Brexit Party Smashing It!

[Gofer Blue]

At a UK level Brexit Party has so far 33.2% of the vote.
Lib Dems and Greens so far have 33.4% of the vote.

In Wales, Brexit Party got 32.5% of the vote.
Plaid Cymru and Lib Dems got 33.2% of the vote.

Things seem just as split as ever. All we know is that the Tories, the party falling apart realising an effective Brexit is impossible to deliver, and Labour, sitting on the fence, got a kicking.

BBC reporting that pro-Brexit parties got 34.9% of the vote so far.
Anti-Brexit parties got 40.4% of the vote so far.

Whilst watching the results come through I couldn't stop myself mentally adding up the votes for the Brexit parties and comparing them with the total votes of the "Remain" parties and yes, over and over again they seemed to roughly balance out, so I think if there was another referendum then the situation might be the same again. However there are two important factors - one, the turnout this time was far less than in the referendum and two, as some of the pundits pointed out, there may be other reasons why people voted Lib Dem or Green Party. I could agree with that for the Green Party but for the Lib Dems....?

If there is to be another referendum then whoever calls it must have the courage to demand a minimum 67% of the vote in favour one way or the other. If this is not achieved, then scrap the whole thing and maybe revisit in 10 years time if opinion polls suggest the mood has shifted, a la SNP independence vote.

[xsnaggle]

Whilst watching the results come through I couldn't stop myself mentally adding up the votes for the Brexit parties and comparing them with the total votes of the "Remain" parties and yes, over and over again they seemed to roughly balance out, so I think if there was another referendum then the situation might be the same again. However there are two important factors - one, the turnout this time was far less than in the referendum and two, as some of the pundits pointed out, there may be other reasons why people voted Lib Dem or Green Party. I could agree with that for the Green Party but for the Lib Dems....?

If there is to be another referendum then whoever calls it must have the courage to demand a minimum 67% of the vote in favour one way or the other. If this is not achieved, then scrap the whole thing and maybe revisit in 10 years time if opinion polls suggest the mood has shifted, a la SNP independence vote.

The historical rule for referenda was that whatever change was being voted on had to have 50+ of the available vote.
This meant for example that if 10,000,000 million people had a vote then the actual numbers for change had to be 5,000,001. It was irrelevant how many actually voted. Any non-cast vote was assumed to be a vote to maintain the status-quo, what ever that may have been.
Then there was the rule of 60% of the actual vote, which still makes sense but TB changed that to 50%for the welsh assembly vote because he had promised it to welsh labour and knew that it was the only way he had a cat in hell's chance of getting it past, and he only just managed it then. The end result we see today is Wales by a cabal elected by about 11% of the .
The dithering and opposition to the M4 relief road is a perfect example of idealists running a country and completely ignoring the need for something to keep the country prosperous and in a position to grow. Not building it will be a disaster but those opposing it won't care, they wont even think about the damage it may do to the economy as long as their own opinions prevail.
If the decision had been up to the westminster government it would be built by now.