Should the electorate have the final say on Brexit?

In an email to Labour Party members this evening, Jeremy Corbyn confirmed that Labour supports the campaign for another public vote on Brexit “remaining on the table” if a general election is not possible.

The Labour leader’s message reads: “If we cannot get a General Election, in line with our conference policy, we will support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote.”

labourlist.org/2018/11/corbyn-confirms-support-for-peoples-vote-campaign/

Opinion polls sample a carefully selected sample. The fact that neither you nor any of your friends have ever been interviewed is not surprising and does not mean that people with similar views have not been consulted.

Varian - who are these British who have been “polled” because I have a wide friendship circle and nobody I know has been polled. Friendship group covers all 4 parts of UK.

Is this another remained “smokescreen” if so it is becoming predictable and boring.

More than half of Britons are now against Brexit and support a second EU referendum, a Sky Data poll has found.

news.sky.com/story/majority-of-brits-now-against-brexit-and-back-second-eu-referendum-sky-data-poll-11555078

Far from “taking back control” we are now giving up any control we had, this deal makes us much worse off than staying in - even according to many leavers.
We have to follow the rules without having any say in making them, this will continue indefinitely, as we need access to the EU market and we can’t “ trade around the world” as we were so glibly promised. Leavers underestimated the power of the EU- the union of the 27 is more important than any third country. So all the promises that we’d be better off , they need us more than we need them, they’ll give us a good deal, it will all be so easy etc. Are sounding very hollow now.

Some want another general election but I don't see what good that would do.
There's no single party that's capable of getting a better result. Because there isn't one - we should stay.

The ridiculous thing is that Brexit could have been done via EFTA/EEA, but May closed all the exits and has kept them firmly closed since Sept 2016.

What a truly scary situation to be confronted with the fact that UK is effectively being held hostage. As a nett contributor to the EU, it appears that the cash cow may never be released.

People should have read their history and economics before putting their X to leave.

A warning for next year-----it's going to be horrendous. Mark my words !

Peopl are now slowly but surely coming to the realisation that Brexit just can't be done- what experts and many of us have said all along. It is just NOT POSSIBLE.

It is NO DEAL, or REMAIN - or Checkers à la Norway/Swiss- which people clearly don't want- so back to first two. There is NO MIDDLE WAY possible. Simple (and massively complicated).

Theresa May has totally disregarded the Brexiteers and done her own thing , she is not and never was strong enough to face up to the likes of Barnier and the EU
It has all become a shambles and I for one really do not know what the answer is !!

Let us consider two if not three unavoidable questions.
What happens if the referendum is indeed rerun and the result is still to “Leave”?
Or the result is to “Remain” and the EU refuses to let the UK rescind the original Article 50?
And it goes without saying - how many £ billions have been wasted in the interim?

At a packed event at Westminster Central Hall, co-organised by the People’s Vote and Best for Britain groups to campaign for a second Brexit referendum, Jo Johnson argued that the public had been “duped” over the likely terms of departure and needed a new say.

He said that while he voted remain, he initially believed it was right to accept Brexit should happen. He said: “I think it’s fair to say that back then we didn’t really know what it would entail, the ramifications of leaving the European Union. It’s becoming clear that there are very few positives. It’s almost unanimous that people think it will have some sort of debilitating effect on our economy, at the very least.”

Johnson said this eventually led to his resignation: “It was that realisation, really, that the public had been duped, that they were going to get a deal that didn’t reflect at all what they thought they were getting.”

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/13/public-has-been-duped-jo-johnson-tells-gary-lineker-at-rally-for-new-brexit-vote

I voted remain and would do so again having voted many years ago to stay out! The whole pantomime of indecision, the behaviour of members of the Cabinet and reliance on the DUP has made the negotiations untenable. The initial question was too simple, “in or out”! I believe that with a referendum there should be a clear majority for the proposed action, not the 48%, 52% fiasco that has resulted in a divided UK. I fail to see how we will be better off out of the EU. History shows that the majority of our trade has been with Northern Europe for hundreds of years. That is why it was decided to join the EEC in the first place (IMO). However there are aspects of the EU that I do not agree with such as ever closer union and I suspect many other countries do not wish to loose their individuality. This may very well lead to problems in the future.
Currently, I would like Parliament to decide if any deal should be accepted BUT with the proviso that no deal is not an option. If this should fail then I despair for our wellbeing and would hope that a second referendum could be on the cards. We live in a very dangerous and uncertain world and there is strength in larger negotiating bodies. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t!

Varian

Gordon Brown!

Another hypocrite who signed the b---y Lisbon Treaty behind closed doors. without a Referendum. The Lisbon Treaty reignited eurosceptism and that brings me back to the hypocrisy of the Lib Dem position today.

www.euractiv.com/section/future-eu/news/uk-mps-reject-referendum-on-eu-treaty/

" Opposition leader David Cameron said the decision means people feel cheated and cynical because promises made are promises being broken”. He was referring to commitments by Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to hold a referendum on the abandoned Constitutional Treaty in their manifestos for the 2005 general election.

The issue split the Liberal Democrat party, whose leader Nick Clegg had ordered his MPs to abstain from yesterday’s vote. Yet a quarter of Lib Dem MPs defied the order and voted in favour of a referendum, with three frontbenchers resigning to do so.

Clegg agrees with the government’s stance on the Lisbon Treaty, but instead wants a referendum on Britain’s EU membership to end ambiguities in the country’s relationship with Europe. “The prime minister once said that he would build a wider pro-European movement in Britain,” which would not be achieved by blocking “the in-out referendum that the British people really want,” he said.

Conservatives however said they would continue their fight for a referendum on the treaty, with Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague saying he had his hopes pinned on the House of Lords to “hold the government to their manifesto commitment”. He referred to the “convention that the House of Lords does not stand in the way of manifesto commitments”.

Which brings me vack to a question I keep getting no reply to :_

Varian

As a Lib Dem and fervent Remain campaigning poster can I ask why the Lib Dems changed their opinion over holding referendums concerning the EU ? Certainly not accepting the result.

Am I mistaken in thinking in 2008 the Lib Dems were so entrenched in it's anti view over the Lisbon Treaty the MP's walked out of Parliament with Ed Davey because they were refused an amendment for a debate calling for a referendum on Britain's continuing membership of the EU.

Fast forward only 8 years to the 2016 referendum and 10 years to the total U Turn by the Lib Dems in 2018 when it refuses to accept a result that would have once backed ' the then ' Lib Dem position something must have changed the Lib Dem position massively.

Did you follow the Lib Dem stance at that time or were you a fervent pro EU campaigner then and agreed with the UK signing the Lisbon Treaty ?

Gordon Brown has said he believes Britain will have a second referendum on EU membership. The former prime minister also said it would be a ‘travesty of democracy’ if there is not a proper debate and vote on any Brexit deal brought back to the Commons. Speaking at the Institute for Government in London, Mr Brown claimed there were ‘allegations of betrayal’ from voters on both sides of the referendum divide.

The type of deal envisaged by Theresa May would not ease concern on either side, he added. He said: ‘I for one have always said that I think there will be a second referendum. ‘I believe that in the end the situation will have been seen to have changed since 2016 and the people should in the end have the final say.’

metro.co.uk/2018/11/12/gordon-brown-thinks-there-will-be-a-second-referendum-on-brexit-8131093/?ito=cbshare

A massive abuse of public trust will only increase the case for a People's Vote on any Brexit deal.

www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/what-do-the-allegations-against-arron-banks-mean-for-a-peoples-vote-1-5768430

PS I was also impressed by the farmer who said that his fruit and veg is rotting in the ground as migrant labourers have been turned off coming to Britain.

Varian, I watched that programme, and I saw those maps that showed the significant swing to Remain, including in darkest England.

I was impressed by the woman from Stoke on Trent, a heartland of Brexit, who pointed out that the produce of the Potteries is exported to Europe and if the Potteries cannot export with ease the workers of Stoke will be jobless.

I can promise all of those who say that Remainers just want to keep re-running the referendum until they got the answer they wanted that if we were to be given another informed vote and the answer was still Leave then I would be in despair at the sheer lunacy of voters content to respect the result.

With the caveat that I would hope to see a clean campaign this time.

newnanny you resort to the tired (and surely no longer credible?) argument that people who 'lost' a second vote would keep on wanting votes until they got their way. That is absolutely not the point as has been stated many times - there is a massive difference between a simple yes/no vote with no knowledge of the consequences if the result was to leave, and a more fully informed vote.

Most UK voters would vote Remain if the EU referendum were held again, according to a major new poll from Channel 4 and Survation.

Some 54 per cent of people said they would stay in the EU if the 2016 referendum were held tomorrow – when those who refused to vote or answered “don’t know” were removed

Survation interviewed 20,000 people online across the UK from 20 October to 2 November in the biggest ever independent Brexit opinion poll.

www.channel4.com/news/major-new-brexit-poll-shows-voters-swinging-towards-remain

The full report can be read here

www.survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Report-for-MRP-Estimates.pdf

This has generated a lot of interest on Mumsnet, but it seems that Gransnetters either didn't see it or didn't think it was worth a comment.

It wasn't just the money.But we've been through the positive reasons for remaining over and over again so I won't repeat it all. However, what the money bought us is almost irreplacable.

The wealthiest countries make the biggest contributions. The UK has a uniquely good deal , not in the Euro, or Shenzhen and getting a rebate.

Varian you say 'UK had the best deal of any member country'. Yet out of 28 counties only five countries had to make a payment higher than they could claim back. I don't understand how you could think this is a good deal? Surely the other 23 countries all had better deals claiming back more than they paid in.