“To accept that when the British people voted Leave they knew what they were doing and that in the end you either have a democracy or you don’t.” – This nicely summarises the three weak points in Mr Murray’s article.
The “British people” did not vote Leave in 2016: 37% of them did, and a slightly smaller proportion (34%) voted the opposite. One of the tragedies of Brexit is that everyone has adopted a winner-takes-all interpretation of this result, rather than acknowledging that when opinion is so finely balanced, compromise is necessary, leading at most to the softest form of Brexit.
Did voters know what they were doing? I certainly did not know what I was doing: I have a vague idea of how the EU works, of course, but not such a detailed one that my opinion carries much weight. For example, I have heard arguments for and against the Euro, and would have to study the question much more before I had a reasonable opinion either way.
Again, nobody realised in 2016 that leaving would probably lead to the break-up of the UK itself (Scotland voted convincingly to stay in the EU, and Northern Ireland both voted to remain and needs to do so in order to protect the Good Friday Agreement). And probably few voters had the education in economics necessary to understand that putting up trade barriers with our nearest and most powerful trading partner after over 40 years of close economic integration, not to mention cutting ourselves off from European decision-making, would not necessarily prove to be the quickest path to increasing our national wealth or international status.
Finally, there are clearly different sorts of democracy. The UK has a representative democracy, meaning that our elected MPs have a duty to represent their constituents’ interests and decide on policies to protect them. This is obviously not the same as a democracy in which the public itself decides what those policies shall be.
I hope this helps.
Stephen Ashworth
Oxford, UK
And those who didn’t vote (29%), didn’t care either way.
>This is obviously not the same as a democracy in which the public itself decides what those policies shall be.<
The gov't put the question, on leaving the EU, to be resolve by popular vote. The Leave won that election. Everything else is equivocation.
“One of the tragedies of Brexit is that everyone has adopted a winner-takes-all interpretation of this result”
That’s because it was a vote. Leave or Remain.
And Leave won.
There is no compromise between being ruled by the EU and not being ruled by the EU. Being ruled a bit by the EU is still being ruled by the EU.
The only reason Britons are in this mess is because the Remainers didn’t think they could lose.
Evidently you’re unfamiliar with the realities of representative democracy, are you advocating its abandonment?
All around the world, governments are full of ‘representatives’ who don’t represent the people of the country.
Britain is just one of the most glaring examples; the people voted to leave, but the peoples’ ‘representatives’ are doing everything possible to prevent that.
Yeah, so? You realize my above comment was addressed to Astronist?
He appears to be another of the Remainers demanding that the actual vote by the British people should be ignored because their ‘representatives’ don’t want to leave the EU.
His second paragraph: The “British people” did not vote Leave in 2016: 37% of them did, and a slightly smaller proportion (34%) voted the opposite. One of the tragedies of Brexit is that everyone has adopted a winner-takes-all interpretation of this result, rather than acknowledging that when opinion is so finely balanced, compromise is necessary, leading at most to the softest form of Brexit.
That argument could equally stupidly be applied to election results the world over, is the lack of 100% voter turnout a justification to malign the legitimacy of election results? Is a low turnout a justification of retaining the status quo? The continuation of the pre-election government because less than half of the entire population voted against it – even when a majority of those that voted voted against it? And in the FPP electoral system that Britain has, yes, it usually is winner takes all with rarely a need for the incoming government to compromise with the opposition or other political parties.
His third paragraph: Did voters know what they were doing? I certainly did not know what I was doing: I have a vague idea of how the EU works, of course, but not such a detailed one that my opinion carries much weight. For example, I have heard arguments for and against the Euro, and would have to study the question much more before I had a reasonable opinion either way.
The same reasoning can be applied to General Elections – and often is by governments in functionally non-democratic counties by governments that are unwilling to accept they’ve lost the election, so they ignore the result.
In his forth paragraph he offers several arguments, none of which is a sound reason for over ruling the referendum result:
1. He again suggests voters didn’t know what they were doing
2. He suggests the result could lead to the break-up of the UK – so? If the Scots want to leave the UK they should do so and be allowed to do so, Scotland is a financial drain on the rest of the UK in the same way as Greece is a drain on the EU. Northern Ireland will not chose to leave the UK.
3. He raises the old bogeyman of trade barriers, ignoring that WTO rules are very strict on trade barriers and that Western countries today have very low tariff barriers. https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/TM.TAX.MANF.SM.AR.ZS/compare?country=cn#country=cn:eu:nz:us
Well there’s an obvious win-win solution. Let the representatives stay in the EU and let the British public leave. I’m sure they have plenty of apartments in Brussels that would be happy to rent to former British MPs.
+10
Let’s call them members of the European Parliament without portfolio. These MEP’s would fit right in with the existing members who largely vote strictly in their own self interest without regard or having to bother with pesky constituents. To paraphrase Basil Fawlty, one can have a decent government if only there were no citizenry.
I see where you are going Andrew, and mostly agree. However I think the issue is just democracy and not representative democracy. If democracy requires everyone to vote, then I don’t think anybody is doing that anywhere. Further, democracy does not necessarily mean a majority of the people. It could and has often meant plurality or even super majority. Representative democracy is smaller groups electing a sub set of people to routinely vote on matters, so that the whole population isn’t dedicated to resolving the question. But here, the whole population was queried and the answer given. And if that is unacceptable, then I agree that indicts the entire process. All the government has to do in the future is claim the people are to ill informed to make decisions. That road has been traveled many times in the past with much bloodshed.
I’ve read a lot if economic fear mongering. People worry that the UK will suffer economic calamity. Then there is the EU’s fear that the UK will become too attractive for businesses.
Britain will be just fine.
leading at most to the softest form of Brexit.
Only if the EU goes along with that. A big part of the problem is that EU tried to make it hurt. For example, just compromising a little on immigration between member states would have taken the wind out of the “Leave” side’s sails, but it didn’t happen.
If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies, choking in his own blood upon the ground.
Mr. Churchill wasn’t young by then, but I guess he was plump?
Whew! I’m relieved that the pressed duck I’ve had wasn’t that revolting French variety. I’ve only had the Cantonese version, at Trader Vic’s. That was probably 50 years ago, but I still remember how wonderful it was.
I say we nuke the place from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Whew! I’m relieved that the pressed duck I’ve had wasn’t that revolting French variety. I’ve only had the Cantonese version, at Trader Vic’s. That was probably 50 years ago, but I still remember how wonderful it was.
As far as the Scots are concerned, the Brits should rebuild Hadrian’s Wall to keep the barbarians at bay.
The place that needs to be nuked from orbit is Brussels, site of EU headquarters. If for no other reason than foisting lead free solder on the world.
Why do the Brits need to use their nukes?
Why is U.K. even taking any E.U. guff? Their military capability is maybe not at the peak of its glory, but it far, far exceeds anything that can be mustered on the Continent, even by the French and certainly by the, cough, Germans, cough.
I like to visit this blog because I find that the commentary on astronautics here is intelligent and informative. Unfortunately, when it comes to Brexit, the responses which my comment above elicited strike me as being badly informed, superficial and clichéd. I suppose the answer is to confine my reading here to astronautical posts.
Stephen
Um, so quoting Winston Churchill makes someone badly informed, superficial and cliched?
There aren’t geopolitical and historical reasons why the son of refugees from WW-II era Yugoslavia would prefer and favor a strong, independent and assertive Great Britain to having it amalgamated and assimilated and absorbed into Germany?
There are people outside the US who lack imagination regarding who the people in the US are, how we came to be and what motivates our opinions and aspirations?
Thank you. I think your second paragraph reveals the underlying clash of world views. You only offer options which are variations on aggressive nationalism. But the whole point of the EU project is that it is internationalist: strength is a function of forming regional alliances, independence and assertiveness cause wars. Nobody in the EU is being assimilated, neither Britain into Germany, nor Germany into Britain and France. It’s an alliance of equals, created through negotiation and agreement rather than conquest.
I did not have the Churchill quote in mind earlier, but now you’ve drawn my attention to it, I’m afraid it strikes me as grotesquely inappropriate. The whole point of the EU is to render the situation in which Churchill spoke those words impossible in the future, by removing the system of strong, independent and assertive states which caused the double catastrophe of the two world wars.
However, I don’t expect to convince anybody of this, if they can only see international affairs in terms of a zero-sum struggle for supremacy.
Stephen
Then refute the points made, if they’re “badly informed, superficial and clichéd” that should be easily done.
Thanks. But I’m afraid that’s not so easily done at all. Take this for example:
“There is no compromise between being ruled by the EU and not being ruled by the EU. Being ruled a bit by the EU is still being ruled by the EU.”
Where does one begin to refute this? The guy who wrote it seems to live in a world of countries that live in lofty isolation. It’s just not about “being ruled by the EU”. It’s first and foremost a peace project: tying the countries of Europe sufficiently closely that the catastrophic wars of the 20th century cannot recur. This leads on to trading links, for which common standards of quality control are necessary. Each member state gives up the right to set its own standards, in exchange for participation in a system which sets standards for all member states, enriching all by removing trade barriers among them, and by creating a powerful bloc whose economic and political strength matches those of the other great powers such as the USA, China and Russia.
And of course the whole problem for the past three years has been that there was no agreed definition of what Leave actually meant, whether soft (Norway-style) or hard. So there exists a spectrum of possible UK-EU relationships, the almost 50/50 vote in the referendum suggests a middle position, but the commenter here seems to be saying that the UK must take the extreme of minimum possible connection with the EU-27 after leaving because those middle positions do not in his view exist. And clearly nothing that I say is likely to convince him otherwise!
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the EU is more or less doomed, and the only way to not go down with it is to not be a part of it.
When they raided passport bank accounts to pay for a bailout, that pretty much ended the EU’s hope of being a financial behemoth. Demographics for the entire Eurozone are also more or less terminal, as far as economic might is concerned. They can recover by having more kids, but even so, it would result in 20+ years of economic misery before the new generation could even begin to turn things around.
“To accept that when the British people voted Leave they knew what they were doing and that in the end you either have a democracy or you don’t.” – This nicely summarises the three weak points in Mr Murray’s article.
The “British people” did not vote Leave in 2016: 37% of them did, and a slightly smaller proportion (34%) voted the opposite. One of the tragedies of Brexit is that everyone has adopted a winner-takes-all interpretation of this result, rather than acknowledging that when opinion is so finely balanced, compromise is necessary, leading at most to the softest form of Brexit.
Did voters know what they were doing? I certainly did not know what I was doing: I have a vague idea of how the EU works, of course, but not such a detailed one that my opinion carries much weight. For example, I have heard arguments for and against the Euro, and would have to study the question much more before I had a reasonable opinion either way.
Again, nobody realised in 2016 that leaving would probably lead to the break-up of the UK itself (Scotland voted convincingly to stay in the EU, and Northern Ireland both voted to remain and needs to do so in order to protect the Good Friday Agreement). And probably few voters had the education in economics necessary to understand that putting up trade barriers with our nearest and most powerful trading partner after over 40 years of close economic integration, not to mention cutting ourselves off from European decision-making, would not necessarily prove to be the quickest path to increasing our national wealth or international status.
Finally, there are clearly different sorts of democracy. The UK has a representative democracy, meaning that our elected MPs have a duty to represent their constituents’ interests and decide on policies to protect them. This is obviously not the same as a democracy in which the public itself decides what those policies shall be.
I hope this helps.
Stephen Ashworth
Oxford, UK
And those who didn’t vote (29%), didn’t care either way.
>This is obviously not the same as a democracy in which the public itself decides what those policies shall be.<
The gov't put the question, on leaving the EU, to be resolve by popular vote. The Leave won that election. Everything else is equivocation.
“One of the tragedies of Brexit is that everyone has adopted a winner-takes-all interpretation of this result”
That’s because it was a vote. Leave or Remain.
And Leave won.
There is no compromise between being ruled by the EU and not being ruled by the EU. Being ruled a bit by the EU is still being ruled by the EU.
The only reason Britons are in this mess is because the Remainers didn’t think they could lose.
Evidently you’re unfamiliar with the realities of representative democracy, are you advocating its abandonment?
All around the world, governments are full of ‘representatives’ who don’t represent the people of the country.
Britain is just one of the most glaring examples; the people voted to leave, but the peoples’ ‘representatives’ are doing everything possible to prevent that.
Yeah, so? You realize my above comment was addressed to Astronist?
He appears to be another of the Remainers demanding that the actual vote by the British people should be ignored because their ‘representatives’ don’t want to leave the EU.
His second paragraph:
The “British people” did not vote Leave in 2016: 37% of them did, and a slightly smaller proportion (34%) voted the opposite. One of the tragedies of Brexit is that everyone has adopted a winner-takes-all interpretation of this result, rather than acknowledging that when opinion is so finely balanced, compromise is necessary, leading at most to the softest form of Brexit.
That argument could equally stupidly be applied to election results the world over, is the lack of 100% voter turnout a justification to malign the legitimacy of election results? Is a low turnout a justification of retaining the status quo? The continuation of the pre-election government because less than half of the entire population voted against it – even when a majority of those that voted voted against it? And in the FPP electoral system that Britain has, yes, it usually is winner takes all with rarely a need for the incoming government to compromise with the opposition or other political parties.
His third paragraph:
Did voters know what they were doing? I certainly did not know what I was doing: I have a vague idea of how the EU works, of course, but not such a detailed one that my opinion carries much weight. For example, I have heard arguments for and against the Euro, and would have to study the question much more before I had a reasonable opinion either way.
The same reasoning can be applied to General Elections – and often is by governments in functionally non-democratic counties by governments that are unwilling to accept they’ve lost the election, so they ignore the result.
In his forth paragraph he offers several arguments, none of which is a sound reason for over ruling the referendum result:
1. He again suggests voters didn’t know what they were doing
2. He suggests the result could lead to the break-up of the UK – so? If the Scots want to leave the UK they should do so and be allowed to do so, Scotland is a financial drain on the rest of the UK in the same way as Greece is a drain on the EU. Northern Ireland will not chose to leave the UK.
3. He raises the old bogeyman of trade barriers, ignoring that WTO rules are very strict on trade barriers and that Western countries today have very low tariff barriers.
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/TM.TAX.MANF.SM.AR.ZS/compare?country=cn#country=cn:eu:nz:us
Well there’s an obvious win-win solution. Let the representatives stay in the EU and let the British public leave. I’m sure they have plenty of apartments in Brussels that would be happy to rent to former British MPs.
+10
Let’s call them members of the European Parliament without portfolio. These MEP’s would fit right in with the existing members who largely vote strictly in their own self interest without regard or having to bother with pesky constituents. To paraphrase Basil Fawlty, one can have a decent government if only there were no citizenry.
I see where you are going Andrew, and mostly agree. However I think the issue is just democracy and not representative democracy. If democracy requires everyone to vote, then I don’t think anybody is doing that anywhere. Further, democracy does not necessarily mean a majority of the people. It could and has often meant plurality or even super majority. Representative democracy is smaller groups electing a sub set of people to routinely vote on matters, so that the whole population isn’t dedicated to resolving the question. But here, the whole population was queried and the answer given. And if that is unacceptable, then I agree that indicts the entire process. All the government has to do in the future is claim the people are to ill informed to make decisions. That road has been traveled many times in the past with much bloodshed.
I’ve read a lot if economic fear mongering. People worry that the UK will suffer economic calamity. Then there is the EU’s fear that the UK will become too attractive for businesses.
Britain will be just fine.
leading at most to the softest form of Brexit.
Only if the EU goes along with that. A big part of the problem is that EU tried to make it hurt. For example, just compromising a little on immigration between member states would have taken the wind out of the “Leave” side’s sails, but it didn’t happen.
If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies, choking in his own blood upon the ground.
Now I’m hungry.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressed_duck
Mr. Churchill wasn’t young by then, but I guess he was plump?
Whew! I’m relieved that the pressed duck I’ve had wasn’t that revolting French variety. I’ve only had the Cantonese version, at Trader Vic’s. That was probably 50 years ago, but I still remember how wonderful it was.
I say we nuke the place from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Whew! I’m relieved that the pressed duck I’ve had wasn’t that revolting French variety. I’ve only had the Cantonese version, at Trader Vic’s. That was probably 50 years ago, but I still remember how wonderful it was.
As far as the Scots are concerned, the Brits should rebuild Hadrian’s Wall to keep the barbarians at bay.
The place that needs to be nuked from orbit is Brussels, site of EU headquarters. If for no other reason than foisting lead free solder on the world.
Why do the Brits need to use their nukes?
Why is U.K. even taking any E.U. guff? Their military capability is maybe not at the peak of its glory, but it far, far exceeds anything that can be mustered on the Continent, even by the French and certainly by the, cough, Germans, cough.
I like to visit this blog because I find that the commentary on astronautics here is intelligent and informative. Unfortunately, when it comes to Brexit, the responses which my comment above elicited strike me as being badly informed, superficial and clichéd. I suppose the answer is to confine my reading here to astronautical posts.
Stephen
Um, so quoting Winston Churchill makes someone badly informed, superficial and cliched?
There aren’t geopolitical and historical reasons why the son of refugees from WW-II era Yugoslavia would prefer and favor a strong, independent and assertive Great Britain to having it amalgamated and assimilated and absorbed into Germany?
There are people outside the US who lack imagination regarding who the people in the US are, how we came to be and what motivates our opinions and aspirations?
Thank you. I think your second paragraph reveals the underlying clash of world views. You only offer options which are variations on aggressive nationalism. But the whole point of the EU project is that it is internationalist: strength is a function of forming regional alliances, independence and assertiveness cause wars. Nobody in the EU is being assimilated, neither Britain into Germany, nor Germany into Britain and France. It’s an alliance of equals, created through negotiation and agreement rather than conquest.
I did not have the Churchill quote in mind earlier, but now you’ve drawn my attention to it, I’m afraid it strikes me as grotesquely inappropriate. The whole point of the EU is to render the situation in which Churchill spoke those words impossible in the future, by removing the system of strong, independent and assertive states which caused the double catastrophe of the two world wars.
However, I don’t expect to convince anybody of this, if they can only see international affairs in terms of a zero-sum struggle for supremacy.
Stephen
Then refute the points made, if they’re “badly informed, superficial and clichéd” that should be easily done.
Thanks. But I’m afraid that’s not so easily done at all. Take this for example:
“There is no compromise between being ruled by the EU and not being ruled by the EU. Being ruled a bit by the EU is still being ruled by the EU.”
Where does one begin to refute this? The guy who wrote it seems to live in a world of countries that live in lofty isolation. It’s just not about “being ruled by the EU”. It’s first and foremost a peace project: tying the countries of Europe sufficiently closely that the catastrophic wars of the 20th century cannot recur. This leads on to trading links, for which common standards of quality control are necessary. Each member state gives up the right to set its own standards, in exchange for participation in a system which sets standards for all member states, enriching all by removing trade barriers among them, and by creating a powerful bloc whose economic and political strength matches those of the other great powers such as the USA, China and Russia.
And of course the whole problem for the past three years has been that there was no agreed definition of what Leave actually meant, whether soft (Norway-style) or hard. So there exists a spectrum of possible UK-EU relationships, the almost 50/50 vote in the referendum suggests a middle position, but the commenter here seems to be saying that the UK must take the extreme of minimum possible connection with the EU-27 after leaving because those middle positions do not in his view exist. And clearly nothing that I say is likely to convince him otherwise!
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the EU is more or less doomed, and the only way to not go down with it is to not be a part of it.
When they raided passport bank accounts to pay for a bailout, that pretty much ended the EU’s hope of being a financial behemoth. Demographics for the entire Eurozone are also more or less terminal, as far as economic might is concerned. They can recover by having more kids, but even so, it would result in 20+ years of economic misery before the new generation could even begin to turn things around.