Fraudulent referendum

Vote Leave has been fined £40,000 for sending thousands of unsolicited text messages in the run-up to the EU referendum.

The organisation sent 196,154 messages and was unable to provide evidence recipients had consented, as required by electronic marketing law.

They said Vote Leave claimed it had deleted evidence of consent relied upon to send the messages after the referendum in 2016.

ICO director of investigations Steve Eckersley said: “Spam texts are a real nuisance for millions of people and we will take action against organisations who disregard the law.

“Direct marketing is not just about selling products and services, it’s also about promoting an organisation’s aims and ideals.

“Political campaigns and parties, like any other organisations, have to comply with the law.”

It comes on the same day that Labour Leave were fined £9,000 for failing to disclose all donations to their campaign.

www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/another-fine-for-vote-leave-for-sending-spam-texts-during-brexit-campaign-1-5946375

The extent of Russian-backed fraud means the referendum is invalid

blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/11/14/the-extent-of-russian-backed-fraud-means-the-referendum-is-invalid/

"We should not ask people to vote on a blank sheet of paper and tell them to trust us to fill in the details afterwards. For referendums to be fair and compatible with our parliamentary process, we need the electors to be as well informed as possible and to know exactly what they are voting for. Referendums need to be treated as an addition to the parliamentary process, not as a substitute for it."

David Davis addressing the HOC 26 November 2002 (Hansard col 201)

I actually agree with DD on this. I know the quitters like to say they all knew exactly what they were voting for "leave means leave" , "brexit means brexit" and all the rest of the nonsense, but how could they possibly have known ? It was utterly absurd to expect a simple answer to a very complicated question. It was a blank sheet of paper.

The potentially explosive problem in Northern Ireland could be solved quite simply, by doing what the majority in Northern Ireland have always wanted, and the majority in the whole of the UK have also wanted for at least the last eighteen months- revoke Article 50 and Remain in the EU.

Exactly Jabberwok those of us who have some understanding of NI know exactly how things are there.

I can assure you David, that hatreds in NI go far far deeper and far far longer than 70 years, much much further than anything felt for Germany or Japan . Even now children go to different schools, people live in predominately Catholic or Protestant areas, in many areas life is dominated by the division with neither side wanting to have too much to do with the other. You're right,there is no place for that in the 21st cent,but first persuade the two sides in NI of that feeling!!!!

Have I got this right. The Electoral Commission says that there is plenty of evidence of fraud, interference, foreign/illegal money and more- to make the result of the Referendum void.

But they cannot do so because the Referendum, by Law- was advisory- and the electoral commission cannot interfere with a non binding referendum ?!?!?!?!?!

This is totally crazy - and people still go on with 'the will of the people' and 'respecting the referendum' - sheer madness.

Seems also increasingly clear that the Police have been and are being, prevented from investigating? And people talk about 'Democracy?. Talk about banana Republic

Theresa May has been urged to confirm if ministers blocked MI5 probe into Brexit donor Arron Banks.

It has been claimed security services were prevented from ­investigating Mr Banks in 2016

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-urged-confirm-ministers-blocked-13525794

It has also been claimed that when she was Home Secretary she declined to act on proof of Russian money being used for political purposes in the UK.

The fraudulent 2016 referendum should be declared illegal and Article 50 revoked before any more harm is done to the UK.

How would Northern Ireland referendum work?
Do you wish to leave the UK?
Yes
No.

If in the unlikely event of a yes vote would the south then hold their own referendum?

Do you (Republic of Ireland) wish to unite with Northern Ireland and become one country.
Yes
No.

If the vote is No
What then?

There has been threads on MN where MNers have suggested that a united Ireland would be in both North and South interest.
Where upon several posters from Southern Ireland have in 'MNers speak' retorted
NO - they have no wish to have Northern Ireland back!

My German friend, who has lived in this country for all her adult life, worked, paid taxes, was elected to the council of her professional body (in the UK) and has also been recognised by our local authority for her achievements as an elite athlete, has suffered racial abuse since the referendum, which she had never encountered in all her 25 years of living in the UK, to the extent that she has contemplated leaving the country.

Well done, Leave campaigners, you have pandered to the worst instincts of English nationalism. If I had voted leave, and was not a racist (for not all leave voters are racists), I would be thoroughly ashamed.

MarthaBeck - not sure how you got to that conclusion ???

As for your crossed out message MaizieD - sadly you are so right. Anti German comments and refs to the war, have been a common thread on Brexiter sites, and with Brexiters I've met. Young Germans find it totally incredible and very offensive.

a few decades later it wasn’t forgotten but most animosity was gone

But we haven't been fanning the flames for 300+ years, David.

And what I've heard and read over the past two years makes me doubt very much if animosity towards the Germans has gone

Nothing to do with old hatreds, it’s the Protestants wanting to dominate the Catholics and it has no place on the 21st century.
We hated the Germans and Japanese 70 years ago and far greater atrocities were committed in WW2, a few decades later it wasn’t forgotten but most animosity was gone and well over half the cars on the roads are now German or Japanese.

The only way to stop the marches is to legislate! I wouldn't want to be the government that endorses that!! The fallout could be violent to say the least!!
Of course NI may well rejoin the South at some future date by general consensus, but as these old hatreds run very deep, the prospect of that happening in the foreseeable future is virtually zilch!

Ireland will quite likely unite at some point in the future but that is entirely irrelevant at this time, there are far too many vested interests for that to happen at present. While Ulster is subsidized by Westminster for political gain nothing will change because most of that benefits Unionist voters. When the funding stops and they have to live in the real world a welcoming south will be much more attractive.
The way that 300 yr old battles are celebrated in the streets is a disgrace all in the name of culture, that must stop.

I don't think that Jura thinks that at all, MarthaB. But I'm finding this stuff about NI difficult to follow, so I may have missed a vital post...

I find it hard to comprehend Jura2 thinking. How she can possible think that an independent Country (as Ireland is ) can be a part of the UK by a merger of NI into Ireland.
Irish history is complexed enough. My view is simple if the NI electorate demanded a referendum to leave the UK and merge with Ireland, then it is the equivalent of a Brexit. What ever the NI electorate decides then having made a decision we should accept the result the majority decided

Exactly jura! To reunite Ireland, Ulster would have to have a referendum as would the South and at the present time there isn't a cat in hells chance of Ulster agreeing on reunification! So,thanks to the arrangements made in 1922 we're stuck with what we've got! Not awfully sure that the South would want it either, bearing in mind the commotion it would cause!!! I too have Irish G.Grandparents, County Cork to be precise, but it's the North we're talking about on here, not the South!

We can go back to the past - but we are NOW - and there is NO way NI will leave the UK and merge with Ireland- at this point in time.

Perhaps in 3, 4 , 5 generations, but NOT NOW for sure.

I do know my Irish history My ancestors were Irish and I had first hand accounts of the days of the Black and Tans etc and the engineered starvation of the Irish during the famine when my Great Grandparents came to Scotland ,they went back in the 1880's when life was a bit ...but not a lot better .

I'm not altogether sure what your 'argument' was, Jabberwok. Paddyann said, perfectly correctly, that NI was filched from the Irish. I was agreeing with her. The 'Irish' Irish have as much right to determine their future as do the descendants of the Anglo-Irish protestants.

I've said before that it's very complex and the current problem is that the Good Friday Agreement has worked, on the whole, extremely well for the whole of Ireland. It's worked extremely well because it is very fudgy. The minute one starts to dig into details one comes unstuck. It is unbelievable that it should be so carelessly threatened in the cause of not splitting the tory party.

Your argument is spurious mazieD. No present government can be held responsible for what happened 500 years ago, The majority of people of NI have made it crystal clear that hell would freeze over before they agree to merge with the south, Brexit notwithstanding. Unfortunately!

^ If you bothered to aquaint yourself with the history of Home Rule, you would realise that Ulster is and was made up of a majority of Protestant/ Scottish migrants dating back to James 1st in the early 17th cent.^

Quite honestly, Jabberwok, I'd call that filching. Like we filched north America, Australia and New Zealand from the original inhabitants.

And the English had laid claim to, and settled, part of Ireland long before the Jacobean settlements.

It's all very complex and still bound up with religion. Which is why the Good Friday Agreement is so very significant.

Whether agreeing or disagreeing, the last few posts have clearly shown that the Irish question is far from simple!

N.I was NOT filched Paddyann. If you bothered to aquaint yourself with the history of Home Rule, you would realise that Ulster is and was made up of a majority of Protestant/ Scottish migrants dating back to James 1st in the early 17th cent. The decendants of these immigrants resisted Home Rule threatening to take up arms in order NOT to be incorporated into independent catholic Eire, insisting on remaining under the British Crown, creating enormous problems which have persisted to the present day. Not filched, more like wished onto Westminster who would in 1922 have been thankful to see the back of Ulster, but unfortunately politically it just couldn't happen.