Merged Now What?

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

that escalated quickly. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...emocrats-live-policy-stay-leave-a7103186.html

The Liberal Democrats, you say? I think I remember them. Used to be a political party, I believe? What do they do now?

Still it's nice to know they will stand in 2020 on a platform of travelling back in time and stopping Brexit before it happens. Perhaps they can send a robot assassin to take out Bojo's mother before she can conceive?

 

[CapelDodger]

I know this is now accepted but it occurred to me today that it seems to be based on A50 having a two year time limit to negotiate a deal? That would suggest its possible to conclude sooner if a deal could be reached quicker?

I suppose so; I have rather assumed it would go down to the wire.

 

[CapelDodger]

The Liberal Democrats, you say? I think I remember them. Used to be a political party, I believe? What do they do now?

They've been searching for a purpose and may now have found one.

 

[crescent]

It remains possible, if say the "round 2" petition gets enough traction, (like about another 16million signatures) that there will yet be another referendum.

It's also possible that a new PM will call a snap election with EU membership being the main issue.

Both of these scenarios are highly unlikely, but they remain a possibility.

The petition is at 2.7 million signatures in a bit less than three days.

I suppose they are unlikely to get 16 million, but they are certainly making progress. At this point, a good many parliamentarians are probably looking at no downside to debating this.

As you said, it was close. If the events of the last two days have been enough to change the minds of 2% of the electorate, then any hypothetical second referendum held tomorrow would be in favor or "remain".

So here is the question: if the referendum was very close (as it was), and polling data starts to show that the majority of the population no longer supports it, what should the government do? After all, the referendum was hailed as being non-binding. Should the government continue to implement policy based on a non-binding referendum if they have data indicating that public opinion has already swung away from the results of the referendum?

This is not a far fetched scenario. This was a very close vote. Anyone assuming that this is inevitable seems to act as if there were some sort of super-majority victory. There was not, a second poll held today could easily have different results.


ETA: If anything, the public seems to have been misled as to whether or not this actually was "non-binding". In practice, all parties involved seem to be treating the results as set in stone. It seems to now treated as entirely binding.

 

[cullennz]

The petition is at 2.7 million signatures in a bit less than three days.

I suppose they are unlikely to get 16 million, but they are certainly making progress. At this point, a good many parliamentarians are probably looking at no downside to debating this.

As you said, it was close. If the events of the last two days have been enough to change the minds of 2% of the electorate, then any hypothetical second referendum held tomorrow would be in favor or "remain".

So here is the question: if the referendum was very close (as it was), and polling data starts to show that the majority of the population no longer supports it, what should the government do? After all, the referendum was hailed as being non-binding. Should the government continue to implement policy based on a non-binding referendum if they have data indicating that public opinion has already swung away from the results of the referendum?

This is not a far fetched scenario. This was a very close vote. Anyone assuming that this is inevitable seems to act as if there were some sort of super-majority victory. There was not, a second poll held today could easily have different results.


ETA: If anything, the public seems to have been misled as to whether or not this actually was "non-binding". In practice, all parties involved seem to be treating the results as set in stone. It seems to now treated as entirely binding.

Where do you get people have changed their minds?

If they backtrack they will be ignoring the majority of voters.

Which will be almost as bad a scenario than you have

 

[crescent]

Where do you get people have changed their minds?

Quite a number of articles. This one, for example.

Granted, it is all just anecdotal information so far, and most of the articles feature the same people. Still, it does not strike me as far fetched. It was close vote, and a number of people seem comfortable going on camera stating that they feel they were misled or have other reasons for having changed their minds already.

 

[cullennz]

Quite a number of articles. This one, for example.

Granted, it is all just anecdotal information so far, and most of the articles feature the same people. Still, it does not strike me as far fetched. It was close vote, and a number of people seem comfortable going on camera stating that they feel they were misled or have other reasons for having changed their minds already.

Pushing it to see how that is a reason to spend 100 odd million redoing the whole thing

 

[Sunstealer]

The petition is at 2.7 million signatures in a bit less than three days.

I suppose they are unlikely to get 16 million, but they are certainly making progress. At this point, a good many parliamentarians are probably looking at no downside to debating this.

Think for 5 seconds. Be a little bit more sceptical. Look into the background of this petition, the date it was raised and what its about. Then have a look at the data and look at the numbers of people 'signing', the rate at which they are signing and their addresses.

The media has picked up on this because they are as technically illiterate and as gullible as those who have been urging people to sign it and then spreading the news with ever increasing 'signature' figures. It looks to have been signed by some idiot MPs too.

How are people from North Korea adding their signature to this petition? Look at the json file. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215.json (that was upto date at the time of posting) How many people with UK addresses have signed it? Now you can go back using the wayback machine to see the file from earlier. http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215.json

There are 3 for the 25/6/2015. Compare the number of signings for UK residents for each of those 3. Now note the times on the json file.

See something interesting? What do you think is actually happening?

 

[cullennz]

You also have the issue of just annoying voters who will vote brexit out of spite

 

[ChristianProgressive]

Sorry but if they voted for Leave they are racists. I am very comfortable calling everyone that voted that way a racist. And racism should be punished.

And that is why you should be summarily ignored.

 

[ChristianProgressive]

that escalated quickly. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...emocrats-live-policy-stay-leave-a7103186.html

And (as I said in another thread) that is why we are seeing massive distrust of the very idea of large-scale government just about everywhere.

The people have spoken. Do the bidding of the people. That's how democracy is supposed to be done.

 

[megaresp]

Think for 5 seconds. Be a little bit more sceptical. Look into the background of this petition, the date it was raised and what its about. Then have a look at the data and look at the numbers of people 'signing', the rate at which they are signing and their addresses.

I loaded the json object into PHP to get a better look. These are the key data:

Total GB Signatures: 2,401,768
Total Signatures: 2,540,690

There are various fields in there, including the number of signatures per constituency. I can supply that in a human-readable format if anyone is interested.

I guess the json file isn't generated on the fly, because the reported total is 2,769,454 as I write this. But using the above data, 5.5% of the signatures are reported to originate from outside the UK. I can think of 3 reasons why this might be so...

1. Country by IP isn't perfect
2. UK citizens live all over the world
3. Fraud

How many people with UK addresses have signed it? Now you can go back using the wayback machine to see the file from earlier. ...(snip)... Compare the number of signings for UK residents for each of those 3. Now note the times on the json file.

See something interesting? What do you think is actually happening?

I grabbed a file from 25/6/2016. I don't see whatever it is you're seeing. Would you mind stating clearly what you are seeing?

I have no trouble accepting that 2 million+ UK residents have signed this petition. I am one of them.

The petition doesn't actually require an address, just a postcode and email. I assume they check the country associated with the IP and discard anything that doesn't match, but it's impossible to tell because the json file and the total reported on the web page don't match (i.e. json file doesn't appear to be generated on the fly).

If the Sunday Express is to be believed, the originator of the petition is a Brexit campaigner who (I assume) thought Remain would narrowly win per the exit polls on 23/6/2016. Ironic if true.

 

[Klimax]

I loaded the json object into PHP to get a better look. These are the key data:

Total GB Signatures: 2,401,768
Total Signatures: 2,540,690

There are various fields in there, including the number of signatures per constituency. I can supply that in a human-readable format if anyone is interested.

I guess the json file isn't generated on the fly, because the reported total is 2,769,454 as I write this. But using the above data, 5.5% of the signatures are reported to originate from outside the UK. I can think of 3 reasons why this might be so...

1. Country by IP isn't perfect
2. UK citizens live all over the world
3. Fraud

...

Another cause: Signatories from outside of UK not sufficiently aware their signatures would be at best useless. It's making rounds on Facebook and other platforms and people are used to sign various petitions.

 

[cullennz]

Another cause: Signatories from outside of UK not sufficiently aware their signatures would be at best useless. It's making rounds on Facebook and other platforms and people are used to sign various petitions.

It's also irrelevent

 

[MCel58]

I know this is now accepted but it occurred to me today that it seems to be based on A50 having a two year time limit to negotiate a deal? That would suggest its possible to conclude sooner if a deal could be reached quicker?

Or is there a 2 year notice period for the EU separate to that?

No you are correct you can do it quicker and also it can take longer if you get the agreement of all remaining members. The problem is that while there is no UK government in place to set a policy direction for the civil servants then they cannot just get to work as people say. Parliament will set down for the summer in 2 weeks time, the Tories will be too busy getting a new leader and therefore the status quo and the existing policy work will continue. On the other hand, the EU policy machine will already be in overdrive and the team will already be in place to work out what the EU wants and what it is prepared to offer or negotiate on. We are already on the backfoot. So by the time negotiations start the EU will have a very well thought out strategy covering everything from migration, to trade to Intellectual property rights and even I suspect roaming charges for mobiles and the open skies policy for cheap air travel.

 

[MCel58]

Another cause: Signatories from outside of UK not sufficiently aware their signatures would be at best useless. It's making rounds on Facebook and other platforms and people are used to sign various petitions.

Actually this is not true in this case as those of us outside of the U.K. Who left less than 15years ago still had a vote in the referendum.

 

[Klimax]

It's also irrelevent

Not question I was answering.

Actually this is not true in this case as those of us outside of the U.K. Who left less than 15years ago still had a vote in the referendum.

Might be bit difficult to determine who is who from just petition data. Not that it is really relevant, even assuming petition is accepted it seems to be low enough percentage to be just noise in data.

 

[asydhouse]

Really though. When reading all this sky is falling bs, one must remember that far more then a skeptics board this is for the most part a politically far left echo chamber.

Ha ha ha! What's far left in your mind? The thumb on your right hand? Cos you're such a super skeptic, huh?

What a *********** joke.

 

[MikeG]

.....So here is the question: if the referendum was very close (as it was), and polling data starts to show that the majority of the population no longer supports it, what should the government do? After all, the referendum was hailed as being non-binding. Should the government continue to implement policy based on a non-binding referendum if they have data indicating that public opinion has already swung away from the results of the referendum?

This is not a far fetched scenario..........

No, it's not far-fetched: it is utterly ludicrous.

It wasn't "hailed" as non-binding. That's just the way our constitution is set up. However, we don't ever ignore the results of referendums. The government has no "data indicating...public opinion" other than the official referendum result.

Just grow up people, and realise that that is that. We are coming out of the EU, and that's all there is to it. There is absolutely nothing whatever on the planet is going to change that, so get used to it.

 

[andyandy]

One thing I've not seen discussed that much in the newspapers (and hardly at all prior to the result) is that Brexit is an existential threat to the EU - if that is Brexit is seen to be a success for Britain. If it is, then the clamour for other referendums across Europe, against a backdrop of ever increasing immigration, will be deafening. Another large Western European country leaves (eg Holland or France) and the whole EU edifice is going to come tumbling down. As a result, when it comes to renegotiating trade deals with the UK, it will be in the EU's very strong interest to make the UK suffer and be seen to suffer. We will be the junior partner (we need EU trade more than the EU needs our trade) in negotiations which the EU need to make as bad as possible for the UK.

As such I think there will be basically 2 options on the table - option 1, maintain access to the current economic trade treaties by continuing to pay into the EU fund and continuing to accept free movement across the EU (basically what we previously had but without the political influence) or option 2, nothing - i.e no trade deal and the UK forced to conduct bilateral negotiations with any country in the EU it wishes to trade with. If I was an EU mandarin that would be the take it or leave it offer. Sure there may be some economic impact on the EU - but relative to the threat of the break up of the EU I think this will be price that EU leaders are more than happy to pay.