It’s incredible how that decision fucked the country for decades. One of the best examples why “direct democracy” does not guarantee good decisions just because it was the people’s choice.
Ah, okay, so the referendum was just more like a consultation whether brexit should happen, but the badly done legislation came afterwards (which people probably wouldn’t have voted for)?
People were simultaneously told different things by different people on what would happen of the country voted leave. A lot of it obviously false even at the time.
People might have known what they were voting for. But what they were voting for had no basis on what the government would actually do.
Then we had the prime minister who held the referendum resign.
A new prime minister is chosen in a private election amongst members of the conservative party (about 100,000 votes will do it normally but no one actually runs against them). This becomes a theme.
There is legislation passed which essentially puts a clock on the process. If nothing passes we’d just revoke laws and break treaties.
This was meant to scare the EU into giving us what we wanted. The EU was not overly concerned.
The government put some very shoddy legislation together. We got a pretty poor deal from the EU, well we were pretty desperate.
The government couldn’t pass that legislation
We had an election for a new government
The government lost seats and lost their majority
The government then joined with a religious extremist party in Northern Ireland to give them a majority.
The shoddy legislation becomes not only shoddy but also more extreme,
It still can’t pass.
The prime minister is ousted by their own party.
We get a new prime minister.
They still haven’t decided on the legislation but they tell everyone what they want to hear.
We have an election
The government gets a big working majority
The shoddy extreme legislation, which we now know from first hand accounts the prime minister didn’t understand, still can’t pass.
The government literally breaks the law and closes parliament illegally to try and run the clock closer to the point where we take a bonfire to massive ammous of legislation.
The government are then forced back into the house by the courts
Eventually at the last moment a deal is passed. It’s really bad for the UK economy, and the UK in general.
The UK leaves the EU. Northern Ireland doesn’t. Well it sort of does.
COVID and Another 2 prime ministers later and Brexit deals are still being negotiated.
Essentially he EU has everything it needs. It’s protected the interests of bordering nations like the Republic of Ireland and France. The UK has increased friction on trade, labour issues.
The current big issue is that France no longer helps us stop people crossing the channel. That was an EU agreement. So our government, now spends it’s time and energy trying to deport people to Rwanda, breaking the entirely separate European Convention on Human Rights Churchill’s government basically wrote and passed after the second world war.
It’s worth noting that this government has had a vote share of
36.1% pre referendum in 2015
36.9% post referendum in 2017
42.4% post deadlock in 2019 (with the opposition getting 40%)
The conservative party got that lock in 2019 on 55% of the seats with 42.4% of the vote
Since then they’ve rotated people in and out of government to essentially do the bidding of the one who pays the most into their individual campaign funds against each other.
The government refuse to allow an election even while they’re essentially changing constantly.
We haven’t really got democracy in this country. We disenfranchise a lot of people through our electoral system by design. We concentrate power to a minority.
However what went missing after Brexit was the Dublin convention where migrants could be turned back to the first EU country they entered, in this case France.
I think the government tried to negotiate a returns agreement with the french who basically just said “Non!” and that was it. There is a deal where the UK pays France to patrol their coastline and stop migrants however.
I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong about this last part.
Time to start the rejoin in only another 10 years or so I think. We’ll be voting on single market membership again before the decade is out I think.
It’s incredible how that decision fucked the country for decades. One of the best examples why “direct democracy” does not guarantee good decisions just because it was the people’s choice.
It wasn’t direct democracy though.
No member of the public ever voted on the legislation.
If the legislation has been put to the public and the referendum bound it to law I think it would have gone differently.
The vote relied people voting for their own version of Brexit vs. the status quo.
I’m not a fan of direct democracy by any means but Brexit isn’t an example of it.
Ah, okay, so the referendum was just more like a consultation whether brexit should happen, but the badly done legislation came afterwards (which people probably wouldn’t have voted for)?
Exactly.
People were simultaneously told different things by different people on what would happen of the country voted leave. A lot of it obviously false even at the time.
People might have known what they were voting for. But what they were voting for had no basis on what the government would actually do.
Then we had the prime minister who held the referendum resign.
A new prime minister is chosen in a private election amongst members of the conservative party (about 100,000 votes will do it normally but no one actually runs against them). This becomes a theme.
There is legislation passed which essentially puts a clock on the process. If nothing passes we’d just revoke laws and break treaties.
This was meant to scare the EU into giving us what we wanted. The EU was not overly concerned.
The government put some very shoddy legislation together. We got a pretty poor deal from the EU, well we were pretty desperate.
The government couldn’t pass that legislation
We had an election for a new government
The government lost seats and lost their majority
The government then joined with a religious extremist party in Northern Ireland to give them a majority.
The shoddy legislation becomes not only shoddy but also more extreme, It still can’t pass.
The prime minister is ousted by their own party.
We get a new prime minister.
They still haven’t decided on the legislation but they tell everyone what they want to hear.
We have an election
The government gets a big working majority
The shoddy extreme legislation, which we now know from first hand accounts the prime minister didn’t understand, still can’t pass.
The government literally breaks the law and closes parliament illegally to try and run the clock closer to the point where we take a bonfire to massive ammous of legislation.
The government are then forced back into the house by the courts
Eventually at the last moment a deal is passed. It’s really bad for the UK economy, and the UK in general.
The UK leaves the EU. Northern Ireland doesn’t. Well it sort of does.
COVID and Another 2 prime ministers later and Brexit deals are still being negotiated.
Essentially he EU has everything it needs. It’s protected the interests of bordering nations like the Republic of Ireland and France. The UK has increased friction on trade, labour issues.
The current big issue is that France no longer helps us stop people crossing the channel. That was an EU agreement. So our government, now spends it’s time and energy trying to deport people to Rwanda, breaking the entirely separate European Convention on Human Rights Churchill’s government basically wrote and passed after the second world war.
It’s worth noting that this government has had a vote share of 36.1% pre referendum in 2015 36.9% post referendum in 2017 42.4% post deadlock in 2019 (with the opposition getting 40%)
The conservative party got that lock in 2019 on 55% of the seats with 42.4% of the vote
Since then they’ve rotated people in and out of government to essentially do the bidding of the one who pays the most into their individual campaign funds against each other.
The government refuse to allow an election even while they’re essentially changing constantly.
We haven’t really got democracy in this country. We disenfranchise a lot of people through our electoral system by design. We concentrate power to a minority.
It’s a mess.
To be fair to the French, they do try to stop the boats. For example: https://www.thelocal.fr/20230902/tighter-french-coast-patrols-in-place-to-stop-channel-migrants
However what went missing after Brexit was the Dublin convention where migrants could be turned back to the first EU country they entered, in this case France.
I think the government tried to negotiate a returns agreement with the french who basically just said “Non!” and that was it. There is a deal where the UK pays France to patrol their coastline and stop migrants however. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong about this last part.