If its as simple as you say, I have two questions.
1. Why didn't the government do this (just change the law)?
2. Why have I never seen a political commentator suggest this action as an option?
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It's a small majority, it would still have to go to Lords and it would (I would hope) be such an undemocratic thing that enough MPs would oppose it. What you're suggesting in this hypothetical, if I understand it, is that the power of the public to stand up to the government be removed. In effect, turning the UK into a dictatorship.
It amazes me that there are people, whether you agree with the outcome to this particular one or not, who think that she (and by extension any of us) shouldn't be allowed to challenge the government. We're so lucky to be able to do this, I imagine the majority of global citizens can't (I haven't researched the numbers).
Perhaps one day UK citizens won't be able to do it. That's not going to make our lives any better.
If its as simple as you say, I have two questions.
1. Why didn't the government do this (just change the law)?
2. Why have I never seen a political commentator suggest this action as an option?
If we're all being honest with ourselves, we don't really understand the workings. I would strongly suspect that reforming the Supreme Court (again) and the government backtracking on tuition fees are not at all similar, and neither could be called 'passing a law'.
So of course it isn't possible. It goes without saying that if the government isn't already doing 'roughly what it wants' regarding this then it can't.
Yes - that is what was on the ballot paper but it doesn't answer the question.
Will the UK leave and adopt a Norway/Switzerland/Canada relationship with the EU? Will it follow some other model? Will we leave the EU and its institutions and have no trade, 'security', environmental.... agreements in place. Will Brexit be hard or soft? I hate the terms, but they do attempt to describe the range of relationships, agreements and treaties that could replace what we have now.
The most annoying thing about 'Brexit means brexit' is that it means nothing. It is (as others have said on this thread) a vacuous soundbite. When challenged Brexiteers pile in to explain to simpletons like me what the vote really meant - and every one of them puts their own spin and interpretation on a ballot question that was deliberately open and vague, and produces mutually contradictory answers on both process and outcome. Most of them would be disasterous in my view - with the UK lunatics screwing up our asylum.
Yes leave - but you can be out and yet still have ties to the EU like other non-EU states, and many on the leave side were advocating these alternative models during the campaign. Then a few campaigners for constitutional and legal clarity come along and get destroyed by the mainstream press and the alt squad for daring to say this is not as simple as 'Brexit means brexit'!
How do you know that is what people voted for? You started with 'forget what was on the ballot paper', but that is all we can be sure of - how many voted for or against that simple proposition. Then we have 6 months of people from all sides of the argument telling everyone else what was in the heads of tens of millions of people on the day of the vote. I'm sure you're right about some. I doubt you're right about all.
If we go on the basis of "forget the question on the ballot paper" we're getting into territory where, rather than announcing his intention to resign as PM on the morning the referendum result was announced, David Cameron could have said we are going to stay in the EU anyway.
The only thing that can be deduced from the referendum result is that on a particular day last June, out of those that gave their opinion, more people wanted us to leave the EU than stay in it. Now, I happen to think that there will be days (there probably have been since June 23 as well) when, if such a vote had been taken, more people would have wanted to remain than leave. Similarly, I believe that one of the main reasons as to why the vote went the way it did is that a significant minority of those who voted leave do not like people from another country, but that's by the by - on the day that counted, leave won by not a huge margin, but one that was big enough to not leave any doubt as to who the winner was.
Therefore, leaping to all sorts of conclusions as to what the result means as far as what those charged with negotiating our way out of the EU should agree to is both pointless and mendacious - there was no mandate given for a hard or soft Brexit (in fact, I'm not sure these terms were even in use at the time of the vote), the vote was that we leave and the terms under which we do so can only be judged when we are told exactly what they are.
Indeed.
For me the key issue here is that nobody really knew what the impact would be one way or the other either positive or negative. Even now, nobody in a position of power appears to be able to tell us with any degree of certainty what will happen when Theresa May pushes the button, so how the hell were the British public supposed to make an informed decision?
Some will have voted based on prejudice
Some will have voted based on the rhetoric sputed by whichever politician shouted the loudest
Some will have voted the way their favourite newspaper told them to
A very small minority will have done any kind of research into the issues and likely impacts.