Crosswords1 min ago
Whats Your Thoughts On This.....
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I'm not being serious really, Talbot. It's just that I find it incredibly frustrating when people project the opinions of their friends onto the whole country and use it as the basis to construct any kind of an argument about how most people think. As a case in point, the predicted referendum result based on my cross-section of friends and family would have been about 95% in favour of Remain -- probably more, in fact, as I'm only aware of two people I personally know who voted to leave (I'm fairly sure one of them wasn't actually wanting to leave exactly, either...). I'm also aware that this isn't representative of the population as a whole, as was pretty dramatically shown in the actual result.
But anyway, it would be nice if (a) people recognised that, for some Leave voters, they may have changed their minds and/ or not really wanted to Leave so strongly as others, but (b) there probably aren't enough such people (at least not yet) to have affected the result, or to change it should a rerun be held tomorrow, and anyway (c) frankly it doesn't matter either way. Referenda shouldn't be held at all if they can be overturned three months later by another one.
But anyway, it would be nice if (a) people recognised that, for some Leave voters, they may have changed their minds and/ or not really wanted to Leave so strongly as others, but (b) there probably aren't enough such people (at least not yet) to have affected the result, or to change it should a rerun be held tomorrow, and anyway (c) frankly it doesn't matter either way. Referenda shouldn't be held at all if they can be overturned three months later by another one.
Talbot....I guess we must mix with different sorts of lefties then....personally, I tend not to have much to do with UKIP types !
Just shows the overwhelmingly right-wing slant of regular AB debaters.
To use AB as a judge, you would never guess that 16,141,241 people voted to remain.....48.11% of the total votes cast. Against 51.89% who voted to leave.
Hardly a landslide victory for the leave camp. although I am not arguing with the result, just pointing out how close it was. (on a 72% turnout)
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Just shows the overwhelmingly right-wing slant of regular AB debaters.
To use AB as a judge, you would never guess that 16,141,241 people voted to remain.....48.11% of the total votes cast. Against 51.89% who voted to leave.
Hardly a landslide victory for the leave camp. although I am not arguing with the result, just pointing out how close it was. (on a 72% turnout)
https:/
Hard to answer, jno. At the very least, we ought to have far better-defined rules for referenda in future. They are called and conducted in a very ad hoc manner, eg the referendum on the Alternative Vote that nobody really took seriously enough and was basically only called to secure the Coalition agreement (while also kicking into the long grass any question whatsoever about the state of our electoral system); the one we just had was called as a (mostly failed) attempt to appease Eurosceptic Tories; the 2014 Independence referendum needed a new law before it could be held and then backfired rather spectacularly in various ways.
I don't have a problem in principle with referenda being held in our democracy but the rules ought to be far more consistent, and probably ought to include among other conditions a minimum set of thresholds for the "change" outcome to have effect, and a minimum time (say, five or ten years) before the same question can be put forward again. Oh, and the decision to call a referendum in the first place should be decoupled from party-political squabbling...
I don't have a problem in principle with referenda being held in our democracy but the rules ought to be far more consistent, and probably ought to include among other conditions a minimum set of thresholds for the "change" outcome to have effect, and a minimum time (say, five or ten years) before the same question can be put forward again. Oh, and the decision to call a referendum in the first place should be decoupled from party-political squabbling...
I agree with all that, jim; I think there ought to be clear, strict rules on referenda (the Australians have them), including how often a vote can be held on a given issue (once a generation might be reasonable) and a higher majority threshold - maybe a 55-60% vote required to overturn the status quo, on the basis that the status quo also had public opinion behind it. Just making it up as you go along seems a poor way of doing anything.
