament and hand them to the populace that opened the Pandora's box that eventually led to Brexit. But now the box is open, something has to give. I would say that we probably can't go back to parliament having all the power and never more to referenda, but that means significant reform to parliament. An understanding of when things should go to referenda and how the options that are presented to the populace are chosen and how tangible the options are to realise. That in and of itself would require huge institutional reform, constitutional change and, likely, huge devolutions of power from Westminster to local, regional and country political bodies.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Fair point on scope.
But the original poster believes (incorrectly) local planning committees have carte blanche to do what they want regardless of national planning policy as locals must decide, yet the Scottish parliament is nothing of consequence. Thats hardly fair.
Local Planning cttees have influence over planning, Holyrood runs Scottish health, education and justice policy.
Neither however have the final say on the Union, only Westminster does
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
No it isn't, Holyrood is just a subsidiary Parliament to Westminster Westminster could scrap tomorrow if so minded. Westminster and Westminster alone has the final say on the Union, Holyrood is just a subsidiary Parliament for some Scottish domestic policy
That's osnly because your lot say it that way. in any case you're getting excited again.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
I think it's a problem in parties where the typically more ideological membership get to choose the leader. Giving votes to the membership has been a huge, almost impossible to reverse error by both main parties. In Labour this is compounded by the union vote.
It was the membership that delivered the joys of IDS, Corbyn and Truss, and the unions that gave us Ed MIliband (though he wasn't that bad in hindsight). If it had been down to MPs then we'd have had leaders like Ken Clark, David Miliband and Yvette Cooper, and today we would be announcing PM Rishi. You might not be fans of any of them but they're not scary.
The Lib Dems, Greens and others are different because either there are insufficient MPs to form a proper electorate, and/or other elected officials or staff are as or more powerful (e.g. MSPs).
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
No doubt you also feel that Scottish independence could only be justified by a referendum. which we are not having any more of ever.
In some ways I do agree with HYUFD - as a body politic we are not designed for referenda. It was Cameron's desire to take multiple issues out of parliament and hand them to the populace that opened the Pandora's box that eventually led to Brexit. But now the box is open, something has to give. I would say that we probably can't go back to parliament having all the power and never more to referenda, but that means significant reform to parliament. An understanding of when things should go to referenda and how the options that are presented to the populace are chosen and how tangible the options are to realise. That in and of itself would require huge institutional reform, constitutional change and, likely, huge devolutions of power from Westminster to local, regional and country political bodies.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
We will eventually get a revolutionary Corbynite as PM, not because of what Starmer does but as a revolutionary reaction to the Tory party becoming a gerontocracy that ignores the views of the young. Ignore them for too long, and they will sooner or later search out for incorrect radical options, whilst at the same time, increasingly the middle aged will also have been ignored too.
And that revolutionary Corbynite PM will ignore the views of the young as well. And ruin their futures.
They will ruin their futures further sure, but not deliberately ignore them. If you are concerned by a future far left government, as I am, then your ire should primarily be directed at the divisive age based policies of the Tory party, for that is what will ferment the success of the Corbynistas.
Oh, my ire is directed towards them. I never voted for Boris, and haven't voted Tory since he was elected.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
No doubt you also feel that Scottish independence could only be justified by a referendum. which we are not having any more of ever.
In some ways I do agree with HYUFD - as a body politic we are not designed for referenda. It was Cameron's desire to take multiple issues out of parliament and hand them to the populace that opened the Pandora's box that eventually led to Brexit. But now the box is open, something has to give. I would say that we probably can't go back to parliament having all the power and never more to referenda, but that means significant reform to parliament. An understanding of when things should go to referenda and how the options that are presented to the populace are chosen and how tangible the options are to realise. That in and of itself would require huge institutional reform, constitutional change and, likely, huge devolutions of power from Westminster to local, regional and country political bodies.
'Devolution', of course, is a weasel word. "The most powerful devolved parliament in the world' is a meaningless Unionist phrase, because as HYUFD has unguardedly admitted, Unionist legislators have enacted laws under which that devolved power is power that can, on the letter of these laws, be snatched back at any moment.
Permanent handovers of power, on the basis of some constitutional act, would be needed.
That can't be right. I've been told for weeks on here that Truss will start a trade war on Day 1. What other things will turn out to be complete guff?
It’s too early to say what will happen re the NI protocol and the legislation will still be going through parliament so I wouldn’t bring out the bunting celebrating a new dawn of EU UK relations just yet . She was supported by the ERG and they will want their pound of flesh !
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
No doubt you also feel that Scottish independence could only be justified by a referendum. which we are not having any more of ever.
In some ways I do agree with HYUFD - as a body politic we are not designed for referenda. It was Cameron's desire to take multiple issues out of parliament and hand them to the populace that opened the Pandora's box that eventually led to Brexit. But now the box is open, something has to give. I would say that we probably can't go back to parliament having all the power and never more to referenda, but that means significant reform to parliament. An understanding of when things should go to referenda and how the options that are presented to the populace are chosen and how tangible the options are to realise. That in and of itself would require huge institutional reform, constitutional change and, likely, huge devolutions of power from Westminster to local, regional and country political bodies.
We need a referendum on the use of referenda?
Lol. Or just a big constitutional convention where we write some stuff down in an easily accessible way that describes how politics should work.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
No doubt you also feel that Scottish independence could only be justified by a referendum. which we are not having any more of ever.
In some ways I do agree with HYUFD - as a body politic we are not designed for referenda. It was Cameron's desire to take multiple issues out of parliament and hand them to the populace that opened the Pandora's box that eventually led to Brexit. But now the box is open, something has to give. I would say that we probably can't go back to parliament having all the power and never more to referenda, but that means significant reform to parliament. An understanding of when things should go to referenda and how the options that are presented to the populace are chosen and how tangible the options are to realise. That in and of itself would require huge institutional reform, constitutional change and, likely, huge devolutions of power from Westminster to local, regional and country political bodies.
So Russia places sanctions on itself. Well done Putin for forcing Europe into doing something it didn't have the collective will to do on its own.
This should be a helpful moment of clarity. It means Nordstream 1 isn't coming back on, possibly ever, so the West must restructure its energy demand now.
Russia has blundered, again.
Certainly has... Even the French and Germans are just going to shrug and say "f&£# them". Meanwhile in the Baltic we are already getting prepared. Truth is that there is literally no contract the Russians won't break, so don't bother even signing one.
That's exactly right. Sure there will be short term pain but every country with any sense is going to be scrabbling to ensure that it is never dependent on Russia for anything ever again. Can't see how this benefits Russia in the medium to long term at all.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
Leader of the DUP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says he has "written to Liz Truss" to set out the "priorities on her desk" - adding that "the chief among those" is the bill that will "provide the basis for a solution to deal with the protocol".
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yet another argument for AV, of course.
Options pre EU ref: - One Direction (go full Euro/ever closer union) - Status Quo (stay) - Nirvana (EEA/EFTA type deal) - Dire Straits (leave with a hard Brexit deal) - Madness (no deal) Rank according to preference order. Job done, no arguments*
*possibly some quibbling around the edges on names of options...
Would it have been more complicated? Sure. But it would have given clearer direction. And in that instance it's easy to see something actually getting a decent consensus. And the political debate leading up to the referendum would have had to describe and categorise each direction and actually contend with the reality of it. None of this "cake and eat it too" stuff - people would have had to clearly stake out their vision then and it could have been scrutinised. Something like Brexit, or even republicanism, is just too wide to be a simple binary choice.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
No doubt you also feel that Scottish independence could only be justified by a referendum. which we are not having any more of ever.
In some ways I do agree with HYUFD - as a body politic we are not designed for referenda. It was Cameron's desire to take multiple issues out of parliament and hand them to the populace that opened the Pandora's box that eventually led to Brexit. But now the box is open, something has to give. I would say that we probably can't go back to parliament having all the power and never more to referenda, but that means significant reform to parliament. An understanding of when things should go to referenda and how the options that are presented to the populace are chosen and how tangible the options are to realise. That in and of itself would require huge institutional reform, constitutional change and, likely, huge devolutions of power from Westminster to local, regional and country political bodies.
'Devolution', of course, is a weasel word. "The most powerful devolved parliament in the world' is a meaningless Unionist phrase, because as HYUFD has unguardedly admitted, Unionist legislators have enacted laws under which that devolved power is power that can, on the letter of these laws, be snatched back at any moment.
Permanent handovers of power, on the basis of some constitutional act, would be needed.
By the way Ed Davey’s “we must have an immediate election” shows how moronic he is. Is there anyone outside of the commons (or who aspires to enter it) who think what the country needs right now is another 6 weeks with politicians doing no work?
So Russia places sanctions on itself. Well done Putin for forcing Europe into doing something it didn't have the collective will to do on its own.
This should be a helpful moment of clarity. It means Nordstream 1 isn't coming back on, possibly ever, so the West must restructure its energy demand now.
Russia has blundered, again.
Certainly has... Even the French and Germans are just going to shrug and say "f&£# them". Meanwhile in the Baltic we are already getting prepared. Truth is that there is literally no contract the Russians won't break, so don't bother even signing one.
That's exactly right. Sure there will be short term pain but every country with any sense is going to be scrabbling to ensure that it is never dependent on Russia for anything ever again. Can't see how this benefits Russia in the medium to long term at all.
Always the bitter irony of acting on a threat. As soon as you do so all the power drains from your blackmail.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As with an English parliament, it’s supporters would probably think it should be handed to them on a plate without popular support or political parties backing such a proposition.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
You aren't John Howard are you? He tilted the Australian Monarchy Referendum massively to "no change" by insisting that the type of Republic had to be on the table for the referendum. A bit like the Leave camp having to spell out *exactly* what type of Brexit the UK would have before the referendum date was set.
The supposed anti-monarchists in Australia all agreed that criticising the monarchy didn't mean criticising the monarch. But when in history has a monarchist regime ever fallen when opinion channellers have all agreed that the reigning monarch should be above criticism? Never.
The propaganda on the monarchist side was masterful, achieving a majority in favour of the monarchy in a country where a large majority of the electorate wanted to abolish it.
By the way Ed Davey’s “we must have an immediate election” shows how moronic he is. Is there anyone outside of the commons (or who aspires to enter it) who think what the country needs right now is another 6 weeks with politicians doing no work?
By the way Ed Davey’s “we must have an immediate election” shows how moronic he is. Is there anyone outside of the commons (or who aspires to enter it) who think what the country needs right now is another 6 weeks with politicians doing no work?
According to an Ipsos poll a few days ago a majority of the British electorate agree with him.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As with an English parliament, it’s supporters would probably think it should be handed to them on a plate without popular support or political parties backing such a proposition.
TBF, Essex certainly has remained a distinct polity since before its annexation in 825, so it actually predates England. Just suggest to HYUFD that it is abolished and split between GLC and Suffolk, and see what happens.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
You aren't John Howard are you? He tilted the Australian Monarchy Referendum massively to "no change" by insisting that the type of Republic had to be on the table for the referendum. A bit like the Leave camp having to spell out *exactly* what type of Brexit the UK would have before the referendum date was set.
The supposed anti-monarchists in Australia all agreed that criticising the monarchy didn't mean criticising the monarch. But when in history has a monarchist regime ever fallen when opinion channellers have all agreed that the reigning monarch should be above criticism? Never.
The propaganda on the monarchist side was masterful, achieving a majority in favour of the monarchy in a country where a large majority of the electorate wanted to abolish it.
On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
How long until HFUYD transforms into Truss’ biggest supporter
I have loyally supported every Tory leader since I joined the party under William Hague. However I am a diehard Tory, it is not me Truss needs to worry about
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Fair point on scope.
But the original poster believes (incorrectly) local planning committees have carte blanche to do what they want regardless of national planning policy as locals must decide, yet the Scottish parliament is nothing of consequence. Thats hardly fair.
Local Planning cttees have influence over planning, Holyrood runs Scottish health, education and justice policy.
Neither however have the final say on the Union, only Westminster does
How can that be reasonable, when one country within the union so clearly outnumbers all the other countries combined? That is just an argument for subjugation, that emancipation is impossible without the consent of the powerful? I know there are historical arguments to be made that the Union was entered into consensually by the Welsh and the Scottish (crowns), but you only need look to Ireland to see what happens when you invade a country by force and forcefully keep it in a union it doesn't want to be in. If you have no political solution to end the Union as a Scottish political movement, then the only options would be extra political. Westminster has to cede some authority, if only moral authority, to the countries or else the only option to leave would be literal rebellion.
By the way Ed Davey’s “we must have an immediate election” shows how moronic he is. Is there anyone outside of the commons (or who aspires to enter it) who think what the country needs right now is another 6 weeks with politicians doing no work?
If that is true and there has been Government inertia for six weeks (at least) during a CoL crisis they deserve to be thrown out at a GE. I am sure they were all quietly beavering away.
On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As PM you get only the one chance to make a first impression on the millions who'd previously been unaware of your existence.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
I think it's a problem in parties where the typically more ideological membership get to choose the leader. Giving votes to the membership has been a huge, almost impossible to reverse error by both main parties. In Labour this is compounded by the union vote.
It was the membership that delivered the joys of IDS, Corbyn and Truss, and the unions that gave us Ed MIliband (though he wasn't that bad in hindsight). If it had been down to MPs then we'd have had leaders like Ken Clark, David Miliband and Yvette Cooper, and today we would be announcing PM Rishi. You might not be fans of any of them but they're not scary.
The Lib Dems, Greens and others are different because either there are insufficient MPs to form a proper electorate, and/or other elected officials or staff are as or more powerful (e.g. MSPs).
Members also elected Cameron, Johnson and Blair and Starmer.
MPs alone gave us Michael Foot, Gordon Brown, William Hague and Theresa May so it is not as clear as that
On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
How long until HFUYD transforms into Truss’ biggest supporter
I have loyally supported every Tory leader since I joined the party under William Hague. However I am a diehard Tory, it is not me Truss needs to worry about
Don't you fancy voting LD just for a bit of variety? 👍
On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.
On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
Realistically the only speech almost anyone in the country is going to actually give a damn about is the one on Thursday (to Parliament?) addressing the energy crisis.
Piss off the country with that and she might well be written off as soon as she starts. Come up with something popular, and a lot of people will then be willing to give her a chance.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
How long until HFUYD transforms into Truss’ biggest supporter
I have loyally supported every Tory leader since I joined the party under William Hague. However I am a diehard Tory, it is not me Truss needs to worry about
Liz Truss has a legitimate mandate from November 2019. We did not collectively vote for PM Johnson. We are a Parliamentary democracy not a Presidency you know.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As with an English parliament, it’s supporters would probably think it should be handed to them on a plate without popular support or political parties backing such a proposition.
TBF, Essex certainly has remained a distinct polity since before its annexation in 825, so it actually predates England. Just suggest to HYUFD that it is abolished and split between GLC and Suffolk, and see what happens.
Hasn't that process already started with the absorption of "North East London" (aka the Barking Episcopal Area, aka Dagenham, Ilford, Romford and points in-between) into Greater London?
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
You aren't John Howard are you? He tilted the Australian Monarchy Referendum massively to "no change" by insisting that the type of Republic had to be on the table for the referendum. A bit like the Leave camp having to spell out *exactly* what type of Brexit the UK would have before the referendum date was set.
The supposed anti-monarchists in Australia all agreed that criticising the monarchy didn't mean criticising the monarch. But when in history has a monarchist regime ever fallen when opinion channellers have all agreed that the reigning monarch should be above criticism? Never.
The propaganda on the monarchist side was masterful, achieving a majority in favour of the monarchy in a country where a large majority of the electorate wanted to abolish it.
There's a fair consensus that HMQ is in fact above criticism, and doing so is counterproductive. it is very optimistic to think a similar rule will apply to chas.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
You aren't John Howard are you? He tilted the Australian Monarchy Referendum massively to "no change" by insisting that the type of Republic had to be on the table for the referendum. A bit like the Leave camp having to spell out *exactly* what type of Brexit the UK would have before the referendum date was set.
I mean, the suggested AV type where you have multiple options of Brexit and rank the options would have been fine by me too. I just think when you have something as politically impactful as huge constitutional change you should have a clear method of either showing what that change is aimed towards, or what it is about. My issue with the Brexit thing, and indeed most big issues like this going to referenda, is that it leaves sides to cakeism - you could have Leave types say that of course it would be absurd to say we'd leave the Single Market, that is separate to the EU, and then immediately do that. Remain could have done the same (not that we can know now) - saying that the status quo isn't going to change and then sign up to an EU army or whatever. I think it is only fair that if you're asking people to vote for a thing they are able to know what that thing is.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As with an English parliament, it’s supporters would probably think it should be handed to them on a plate without popular support or political parties backing such a proposition.
TBF, Essex certainly has remained a distinct polity since before its annexation in 825, so it actually predates England. Just suggest to HYUFD that it is abolished and split between GLC and Suffolk, and see what happens.
Hasn't that process already started with the absorption of "North East London" (aka the Barking Episcopal Area, aka Dagenham, Ilford, Romford and points in-between) into Greater London?
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
Which borders though? They've changed over the years.
Bow to your local expertise. But it happens. And, as you say, under protest. Like Berwickshire losing its county town to England, but nobody seriously suggested that the rest of the border didn't remain.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
Does Westminster have absolute power over the City of London?
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
Does Westminster have absolute power over the City of London?
In all powers the City of London does not distinctly have, yes
How long until HFUYD transforms into Truss’ biggest supporter
I have loyally supported every Tory leader since I joined the party under William Hague. However I am a diehard Tory, it is not me Truss needs to worry about
If Truss' manifesto was anyone called HYUFD will have all their worldly possessions sequestered and be banished to the Island of Unst would you still vote Tory?
Comments
https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/7136
30 Mb, 24 citations.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Even the 2016 Leave vote was irrelevant by itself, hence Parliament refused to implement Brexit for 3 and a half years after the referendum result until the Conservative majority of late 2019
Referenda only occur if Parliament votes for it, so that's still Parliamentary action.
What's French for quelle surprise?
Options pre EU ref:
- One Direction (go full Euro/ever closer union)
- Status Quo (stay)
- Nirvana (EEA/EFTA type deal)
- Dire Straits (leave with a hard Brexit deal)
- Madness (no deal)
Rank according to preference order. Job done, no arguments*
*possibly some quibbling around the edges on names of options...
1/3 pints of milk to schoolchildren.
But the original poster believes (incorrectly) local planning committees have carte blanche to do what they want regardless of national planning policy as locals must decide, yet the Scottish parliament is nothing of consequence. Thats hardly fair.
Back when the WTD was harmonised across the EU, the company I worked for lobbied for the opt out that was included in our UK version. Our staff who wanted to work more than 48 hours in a week opted out.
The benefit of the WTD is that employers could not sack employees who refused to work unreasonable hours. Repealing the WTD is not for the benefit of UK workers.
the Leave camp having to spell out *exactly* what type of Brexit the UK would have before the referendum date was set.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1566781383401414658
One of Truss' first acts will be to cut NI anyway which does sod all for pensioners as they don't pay it
I recommend some Class 20s for you to calm down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3-a9NCsylU
Neither however have the final say on the Union, only Westminster does
Doesn't OGH have a ban on porn on PB?
It was the membership that delivered the joys of IDS, Corbyn and Truss, and the unions that gave us Ed MIliband (though he wasn't that bad in hindsight). If it had been down to MPs then we'd have had leaders like Ken Clark, David Miliband and Yvette Cooper, and today we would be announcing PM Rishi. You might not be fans of any of them but they're not scary.
The Lib Dems, Greens and others are different because either there are insufficient MPs to form a proper electorate, and/or other elected officials or staff are as or more powerful (e.g. MSPs).
Permanent handovers of power, on the basis of some constitutional act, would be needed.
https://trib.al/Q1k7dAc
📺 Sky 501 https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1566787452660064258/video/1
Elgar + leather-bound books = radical reform.
Stravinsky + abstract art = no change.
So if the speech majors on "delivery"...
NEW:
Shadow Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting has called for an immediate election, saying Liz Truss needs to 'seek a fresh mandate'.
https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1566778173521526786
The propaganda on the monarchist side was masterful, achieving a majority in favour of the monarchy in a country where a large majority of the electorate wanted to abolish it.
Brenda from Bristol is ready for an election.
I fear Liz may find herself in the bottom 15 with such lustrous company as the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Chatham lol...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_length_of_tenure
https://www.smh.com.au/national/no-sense-of-momentum-poll-finds-drop-in-support-for-australia-becoming-a-republic-20210125-p56wpe.html
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
MPs alone gave us Michael Foot, Gordon Brown, William Hague and Theresa May so it is not as clear as that
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
Which borders though? They've changed over the years.
Piss off the country with that and she might well be written off as soon as she starts. Come up with something popular, and a lot of people will then be willing to give her a chance.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
Still traumatises some round these parts.
Bow to your local expertise. But it happens. And, as you say, under protest. Like Berwickshire losing its county town to England, but nobody seriously suggested that the rest of the border didn't remain.
😮