Wow, 40% are happy with the UK staying outside the EU. That's a lot of people, especially given the continuous stream of newspaper articles crying how terrible and disasterous brexit has allegedly been.
A lot of people don't give a shit about anything but themselves.
It's easy to live in a posh Tory area and not feel the effects, or to be blissfully ignorant that some of the negatives in your life wouldn't be there if we had EU backing.
And on a non-binding, simple majority vote. The results were like what, 52-48% for such a momentous decision? Should’ve required something like a 60% minimum, though they’d just have kept calling for the same vote every year.
Should’ve required something like a 60% minimum, though they’d just have kept calling for the same vote every year.
This discussion came up back around Brexit.
While I can understand an argument in favor of stability -- you don't want to sit at 50% and have things waver back and forth -- there are a couple issues.
First, for better or for worse, this is not really the international convention. In the referendums I've dug up for independence, the norm is plurality of votes. This isn't quite independence, but it's probably most analogous to it, especially given that one expects ongoing integration.
Second, it seems to me that to bias towards the status quo, one would have also needed to have also met that bar to join. In fact, there was no referendum at the time of joining, an issue which had its own controversy. If a 60% supermajority is required to leave, it seems to me that the same should be true of joining.
My theory is a group motivated to change the status quo is far more likely to be mobilised to vote on that issue than a group in favour of maintaining the status quo, i.e. being forced to respond to that group. Because you're trying mobilise a group to do nothing, there's no impetus to the counter-movement. I think any vote like that is naturally biased towards the group seeking to change something, though it would be hard to quantify the extent of the effect and would only apply to specific single issue votes. I said this during the lead up to the Brexit vote, that more people in the country would prefer to stay, but the "leave" voter base would be over-represented at the ballot. I think the whole democratic system fails to function unless everyone is compelled to vote, because of weird effects like this.
I think there are some people that voted to remain that wouldn't necessarily agree (or immediately afterward have agreed with) rejoining.
Rejoining presents a very different prospect - we will have lost our veto, we'll need to join the Schengen area and will have to adopt the Euro. Some people may have issues with some or all of these things.
who'd they be voting for to rejoin? i am not aware of any labourpartymove or even an english politician with a backbone. or will their king make them join?
this is really confusing coz if it was a democratic country there would a pro join-the-eu party.
so murdoch rules the UK, not the people over there.
That's what's baffles me the most. Leavers were painting the whole situation as if they had the worst terms with the EU and were exploited at every corner when in fact the UK had one of the most favourable terms in the whole union. So many idiots ...
It could be 90% in favour of rejoining, but it wouldn't make much of a difference. The EU would need to see strong, long term cross-party support in Westminster before they'd consider it. The EU know that otherwise the issue is just going to keep re-emerging in UK politics so long as the Tories are ideologically opposed to the EU. I think the best chance the UK has is if the modern Tory party stopped being relevant electorally, because their membership's views aren't likely to change, and everyone in the EU institutions hates them for the damage their governments have done over the last 7 years.
I also would be really surprised if the EU would offer the same favourable terms the UK had before. Most likely they would need to show their willingness to integrate more in the union than they did before.
At least some percentage are just lying to themselves / the pollsters. We've seen enough bad-faith rejection of fact on this side of the pond to know that it's fairly common with shitheads who refuse to admit they're wrong.
It's the same why so many people support rich folk and in politics side with them
They either think they also will become mega rich or they think the rich people deserve their money (even though almost all the richest men have broken laws to make that money)
Having your own currency is not a special treatment at all - instead, the Eurozone is kind of an elitist club inside the EU that won't let everyone in.
The "British Rebate" (or whatever it was called) that guaranteed 66% of the British payments to be sent back to the UK on the other hand should be gone for good. Same for not being a member of the Schengen area or adhering to the rules concerning fiscal stability.
I think we do. Both the EU and the UK are weaker apart. I doubt politicians will have hard feelings about it, especially when there's money on the line. And like it or not the UK is a huge economy at least by European standards.