That must be handy for rules.
Apart from the shade of Government, has much changed in the c13 years since this? (and I appreciate that the mods donât want a politics thread but this was literally the first post!)
It got a lot worse for a while, then recently, slightly better.
It went from a very deep, dark blue to a ever-so-slightly lighter shade of blue.
Whilst there is a bit of a difference regarding Johnson, is there really much water separating Cameron & Starmer?
I think the main difference is that Cameron & Osborne (as much they werenât my type of Tories) were quite up front about the need for difficult decisions, before the election, whereas Starmer canât stop gaslighting us.
Then thereâs the creeping authoritarianism, which is more reminiscent of late Blair than Cameron.
And Cameron could speak quite well and present his ideas with enthusiasm.
Finally, he was in control of his own party (as much as that wasnât to my taste), so they didnât make his chancellor cry.
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Up to a point, I think he misjudged Brexit terribly, thinking a (remain) vote would silence the Europhobes once and for all. That said he was also given a difficult hand to play. The EU could have compromised a little.
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He successfully got the party behind him with the commitment to a referendum. It was the public he misjudged.
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More a case of proper referendum ârulesâ werenât instigated.
Switzerland uses them a lot for âcountyâ stuff / national issues. Simplified, their rules require a double figure majority vote, county majority, & also a minimum participation level (higher than 40%) for modifications to the constitution.
On the same rules, the UK referendum on leaving the UK would have passed on participation (72%) but failed on a 4% majority. The Swiss protocols require a majority of 'counties" - the UK vote was geographically split in that respect. Dunno what the overall count was.
Some of my UK work colleagues - âI do see some some areas where the EU is beneficial, so overall I think we should remain, but Iâll vote leave just to show my displeasure in other areas.â 
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My boss voted leave and now has to do significantly more paperwork when we send pallets to Europe, along with other new admin.
He regularly says he regrets it massively and would vote the other way in a heart beat now.
Well, as an aviation company that bounced all over the EU (& world) with very simple cross-border protocols, you would have thought that some of my ex-colleagues would have had more sense. Never mind the cross-border trade that was generated by all the business people we flew around.
When they are taking 2+ hrs to get through some EU Border Control points, they are regretting their vote!
The referendum result went to Parliament and a 2:1 majority of MPs approved it.
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Yeah but you canât change the rules after youâve seen the result
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Placing such rules on the referendum would have quite rightly been seen as a blatant attempt to skew it favour of one result (remain) over the other (leave).
If 17 million people voted to leave â the largest vote for anything in the history of British democracy â and we hadnât left because of such rules, do you seriously think that wouldâve been the end of it?
I strongly suspect Cameron wouldâve lost his majority through defections to whatever party Nigel Farage was leading at the time, who wouldâve subsequently won an early election before 2020.
Edit: Thatâs not to say the referendum couldnât have been done better. Shaping what Brexit would look like with a multiple choice pre-referendum, then having a straight yes / no referendum on the winner of that poll, might have made post-referendum politics somewhat less chaotic (and Brexiteers who didnât like the flavour of Brexit chosen might have voted no, as happened with the New Zealand flag referendum).
It would have been easier to retire majorities in each of the nations. Like the Ozzies do with states.
You can if you win.
I distinctly remember there being talk of things like remaining in the single market even if we left, or exploring a Norway option.
All such chat immediately ended as soon as leave won.
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But all these alternative dream solutions had one major flaw!!
They relied on the EU agreeing to them.
An they were quite happy to make us squeal to make sure no one else thought it might be a good idea
Ribbon cables. Trying to install an additional drive in my laptop and canât get the fiddly⌠thing attached.
Not really, it would have been very easy to relate to other countries, how they ran their referenda & add some parameters based on best working practices.
It was all in there to start with!! - why canât i get it back in with the new bits
I am sure it is some kind of magic - maybe a laptop case is like the tardis once you close it!
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Again, allowing potentially a couple of million Scots to have a veto over 17 million voters would have been seen â quite rightly â as vote rigging and would not have been the end of it. I refer you to my earlier comments about the Cameron administration collapsing and the subsequent election being handed to Farage.
And how do you suppose the 17 million people, having been denied what they voted for, would have subsequently voted? Bear in mind the massive majority Starmer âachievedâ with 9 million voters.
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