EU elections

I think it's safe to assume that the 22% Labour voters who voted Leave probably voted for the Brexit party (if they still believe in Brexit). My guess is that anyone still voting Labour last week (14% nationally) are doing so out of habit and probably are not all that engaged, or choose not to try and be engaged in the European question.

Agree that it's not a clear victory either way, which is going to make it nearly impossible to move on. But it would be nice if we can at least move on from the whole 'will of the people' mantra. I think if we were to proceed with Brexit from this position it has virtually no chance of success given how resolute the Remain side has, and will become.

A peoples vote would allow that resoluteness (on both sides) to disperse as given the information now available, even a narrow victory for either side would have far more chance of leading to an agreed position in the HoC.

Ultimately the original referendum result of 52/48 means that the country said 'we want out, but only a little bit'. Hence it has been a complete failure of government not to find a compromise solution (i.e. SM / CU) as at least a way of delivering on the referendum result. This should have been the obvious solution from the start. My view is that this is due to the Tory party strategy as they wanted to demonstrate to would be UKIPers that they had delivered on the referendum.

I sort of agree with the idea of having another referendum but would pose the question, what is the benchmark for better informed. If Leave sneaked a win again would we have another 3 years of bitter argument and a repeat of ignorant, uneducated Leavers don't know what they're voting for? TBH, I'm on the fence with having another vote but there are a number of issues that need resolving before I'd fully agree with it.

How would the question on the ballot paper be phrased? Should it be Leave, deal or no deal? Should Remain be on the ballot paper?
 
You saying we are still a deeply divided country over a subject that relatively few people really cared about a few years ago, but is now paralysing the country and its politics, sucking the life and oxygen away from many other much more important matters this nation faces such as public spending on the Police, NHS and schools, economic growth and the environment, with still no parliamentary majority for anything?

Sheesh, when will this nightmare be over? ;)

It needs a General Election and, hopefully, a big majority for whoever wins. And dare I say a strong and stable govt to grab the nettles. I appreciate that people are fed up but to continue as is, irrespective of a new Tory leader is not the answer.
 
Amazing the way the remainers are clutching at straws like this is any sort of a victory for them. They were trounced by a party that was created 6 weeks ago. Brexit even won a seat in Scotland!😆

In 1997 the Labour Party won by an absolute landslide, in terms of seats. They won 418 seats with around 13.5 million votes. The Tories and Lib Dems combined vote was just short of 15 million and between them they had 211 seats....anyone on here got the brass neck to say It was close?

Seriously people stop kidding yourselves.

The only thing this whole vote shows is that the whole country is still very much split down the middle - I’m not sure who “they” are in your post but the results show that no one bar the two main parties got trounced which shows the general apathy towards them from all sides and that the BP picked up the UKIP vote plus a few others.

But the overriding results shows the country is still split in two and will continue to be
 
I sort of agree with the idea of having another referendum but would pose the question, what is the benchmark for better informed. If Leave sneaked a win again would we have another 3 years of bitter argument and a repeat of ignorant, uneducated Leavers don't know what they're voting for? TBH, I'm on the fence with having another vote but there are a number of issues that need resolving before I'd fully agree with it.

How would the question on the ballot paper be phrased? Should it be Leave, deal or no deal? Should Remain be on the ballot paper?

My personal preference would be to put on the ballot paper things that actually exist.

e.g. the Withdrawal Agreement is something that exists and could be delivered quickly following a public vote.
Similarly remaining in the EU.
No deal is something that exists and could be delivered.

A customs union might be a problem as one persons version of a customs union could look quite different to what the UK might negotiate, or might be able to negotiate.

I would want to see a referendum on a single transferable vote whereby voters ranked their choices by preference. So there would be no question of the 'Leave vote' being split by having the WA and No Deal in there. Ultimately the least popular option would be eliminated and the 2nd choices re-distributed to ensure a majority for something.

Problem for Brexiteers is that they wouldn't want to engage in a referendum with these options. They still think there is some magic solution whereby Britain can cherry pick the bits of the EU they want and not have a hard border in Ireland, or in the Irish Sea. Plus of course they have already won their referendum, so have very little to gain by having another vote.
 
You saying we are still a deeply divided country over a subject that relatively few people really cared about a few years ago, but is now paralysing the country and its politics, sucking the life and oxygen away from many other much more important matters this nation faces such as public spending on the Police, NHS and schools, economic growth and the environment, with still no parliamentary majority for anything?

Sheesh, when will this nightmare be over? ;)

Pretty much.

I guess what we've learned from referenda over the past 5 years is you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Unless something is defeated emphatically, it will move even higher up the agenda once you've had a positive vote FOR something, that people have never previously had a say on before.
 
That is a UK one.
Looks like BBC Scotland have 'noticed' their error and pulled the incorrect Scottish bar chart.
The old one is on Wings for anyone who wishes to see it.
Had a look and can’t see which one you are talking about - do you have a link ?
 
That is a UK one.
Looks like BBC Scotland have 'noticed' their error and pulled the incorrect Scottish bar chart.
The old one is on Wings for anyone who wishes to see it.
Why would a sad blog want to display something that has been corrected and not displayed the corrected version or don't fact suit their agenda. Damn, I forgot, it's Wings, blog of inaccurate information.
 
My personal preference would be to put on the ballot paper things that actually exist.

e.g. the Withdrawal Agreement is something that exists and could be delivered quickly following a public vote.
Similarly remaining in the EU.
No deal is something that exists and could be delivered.

A customs union might be a problem as one persons version of a customs union could look quite different to what the UK might negotiate, or might be able to negotiate.

I would want to see a referendum on a single transferable vote whereby voters ranked their choices by preference. So there would be no question of the 'Leave vote' being split by having the WA and No Deal in there. Ultimately the least popular option would be eliminated and the 2nd choices re-distributed to ensure a majority for something.

Problem for Brexiteers is that they wouldn't want to engage in a referendum with these options. They still think there is some magic solution whereby Britain can cherry pick the bits of the EU they want and not have a hard border in Ireland, or in the Irish Sea. Plus of course they have already won their referendum, so have very little to gain by having another vote.

I think the only legitimate questions is

A) leave the EU with a WTO agreement

B) leave the EU with Mrs Mays negotiated agreement

Anything else would be unacceptable to the majority.
 
It needs a General Election and, hopefully, a big majority for whoever wins. And dare I say a strong and stable govt to grab the nettles. I appreciate that people are fed up but to continue as is, irrespective of a new Tory leader is not the answer.

But who is going to get a big majority? The Tories will chose a Brexity leader and if Farage's party runs then they will split their vote. Corbyn, despite Conservative incompetence and a hugely unpopular PM, hasn't been able to capitalise on that. Lib Dems still relatively anonymous in a world of hard ideology politics and the greens gaining some momentum but no where near enough to do much.

To me we need PR as the current 1st past the post is not fit for purpose in the new political climate.
 
BBC putting out a false bar chart of results in Scotland.
SNP had more votes than Labour/Tories/LibDems combined.
Look at their bar chart of reshttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-48417424ult and see how much they have doctored a massive lead.

So let me get this right, we are now to do cartwheels cos the SNP got more votes than Labour, Tories and the Libdems combined, but for convinance we will ignore the party that got the second highest votes. That being the Brexit party. In essence those four parties got more votes than the SNP. In fact the SNP have three European members the other parties have three. Bottom line it's a dead heat. Yet that's a roaring success. Er no it's not Doon.
Yet the Brexit Party who won by a landslide as the largest party in the UK, well it don't count coz all the others got more. You cannot have it both ways. Yet this seems to be the thought process of the remainers in all elections.
 
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So let me get this right, we are now to do cartwheels cos the SNP got more votes than Labour, Tories and the Libdems combined, but for convinance we will ignore the party that got the second highest votes. That being the Brexit party. In essence those four parties got more votes than the SNP. In fact the SNP have three European members the other parties have three. Bottom line it's a dead heat. Yet that's a roaring success. Er no it's not Doon.
Yet the Brexit Party who won by a landslide as the largest party in the UK, well it don't count coz all the others got more. You cannot have it both ways. Yet this seems to be the though process of the remainers in all elections.

BOSH!.... have that doon 👊😁
 
There is no way Alastair Campbell could have four fake IDs on this forum. I mean, do we honestly have four people who talk absolute blllocllks all the time about everything and shout anyone down who doesn't believe their spin?


OK so he has about 10.
 
I think the only legitimate questions is

A) leave the EU with a WTO agreement

B) leave the EU with Mrs Mays negotiated agreement

Anything else would be unacceptable to the majority.

No more please, how many positive votes to leave the EU do we need, the people voted for it in The People's Vote and Parliament voted for it. Time to stop all this talk.
 
I think the only legitimate questions is

A) leave the EU with a WTO agreement

B) leave the EU with Mrs Mays negotiated agreement

Anything else would be unacceptable to the majority.

You might think that, but from a political point of view, it would basically seal the fate of Brexit as a failure and the remain voters (well over 18 million people when you include EU citizens) would dominate parliamentary elections and likely overturn Brexit.

At the moment we are at a political impasse. It seems likely that another referendum is going to be required to break the deadlock, and whatever side you are on, it is important that that is seen as fair, open and decisive.
 
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