Of course I don't accept that. It's not a fact and it's illogical. If you want to leave because of x, y, z, then you nevertheless want to leave.

Wrong. They don't want to leave because of x, y and z. They want x, y and z and leave was the only option offered on the ballot that got close. You're just phrasing your premises to support your conclusion.

Given the myriad of policy options available to get x, y or z, only offering leave and remain tells us nothing about the number of people wanting to leave for the sake of leaving.

The problem is, that same criticism can be levelled against our representatives in parliament. Boris Johnson, speaking as Foreign Secretary, said that his policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it, and David Davis, speaking as Brexit secretary, said that we could strike a deal whereby we enjoy the exact same benefits that we currently do. — S

No, that's a different problem. By and large, the voters are not idiots, and do not expect contradictions to be implemented. But some politicians are sufficiently two-faced to propose them in the hope that everyone will think they are proposing something they want, and won't notice they are also proposing the opposite. The technical term for such people is 'manipulative lying bastards'.

Don't be ridiculous. We're still talking about the UK. Context matters. — Benkei

I'm not accustomed to taking anything for granted in that department, maybe just a cultural difference between us. So my question didn't seem at all ridiculous to me. Your statement would be considered alarming in my part of the world.

Interesting how differently people see things.

I'm not accustomed to taking anything for granted in that department, maybe just a cultural difference between us. So my question didn't seem at all ridiculous to me. Your statement would be considered alarming in my part of the world. — frank

I've followed haphazardly the thread, but I think Benkei's main point is that any deliberating body can change it's mind. If I change my mind I am not somehow tyrannically opposing my own will; likewise, if a king, parliament or referendum changes decisions there's no fundamental political dilemma in doing so: new information or arguments come to light and a previous decision is changed.

The problem in changing decisions are secondary to the process itself. For instance, if an individual or a government signs and then reneges on an agreement then this may create problems with whoever the agreement was with -- given the issue it may even be argued to be immoral to renege that particular agreement, but it does not create a constitutional crisis in the fact itself of deciding and undeciding (on any political level: from the individual to referendum of whole countries).

The argument for not polling the people on every decision, both new ones and to confirm existing ones, every single day is that it is simply not practical to do so.

There maybe many practical argument for not having a second referendum on the Brexit issue, but the argument that it renders democracy incoherent in some way doesn't work for the same reason an individual changing a decision does not in itself render the person incoherent (the content of the reasons for the original decision and content and consequences of changing the decision would be where any incoherence would be found).

Absolutely, and polls show that as a whole the British want another referendum, but some here will no doubt continue to argue that giving the people what they want, (which is a chance to change their mind given the dubious circumstances surrounding the last poll), is a terrible injustice to them and an insult to democracy.

They could hold a second referendum, so why don't they? The democracy is obviously not allowing it. If polling shows my congressman no longer popular, is it an insult to democracy that he continue to serve? Wouldn't the democracy have the power to decide how democratically elected decisions be reconsidered?

Must they hold hourly referenda so that all decisions reflect the pulse of the public in order to meet your definition of democracy? I do believe it's fair to hold the voters to what they voted for, and I don't think any voter had the expectation that his vote was preliminary and that there'd be multiple additional referenda prior to leaving. That is, the vote to leave was really to leave.

You act like fairness and adherence to prior decisions are unrelated, and you put no value on finality, as if indecisiveness is a virtue.

(From my Canadian perspective) my own reading of the whole situation is that the model was Quebec, which had a separatists movement that was partly fueled by "not being allowed to have a referendum, this is not real democracy". This argument is powerful as it's simply true and builds it's own momentum and displaces the argument from the substance of separation to a sense of injustice of being robbed a referendum. Both in the Canadian separatist experience (and many other contexts of different referendum movements for various things), losing a referendum simply dissolves this kind of momentum and what seemed like a political force yesterday simply evaporates the next.

So I believe that Cameron and his inner circle viewed the UKIP movement as similarly partly fueled by "the absence of a referendum as proof of a great injustice", and so a preemptive strike was a better bet than trying to ignore it and letting it make slow but sure gains. The other issues of Quebec nationalism, cultural erosion and regulations being "decided in Ottawa where not-Quebeckers dominate", and anti-immigration (both Anglophones from other provinces and immigrants to Canada) were also similar themes.

However, I think a better lesson from the Quebec separatist movement is the clarity act that came after the close referendum, that was passed some years after the close referendum, where a clear process was outlined on how a province could separate. Step one is to have a referendum that would simply start negotiation between the province and the federal government one what the proposed separation would actually be, then there would need to be an proposed separation agreement made and then a vote. Critically, the vote would need to represent the majority of eligible voters, not simply the majority of who votes; so a higher bar but not anti-democratic nor robbing a province of a right to make majority decisions.

Basically, the clarity act was made to solve the fact that a sudden ill-defined separation vote would be total chaos with dozens of practical problems no one had the slightest answer to: obviously same trade issues of exiting a common market, native Americans having treaties with the federal government, large amounts of people from other provinces living and working in Quebec and vice-versa, as well as things like the country being cut in half.

Must they hold hourly referenda so that all decisions reflect the pulse of the public in order to meet your definition of democracy? — Hanover

I'm not sure if you read my post, but the argument against this is it isn't practical.

Of course, democratic processes such as deferring to representatives and referendum should be democratically created; I don't think anyone's arguing against that.

If polling shows my congressman no longer popular, is it an insult to democracy that he continue to serve? — Hanover

For instance, most states I believe have a potential recall process for congressmen. How easy a recall should be is a practical consideration that should be democratically determined; weighing the advantage of "getting a better representative" against the cost and disruption a proliferation of recall votes would create.

You act like fairness and adherence to prior decisions are unrelated, and you put no value on finality, as if indecisiveness is a virtue. — Hanover

You maybe confusing two separate issues. One issue is whether it is anti-democratic or a constitutional crisis to hold a second referendum. The other issue is whether it's a good idea to have a second referendum or not. That the vote was advertised or understood as "final" in someway, that going back on Brexit would be a international embarrassment accomplishing nothing but significantly weaken the UK within the EU (due to the embarrassment, being out the loop last two years on various committees, and more isolated than before due to changing alignments in the meantime), are arguments for not having a second referendum (which are basically May's arguments for staying with Brexit, though states more indirectly). However, those reasons are practical considerations, not inherently more democratic than a second referendum.

I change my mind I am not somehow tyrannically opposing my own will — boethius

You're strawmanning me.

You're strawmanning me. — frank

I'm not. My statement was for any deliberating body; I am a deliberating body when making my own decisions; therefore my principle should hold for myself; any mutually exclusive principle should not hold for myself. If the deliberating body represented in the referendum changing its mind would be an instance of tyranny against itself, then so too would an individual changing their own mind be an instance of tyranny.

Of course, it makes no sense to tyrannize myself so it could seem the whole argument makes no sense, but a democratic body tyrannizing itself also makes no sense in essentially the same way. A legitimately democratic referendum by definition cannot be an example of tyranny.

Again, there maybe other reasons not to have a second referendum, but avoiding tyranny or anti-democratic processes in one form or another isn't one of them.

Basically, the clarity act was made to solve the fact that a sudden ill-defined separation vote would be total chaos with dozens of practical problems no one had the slightest answer to — boethius

Shame we didn't learn that lesson from you in good time.

In the US there have been referenda to do one thing and referenda to undo that very thing. Gay marriage was one of those referenda: first rejected, then passed. Might there be a third to reject it again? That's possible; it might not be a good thing, but I don't see any reason why it can't happen, all quite legally.

The thing that makes a second vote on Brexit reasonable is the magnitude of the decision. In our experience, the campaigning for or against a given ballot item can be brutal, deceitful, devious, and entirely dishonest, especially from the side that has the most dollars and feels it has the most to lose. I gather there was a well funded side in the Brexit debate that felt it had a good deal to lose, and may have misrepresented the facts. The same thing could happen a second time, but at least the electorate in the UK has had time to think about which way they might vote a second time.

The various states in the USA have, for the most part, never been independent entities (not for very long, anyway) and have always been under an obligation to accept federal decisions they might not like. Many states send more money to the federal government than they get back, and they don't have much of a say in who gets the extra dollars. Southern white people were not very enthusiastic about civil rights reforms, but they were forced to accept it -- on occasion at the point of a federal gun.

States and cities selected to receive batches of refugees, like Somalis, were not asked if they liked that plan. The Federal government made the determination of where they were going to go. If 1,000,000 liberal northerners all decided to move to Mississippi (i don't know why the hell they would do that, but just for example) there is nothing that Mississippi can do about it. Similarly, immigrants into the country can settle where they please.

I understand that freedom of movement in a sovereign nation is a bigger issue than it might be in a system that was always federal in design. So are taxes, regulations, and a lot of other stuff. But it seems like the UK was benefitting from the federal system of the European Community (such as it was and is.

No? Yes?

In the US there have been referenda to do one thing and referenda to undo that very thing. Gay marriage was one of those referenda: first rejected, then passed. Might there be a third to reject it again? That's possible; it might not be a good thing, but I don't see any reason why it can't happen, all quite legally. — Bitter Crank

Yes, we are in agreement here. I listed arguments for "no second referendum" simply to make the difference between the "anti democracy argument" and the "practical argument". By practical arguments I mean not having a Brexit referendum every day or every hour, as well as legitimate arguments elected representatives could make. The argument that the elected representatives advertised it as a "final thing" because once the process is started there's no going back, is in my view a legitimate argument. But by legitimate argument I just mean it can be argued without self-contradictions right off the bat; it is a viable position of the parliament so say "we said it was final, exactly because the process is painful and once started the only viable thing, for all sorts of reasons, is to carry it through".

However, by viable I don't mean to say it's the best decision nor that contradictions won't arise with further arguing; just that arguing no referendum for practical reasons doesn't fail right out of the gate (in contrast to arguing for no-second referendum based on it being more democratic to not vote again, which does, in my opinion, fail straight away).

In short, the current UK parliament is not anti-democratic in "sticking to the deal of a final vote" nor anti-democratic in calling a second referendum. One can question the democratic efficiency or even legitimacy of the UK parliament system to begin with (which I definitely would), but insofar as one accepts parliament as legitimate then they can legitimately "stick to their guns" as it were; as legitimate elected preventatives they could decide any number of things, such as campaign fraud, are reason for a second vote or then decide nothing is sufficient and as the elected wise rulers they need to stick to Brexit since it was known from the outset going back on it isn't tenable regardless the pain; if their decision are bad (which I would say they are) there is a process to replace them with people who will call a second referendum. Even after Brexit is official the UK could rejoin.

However, to argue the lack of a second referendum is anti-democratic is reducible to the UK parliamentary system being anti or insufficiently democratic. My point is that, the UK system being what it is, neither a vote nor not-vote is a constitutional crisis ... which the UK doesn't even have to begin with ...

But I agree with you that a second vote is probably a good idea, and the temporary embarrassment does not outweigh all the negatives of Brexit -- that sometimes it's better to fold even after a sizable commitment.

Wrong. They don't want to leave because of x, y and z. They want x, y and z and leave was the only option offered on the ballot that got close. You're just phrasing your premises to support your conclusion.

Given the myriad of policy options available to get x, y or z, only offering leave and remain tells us nothing about the number of people wanting to leave for the sake of leaving. — Benkei

Look, no matter how hard you try to spin it, at the end of the day, they chose to vote to leave. I never said anything about leaving for the sake of leaving - that's a complete red herring. The electorate were faced with a choice - the same choice that I had to face - and the majority of them - unlike me - decided that leaving was a price worth paying in the hope of achieving x, y, z. No one forced them into making that decision.

So please, cut the crap. They voted to leave. The majority voted to leave. The will of the people is reflected by the fact that the majority of voters decided that leaving was the better of the two options. They wanted to leave (for the sake of x, y, z,) rather than remain, and placing emphasis on the part in brackets won't change that.

I'll leave it at that, as it feels as though my efforts to get this through to you are in vein. I'm done with your feeble denialism and attempts to underplay the significance of the results.

I've followed haphazardly the thread, but I think Benkei's main point is that any deliberating body can change it's mind. If I change my mind I am not somehow tyrannically opposing my own will; likewise, if a king, parliament or referendum changes decisions there's no fundamental political dilemma in doing so: new information or arguments come to light and a previous decision is changed.

The problem in changing decisions are secondary to the process itself. For instance, if an individual or a government signs and then reneges on an agreement then this may create problems with whoever the agreement was with -- given the issue it may even be argued to be immoral to renege that particular agreement, but it does not create a constitutional crisis in the fact itself of deciding and undeciding (on any political level: from the individual to referendum of whole countries).

The argument for not polling the people on every decision, both new ones and to confirm existing ones, every single day is that it is simply not practical to do so.

There maybe many practical argument for not having a second referendum on the Brexit issue, but the argument that it renders democracy incoherent in some way doesn't work for the same reason an individual changing a decision does not in itself render the person incoherent (the content of the reasons for the original decision and content and consequences of changing the decision would be where any incoherence would be found). — boethius

It boils down to ethics on a fairly basic level. Should promises be kept? Well, given that over thirty million people turned out to vote, and given that there was a clear majority by over a million people, then yes, this particular promise should be kept at all costs except in the most severe of circumstances, like a no deal scenario that only a minority would find acceptable.

I'll assume that the electorate was fully informed and understood what they were voting for: Leave. But leaving in this case is a bit more complicated than just putting on one's hat and walking out. There are costs to be paid, terms, regulations, and rules for a transition drawn up, and all that agreed to by 2 dozen sides--something the government in office has been trying (without success) to accomplish. You are 3 months + a few days away from the end of the 24 month negotiation period and few are happy with the results.

It would seem like it might be a good idea to ask the electorate if they want to maybe stay and avoid the many downsides of just leaving without terms established.

They could hold a second referendum, so why don't they? The democracy is obviously not allowing it. — Hanover

Whether or not to hold a second referendum is up to the government. It is allowed. We're not simply debating a hypothetical here.

If polling shows my congressman no longer popular, is it an insult to democracy that he continue to serve? Wouldn't the democracy have the power to decide how democratically elected decisions be reconsidered? — Hanover

Sure, but you could use the analogy with fixed-term elections just as easily to demand that the referendum be re-run after a few years just like elections are. There are no minimum or maximum terms for referenda. We've got to look at the justifications for re-running any given one in context. Which is what some of us have been trying to focus on here.

Must they hold hourly referenda so that all decisions reflect the pulse of the public in order to meet your definition of democracy? — Hanover

No.

I do believe it's fair to hold the voters to what they voted for, and I don't think any voter had the expectation that his vote was preliminary and that there'd be multiple additional referenda prior to leaving. That is, the vote to leave was really to leave. — Hanover

Why is it fair to prevent the voters from enacting a change to their mind? Who are you trying to serve here? Not them in this case as they, according to polls, want a new referendum. Who then? Your search for some abstract rule or principle to rely on hasn't turned up very much of legal or ethical substance to fall back on, so are we not left to focus primarily on what serves the people and their wishes? And if they wish for a new referendum (not multiple additional referenda btw) then what is your justification for denying them that?

You act like fairness and adherence to prior decisions are unrelated, and you put no value on finality, as if indecisiveness is a virtue. — Hanover

I'm engaged in a weighting of priorities here not an absolute dismissal of all value to the opposing view. So, on the one hand, we have you saying "Indecisiveness is not a virtue and we must adhere to prior decisions because that's fair", and on the other hand, we have me saying "We have a referendum that was potentially won through cheating, the result of which was very close, that occurred a few years ago, that is now having potentially extremely serious unforeseen negative consequences, that polls say people want a chance to re-run, and that there is no legal or significant ethical impediment to rerunning, so let's rerun it."

I agree with all of that, but I don't think that now would be the best time. I think that we should give it a bit more time to see whether the pressure of having May's draft withdrawal agreement in its current form voted down will change anything, which I accept seems unlikely, but not impossible.

(From my Canadian perspective) my own reading of the whole situation is that the model was Quebec, which had a separatists movement that was partly fueled by "not being allowed to have a referendum, this is not real democracy". This argument is powerful as it's simply true and builds it's own momentum and displaces the argument from the substance of separation to a sense of injustice of being robbed a referendum. — boethius

That's a good point. Maybe if we had've had a referendum sooner, then Remain would've won and we wouldn't be in this mess.

So I believe that Cameron and his inner circle viewed the UKIP movement as similarly partly fueled by "the absence of a referendum as proof of a great injustice", and so a preemptive strike was a better bet than trying to ignore it and letting it make slow but sure gains. — boethius

But maybe it was already too late. Or maybe the referendum itself lead to enough of a build up of momentum for Leave to win.

However, I think a better lesson from the Quebec separatist movement is the clarity act that came after the close referendum, that was passed some years after the close referendum, where a clear process was outlined on how a province could separate. Step one is to have a referendum that would simply start negotiation between the province and the federal government one what the proposed separation would actually be, then there would need to be an proposed separation agreement made and then a vote. Critically, the vote would need to represent the majority of eligible voters, not simply the majority of who votes; so a higher bar but not anti-democratic nor robbing a province of a right to make majority decisions.

Basically, the clarity act was made to solve the fact that a sudden ill-defined separation vote would be total chaos with dozens of practical problems no one had the slightest answer to: obviously same trade issues of exiting a common market, native Americans having treaties with the federal government, large amounts of people from other provinces living and working in Quebec and vice-versa, as well as things like the country being cut in half. — boethius

Yeah, I don't think that the point that there were better ways in which this could've been handled will get much disagreement.

It boils down to ethics on a fairly basic level. Should promises be kept? — S

This is not simple ethics. Though most would agree that promises have some moral weight to them, one should not make a fraudulent promise or dismiss a promise for a slight convenience or on a whim, it's a pretty old and trivial philosophical exercise to show that placing "holding promise" as an overriding ethical principle is extremely difficult to defend.

For instance, if I, in a moment of anger, "promise to kill someone" (thinking it was a justifiable killing at the time of the promise), should I keep my promise if I later decide the murder is not justified?

A more trivial example is that in moment of exuberant celebration I promise to give you as many shots as you want, but then I renege on this promise when I see you may overdose and die; I, nor essentially any member of society, would view it as the ethical thing to keep giving you shots, and if you did die and I knowingly let you the defense "a promise is a promise" I doubt would sway any judge or jury in a manslaughter or some similar trial.

These are an extreme and a trivial example but sets up the basic dilemma, which I'd be happy to oblige you with plenty of other examples if you want. The general case however is that changing circumstances making a promise no longer feasible to keep or even circumstances staying the same but simply a recognizing a promise as too foolish to keep or that the promise was unethical at the time, we can easily invent circumstances that I'm confident everyone on the forum would agree reneging on the promise is the ethical course of action. Now it might be reasonable that some consequence goes with the promise breaking, but that's a secondary issue (in the case of Brexit maybe the secondary consequences should be resignations a general election and voting out anyone still associated with it).

In the case of "the promise to stick with Brexit", parliament could make any number of arguments to justify breaking the promise. First, "who made the promise" is not quite the same people as are in charge now, so the "new parliament" can decide is now new enough as not to be bound by the old parliaments promises (just like a new boss can easily cancel whatever promises an old boss made if there's no legal commitment and no one would think much of "promises must be kept"; the old boss was incompetent and got fires, so foolish promises that were made no longer stand unless legally backed). Pretty much every modern nation is based on the argument that it's entirely reasonable justifiable to break an oath to some king at some point in time.

The parliament could also argue that bad faith actions of the leave campaign do substantially outweigh any supposed equivalents with the remain campaign, and so the "good faith" implicit precondition of the promise was breached and the promise no longer holds. It can be further argued that the this good faith assumption did not need to be made explicit because there are laws that govern campaign finance etc.

The parliament could argue that they made the promise under the assumption that article 50 could not be canceled, now that it seems that it can it is their responsibility to reconsider their promise based on this new information.

Or, parliament could make no direct excuse at all for the promise breaking, but argue they have a more important promise to protect the interests of UK citizens and they simply made a mistake in organizing the Brexit vote the way they did and that they must act on their ultimate promise as servants of the public in providing a vote now that there is a concrete Brexit agreement to actually vote on.

Now, I'm not saying all the above arguments are "true". One could argue that in each case there isn't sufficient reason to act (not sufficient campaign violations, not sufficient changes in parliament that they can feel liberated from previous promises, etc.).

My point is that it is not "simple ethics" to conclude no second referendum should be made, it's a very complicated issue and parliament would be entirely within their mandate and power to call a second referendum as well as within their mandate and power to decide on behalf the people to push through Brexit.

Must they hold hourly referenda so that all decisions reflect the pulse of the public in order to meet your definition of democracy?
— Hanover

I'm not sure if you read my post, but the argument against this is it isn't practical. — boethius

He knows that it's impractical. The point is that lacking a suitable timeframe between a referendum and a rerun causes problems, and the suggestion is that two years isn't long enough.

Baden's argument is that there's enough of a basis to render the referendum results invalid. I disagree, and my view reflects the reality, as the results haven't been declared invalid by anyone with the authority to do so.

↪Pattern-chaser
A little off-topic, but who's worse, in your opinion: Jacob Reese-Mogg or Boris Johnson? It's a toughie, but I'm thinking Reese-Mogg. — S

Like Dubya, Boris is not the buffoon he pretends to be. Nor is he as clever as he thinks he is, by a mile. He's out for everything he can get, and will do anything at all to get it. But Rees-Mogg is pure evil! You know that Sauron serves Morgoth, right? Well the complete hierarchy (in order of increasing evil) goes: Sauron, Morgoth, Thatcher, Tebbit, Rees-Mogg. IMO, of course. :wink:

And remember, it's not the fault of those who voted to leave, and were declared winners, that the Vote Leave campaign overspent, or that politicians on either side put out false or misleading claims. Sure, punish the cheaters, condemn the liars, but don't penalise all of the innocent people who came out to vote leave and won. — S

But if those "innocent People" were swayed by lies, and might otherwise have voted differently, or chosen not to vote at all? A free and fair vote does not involve lies, and the lead-up to the Brexit vote did.

But there's much more to the current crisis than these lies. They're just part of the problem. :fear:

...if their decisions are bad (which I would say they are) there is a process to replace them with people who will call a second referendum. — boethius

Yes. There could be a motion of no confidence, and Labour have the power to start that process, but for the time being they're holding back, and rightly so in my opinion, because of the risk of losing. But, going by what Labour have said, even if the government lost and it lead to a general election with Labour winning, they wouldn't jump straight into calling a second referendum. They'd first try to get a better deal, and only if that fails would they consider the option of calling a second referendum.

the results haven't been declared invalid by anyone with the authority to do so. — S

True, but the lies have been recognised by our courts as such, and where they contravened our law, cases are already in progress, or already over. People and organisations have been found guilty. But you're not bothered because the vote hasn't been formally declared invalid? It looks like you're taking a pretty partisan perspective on all this: defend everything to do with Leave; attack anything that might support Remain. That's a shame.

Look, no matter how hard you try to spin it, at the end of the day, they chose to vote to leave. No one said anything about leaving for the sake of leaving - that's a complete red herring. The electorate were faced with a choice - the same choice that I had to face! - and they - unlike me! - decided that leaving was a price worth paying. No one forced them into making that decision.

So please, cut the crap. They voted to leave. The majority voted to leave. The will of the people is reflected by the fact that the majority of voters decided that leaving was the better of the two options.

I'll leave it at that, as it feels as though my efforts to get this through to you are in vein. I'm done with your feeble denialism and your attempts to underplay the significance of the results. — S

Feeble denialism? :rofl: You just pull arguments out of your ass and call it logic and aren't even aware of the fallacy you keep repeating.

This

If you want to leave because of x, y, z, then you nevertheless want to leave. — S

is quite simply begging the question. begging the question

Whereas I have a logical argument supported by evidence based research. So let's go again for those who are actually interested in the latest viewpoints.

Suppose people want to pay a) less taxes, b) less contributions to the EU, c) less immigration, d) economic stability and e) Bwiddish patriotism. It's quite obvious that a, b, c and d can be reached through other means than leave, yes?

So if we only ask do you want to remain or leave, people are going to have to weigh to what extent their a, b, c and d are reflected in those options. But what would've happened if the ballot had the following options.

1. Remain and enjoy the trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (covers d)
2. Remain and enjoy the trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (covers d) and agree to the deal Cameron agreed with the EU (covers b and c)
3. Remain and enjoy the trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (covers d) and agree to the deal Cameron agreed with the EU (covers b and c) and use the low interest rate environment to borrow slightly more in the short end of the curve and lower taxes but increasing budgettary uncertainty for later years which might cause a tax hike in later years (covers a)
4. Leave and lose he trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (negative on d) but gain full control over immigration and stop paying EU contributions (covers b and c) important: leave will require negotations with the EU the outcome of which is currently unknown as are the economic effects on the British economy
5. Leave and lose he trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (negative on d) but gain full control over immigration and stop paying EU contributions (covers b, c and e) and use the low interest rate environment to borrow slightly more in the short end of the curve and lower taxes but increasing budgettary uncertainty for later years which might cause a tax hike in later years (covers a) important: leave will require negotations with the EU the outcome of which is currently unknown as are the economic effects on the British economy

If weighted voting was included then the above would give some sense of the will of the people on a range of interrelated subjects. Instead they are offered two contextless options without any real means of establishing agreed facts which diminishes the process to whichever political side has its "messaging" best in order. We also see that the "pure" remain option and leave option aren't symmetrical in the number of policy issues they address. Remain only gives us economic stability but leave means those pesky EU bureaucrats get less and the Brits have full control over immigration. Yet, if provided with the full scale of options, we can be quite certain the outcome would be different from what we have now.

In short, leave was a matter of issue voting and not about leaving the EU and this is supported by the research available. The debate now revolves around "whether issue-voting is driven by general EU attitudes or more proposition-specific attitudes" and "what drives EU attitudes (economic/materialist or identity-based concerns)" .

Here's some more background info: http://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-503

He knows that it's impractical. The point is that lacking a suitable timeframe between a referendum and a rerun causes problems, and the suggestion is that two years isn't long enough. — S

Yes, I wasn't clear enough that I was trying to make this point that a referendum every 15 minutes being impractical doesn't mean 2 years is impractical. That some interval being certainly impractical does somehow extend to all intervals being impractical. I'm not sure who originally made the argument that accepting a second referendum would be a slippery slope to voting of Brexit every second of the day, but posters have already mentioned that by this logic only one vote could ever be held about anything.

Baden's argument is that there's enough of a basis to render the referendum results invalid. I disagree, and my view reflects the reality, as the results haven't been declared invalid by anyone with the authority to do so. — S

They are not currently declared invalid by a sufficient authority, I'm quite sure no one is arguing that. In this context "the results are invalid" I would wager this phrase is making reference to what such an authority should decide. This is a notoriously tricking issue as rule breaking is almost inevitable (especially if you can send a mole to break a rule and annul the referendum if you like), but at the same time if the campaign rules have no substance if they can be broken without ever being able to invalidate the results (as the short time-span running up the vote is too short for any enforcement measure to likely succeed beforehand).

I don't know enough about the specific to make an opinion on this point, my main interest is arguing against the idea that a second referendum would be somehow anti-democratic or unethical/unreasonable for the parliament to decide to do. To be clear, I also don't see it as anti-democratic (in itself) to not have a second referendum, the wise representatives can always claim "they know more, even secret intel and negotiations, that can't be made public and they are sure means Brexit can't be undone without damaging the UK" (but this displaces the debate to whether the parliamentary system is sufficiently democratic, but is another debate).

They could hold a second referendum, so why don't they? The democracy is obviously not allowing it.
— Hanover

Whether or not to hold a second referendum is up to the government. It is allowed. We're not simply debating a hypothetical here. — Baden

Yes, it's allowed, as I expect Hanover knows, but the current government isn't allowing it, which is probably closer to his meaning, in which case your response would be beside the point.

There are no minimum or maximum terms for referenda. — Baden

There should be.

Why is it fair to prevent the voters from enacting a change to their mind? — Baden

For the same reason that it's fair that retailers have the right to refuse a refund on the basis of a change of mind. That isn't covered by any UK law, only by the in-store policies of some, but not all, retailers. And the government made their refund policy clear, so complacent consumers don't have a leg to stand on. Appealing to the manager hasn't worked so far.

And as for cheating, it's fair to let the authorities deal with that. That's what they're there for.

This is not simple ethics. Though most would agree that promises have some moral weight to them, one should not make a fraudulent promise or dismiss a promise for a slight convenience or on a whim. It's a pretty old and trivial philosophical exercise to show that holding a promise as an overriding ethical principle is extremely difficult to defend. — boethius

The greater the number of recipients, the greater the duty of keeping the promise. The promise was made to the whole of the UK, which has a population of 66.57 million. There was a confirmed electorate of 46,500,001. And 33,568,184 ballot papers were included in the count. Which gives an exceptionally high turn out of 72.2%.

Any allegations of fraudulent promises should be dealt with appropriately with the systems already in place. There are electoral laws and authorities for determining whether any laws have been broken, and if so, what the consequences will be. People are entitled to their opinion, but they're not entitled to vigilantism. The best that they can do is protest or take it to court.

And I agree that one should not dismiss a promise for a slight convenience or on a whim, which, if it bears any relevance here, would work more in favour of my position and against that of a second referendum.

For instance, if I in a moment of anger "promise to kill someone" (thinking it was a justifiable killing at the time of the promise), should I keep my promise if I later decide the murder is not justified? A more trivial example is that in moment of exuberant celebration I promise to give you as many shots as you want, but then I renege on this promise when I see you may overdose and die; I, nor essentially any member of society, would view it as the ethical thing to keep giving you shots, and if you did die and I knowingly let you the defense "a promise is a promise" I doubt would sway any judge or jury in a manslaughter or some similar trial. — boethius

These examples aren't relevant, given that I'm not arguing that there are no circumstances in which a promise should be broken, only that the circumstances in the case of the referendum up to the present moment aren't enough of a basis to warrant breaking the promise that, to the extent that it's within their control, the results of the referendum would be treated as binding, and there wouldn't be another one, at least for a long time.

In the case of Brexit, parliament could make any number of arguments to justify breaking the promise. First, "who made the promise" is not quite the same people as are in charge now, so the "new parliament" can decide is new enough as not to be bound by the old parliaments promises (just like a new boss can easily cancel whatever promises an old boss made if there's no legal commitment and no one would think much of "promises must be kept"; the old boss was incompetent and got fires, so foolish promises that were made no longer stand unless legally backed). — boethius

This is back on track. I accept that there are a number of arguments to justify breaking the promise. I am mostly in agreement with Labour's position, which is to honour the result of the referendum, but if we can't get a good enough deal, then all options are on the table, including a second referendum. So, it's to be a last resort.

The parliament could also argue that bad faith actions of the leave campaign do substantially outweigh any supposed equivalents with the remain campaign, and so the "good faith" implicit precondition of the promise was breached and the promise no longer holds. It can be further argued that the this good faith assumption did not need to be made explicit because there are laws that govern campaign finance etc. — boethius

Yes, that argument could be made in parliament, and it may have already been made in parliament, but there's a system in place for dealing with these matters, and I am of the position that that system should be allowed to do what it was designed to do, instead of taking matters into our own hands. The actions of Vote Leave haven't gone unaddressed or unpunished. The matter was referred to the relevant authorities and they received a fine.

The parliament could argue that they made the promise under the assumption that article 50 could not be canceled, now that it seems that it can it is their responsibility to reconsider their promise based on this new information. — boethius

Yes, and they should, as a last resort.

Or, parliament could make no direct excuse at all for the promise breaking, but argue they have a more important promise to protect the interests of UK citizens and they simply made a mistake in organizing the Brexit vote the way they did and that they must act on their ultimate promise as servants of the public in providing a vote now that there is a concrete Brexit agreement to actually vote on. — boethius

There isn't a concrete Brexit agreement to vote on. There will only be one when it actually comes down to the vote in parliament.

But yes, that's an argument that could be made, and I do find it persuasive to some extent, especially since it appeals to my reasons for voting to remain in the first place. But I'm against breaking the promise and rendering the results meaningless. I can't stand the consequence that it would've all been for nothing, that what was in fact my first ever vote in politics turned out to be meaningless and a waste of time. I don't want a second chance, I want the first chance to matter.

Now, I'm not saying all the above arguments are "true". One could argue that in each case there isn't sufficient reason to act (not sufficient campaign violations, not sufficient changes in parliament that they can feel liberated from previous promises, etc.). — boethius

They're arguments worth considering, and I have considered them and given my opinion.

My point is that it is not "simple ethics" to conclude no second referendum should be made, it's a very complicated issue and parliament would be entirely within their mandate and power to call a second referendum as well as within their mandate and power to decide on behalf the people to push through Brexit. — boethius

Okay, maybe it's not simple ethics. Maybe that was a poor choice of terms. Although I think that you've taken my meaning way beyond what I intended.

What you say about parliament is only hypothetical. As things stand, the reality is that there is to be no vote in parliament on a second referendum. There is only to be a meaningful vote on the final deal. And even if there were to be a vote in parliament on a second referendum, it would still need to get a majority in the house. Both major parties, officially, are against it. Would there be enough rebels? Doubtful.

More likely to shake things up would be a no confidence vote, which is becoming more and more likely.