If the referendum is advisory (as it was), the government is perfectly entitled to ignore the result.

But that would have nonetheless been utterly foolish.

You don't spend millions on a referendum, only to say 'you voted the wrong way so we are going to ignore you!'

But that would have nonetheless been utterly foolish.

You don't spend millions on a referendum, only to say 'you voted the wrong way so we are going to ignore you!'

But that would have nonetheless been utterly foolish.

You don't spend millions on a referendum, only to say 'you voted the wrong way so we are going to ignore you!'

Hi Steve!

I think 2008 was more democratic and inclusive and tolerant than 2019 is. The banking crisis gave birth, as economic downturns always do, to intolerance and extremism. The problem was people in power who believed in self-monitoring against all previous laws and common sense and greed. Politics in 2019 is very very broken in the UK & in the US. If you have mainstream parties attacking their own members for believing in consensus politics and reason then there is something seriously wrong with those parties, cos that ain't democracy in any shape or form, it's bullying into submission. If they can't win their argument using calm reason and by being tolerant then they have already lost the argument.

If you make a decision to economically self-harm (Hard No-deal Brexit) then democracy will be the first casualty, and society will get even less democratic and extreme and desperate people turn to ever-increasing extreme liars using them to gain power. That's the history of the world I'm afraid.

It would have been perfectly legitimate to say that the outcome was too close to be used as justification for such a huge change.

The fact that the Leave campaign broke the law merely adds to the justification for not going ahead.

....which is why we have a final referendum on the final deal to test whether the public is happy with what they got vs what they were promised.

Such a good comment. Just wanted to agree wholeheartedly.

1. Then they should have inserted such a clause in the referendum bill - but they didn't.

2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there hasn't been a formal legal challenge to the legitimacy of the result on that basis?
You're talking as if that had already been decided...

No there hasnt been legal challenge to the result in the UK - the case in the States is ongoing and delving ever-deeper into evidence and has spilled-out into people involved in Brexit being required. That our government chooses to allow foreign interference in the democratic process without comment says it all. Pretty sure if it were reversed, and the result reversed, Brexiteers would have forced Cameron into an enquiry by now and demanded another referendum (as Farage was doing anyway when he thought he'd lost by a whisker, and Rees-Mogg did too when he thought that might swing more votes his way giving the public a final say)

YCT me: just grammatical error

1. Then they should have inserted such a clause in the referendum bill - but they didn't.

2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there hasn't been a formal legal challenge to the legitimacy of the result on that basis?
You're talking as if that had already been decided...

No, it’s the other way round. If the referendum was to be binding, there would have been a clause to say so. There would also have been provision for overturning the result. The concept of overturning an opinion poll is illogical.

I have no idea why Remainers are so fixated on the 'advisory' nature of referendums, because anyone with common sense can see that it would be political suicide to dare to actually ignore the result of one...

Anyway let's not get carried away with Brexit this is about the new Independent group.

As I said they really are just a 2019 cover version of Blairism/New Labour/Centrism. Let's face it centrism is simply Thatcherism with diversity quotas, right wing economics with a splattering of left wing social views. A political slight of hand by appointing a cabinet with the most females ever then selling off the NHS or being friendly with private water firms and letting new them take you out for lunch while opposing water nationalisation. Or like a former compassionate Tory PM who ushers in same sex marriage while pushing the poorest to the brink with horrendous austerity. The reason they support remaining in the EU is to continue this consensus which has failed so many northern English towns where the people have no future and has led them to seek the extreme avenue of leaving the EU as the only way of teaching the Ummunas/Soubreys/Campbell's a lesson as they've never listened before.

Labels are just handy slagging-off points for one-dimensional arguments that fail to see the world is complex, much as the Left and the Right insist it is in their simplistic "I'm right and f*** everyone who disagrees" attitudes that should be listened to. One thing Vidcapper and I agree on 100% is that the UK political system is geared around the 2 parties keeping their stranglehold on power.

A problem with centrism, I find, is that it seems to be often used (quite often unfaithfully by those pretending to be centrists) to support a 'both sides are equally bad' mantra, which is just as one-dimensional and incorrect. At times, in history, people following leftist ideologies have done worse things, and at times, it has been right ideologies. Right now, with the left tending towards social democracy, and the right tending towards disaster capitalism, I know which broad grouping I think is better... right now, on a general scale, and which is healthier for the world to support. It's not egotistical to have a preferred side that you believe to be more generally correct. My comment about right selfishness is not actually meant to be an entirely negative dig, but more the generic principle of 'you vote right to benefit yourself, left to benefit society', hence why there will always be elements of the two sides in everything as long as our political systems remain intact.
This, I do agree with. We use them as it's convenient, but at differing times I consider myself to hold both left and centrist views, the latter when I recognise that some of my wants are not pragmatic. But ultimately I also dislike using such overplayed labels as it does indeed tribalise things too much.

I do find it astonishing when so many parties I would probably support devour each other over what seems like minutiae. That latest defection, Ian Austin, not joining the new group really set some eyebrows raising. It's not pragmatic in the slightest and ultimately gives me the feeling that this experiment will fizzle out if they cannot unite around SOMETHING.

That latest defection, Ian Austin, not joining the new group really set some eyebrows raising. It's not pragmatic in the slightest and ultimately gives me the feeling that this experiment will fizzle out if they cannot unite around SOMETHING.