Funny old thing, democracy

[meridian]

“The EU is undemocratic!”


This week in the EU:
- Voting across the EU to elect MEP representatives


This week in the U.K.:
- Liam Fox calls for a clearout of any advisers that don’t “believe in Brexit”

- PM resigns, leading to the prospect of a new leader of the Conservatives being chosen by just 100k members

- That new leader will attempt to form a Government and ask the unelected sovereign if s/he can be Prime Minister.



Funny old thing, democracy. Seems it can be whatever people want it to be.

[AtW]

Totally undemocratic proportional representation system - why can’t they have first-past-the-post system to ensure only two main parties can have control?

[meridian]

Constitutional democracy question: will the new leader of the Conservative party in a minority in the HoC need to provide new bungs to the DUP in order to “command the confidence of the House?”

[cannon999]

Brexit vote proved that there is no real democracy in UK and this county is just as corrupt as any other country. It's just the word corruption is rarely used, people tend to prefer words like 'vested interests' etc.

[Paddy]

Brexit vote proved that there is no real democracy in UK and this county is just as corrupt as any other country. It's just the word corruption is rarely used, people tend to prefer words like 'vested interests' etc.

Democracy does not mean that just because there is a winner then the minorities are ignored. Your thinking is the same as Mugabe and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. We won so we will smash up the bars and kill the Christians.

In any other democracy there would need to be a decisive majority for a referendum result. Furthermore, leave won by fraud in the UK referendum.

[woohoo]

You can argue for the EU and stress many positive aspects of membership. But only an idiot or someone with a vested interest would ever say it's a democracy.

[WTFH]

You can argue for the EU and stress many positive aspects of membership. But only an idiot or someone with a vested interest would ever say it's a democracy.

And the UK?

[cannon999]

Democracy does not mean that just because there is a winner then the minorities are ignored. Your thinking is the same as Mugabe and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. We won so we will smash up the bars and kill the Christians.

In any other democracy there would need to be a decisive majority for a referendum result. Furthermore, leave won by fraud in the UK referendum.

What a ridiculous comparison. The premise of the vote was set out by the government (supposedly elected individuals via a democratic route). And that premise was - if we vote out - we are out. That's what people voted for. There wasn't a third option. The vote was a yes or a no. It's irrelevant however many people voted to remain. Just like it is irrelevant how many people voted to leave. Would we be having this debate about leaving if it was 48 leave 52 remain? No - the vote would have been upheld and that would have been the end of it. The reason why the vote is not being upheld is because UK is a country ruled not by the government or the people but by the cooporations and people with money.

By the way - I did not vote in the original referendum. However I, as many of the people that I know would absolutely vote in the next one and we would vote leave. Because this Brexit circus is no longer about leaving EU it's about how much democracy means to UK people.

[woohoo]

And the UK?

Who knows anymore.

[meridian]

What a ridiculous comparison. The premise of the vote was set out by the government (supposedly elected individuals via a democratic route). And that premise was - if we vote out - we are out. That's what people voted for. There wasn't a third option. The vote was a yes or a no.

True-ish. It ignores that this was an advisory vote, and ignores that there was a deliberately misleading campaign to promise all the upsides of a vote to leave with none of the downsides (any downsides being dismissed as "Project Fear").

However, Let's give it the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was a valid 52/48 split:

It's irrelevant however many people voted to remain. Just like it is irrelevant how many people voted to leave. Would we be having this debate about leaving if it was 48 leave 52 remain? No - the vote would have been upheld and that would have been the end of it.

It's not irrelevant that the vote was close. It also (in my opinion) wouldn't have been irrelevant if the vote was the other way. There are (again, imo) serious underlying concerns of millions of people that simply aren't being heard or dealt with - contrary to the never-ending spin of "full employment", etc

Would we be having this debate if the vote was the other way? Of course we would have - Farage himself said that a 52/48 split would be "unfinished business by a long way".

Would that have been the right debate to have? Not in my opinion - regardless of the vote, Brexit is being used to mask the failure of this and previous governments to fix the real problems. The real debate to have is "why is this country so divided?".

The reason why the vote is not being upheld is because UK is a country ruled not by the government or the people but by the cooporations and people with money.

The vote has been upheld. It was an advisory vote that Parliament has done nothing but take that advice and consider leaving for the past three years. The issue with leaving is that there is no version of leaving that Brexiters want. Norway? Switzerland? Canada? These were all options presented before the referendum, that now nobody is pushing forward.

Three card monte.

By the way - I did not vote in the original referendum. However I, as many of the people that I know would absolutely vote in the next one and we would vote leave. Because this Brexit circus is no longer about leaving EU it's about how much democracy means to UK people.

Parliament is supreme in the UK democratic system. It is a different democratic system than in other countries (hence my original post), but no less or more democratic for it - it has flaws and weaknesses as well as strengths.

If you want a different form of democracy then you need to start with your own Parliament.