Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Mr. Cairo]

If Remain had won instead, I highly doubt you'd be saying "well, guess I have to support Britain's membership of the EU forever now."

That's interesting. It leaves me wondering, why was the referendum held in the first place? If not for this, then why?

(I haven't been paying attention to this whole Brexit thing before after the fact, it didn't get a lot of coverage in Norway, presumably because everyone considered it a formality.)

The referendum was held due to the internal politics of the Conservative party. Prior to the 2015 election, the tories risked losing a lot of anti-EU voters to UKIP, which would have split their vote and potentially lost the election to labour (thanks to FPTP), or at least result in another hung parliament, only this time without any chance of a coalition.
So he said two things to win that election: first, there'll be a simple, in-out referendum on EU membership (which people wanted), and he'll try and renegotiate Britain's membership so that Britain can remain in the EU, but without the things that people don't like about it (it was mainly free movement of people that he wanted to renegotiate). It worked, the tories won a majority, and off Cameron went to renegotiate Britain's membership. He failed on that front, Leave support started rising in the polls, and he ran a terrible campaign for Remain, and now his career is over, and the UK will leave the EU.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Remain were incredibly arrogant and hugely patronising. Shown perhaps even moreso in the fallout. People stating that their lives are in tatters. Calling all people with different opinion to them either idiots, or not worthy of an opinion as they are older than them and have less life to live. This is the same entitled class that could not grasp the 2015 election result, that Corbyn is kryptonite with large portions of the electorate and that AV is the only sensible choice.

What I find bewildering right now is that somehow, because Leave won the referendum, people who supported Remain are not allowed to be upset about it? Of course people who believe in the EU and believe in the UK being part of it are going to be upset, even angry. And they'll do what they can to avoid sending the country in a direction they don't believe in. If Remain had won instead, I highly doubt you'd be saying "well, guess I have to support Britain's membership of the EU forever now."

And just as calling all leavers racist is unhelpful and untrue, so too is saying that the entire segment of the population who wanted to remain are all arrogant and patronising. Neither me, nor any other person I know who voted remain thinks that way about leavers, yet somehow we are now being made out to be elitist assholes who should just get over it.

People's lives are in tatters. I know several people who's SOs are EU citizens who may lose residency depending on the exit negotiations. I know several people whose entire livelihoods are at risk because their universities will lose billions in EU funding, but I guess since they're elitist academics they don't count. How about the millions of EU citizens who live, work, and pay taxes in the UK, who feel that the county they chose to call home has rejected them? I suppose their lives don't count either.

To be honest, probably not for another 15-20 years. I would have been sad, but I would not be out demonstrating or wailing my life is over. I would be sad but that's life.

But the thing that bugs me so much is all these people doing it AFTER the vote! This was what the campaigning period was for. Most of these people demonstrating shared their statuses in a smug bubble over confident. However people like me genuinely put hours and hours of contacts in to make this happen. This is the most irksome thing about it. It's like children whining that they 'weren't prepared for such a hard exam and can we have a redo because we will work harder next time. Pretty please'

SOs can come in on residency arrangements available to all nationals. I take the view it is rather discriminatory to have one rule for the EU and another for everywhere else. Especially the commonwealth, which a huge amount of leavers like myself feel far more affinity to.

EU funding will not need to go through the EU now, it can come direct from the UK government if it is worthy of funding. I'm quite happy for those who are a benefit to the country to stay, but I also feel it is rather discriminatory that they get better terms than non EU members. But the fact there are millions is a huge part of the issue.

[scooter]

Nicolae - if you can't comment in this thread without flamethrowing, maybe it's best not to comment. I'm enjoying this thread and the diversity of opinions from smart people, and I'd hate to see the civility disappear. It's so rare on the internet. Even if you're right, the overly-confrontational way of presenting your opinion is super counter-productive.

And to use that to get back to the original focus: the bit that bewilders me the most about Brexit (and the Scottish independence vote, and several others in Europe) is that it's a simple majority, once. In my context, you're talking about a Constitutional change for these sorts of things: two supermajorities, one in Congress and one in the States. Of course, if the UK were like the US, they'd have needed a similar vote to *join* the EU, which probably would never have happened. Still, if you write the rules that way, then you can actually settle the question, rather than get one of these bare majorities that lead to widespread discontent.

I disagree there - super majorities are needed in senates/parliaments as parties win control on sometimes lowish shares of the vote. For referenda, turnout thresholds are better than supermajorities. Maybe not so much with the EU, but I cannot think of a more unstable situation in Scotland if like 60% of the country wanted to leave the union but there had to be a 66% threshold.

I kinda share Mardoc's amazement on this too. Although the US system is very prone to deadlock, so I can see the appeal of lessening that. I just can't imagine a one-time nationwide vote where a massive change was made on the basis of a (relatively) tiny vote differential. For all the mayhem over US presidential elections (that recently are very close in votes), voting for a US president is arguably less consequential than what the UK just did given how the US system works.

So, serious question, since I don't really know what triggered this vote. What does it take to launch a referendum like this in the UK? It sounds like the vote is not technically binding, but in reality it's pretty difficult to flip off the voters and do the opposite. So what would it take to have a nationwide referendum on, say, renaming a holiday to "Taco Day"? We don't really have a direct equivalent of this mechanic in the US that I'm aware of.

edit: crossposted with a couple people, so this question was partially answered but not fully

[Mr. Cairo]

Nicolae - if you can't comment in this thread without flamethrowing, maybe it's best not to comment. I'm enjoying this thread and the diversity of opinions from smart people, and I'd hate to see the civility disappear. It's so rare on the internet. Even if you're right, the overly-confrontational way of presenting your opinion is super counter-productive.

And to use that to get back to the original focus: the bit that bewilders me the most about Brexit (and the Scottish independence vote, and several others in Europe) is that it's a simple majority, once. In my context, you're talking about a Constitutional change for these sorts of things: two supermajorities, one in Congress and one in the States. Of course, if the UK were like the US, they'd have needed a similar vote to *join* the EU, which probably would never have happened. Still, if you write the rules that way, then you can actually settle the question, rather than get one of these bare majorities that lead to widespread discontent.

I disagree there - super majorities are needed in senates/parliaments as parties win control on sometimes lowish shares of the vote. For referenda, turnout thresholds are better than supermajorities. Maybe not so much with the EU, but I cannot think of a more unstable situation in Scotland if like 60% of the country wanted to leave the union but there had to be a 66% threshold.

I kinda share Mardoc's amazement on this too. Although the US system is very prone to deadlock, so I can see the appeal of lessening that. I just can't imagine a one-time nationwide vote where a massive change was made on the basis of a (relatively) tiny vote differential. For all the mayhem over US presidential elections (that recently are very close in votes), voting for a US president is arguably less consequential than what the UK just did given how the US system works.

So, serious question, since I don't really know what triggered this vote. What does it take to launch a referendum like this in the UK? It sounds like the vote is not technically binding, but in reality it's pretty difficult to flip off the voters and do the opposite. So what would it take to have a nationwide referendum on, say, renaming a holiday to "Taco Day"? We don't really have a direct equivalent of this mechanic in the US that I'm aware of.

edit: crossposted with a couple people, so this question was partially answered but not fully

To answer your question about the actual mechanics of having a referendum in the UK, afaik the government said "there'll be a refurendm" and thus, there was one. However, it is non-binding legally (if not politically), since the UK is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. The UK very rarely votes on issues directly like this.

[Gazglum]

The UK very rarely votes on issues directly like this.

And I imagine never will again, if the current crop of MPs have any say in it!

[Bacchus]

If anything serious happens in Britain politically, 9 times out of 10 it's because Parliament has voted on it and Royal Assent was given, because Crown-in-Parliament is sovereign. In this case, it was the European Referendum Act 2015 which provided for holding the vote.

[Gavagai]

I just can't imagine a one-time nationwide vote where a massive change was made on the basis of a (relatively) tiny vote differential.

Affordable Care Act?

[pindicator]

By contrast, Clinton is a bit more sincere (though by no means completely so) and she is far more likely to have a loyal Congress. From that follows that she is much more likely to actually follow through with her promises.
That's why I think electing Trump would be better for US.

The Republican party HATES Clinton. The only reason Trump is keeping the Republican support that he has is because they really, really don't want Clinton in the white house. If they think he's their best shot at defeating her, the party establishment will cut off their nose to do so.

(Also, I find them both extremely untrustworthy. It's going to be an exercise voting this year.)

[scooter]

I just can't imagine a one-time nationwide vote where a massive change was made on the basis of a (relatively) tiny vote differential.

Affordable Care Act?

In order for that to happen, the following had to happen:

1) Entire nation votes on president, and the candidate in favor wins
2) Entire nation votes for senators for their state, and the party in favor wins a lot
3) Entire nation votes for representatives for their region, and the party in favor wins a lot
4) All 3 of these groups had majorities in favor AND agreed on the right way to do it

It was still messy and all the votes were close, but when one particular candidate/party made ACA their platform, they were essentially given "yes" votes in several different ways. It wasn't as simple as a nationwide one-time one-issue vote - the nation voted on representatives and the representatives made the decision. That's different from direct one-time democratic choice, which is sort of what the UK just did.

[Commodore]

Part of me wishes that the Queen would suddenly break her half century of polite silence and use her prerogative to dissolve parliament. I’m not a monarchist at all, but weirdly, this feels like exactly the moment when a strong Executive is supposed to play a role by enforcing a shake-up of the legislature.

Uh oh, maybe I’m becoming a tyrant.

Aren't the Windsors Germans anyway? Asking for more German domination!

If Remain had won instead, I highly doubt you'd be saying "well, guess I have to support Britain's membership of the EU forever now."

That's interesting. It leaves me wondering, why was the referendum held in the first place? If not for this, then why?

(I haven't been paying attention to this whole Brexit thing before after the fact, it didn't get a lot of coverage in Norway, presumably because everyone considered it a formality.)

The referendum was held due to the internal politics of the Conservative party. Prior to the 2015 election, the tories risked losing a lot of anti-EU voters to UKIP, which would have split their vote and potentially lost the election to labour (thanks to FPTP), or at least result in another hung parliament, only this time without any chance of a coalition.
So he said two things to win that election: first, there'll be a simple, in-out referendum on EU membership (which people wanted), and he'll try and renegotiate Britain's membership so that Britain can remain in the EU, but without the things that people don't like about it (it was mainly free movement of people that he wanted to renegotiate). It worked, the tories won a majority, and off Cameron went to renegotiate Britain's membership. He failed on that front, Leave support started rising in the polls, and he ran a terrible campaign for Remain, and now his career is over, and the UK will leave the EU.

I'm a little confused here about this one. Hasn't the Remain campaign shown that the Tories and Labour are basically the same party? Or at least Inner Party vs. Outer Party. I'd think that would gut the party nominally rightish.

I just can't imagine a one-time nationwide vote where a massive change was made on the basis of a (relatively) tiny vote differential.

Affordable Care Act?

Well, the original Brexit, America exiting Britain, was largely minority-contested...

By contrast, Clinton is a bit more sincere (though by no means completely so) and she is far more likely to have a loyal Congress. From that follows that she is much more likely to actually follow through with her promises.
That's why I think electing Trump would be better for US.

The Republican party HATES Clinton. The only reason Trump is keeping the Republican support that he has is because they really, really don't want Clinton in the white house. If they think he's their best shot at defeating her, the party establishment will cut off their nose to do so.

(Also, I find them both extremely untrustworthy. It's going to be an exercise voting this year.)

I haven't voted since I was a dumb young Libertarian in 2004, don't plan on starting now. This is a weird (and hilarious) year. Odd to have the two major candidates both hovering around 60% unfavorability rating, but it makes sense if you think of it less as "I'm voting for this person" and more "he/she is a bastard/bitch, let's punish the other side".