Should the EU referendum result be annulled? For the past year I’ve been arguing that this would mean defying a democratic decision – even if it was informed by lies. Democracy is not negotiable. But what if this was not a democratic decision? What if it failed to meet the accepted criteria for a free and fair choice? If that were the case, should the result still stand? Surely it should not.
The complaint is over £425,000 sent through the DUP.
OK, I have no knowledge at all about this but say it was dodgy.
Next, how much did the EU funnel and coordinate on the other side?
Bueller?
“Now openDemocracy has raised further concerns, after reporting that Vote Leave, Leave.EU, Grassroots Out, Ukip and the Democratic Unionist party all used a tiny branding agency called Soopa Doopa, based in a house in Ely, Cambridgeshire. ”
Not Snippa Dooper, then?
At some point the Western Left abandoned the idea of fairness and the rule of law. Outcomes are determined solely by whether they further the Left’s political agenda. If a rule does, it is enforced. If it doesn’t, it is ignored.
So George is just joining the rest of the Left. This referendum did not produce the result they liked, therefore it is not democratic and hence is invalid.
I must admit I thought the George here was going to be George Osborne. We might add the £9 million spent by the government on the leaflet sent to every household before the referendum which presented a tendentious and misleading case in favour of remaining.
No, this is really serious. Cos that Aaron Banks right, he employed a shadowy AMERICAN firm -shadowy I tell you – and they hypnotised us into voting leave using dodgy music and spirals like they used in the Ipcress Files. I saw it on Newsnight and it was really scary.
Actually a work colleague of mine argued yesterday that the referendum was null and void because – er, because something; I did tell him I couldn’t be too arsed to listen.
Anyway, I asked him what the point of that was because they had immediately started arguing that Parliament was sovereign and the referendum meant nothing until Parliament had voted. And Gina Miller went to the Supreme Court over that exact point. And then Parliament did vote and triggered Article 50.
So who cares about the referendum? Except apparently those naive parliamentarians wouldn’t have voted as they did of the referendum result had been different so that vote is null and void as well and… wibble!
“At some point the Western Left abandoned the idea of fairness and the rule of law.”
Marx held that the rule of law was a bourgeois social construct. All relations and institutions in a capitalist society are expressions of bourgeois power. Abandoning the rule of law is a feature, not a bug, in leftist thinking. Even so-called social democrats have always been prone to think in these terms.
Should George Monorobot be hanged?
For the past year I have been arguing that this would mean defying the Rule of Law. Even tho he deserves it.
The Rule of Law is not negotiable. In this country we do things “law way”. But what if George’s existence did not come about in a legal manner? What if his parent’s did not have full EU approval for copulation? If that was the case –should his non-legal life still stand?
“Marx held that the rule of law was a bourgeois social construct. All relations and institutions in a capitalist society are expressions of bourgeois power. Abandoning the rule of law is a feature, not a bug, in leftist thinking. Even so-called social democrats have always been prone to think in these terms.”
You’ve been reading Jezza & McNasty’s playbook Theo.
Voted in one time and then goodbye to voting.
I’m reading Varoufakis’s ‘adults in the room’.
I’d recommend it to posters here and to any remainers who still want the overturning of democracy and The EU the hill they die on for ‘progressive democratic’ reasons……
“Annulled” is a strange word to use. There was no contract or marriage, Parliament asked our opinion and is now acting on it. It didn’t need a referendum to trigger article 50.
And who would annul it? Even if the supreme court did annul it, so what?
Why don’t they just come out and say they want Parliament to stop Brexit rather than trying to dress it up in some legal sounding mumbo jumbo?
If they are that wedded to the EU they should take a leave out of UKIP’s book and start a single issue pro EU party and try to disrupt the process from the bottom up.
“Now openDemocracy has raised further concerns, after reporting that Vote Leave, Leave.EU, Grassroots Out, Ukip and the Democratic Unionist party all used a tiny branding agency called Soopa Doopa, based in a house in Ely, Cambridgeshire.”
Is Spud hiding a little secret?
It might actually be that rich mate of his he’s just set something up with.
BiND
No. it makes no sense to democratically build grassroots support for the suspension of democracy and binding people and process into an unreachable technocratic elite.
The government, big business and most of the media were in favour of Remain. The governor of the Bank of England and the President of the US spoke out in favour of Remain.
But the shoddy, sorry collection of cunts at the Graun continues to try desperately to rewrite the vote as the result of manipulation by ‘the rich’.
I used to say the Graun was the lefty equivalent of the Daily Mail. Now it has the editorial integrity of a fake news site run buy some loon from a basement in Tucson.
If they are that wedded to the EU they should take a leave out of UKIP’s book and start a single issue pro EU party and try to disrupt the process from the bottom up.
This is what amuses me: the metropolitan elites are wailing that no major political party now represents Remain voters, seemingly forgetting that this was the case for Leave voters for decades. They’re only interested in democracy when it’s serving their own purposes. Let these wankers start their own party.
Hard to better SMFS commentary but it needs to be pointed out that the recent election featured one side (the Corbynites) with an utterly dishonest manifesto which offered free stuff which the country cannot afford. I do not think anyone on the Left who voted for it can now claim that deception is not part and parcel of the game in an election…..
But, but, I thought the referendum was purely advisory? Oh, wait, that was last week’s argument. Silly me.
Van_patten
It’s been a strange 12 months. I’m used to shaking my head in amusement at the really dim social democrats (those who 100% sincerely believe JC can deliver and think the EU protects ‘rights’ even though EU minimums are far below U.K. Statutes) and propaganda loving headbanger lefties when they whinge about election persuasion and manipulation and spin. Those two sets are either too stupid or mental to understand the real world.
But it pains me to say my moderate progressive friends who are veteran campaigners and I completely respect find it hard to admit they’ve shipped bullshit and propaganda in their time as much as I did for VL.
I would have thought there is omertà on such things, after all talking about it can make everyone look bad?
Mr Ecks – brilliant
The top ranked comment:
Even without the dubious funding, the EU referendum was an absolute travesty of democracy.
Do tell.
For a start, we should have never been given a vote on it. How’s the average voter supposed to have any idea whether leaving the EU is good for the country?
Damn you, democracy for being a travesty of democracy!
In a normal general election, people can vote for whichever party broadly reflects their values. A voter doesn’t need to know or understand anything complex. That wasn’t the case with the EU question, which was massively complex.
Yes, the incredibly complex question Should the UK remain a member of the EU or leave the EU?
The inimitable Steve
‘For a start, we should have never been given a vote on it. How’s the average voter supposed to have any idea whether leaving the EU is good for the country?’
With that statement the cat is out of the bag – I would imagine the revised elections under Corbyn in term 2 will be along these lines. http://time.com/17720/north-korea-election-a-sham-worth-studying/
Did chuckle at the last point – got to love someone who can’t tell the difference between it being a complex issue (which it is) and a complex question (In or out – fairly simple)
What the Remainiacs also fail to work out is that by pointing out the issue is so complex they unwittingly hang themselves (literally if Ecks has his way) One of the reasons the process surrounding the details of Brexit implementation is so complex is that successive British governments, of whatever hue, outsourced responsibility for huge swathes of government to a supranational bureaucracy in Europe.
This was never really voted on (and anyone describing the 2016 referendum as dishonest needs to look back into history to the one in 1975 and see in retrospect how dishonest, particularly in the wake of subsequent changes in EU government in the 80s and 90s, that campaign was) and yet successive pygmies in high office nodded these changes through without once putting it to a popular vote. I think if people realised the scale of the deception they would have voted with a far greater majority (Although it’s true that 40% of the voters in the last general election voted to go down the same line as North Korea and Venezuela so democracy is an imprecise instrument) but such a result would still have been hailed by the commentator as ‘anti-democratic’
TIS: That was the top comment?
Whichever cunt wrote that needs the arrogance beating out. The level of said arrogance is up there with the Japanese Imperium or something.
Eurochukuo? Sounds better than the Eeeeeuuuuwwwww.
Yeah– Welcome to Eurochukuo the home of Greater West Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere!!
Not “Banzai” but “Bag-za-I, Bag-za-I” as they steal everything including your country itself. Nasty little men with horrible glasses like Drunker-san and other big zaibatsus.
Now they have had their Midway and the end looms. But doubtless a few hold-outs will still be found on dessert islands located and taxpayer-funded within some of the worlds most expensive hotels.
What do these strange people think would happen if they actually got their way? Imagine us back in the EU. Pretend if you like we’d be back in under the same conditions. Then along comes the next step on the road to ever closer union. How do they think Leave voters, plus anyone else who cares about democracy is going to react?
The great lie of the Europhile is that the European Project is so obviously good that the political changes involved are virtually trivial. They don’t even understand that many people who voted Leave in 2016 voted to stay in in 1975.
The (EU loving) political elite have spent years calling those who question immigration and other policies as bigots, at best, and didn’t just ignore them they sneered.
Now there bubble has been burst rather than try to curry favour to win their argument they are doubling down and calling the (us) thick as well.
I can’t see that approach ending well for them.