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Comment by hazeii | Hacker News Reader

>The Brexit promise is something nobody can deliver on..

I would - respectfully - point out that's not the situation.

It is (was?) a promise in the sense that the government is there to enact the will of the people. The majority of people who voted, voted to leave (personally I was in the minority).

So now (in engineering terms) it's pretty simple. If everyone sits on their hands, the UK will leave the UK as scheduled in March (and so fulfil the wish of the people).

The actuality is the unedifying spectacle of lots of shuffling, muddying of the waters and lining of pockets as anyone with skin in the game scrabbles for whatever they feel is to their own advantage.

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Brexit itself can of course be delivered, but the larger promise sold to voters - that the country would be able to negotiate favorable trade deals, that it would directly result in increased NHS funding, that it would lead to reduced immigration without affecting free movement for workers, that customs and border control would be seamless, that European court of justice would stop having jurisdiction in UK affairs etc. - was the lie.

Indeed; a lot of people subscribe to the view that the vote delivered the 'incorrect' result because one side was more effective at lying than the other side.

Very difficult to know where to draw a line; my feeling is that even if history shows the people were wrong the government should not be allowed to (directly or indirectly) do something other than what they were elected to do - i.e. serve the people (on a plate, it seems).

And I write this from the losing side (in the referendum); about the only way it could get worse if it turns I'm on the winning side in the end (cf. Boaty McBoatface; the people were asked to vote for the name of the vehicle, but the powers that be didn't like such a frivolous name so they reneged and called it the RRS Sir David Attenborough instead. The parallel should be obvious).

Edit: toned down the rhetoric.

> Very difficult to know where to draw a line; my feeling is that even if history shows the people were wrong the government should not be allowed to (directly or indirectly) do something other than what they were elected to do - i.e. serve the people (on a plate, it seems).

Governments do this all the time, though. Campaign promises are often just that.

And we see time and time again how ineffectual the population is at getting people into a majority position of power to see the pop proposals of the day enacted.

These direct democracy votes often turn out this way - the people vote on a topic differently than how they vote for representatives. But a large portion of why we don't practice direct democracy in most of the west is because you don't want a mob of opinions dictating national law.

It isn't undemocratic for democratically elected representatives to go against a referendum. They were elected to rule on behalf of their people, even if that is in contradiction to non-binding votes by said people. Its their reelection funeral if they go against popular opinion and turn out wrong, but its their job to do it if they think its right. Its why we have representatives in the first place!

The Brexit Proposal was defeated by an unholy alliance of Remainers and Brexit supporters. Both parties are happy today though the onus will be on the former if they wish to remain in that state. As described by a lawyer (of sufficient status to attract an overnight detailed rebuttal from the Prime Minister's office - followed though, by a similarly detailed overnight rebuttal of a rebuttal (Spectator, December Issues) writing that the Prime Minister May Proposal was "atrocious" - a betrayal of what the Brexit decision should have resulted in, irrespective of the opinions of either remainers or leavers. In other words, in factual terms, the Brexit Proposal was not Brexit as envisaged.

Nothing that May could have delivered would have been at all similar to Brexit as envisioned. That is because Brexit, as envisioned by it's supporters was largely a pack of fairy tales.

The problem here is that they went ahead and voted for it, without actually doing the hard work of drafting a concrete proposal for how Brexit will happen.

"Serving the people" can itself be interpreted both ways. Say there was a referendum and people voted to eliminate all taxes. Would they still have a duty to carry it out, knowing that it would most certainly lead to national collapse?

Yes. If people know that it could lead to national collapse, they'd more likely vote for actually sensible policies. If instead they think that "the politicians will figure something out" and that "my politicians are better than your politicians" you get the present political situation, when most votes (both referenda and elections) are less about policies and more about popularity, tribalism and virtue signaling.

See California and taxes. This assumption is certainly not a given.

What would be the point of the vote if they didn't stick to the outcome?

It would be "Advisory".

"Popular soverignty" has no place in British constitutional history, only in Scotland; the traditional settlement is based on Parliamentary soverignty.

All of that remains to be seen. There are two major causes to this particular outcome.

1. Article 50 is an exceptionally poor piece of legislation if your objective is to deliver a smooth and equitable separation from the Union.

2. The Irish border is very sensitive and prone to violence, and the Irish government has successfully ensured that their concerns addressed in the form that they have been, within the withdrawal agreement.

1. It is actually a pretty well written piece of law, the about only problem in it is short timeframes - it wasn't imagined in the spirit of complete political mess but more like an orderly exit option with previous long deliberation. Unfortunately British politicians love to stall and waste time, eventually invoking a fallback clause.

Brexit seem like a short term solution for a long term UK identity crisis.

It is a reaction to the identity crisis, but I don't think it is a solution at all.

I don't think that was important to Brexit voters. It's an emotional vote, a rejection of something, and they didn't care about the consequences. The favorable deals are only a way to keep the debate going.

More importantly the government cannot deliver both "Brexit" and "business continuity", potentially including such things as "food and medical supplies". This is gradually dawning on even the dimmest Cabinet ministers.

That is not true in general. I accept that this government cannot. It is perfectly feasible to leave the European Union and remain within EEA, gaining control of laws that do not relate to maintenance of European standards and maintaining business continuity.

It was feasible, had the government started 2 years ago.

As for gaining control of laws, the primary complaint was the free movement of EU citizens, the UK wanted its cake (the right to move freely in the EU) and eat it (but control who came from the EU to the UK).

The equivalent stupidity would be for the Scottish devolved parliament to demand free movement of Scottish citizens in England while establishing immigration controls at the Scottish/English border.

The idea that food and medical supplies will disappear is completely wrong and has already been debunked by, amongst other people, the head of the NHS.

This is especially true because being in the EU actually increases food costs due to the common external tariff. The only reason food imports would slow is if the government wanted them to, which it doesn't.

The illogical and ridiculous predictions that somehow the only thing keeping British people alive is huge payments to the EU, is not only factually false, but insulting to boot. The UK survived the rest of Europe trying to literally conquer it. Now there are people who seriously believe the country will be brought to its knees by trading on WTO terms.

So why did the government pay £14m to emergency charter ferries from a company with no ferries?

The UK survived by huge logistical effort and food rationing. It's now led by people I wouldn't trust with the logistics of a trip to Tesco.

I didn't read much into that story but from what I recall, the company in question has no ships yet because it's new, but can quickly obtain them and is run by shipping industry veterans.

Regardless, I don't really know why, because the heads of all the major ports in both the UK and France have said they expect minimal or no disruption. But maybe part of why they're saying that, is the preparations being done.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/20/port-of-dov...

"Richard Christian, the port’s head of policy, said there would be “regular gridlock” in Kent in the event of a hard Brexit, and disruption to freight traffic on ferries and Eurotunnel services would have a profound impact on Britain’s economy. "

They changed their tune since.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1073341/brexit-news-dover-...

> The UK survived by huge logistical effort and food rationing.

And by having the support of the largest empire the world has ever seen ...

> The illogical and ridiculous predictions that somehow the only thing keeping British people alive is huge payments to the EU, is not only factually false, but insulting to boot

Of course it's false: it's a strawman. Payments to the EU to keep people "alive", really?

> Now there are people who seriously believe the country will be brought to its knees by trading on WTO terms

I am astounded by the number of WTO experts in this country of late. Yet nobody can explain the practicalities, they just say "trade on WTO terms" as the answer to everything. Weird

Trade in radiotherapy supplies is currently regulated under the Euratom treaty. When the UK leaves it is required to submit a System of Accountancy and Control for Nuclear Material to the IAEA to continue trading. The current status is "we expect them to be in place to meet international obligations when the UK leaves Euratom" which is perhaps not totally reassuring for cancer patients.

> The UK survived the rest of Europe trying to literally conquer it.

I don't think you understand the literal meaning of "literally".

The UK chose to join the EU. It has chosen to leave. That means it will have to comply with the rules the EU has for nations not part of the EU.

For some reason, the Brexiters seem to follow the "Fog in Channel, Continent cut off" idea that the UK has control over what the EU has to accept after it has left.

What do you think WW2 was exactly, if not a literal attempt to conquer it?

You're arguing with a straw man. Nobody claims the EU had to do anything, it can ban people who live there from buying British things if it wants. But the idea that this will cause food and medicine shortages is simply silly - the rest of the world manages to buy these things without being in the EU so why does this story keep being promoted?

The idea that the EU would blockade the transport of medical supplies is ludicrous; or if it's not ludicrous, it is further proof that leaving was the right choice.

It's the geopolitical equivalent of "maybe I shouldn't have divorced my husband, because despite the beatings, at least the insulin was mailed on time."

It's not going to blockade anything, it's just that throughout at Dover-Calais depends on not having any checks. Oh and cross recognition of driver and haulier licenses.

Trust me, if a truck has medical supplies, Britain will respect whatever stupid piece of paper the driver is holding.

The government is there to enact the will of the manifesto it proclaimed prior to an election. Representative government does not mean that the wishes of the majority outweight the rights of the minority.

There is no requirement of government that it allows the nation to commit political and economical suicide.

All of the modelling, by all sides, show that Brexit will cause economic damage to the UK (and the EU).

The only answer the Brexiters have is that they have an unfounded belief that somehow, the UK, a relatively small market, with under-developed non-EU export industries, has some sort of comparative advantage in trade negotiations that will somehow lead to greater economic benefits in the long term.

All of the promises during the referendum (not legally binding on Parliament) by the Leave campaign have proven to be completely and utterly false.

So the "Brexit promise" of the Leavers is definitely something that nobody can deliver on. The act of leaving the EU is possible, the promises of the results of that are not.

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