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Comment by DominikR | Hacker News Reader

What does a "clear majority" even mean? A majority that you personally would accept? Like a majority of your favourite TV celebs and comedians like John Oliver agreeing that Brexit is a good thing?

The rules for the referendum have been set by the government therefore it has committed to follow these rules regardless of outcome. And the outcome has been clear for anyone who understands basic arithmetic.

This whole debate about how to best screw the voters reminds me of Stalin's attitude towards democratic elections.

The right wing in Europe is calling the EU the EUSSR for a very good reason!

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This referendum was not set up as binding or self-executing. If you can find where in the rules the government committed to any particular course of action, you're welcome to quote them.

Yeah this is the kind of legalese bs that leads to violent overthrows of governments. If you believe that this will stop Brexit you are living in phantasy land.

This kind of "legalese bs" happens all the time in Switzerland and you won't find a lot of people believing Switzerland is on a brink of a violent government overthrow.

Referendums are usually a mandate to the parliament to implement something.If the referendum idea turns out to be impossible (like eating and having your cake) then the parliament will dismiss or water down this mandate.

There is nothing impossible about leaving the EU. It's not like the Referendum demanded the UK to colonise Pluto.

And its the government itself that initiated this on its terms so it should follow through on it. Not a fringe party but the ruling government parties.

> There is nothing impossible about leaving the EU.

I never did say this. I did say keeping the promises of the Leave campaigners is impossible.

> the government itself that initiated this on its terms.

The terms were that this referendum is not binding.

> There is nothing impossible about leaving the EU.

There's nothing impossible about jumping off a cliff either, it's just inadvisable.

But of course, and more to the point of what the grandparent post was saying, if the promise was that you will happily land on a soft bed of £350 million in delicately crumpled £10 notes, then meeting that promise may be impossible.

The idea that there will be violence is the real fantasy here, and a very unpleasant fantasy at that. Other than maybe a few more murdered Poles and a fistfight between UKIP MEPs.

The Leave supporters are mostly over 50, have no coherent organization, and no history of street protests. All they're going to do is write angry comments on Daily Mail articles and vote in elections. They're not going to get hold of semtex and Armalites and start an insurgency.

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