Originally Posted by
Eric the Half a Bee
Firstly, around half of leave voters want a deal and the other half don't want a deal. Which group of leave voters are right? I haven't come close to finding an answer to this question. I know no-deal supporters who would be most unhappy if we left with a deal. I know deal supporters who would be most unhappy if we left without a deal. What's the answer to that? May's deal tries to find some middle ground between both camps but fails spectacularly. This means we don't actually know what leave means and when people say all leave voters voted for the same thing, they are talking bollocks. No-deal was never promoted in any manifesto from any leave campaign, they all offered to get a deal that is better than our current deal. Because of this total mess and lack of definition of what leave means, and the warring factions between different groups of leave supporters, there can never be a consensus. Parliament cannot decide because of the lack of a definition of what Brexit means, other than leave.
If there ends up being another referendum, having a straight shootout between remain and leave would be utterly pointless. If leave wins again, we're back at square 1 with different leave voters wanting different flavours of Brexit.
Perhaps such a referendum needs to be a 2-part - remain vs leave, with 2 options for leave of deal vs no deal. That way MPs would have no excuse for not carrying out the will of the people. At present the will of leave voters is split.
Between them, this Government and the DUP have a majority in the house of commons. They can't agree on what Brexit should be. If they could, Brexit would have happened and there would be nothing the remaining parties and MPs could do. If the Government can't decide on what should happen, how can MPs of all parties?
It's interesting that there are no-deal leave voters who would rather us remain in the EU than leave with a deal. There are leave voters who want a deal that would rather remain than leave the EU without a deal.
All of this could have been sorted out had all the negotiations taken place before the referendum and a clear option presented to the electorate. Until leave gets a more specific definition, other than meaning 'leave', the merry-go-round will keep turning and the more people will get pissed off.