Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
Here's another of my well balanced arguments based on something I read in yesterday's Torygraph.
There would seem to be two views of democracy for the purposes of Brexit (and prolly nothing else):
Leavers view democracy in two ways: (1) Sovereignty for the UK as distinct from being subject to laws made elsewhere; (2) Execution of the June 2016 Referendum result. Economic questions are not really matters for democracy save that the Customs Union prevents the UK from forging its own trade path (I confess that if the EU is negotiating deals with the likes of Canada and Japan then that is good for us).
Remainers[ also view democracy in two ways: (1) The nice wrap of European protection for workers' rights, human rights and a whole raft of benign directives and cooperation institutions; (2) The right to have as many referendums on any topic, especially Brexit, on the basis that no referendum can be anti-democratic. Economic questions are wrapped up in the nice comfortable European Single Market and Customs Union.
The above is the classic irreconcilable stand-off.
Now I'll inject my own views.
I've argued before, and the Remainers have not addressed this point, that had the Referendum result been the other way round, there would have been no basis for the Leavers demanding a "people's vote" to overturn the first result. This makes the Remainers' call for another referendum a one sided matter - as in - 'they would, wouldn't they'. I find that to be undemocratic. Carry out the result of the first referendum rather than keep on voting till you get the result required by the Remainers.
The reason why the Remainers won't stop pressing is that the economic question is embraced by their view of democracy, whereas the Leavers believe that WTO terms can be utilised to our advantage especially if we divest ourselves of a lot EU anti-competitive constraints. The Torygraph article also points out that the additional revenues obtained by Government from import duties could be offset for UK residents by a corresponding reduction in VAT, so keeping prices steady or even reduced in cases where we can import food without tariff from countries with lower production costs than the EU.
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Lots of assumptions here, I'm not sure where to begin and this has to be a short reply. A few points:
- It's too simplistic to split everyone into two camps. We need to focus on the issues, not someone's vote from 2016. For example, not everyone who voted leave is against a second vote nor everyone who voted remain in favour.
- Nigel Farage has said he would campaign for another vote if it was 52-48 against Leave. It's the 4% difference that drives this behaviour, not a non-belief in democracy.
- In a world where many standards are set globally and trade deals and membership of NATO, the UN etc impact the laws of sovereign states, sovereignty is not binary.
- Many of those who voted leave do not favour legislation to get rid of labour rights etc. That may sit well in parts of the home counties but not north of Milton Keynes.