Looks like May's having to cave on the amendments to the trade bill.

[Peter]

You're the one being wilfully stupid if you think the precedent set in 1975 and continued on various matters of self-determination ever since can simply be set aside because its outcome is inconvenient. Every single referendum since then has been honoured - so must this one be if any outcome is ever to be seen as legitimate.

There was a vote to leave the EU. Leave the EU we must - the only question is how. Your talk of 'no mandate' is utter, utter b0llocks and you know it. There was one key thing that everyone who voted Leave voted for - leaving the EU. Trying to obscure and frustrate that by splitting the vote or telling outright lies about 'what people voted for' simply won't wash. It's nothing more than a cynical attempt to reverse the outcome of the vote.

The electorate was asked and it made it clear it wants to leave the EU. Our political system is wrecked by this very simple fact for the very simple reason that it has been allowed to be dominated by a self-serving and self-perpetuating elite that sees EU membership as positive regardless of the feelings of the people who voted for them/pay their wages. Europhilia became a sine qua non for virtually everyone who wanted to rise within the Civil Service, Politics, Academia or the BBC and it's only now that the foundations have been shaken that we've come to realise how infested by these awful fvcking parasites we are. And all this has been allowed to occur regardless of public opinion. That situation was never sustainable, however, and now the chickens have come home to roost. You don't like it, but there it is.

Had the vote gone the other way, would we be talking about the different reasons people voted to remain and whether those differing reasons constituted a legitimate mandate for remaining in the EU? You know damn well we wouldn't and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise. A remain vote would have been seen by the establishment as a single, coherent legitimisation of our membership of the European project and it would have been full steam ahead. Given which, the reverse must apply to a leave vote.

And what if you got your ludicrous and corrupt second vote? What do you think that would solve? The fact is that at least half of this country does not want to be part of the EU. If the only way you can get them to vote otherwise is by threatening them with financial ruin if they don't, do you seriously imagine that is sustainable or that the problem will simply go away? What you are suggesting is that tens of millions of people in this country resentfully remain part of an supra-national organisation that has no legitimacy and which they have had to be threatened, intimidated, lied to and press-ganged into accepting. How do you imagine that ends? With Europeans joining hands across the continent? I don't fvcking think so.

So if we officially leave the EU but effectively remain a part of all of its core legal, financial and trade components, that will be fine. Because that is. What people voted for-leaving the EU.

I completely agree. The problem comes when people start to defend hard brexit on the grounds that it is what people voted for.

At what point does the manner of our departure become so weak and perfunctory that you call for a second referendum?

[Burney]

So if we officially leave the EU but effectively remain a part of all of its core legal, financial and trade components, that will be fine. Because that is. What people voted for-leaving the EU.

I completely agree. The problem comes when people start to defend hard brexit on the grounds that it is what people voted for.

At what point does the manner of our departure become so weak and perfunctory that you call for a second referendum?

I wouldn't like that, but if the ruling party (via the electorate) were able to get such a result through Parliament and win a subsequent election to secure that result, I would have no choice but to accept it.

However, that clearly isn't the case.

[Peter]

I wouldn't like that, but if the ruling party (via the electorate) were able to get such a result through Parliament and win a subsequent election to secure that result, I would have no choice but to accept it.

However, that clearly isn't the case.

So parliament is sovereign again.

I thought the mandate was from the referendum? Would you accept a party reversing it completely and winning a subsequent election?

[Burney]

So parliament is sovereign again.

I thought the mandate was from the referendum? Would you accept a party reversing it completely and winning a subsequent election?

Parliament is sovereign, but it does not exist in isolation. It cannot realistically hope to ignore the biggest democratic event in British history and get away with it. To that extent at least, the system works.

[Peter]

Parliament is sovereign, but it does not exist in isolation. It cannot realistically hope to ignore the biggest democratic event in British history and get away with it. To that extent at least, the system works.

The correct answer is that parliament itself called the referendum and effectively deferred the decision in principle to the public. It cannot claw that decision back because it didnt like the answer. It must, however, find a way of implementing it that it defines as being in the public interest.

One can remain sovereign whilst delegating individual decisions.

It remains, however, a decision in principle only as nobody asked the public to vote on different types or aspects of leaving. Parliament retains the authority to make those decisions.

Its messy but its constitutionally acceptable. The only problem is...well, parliament is a bit **** at this sort of thing.

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

Parliament is sovereign, but it does not exist in isolation. It cannot realistically hope to ignore the biggest democratic event in British history and get away with it. To that extent at least, the system works.

swivel eyed loons take to the streets and go nose to nose with The Police and/or The Army?