Brexit and power to the people

Negotiating hand???!!! Have they got one. Parliament does not at this stage need or indeed want to know blow by blow but what MUST be agreed is the overarching strategy.

Contrasting opinion from Tom Newton Dunn. He gives seven reasons why he doesn't think a general election next year is likely.

I agree with the courts decision, I am not comfortable with this power to the people cry, to vote to give the PM complete freedom to do what she wants and sod the elected MP's is a dictatorship , we voted out of Europe not out of Europe and have a dictatorship

The thought of an election next year is a terrifying thought for me

Why? Surely voting Labour would be out of the question for you with JC as leader - there are alternative options. Go on, be a devil...vote Plaid!

Ana, I have read the short list for selection to stand for labour at the
Richmond bi election, one claims to be - red labour and Richmond momentum

I have been reading about the judgement and apparently it was expressed with such force and clarity that it is difficult to understand the reason behind the government appeal.

It would be so much wiser for May to accept the verdict and do what she should have done in the first place and gone to parliament to ask permission to invoke A50 with a clear explanation of what she hopes to achieve.

Absolutely WW. You have summed up my reaction to the verdict perfectly.

I also agree with the courts decision. We elect MPs to Parliment to make these sort of decisions, we don't have Referendums over other say NATO membership, Hinkley Point etc. so why should the EU be any different? And dont say because we dont want to be goverened by a unelected Brussels elite, Teresa May is unelected by the country let alone by the Tories and She is well on the way to being a dictator if it wasn't for our wonderful legal system. Will she follow Turkey and Hungary and sack our judges? I have the wonderful Liam Fox as my MP! And the majority of his constituency voted remain.

If there is a snap election, maybe Fox will be defeated. Every cloud...

Please, please, we can only hope.

For once I agree with you dj! (re Liam Fox)

perhaps we should have had a referendum re Hinckley Point

Please - is it too late?

"We don't have referendums"

Erm... excuse me, but we just did.

I don't think referendums are a good idea either but we did have one (well, two actually, in recent times) and I think that if you have a government stupid enough to call referendums then the results should be honoured.

At least this latest on is carrying on supplying plenty of entertainment.

I seem to remember reading somewhere recently that Switzerland has a lot of referendums.

* one

Is Switzerland worse governed than the UK?

Where's granjura when you need her...?

" we don't have Referendums over other say NATO membership, Hinkley Point etc. so why should the EU be any different? "

Make sure you quote the whole sentence, bags. Otherwise you miss the meaning.

This is such a mess. The government didn't go into all the pros and cons properly prior to the referendum. All they told us was that we were going to be swamped with immigrants and that schools and the Health Service would collapse, but they didn't mention the fact that every price would instantly shoot up. If we sent back all the immigrants, the whole Health Service would collapse completely - I had to spend a couple of days in hospital at the beginning of the week, and every single nurse and physio was from somewhere else in the world, as were a lot of the doctors and they were all brilliant and we couldn't manage without them. Likewise, the hospitality industry would collapse without immigrants. My husband is an immigrant, but became naturalised a long time ago and has made a tremendous contribution to this country working at Oxford University.
We were not given the true facts about Brexit beforehand and thus were unable to make an informed decision, so the referendum should be declared nul and void as we only had biased information beforehand.
David Cameron left very speedily after the result, didn't he?
We have such a clueless bunch of politicians at the moment, don't we? I watched The Apprentice this week and there wasn't a lot of difference between the clueless bunch of individuals on that programme and the "Government"!

Well, it is certainly totally different- and a real direct democracy, with many parties having to work as a coalition all the time. And where all major decisions have to be decided by the people with Referendi and votes which are binding.

And it carries its own problems ... as we have seen with Brexit how easily people can be hoodwinked by biased bodies, the Press, TV and extreme parties similar to UKIP and the BNP - with massive financial resources.

No time just now to write the book the question deserves. A Parliamentary democracy like the UK requires all new Laws and Treaties to be ratified by Parliament, and all referendi are advisory only in the UK. Couldn't be more different.

No House of Lords type of unelected Chamber- and of course no Royal prerogative! And totally proportional representation and total separation of Church and State.

How can I launch an optional referendum?

Anyone wanting to launch a referendum can form a referendum committee, although this is not absolutely necessary. The authors of the referendum may contact the Federal Chancellery in order to ensure that the referendum is correctly drawn up and conforms with legal standards. This is best done before or during the parliamentary session in which the contentious act was passed. Several referendum committees can be formed to deal with the same law or decree by Parliament.
Before the contested law or decree is published in the Federal Gazette, the authors of on a continuous basis and in plenty of time; the 100-day deadline cannot be extended.the referendum prepare the signature lists. Upon request the Federal Chancellery will provide them with sample signature lists. These lists are required to contain certain specific information, for example the exact title of the contested law or decree and the date it was adopted by the Federal Assembly (see below). The authors can, if they so wish, submit the signature lists to the Federal Chancellery to be checked.
Signatures can start to be collected once the disputed law or disputed decree has been published in the Federal Gazette. From this date the authors of the referendum have 100 days in which to collect the 50,000 signatures required, to have them validated by the communes and to hand them in to the Federal Chancellery. Usually some signatures are invalid, so it is worth collecting more than 50,000. It also takes some time for the communes to check the signatures, so they should be handed in to the communes continuously, as the 100-day deadline cannot be extended.
A referendum can take place once at least 50 000 valid signatures have been handed in to the Federal Chancellery. The electorate can then vote on the disputed law or decree.

I wish that could be done on the parliament website.
Hunt would no longer be health secretary if that was the case.
We could have stopped the privatisation and reorganisation of the health service.
I think they all have over 200,000 signatures, but parliament only says it has discussed the idea, not having a referendum about it.

Sadly, the majority of people do not take the time to really study the very complex issues they are asked to vote about several times a year. Some are local, some are Federal (national) - and even when you do take the time- the issues are so complex that even very well educated people often cannot really understand all the fors and againsts. Several times since we arrived, I abstained as I just couldn't work all the consequences and issues (often on engineering, science, etc). We will have to vote on the phasing out of nuclear power in a couple of weeks- and the issues/alternatives/consequences are really complicated!

On the Feb 2014 vote on putting limits on free movement of people from EU - the referendum was called by a very rich right wing party, similar to UKIP. But Government should have vetoed the referendum, as they can do if it is clearly against Treaties and Human Rights etc - as it flies totally against the existing Treaty re the Single Market, research, Erasmus, etc, etc. The Gvt had nearly managed to get a deal with the EU to limit some free movement, quietly by the back door- but due to Brexit - this has been called off, as it would set a precedent for the UK to get a similar deal.
Swiss business, universities, research programmes, and so much more, have been suffering since and we just don't know how it will end. The gvt has until February to finalise the new deal- and it seems clear now that it can't happen. A very serious situation indeed. As said, we are going through a double wammy, DH and myself - and it is a real case of dreaded 'déjà vu'.

That doesn't sound very fair. The UK government never considered Switzerland in its deliberations, so why should Switzerland have to delay a vote just because of Brexit?