Stunned

[WorkingMummy]

I agree that referenda are not exactly brilliant ideas.

But they are routinely not followed. They are very rarely directly binding on any government and the government only needs to listen, not obey. Certainly not obey regardless.

The French in 2005 (with a majority of 54.9%), the Dutch in 2005 (61.5%), the Swiss in 2014 (50.3%) and the Greeks in 2015 (61.3%) all returned referenda results against the EU, on issues going to the heart of what the EU is all about. None of them was acted upon. Not one. The relevant government declined to do so on the grounds that the result of the popular vote was against national interests. There are an even greater number of EU state referenda that have been re-held within a short space of time, for the same reason.

[JohnL]

Sadiq Khan and the Mayor of Paris have said Cities are more important than Countries in shaping the future

Paris and London will work closer togethater

[Jeremy]

JohnL Wrote:

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> Sadiq Khan and the Mayor of Paris have said Cities

> are more important than Countries in shaping the future

Indeed. Are you familiar with the book "Connectography"? His basic argument is that geopolitical boundaries are becoming less important, and what matters is infrastructure between major cities (transport, electronic, supply chains), creating globally important hubs.

[DulwichFox]

So the Cannel Tunnel should of been built between London and Paris..

[red devil]

Otta Wrote:

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> At least we can take some solace in Mail and Sun

> readers finally realizing they've been sold a

> massive load of shite by their chosen

> "news"papers.

>

> http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/the-mail-

> has-explained-what-brexit-means-and-its-readers-se

> em-shocked--Z1772TI4aNW

>

> http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/the-sun-h

> as-also-got-around-to-telling-its-readers-what-bre

> xit-will-mean-and-they-are-not-happy--WySvafrAVZ

You couldn't make it up...

http://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2016/jun/27/regrets-ive-had-a-few-kelvin-mackenzie-and-the-great-brexit-u-turn

[Lordship 516]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/13/eu-ireland-lisbon-treaty

It is interesting that when Ireland voted 'NO' to the Lisbon treaty the first time around, the main reason was that no one understood the unreadable document & the Irish thought that there would be a renegotiated document but the Brussels mob rejected that notion [the Nice treaty had been renegotiated] and threatened Ireland with withdrawal of various supports & that fat man PM Cowen caved in and forced another referendum - the Irish were bullied. This UK referendum was to leave for more or less the same reason - a lot of people didn't understand the detail and the Leave campaigners created a lot of uncertainty that the Remainers made a hash of in not sufficiently clarifying their lies & hyperbole. All these Labour shadow ministers are blaming Corbyn but they all had mouths on them to speak & legs to get around canvassing but they also want a scapegoat and most have other agendas for their own careers. We need a national consensus and Johnson cannot provide that, neither is he a suitable character to send to negotiate as he has no credibility in Europe - he was there before and lied his way through his made-up reports etc. etc Do we really want this bluffer to represent this country..? aaaaagggghhhhhh....!

[Lordship 516]

Boris was a prot?g? of the 'Daily Telegraph' editor, Max Hastings. The walls around his desk in the rather ramshackle Brussels 'Telegraph' offices, on Square Marie Louise, were festooned with a series of long letters from Hastings.

These letters were a detailed appraisal of Boris's writings. They challenged him on words and phrases, and advised him to avoid being colloquial, even at risk of being perceived as "pompous" at times.

It was an extraordinary example of mentoring, entirely foreign to any writer's experience of journalism. The Hastings-Johnson connection went on for some 20 years as Boris continued as a 'Telegraph' columnist after being elected an MP.

But these days, Hastings is less than a fan of Boris, who he insists is not prime minister material.

"Most politicians are ambitious and ruthless, but Boris is a gold medal egomaniac," Hastings wrote in October 2012 just as Johnson's prime ministerial candidature was finally on the agenda.

Hastings vowed to leave Britain if his old prot?g? became the Downing Street anchor tenant. Many observers now believe it's almost time Hastings started to consult those airline timetables.

[Lordship 516]

Sarkozy said: "When the people say ?No', we cannot say the people are wrong. We must ask why they said ?No'.

The same applies to the Leavers - we must ask them why they voted to leave and try to address that.

If they voted on the basis of wrong or fraudulent information then the vote must be suspect & subject to review.

[????]

WorkingMummy Wrote:

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> Agree absolutely. With Lou, Loz and nxjen.

> Nick Clegg was crucified for selling out on

> tuition fees. When all he did was compromise with

> the god awful situation he was in, being in a

> national-interest coalition with an austerity

> party, and restrain the worst of Tory excesses.

> Makes him a good politician, not a bad one.

Agree - much maligned by the lefty shouters of social media for saving this country from bankruptcy; I am praying for a Liberal Democrat revival, especially with Labour looking like it's potentially spiraling to a proper hard left party (as Corbyn & his cabal always planned I reckon)

[miga]

This Lefty shouters of social media really bothers you doesn't it, ?????

[????]

miga Wrote:

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> This Lefty shouters of social media really bothers

> you doesn't it, ?????

yes, it really does, genuinely. I think Social Media encourages simplistic polarised positions and encourages extremism. The right I expect idiocy but the left has let me down by being as stupid . Just an illustration the constant moaning and simplistic memes about 'elites' and 'Bankers' 'the rich' the 10% etc that the left started has crept right accross the political spectrum so that Boris, Grove and Farage could all use it with effect to encourage and leverage some sort of 'anti-establishment' position to get people to Brexit.

Another. I've moaned about the BBC before but in reality our sensible media (and in reality i do include the Guardian in that) - even those with a political slant - research and report things professionally, obviously with some slants. But the angry left and lots of people now think the at the best extremely bias, under researched but normally utter rubbish of sites such Anonther Angry Voice, The Canary, etc etc are nearer the truth, fooking laughable.

[LondonMix]

Well Angela Merkel has just come and quite firmly stated there will be no informal negotiations before Article 50. Let's see who will blink first now.

[miga]

I get it, I really do. But sometimes I feel like the shouting about the "shouty left" on this forum drowns out the actual "shouty left". OK - it's histrionic - social media is a lobotomy scene, it gets that way. But it's not the shouty left that plunged this country down the toilet on Friday, no matter how annoying they are.

But when UKIP supporters or that awful person that used to be on the Apprentice or whoever shout about "champagne socialists", "feminazis", the "condescending urban left" or whatever, my skin crawls. Way to reduce the arguments being put forward to a bunch of lazy cliches. It's what your drunk racist uncle will trot out at Christmas (well, not your or my drunk racist uncle specifically) as a kind of counterpoint to all the other bollocks about immigrants and women.

Yes, the "shouty left" exists, but it's not what lies at the root of this disaster. It's wallpaper. It's that socialist guy from Uni who used to bore everyone at parties. It's not what made people from Sunderland vote to fuck themselves up. And every time someone who's smart and considers their opinions says "champagne socialist" and complains about how condescending the Urban Left are to our provincial countrymen, it's an own goal.

This time - the "champagne socialists" were right. But no one heard them because they were too busy being shouted down by superstition and prejudice-led politics. No one heard the facts because we're all "tired of experts" now, because "experts" are the Urban Left, and we don't like being condescended to by facts, especially if that boring guy from Uni in the Trotsky t shirt is following it up with some shouty tweets. I don't know, maybe it is all his fault. Maybe if Polly Toynbee stopped writing we would have remained.

[ianr]

Loz Wrote:

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> I know Nick Clegg isn't exactly the toast of the

> town, but he made some spookily accurate

> predictions on the eve of the vote...

>

> https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/will-wake-vote-leave/

>

> Actually, we could do with someone with Clegg's pragmatism right now.

If it had been published the previous weekend and had the chance to circulate, who knows, we might have been in a different situation now. According to one large survey, 18% of voters only reached their final decision in the last few days of the election. http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/

[Lordship 516]

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/06/27/nick-barber-tom-hickman-and-jeff-king-pulling-the-article-50-trigger-parliaments-indispensable-role/

[Blah Blah]

Love your post miga. And I agree with you too ????. The problem is that we have become obsessed with partisan views, he who shouts loudest gets heard etc, whilst in between all of that shouty stuff, on both the left and right, are a whole group of people who just want to have what their parents (or grandparents in many cases) had. They want security of employment. Security of tenure (be that rental or home owner), security of decent healthcare and education for their kids and the securty of their futures. We don't see a lot of that deprivation in London, and that is a problem when the centre of government lives there.

The free market can not be left to take care of everything. It's primary incentive is to make profit, not ensure people are housed, employed etc. That is the job of government and THAT is the job they have not been doing for too many people. That is the message that has to come from this. And it's a message that has to be heard by every party and every corner of the press.

[Lordship 516]

Well worth reading

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/06/27/nick-barber-tom-hickman-and-jeff-king-pulling-the-article-50-trigger-parliaments-indispensable-role/

[Lordship 516]

Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 there are only two ways to get an early General Election 1] Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 only a motion explicitly resolving "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government" is treated as a motion of no confidence which, if carried, triggers a general election. A government can lose a vote of no confidence by a majority of just over 50%, requiring it to resign. Parliament will be dissolved if no new government can be formed within 14 days of a no-confidence vote. 2] The Act also permits early dissolution if the House of Commons votes by a supermajority of two-thirds. The second option is unlikely to happen. The first will be unpalatable to the incumbent government so how viable is an early election..? Should these not occur, the election will take place on 7 May 2020.