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Principles for calling referendums
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Fact is, we are not really experienced enough at this. Therefore, starting small might have been better.
A referendum on equal marriage or marijuana for example. Whereby a government produces a specific bill, and then puts it to public vote, committed to either proceeding or abandoning.
The Swiss system allows referendums to be brought about by a small % of the electorate in the area affected (country, canton, town, etc.), and they are held every 3 months. People get a booklet from the government with a page for supporters and a page for opponents, plus the government's view. A side-effect is to downgrade the importance of party politics, since even if you win an election you will struggle to get anything through without popular support.
Also single issue parties or groups have a realistic way of getting the issue voted on. Sounds like we need more referendums.
Added: a way of taking posion and anger out of politics and a balance to the two party system.
The real problem with referendums is not with the voters, but with the questions and the options. In the case of the EU referendum we had any undefined Leave, which has meant all sorts of agendas have been pushed after the vote, and even Remain is ambiguous given the ever closer union push. Essentially the public were choosing by gut between two ill-defined futures.
Just on the whole which Conservative MPs will submit letters, there seems to be a growing consensus it won't happen. I wouldn't be too sure. I think there are genuinely a fair number who will take the feeling in the constituency and then decide. If I had to put a single category of Conservative MP who would be tempted to sign, I would look for those in marginal seats that have a high Working Class / Leave proportion and fear the deal will lose them the seats. That might account for the likes of Lee Rowley (NE Derbyshire), Ben Bradley (Mansfield), Simon Clarke (Middlesborough East) and Chris Green (Bolton West) signing. So I would look out for what others of the 2017 intake such as Jack Brereton (Stoke on Trent South), Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) and Trudy Harrison (Copeland).
If the reports also start to circulate that the EU are looking to maintain fishing rights, then I would expect the North East Scottish Tory MPs to sign.
We would therefore have smaller turnouts, and thus less influence in any plebiscites, when we aren't voting for anything else.
That's what happens when you sell 70% of your voters down the river...
If the deal is rejected, May has said it will be for Parliament go decide. I think that means she won’t stand in the way of a second referendum, despite all the protestations to the contrary.
The problem with Brexit is that it has because the catch all for many grievances in the country - metropolitan areas vs small towns, social liberalism vs conservatism, rich v poor etc - that all sight has been lost of the original point. If the 2016 results gets overturned on this so-called People's Vote, it will ignite all those grievances.
And trust in politicians more generally.
The drift to labour in the polls is likely to be evidence that remainers expect to get a referendum from them
I would expect the move to labour will be greater than to UKIP
The ERG has two things going for them in a contest - a block of MPs and, crucially, the need for a party to choose a leader quickly. If May steps down, a new leader has to be elected quickly so the key is which block can mobilise the quickest and create enough momentum to drive their candidate forwards. One a candidate has that momentum, they become hard to beat. The ultra-remainers are far fewer in number and most MPs don't care.
1) No Brexit
2) No Deal
3) Rejoining PDQ after 2
and finally
4) Another referendum (after thinking it wouldn't happen before we left)
The ERG are absolutely brilliant.
I think the Tories would be massacred at that election.
You forgot a general election in your list. If the DUP are happy to have one, we will.
When that becomes widely known I do not know how a referendum will be stopped
The party is not going to commit electoral suicide
It's not really a position Labour would want to be in.
If DUP abstain then Govt has majority of 3 if everyone turns up.
2019 GE has edged back out to 2.5 (6-4) on Betfair.
A No deal - the health minister cannot guarantee this would not lead to deaths. Enough said.
B May's deal - the chances of this getting through Parliament seem to be about zero. But even if it could get through it would leave the UK in a much worse position than EU membership, we would neither have our cake nor be able to eat it, to coin a phrase.
C second referendum - divisive, not guaranteed to produce a clear result, unclear what the question should be, is it realistic to expect voters to be able to form an informed view of a massively complex international treaty?
D renegotiation, but no one involved seriously supposes that such a process would produce more than
cosmetic changes to May's deal.
The Tories have locked the UK in a burning building and thrown away the key.
And were your scenario to unfold, could the Tories operate on any unified basis? If Corbyn put it forward, the Tories would be divided still.
As a lifelong Con voter I wont be voting for them again whilst these two are at the helm.
Get the letters in please Con MPs.
Because the prior polling might have been based on Schrodinger's Brexit.
@britainelects
31m31 minutes ago
More
Westminster voting intentiomn:
LAB: 39% (+2)
CON: 36% (-5)
UKIP: 8% (+2)
LDEM: 7% (-1)
GRN: 3% (-)
via @OpiniumReseach, 14 Nov
Chgs. w/ 11 Oct
Lab -2%
Con -7%
UKIP +6%
LD -1%
SNP +2%
Greens +1%
So that just leaves Brexit and the essential thing for Labour is not to be portrayed as stopping Brexit against the 'will of the people' unless it's done in clear co-operation with the Conservative party. If Labour plus assorted Conservative rebels get a new referendum through the House, and the Conservative leadership's position remains to oppose a referendum and pursue Brexit, then Labour would get annihilated at the next GE by a populist Tory leader proposing a new round of fantasy unicorns.
If it falls, she should immediately request that the EU allow an extension of A50.
The Brexit the ultra unicorn lovers dream of should be put out of their reach.
the question we should ask is something closer to do the discounted benefits outweigh the costs (relative to the best of the other options). the honest answer is that beyond some obvious short term costs no one has a clue. there are far too many intangibles. at that point i default to ideology. it looks like you get there more quickly and less honestly.
meanwhile, two ingredients possibly missing from mars bars? special limited edition brexit recipe with suitably branded packaging and a boost for their domestic suppliers might fix that.
Quit the EU cleanly. Massive tax cuts and investment incentives and focus on the future.
With a Gove/ Raab double team and some radical policies to negate the effects - a boost.
The obvious ones are a GE or referendum. The only other retreat I can see is to say "Based on Parliament's rejection of the deal, it's now the UK's intention to leave with no deal in place, but we accept that this will require huge preparation on both sides of the channel, and can't possibly be done by the end of March 19. We therefore request a five year delay to A50 while we develop standalone national infrastructure, border facilities [and so on]." Essentially asking for A50 to be extended to allow the UK to do what it should have done in the first place if no deal was ever going to be a credible negotiating position.
At that point she obviously gets no-confidenced , as she would always have done if she had admitted the reality that leaving with no-deal within 2 years was impossible without implementing hugely expensive and unpopular measures to deal with it.
And there is no radical pm out there that could get consensus, especially from ERG
The EU is unlikely to offer us a better deal.
The question therefore becomes stark: does the government back No Deal, which would allow it to capture some UKIP votes, but would probably mean losing soft Leave votes to absentions, Labour or the LibDems?
Or does the government back this deal, which keeps the LibDem vote share depressed, but risks losing votes to UKIP?
With support for No Deal Brexit of 32%, and with some of that being left wing No Deal (a la Sandy Rentool), and some of it being loonies who'd back UKIP (because Muslims) irrespective, it's not clear to me that the Conservatives would be pursuing a winning strategy by going the No Deal route.
It's also clear that those who lost jobs - and yes even if it turned out to be all sunshine and roses, there would be some losers - would probably never return to the Conservatives.
People feel the effects directly. Blithely saying "we've got some radical policies to negate the effects." makes it sound as though you've stabbed someone through the heart, but here is a children's plaster to put on the wound.
Question: we're in our tenth year of economic expansion, with many signs that the economy is close to capacity. Yet we're not running anything approaching a budget surplus. Our overall debt-to-GDP is more than twice it was prior to the last recession. And the demographic challenges - increasing pension and healthcare costs - will only pressure government budgets going forward.
How are we going to afford these "massive tax cuts"?
Importing high value car parts to screw into a chassis is overrated anyway.
On the question of the moment I am reluctantly in Casino Royal's camp. Thanks to May's ineptitude and iniquity this is a pretty awful deal but I would take it any day over Remain. I would be 50:50 over this Deal compared to No Deal, mostly because of the threat of Brexit being cancelled if this deal falls.
It does all however reinforce my view that all politicians are basically dishonest shits and the sooner we have more direct democracy the better.