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Comment by boyter | Hacker News Reader

Not the most popular view, but if after a referendum politicians can dither about for long enough to make things painful then say "Lets have a do over" whats the point of actually voting?

The whole thing just feels like an assault on democracy. The popular vote was to leave. If you put it to the people, then do what they ask. You can probably ask to join again later.

Was the vote done with imperfect information? Probably, but you can make that case for anything. Its the system we have and if you can do this I makes me feel like what I vote for has no real impact. I feel that this is why we have double jeopardy laws in trials.

NB I am Australian and have no real thoughts either way about brexit. I fully expect this to be down-voted into oblivion because this is such a button for most people.

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In general, you can't take a strictly advisory referendum with a win margin of a couple % to dictate your international policy for decades.

More specifically, when the winning side has committed campaign violations and the UK's own National Crime Agency has found illegal foreign interference, maybe you should investigate further instead of driving head on. If you ask me, this was the "assault on democracy", not the "do-over" approach as you wrote.

On do-overs - the Prime Minister is pushing to have a third vote on the exact same deal with the EU, after her proposal was rejected twice by the members in the course of a couple of weeks. So it's especially concerning when do-overs in parliament can happen until the government gets the desired result, while at the same time the people aren't given a chance to vote again and the outcome of the referendum is considered final.

"do-overs"

Yes it really is quite stunning, how the PM can divine such a specific meaning from one openly worded vote to the people. But can't seem to understand 600+ MPs all shouting at her "No" repeatedly for the last X months.

PM to the nation (last night). "you have spoken and I have heard you"

PM to MPs: "wrong answer last time, lets try this again"

The win gap was at least 4%. (48 vs 52).

Further, the native population was far higher pro Brexit.

As for misinformation, I don't know any Brexiters who were voting based on Boris Johnson's obviously politically gamed claims from someone who is a Brexiter purely for political reasons (I don't think the population is as naive as you give them credit for, and presuming Brexiters to be stupid is BS fallacy), but on the basis that the EU is not properly democratically accountable and the Brit economic/business attitude and politics is not compatible with European ways (ie, high State control). We want to go back to a low paper-work, low-bureaucracy, liberally-inclined environment. Brexit is a start.

I have lived a significant proportion of my life in Europe, and the UK is not meaningfully European. It should have never have been a member, and has been a problem to the EU ever since. It should have been consulted on joining the EU at the very least, and it was not. Now that it has had 20 years of the EU, a 52% vote against remaining is significant.

"The win gap was at least 4%"

That's a narrow gap. Demographics (Brexit voters tend to be older) could easily have eroded that lead by itself in the past 3 years.

"Further, the native population was far higher pro Brexit"

The native population tends to have a lower birth rate also eroding the lead. Plus what is your point here? I cant think of a reasonable reason for even bringing it up.

The popular vote was to leave by a very narrow margin. But the vote was in no way binding. It’s also in hindsight been run against a background of law breaking and outright disinformation from the Leave campaign. Further public opinion has changed and it’s doubtful if a second more informed referendum would confirm the first.

I can’t think of a truer assault on democracy than to ask a vague question once, accept one side won under dodgy circumstances by a small margin then treat it as license to drive the country off the edge of a cliff.

The government and the PM promised they would honor the result of the vote and carry it out. They sent a leaflet with this promise to every door in the UK. They vote may not be legally binding, but the government is morally obliged to carry it out.

The question was clear and circumstances of art. 50 were known ahead of the vote. People voted to Leave the EU, not to leave conditionally with a deal or in name only. Cameron explained what leaving the EU means - to leave its customs union and single market. Anything less than that is contemptuous of the voters.

"Cameron explained what leaving the EU means - to leave its customs union and single market"

Which was written off as project fear.

We were told we could have any relationship we wanted with Europe. The one thing I don't recall being suggested, was a no deal Brexit, as the 'true' Brexiteers now seem to want.

The question was unfortunately not clear, which is why we are in this mess. It was predicated on remain winning. The leave vote wasn't for anything, it was against the EU. That just excludes one specific relationship.

And as the corruption of the Leave campaign was exposed plus the promises of easy negotiations vanished the government was morally obliged to renegotiate with a British public that appears to have changed its mind. Particularly now the actual terms of leaving and their consequences are more clear. Not drive the UK off a cliff.

Because what the country was advertised was a bunch of lies.

Many Businesses have left the UK, they won't be returning.

Pro Brexit people like the founder of Dyson have moved their HQ to Singapore after that country signed a trade deal with the EU.

Rees Mogg, a hardliner MP for Brexit, moved his investment firm to Ireland.

Clearly these rich people are doing what the average person in the UK can't.

The country isn't a democracy, politicians are elected to make decisions for their constituents. The vote wasn't binding as well.

The romanticism around democracy and the vote seems a bit silly. What if a country had voted to go to war and was losing it terribly. To surrender would be against the will of the people, so they may as well continue until the end.

The UK uses representative democracy, not direct democracy. The referendum was a silly exercise from the start. May has to go through with it, not for legally binding reasons, but because her political future depends on it.

What's been happening this past week is political maneuvering into "our only remaining option is a delay", long enough for everyone to get tired of it all, such that they can rescind article 50 quietly, and everyone can save face or be out of politics by the time it comes to a head. It's volatile because everyone involved is trying to save their own skin (or getting sick of the bullshit), thus the fireworks.

This petition, if successful, will provide more confusion ammunition to help keep the waters muddy enough that nobody does anything decisive, which is exactly the right thing to do.

> her political future depends on it.

Her political future was obliterated when the first vote was lost by huge margin. She'd be out already but for the fact no one with a brain wants to be in charge during this farce - the bad smell would cover them too.

If she chose to withdraw Article 50 and remain, she'd certainly lose yet again, though ironically quite likely by a smaller margin. The Tories have been split over Europe since before we joined.

Yes, sorry, I meant to say that she thinks her political future depends on it, not that it actually does.

Although by now she's more likely just playing along because her colleagues won't allow her to rock the boat.

"thinks her political future depends on it"

Even that's putting it too strongly.

She's already said she won't lead the Tories into the next election. She's a massively divisive figure. She'll be remembered, but I don't think it'll be positively.

> makes me feel like what I vote for has no real impact.

That's very likely because what you vote for has no real impact. At least now it's become more visible and people are rightly becoming upset. Ride the tiger.

The popular vote was a myth, sold by a series of lies.

It was a choice between "do nothing" (remain), and "everything else" (leave). Some wanted a soft Brexit remaining in the common market aspects without freedom of movement (having our cake and eating it. The EU would have to be insane to accept this option), multiple harder forms of Brexit, and full WTO rules only Brexit wanted by only Rees Mogg and the other fools in the ERG. (They wanted this option for the benefit of their offshore hedge funds).

Not one single sentence sold the benefits of the EU - just the possible terror of its absence.

The calling of the referendum, the reasons it was called, and the campaign and political activity since has been the assault on a now much defeated democracy.

A lot of people voted no just because they didn't like David Cameron's government and especially its austerity package.

The problem is, what does 'leave' actually mean? Before the referendum a range of options were discussed. We could have soft Brexit, hard Brexit, we could stay in the single market and end freedom of movement. I don't ever recall a no deal Brexit being seriously mooted as an option.

Fast forward to December 2018, the PM has what is basically a hard Brexit option on the table, everything Brexiteers should want. It was negotiated without input from parliament, and then presented as a fait accompli. It failed to pass, it part due to Brexiteers who want an even more extreme Brexit. It was voted on again with minimal changes and still failed.

As things stand an indicative vote rejecting a no deal had been passed, that seemingly has been ignored by the PM. An indicative vote, that if the deal wasn't agreed by parliament by today, a longer (past 30th June) delay should be asked for. Again ignored by the PM. The PM hasn't held any indicative votes on what parliament would support, was on TV complaining about MPs that she expects to support her deal last night.

Shes been playing party politics, chasing the votes of her own extremist Brexiteers, rather than looking around and talking to the opposition, who are united on at least a softer Brexit.

The failure of democracy at this point is of the PMs making (and the labour leader isn't any better), and nothing to do with the referendum.

The Australian comparison would be something like the republic referendum in 1999. As a constitutional change, the law required both an absolute majority at the federal level, and a majority in the majority of states.

If the Brexit referendum was held under the same rules (pretty reasonable for a change of this magnitude), with countries for states, then the Brexit referendum would not have passed due to Scotland and Northern Ireland voting to remain.

There's no such thing as perfect democracy, so we have rules to protect ourselves from ourselves. I'm not exactly disagreeing with you, but I think we shouldn't pretend that democratic processes are perfect.

As an aside, it's interesting that you mention double jeopardy laws, because Australia seems to be more relaxed about that than most places - because sometimes better information becomes available.

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