MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
“Lords should not undermine the will of the majority” that voted for Brexit
Peers should not undermine the will of those who voted Brexit, a senior minister has said after the UK Government suffered 14 defeats over key legislation. Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom said the Lords has made significant improvements to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which transfers EU law into UK law, linked to devolution. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesThat's funny, I don't remember being asked to vote on hard vs soft Brexit, or on whether the government should be able to do things unilaterally or must get parliament's agreement, or on which powers the devolved governments should have. And when May held an election to get a mandate for her plans, she lost her majority. Yet somehow all these Brexiters think they know the 'will of the majority', and - what a coincidence - it exactly matches what *they* want to do.
May 11th, 2018 - 06:57 am - Link - Report abuse +1@DT. It would help if you were to try to understand how democracy and the UK works. In 2016, Parliament decided to hand the decision, on whether the UK should remain a member of the EU, to the people. Which was reasonable because of the principle that the UK is governed “by consent”. 17.4 million people, properly primed by government-issued leaflets, decided that the UK should Leave. Only 16.1 million people voted to maintain the status quo. That was enough. The size of the margin is irrelevant. One vote should have been enough. The educated realised that a vote to Leave meant Leaving everything. Assertions about the customs union and single market not being on the ballot paper are stupid, wilful and deliberately obstructive. And those that couldn't be bothered to vote are also irrelevant. They had their chance. They even had more than an appropriate chance. Based on poll results, the number of members of the electorate that want Leaving to happen has now risen from 17.4 million to around 30.2 million. It's a pity that there was no question on the ballot paper about sovereignty. Because I'm not aware of anyone that voted for “parliamentary sovereignty”. “The people” wanted the UK to be sovereign. Not a couple of little groups of know it all elitists. The government should simply be delivering what the majority voted for. To LEAVE. Moreover, I'm not aware that much was said about Brexit during the 2017 election. For the electorate, it was a done deal. What the government is struggling against is the greed and selfishness of a minority. A diminishing minority. A minority that costs our nation much as they hand advantages to our enemies. And there should be no doubt in peoples' minds. David Cameron raised the spectre of war. There is a war. No bullets, bombs or missiles but the EU is fighting to maintain power and control over the UK. It cares nothing for the people. If the UK is not a good enough example, consider eastern Europe, Italy and the Catalans.
May 11th, 2018 - 08:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0It would help if you and other Brexiters would understand how democracy and the UK works. The referendum was one vote with one question. Any politician claiming the majority voted for hard Brexit is simply lying - before the vote Brexiteers like Boris promised voters (lied to voters) that we could stay in the single market and nothing would change. After the vote, they insist leaving the single market is the only option, and pretend that is what the majority voted for.
May 11th, 2018 - 09:41 am - Link - Report abuse 0And plenty was said about Brexit in the 2017 election. May laid out her red lines and the voters did not endorse them - but still the minority of hard Brexiters in the Tory party constantly bleat about the 'will of the majority' whenever anyone dares to question their hardline plans or attempts to grab more power.
As a foreigner and therefore not involved in the “leave/don't leave” issue what comes to my mind is that the UK are apparently determined to leave whatever the costs be they financial or otherwise mean to the country..
May 11th, 2018 - 06:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Now looking at the wider scenario it's interesting to note that most if not all countries in the world are trying to draw up agreements, form regional fronts ex: Mercosur in this part of the world (not exactly the most appropriate example admittedly but serves its purpose) likewise many other commercial and economic agreements. What does Britain do: push off from the ECM and decide to “go it alone” becoming an insular/island country exactly contrary to the general trend worldwide.
Personally it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but then again I'm foreigner, don't live in the UK and hence may have a completely warped view of the prevailing situation.
Still. It's very hard to accept the supposed rationale behind the “leave” concept!!
@DT. Unfortunately, it appears that you only read what you want to read. But I'll give you a clue. The customs union and single market are integral parts of the EU. Notice that. If you are in the EU, you are automatically IN both of those institutions. Non-members have to try to negotiate something acceptable, but they are never IN. Thus, voting to LEAVE the EU was done in the full knowledge that the UK would also be outside the CU and SM. Current “negotiations” consist of the UK intending to stay OUT while the Commission tries to have the UK IN. Notice the insistence on complete compliance with EU “law”. Let us know when you get it.
May 12th, 2018 - 04:12 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@LJ. As an outsider, you do not understand. The European Commission is composed of control and power freaks. And I emphasise the word “freaks”. Once free of the EU, the UK WILL have trade agreements. The number in prospect is somewhere between 40 and 100. In any event, considerably more opportunities than with the EU. What you don't appear to understand ia all that goes along with EU membership. As an example, a proposed directive will virtually ruin much of the entertainment industry. It is aimed at lighting. Imagine the effects on, e.g. stage productions, if lighting is curtailed. It won't be possible to see much of what goes on, “mood” lighting will become non-existent and so forth. It may seem a minor matter but it demonstrates the level of interference.
And it should be obvious that the Commission is attempting to create an empire. Pay attention to all the things it wants to interfere in throughout 27 countries. And the intention to have fully centralised control. Such control “might” be acceptable if it were always benevolent, but it isn't. Generally, it is dogmatically despotic and dictatorial. And, of course, the Commission is composed of individuals with limited education and intelligence. they cannot cope with “freedom”. That's why there are lots of references to the “one size fits all” approach.
@Little J
May 12th, 2018 - 07:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You can see from Conqueror's reply why *some* people voted for Brexit - the things he says are not true, but plenty of people believe some or all of them. However, Conq really isn't representative of Brexit voters.
Yes, most countries are trying to create regional groupings, but the UK isn't the only one affected by populist, isolationist politics recently. There seems to be a general distrust of governments in many countries.
As for reasons unique to the UK, I'd say we never really believed in or supported the EU's mission of a more united Europe. We joined the EEC and then the EU for the financial benefits, not for idealistic reasons, and have always been a reluctant member with an uneasy relationship to the block - you can see that in how the UK opted out of the Euro, and the Schengen zone.
Then we have one of the biggest issues, immigration. As the poorer Eastern Bloc countries have joined the EU, immigration shot up, competing for jobs and stretching services in an already densely populated country with a shortage of affordable housing. Maybe this would not be such an issue if the economy was booming, but the UK was hit hard by the Great Recession in 2007 and in some ways has still not fully recovered. The new immigrants particularly affected low-skilled workers, probably made worse by our government neglecting vocational training for many years (that might have helped them become skilled) and focusing on financial services at the expense of industry.
Also, the Leave and Remain campaigns were both awful - Leave told all kinds of lies, from claiming we paid much more to the EU than we really do, to telling people we could keep all the good parts of membership without the bad parts. Remain decided to use over-the-top scare stories rather than trying to spell out the advantages in an honest way and trust people to understand them.
I think in the end people voted with their gut feelings rather than their heads, and have left us in our current mess
The question is why is this piece appearing in Mercopenguin, a British government propaganda organ supposedly devoted to America, South America and the “South Atlantic”?
May 20th, 2018 - 01:23 am - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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