How long should a referendum be binding for?

David49

We are burdens on the workers they have to pay us pensions, house many of us give us health care. The concept of us paying NI to keep us in our old age went out of the window decades ago.
The wealth of pensioners varies greatly but none of us wants to give up a single penny to help the less fortunate amongst us, we want all our own wealth and WFA as well.

The wealth of pensioners varies greatly but none of us wants to give up a single penny to help the less fortunate amongst us, we want all our own wealth and WFA as well.

That's a bit of a generalisation. I am not complaining about the removal of the WFA, because I can afford to pay my bills, and as I genuinely believe in a more equable society, I would like to see help given to those in need - including those of working-age on low wages who struggle on a daily basis to make ends meet. Not to mention (again) being paid realistic wages - and if that means I pay more - so be it.

I'm sure I'm not alone.

Referendums in the UK are not binding. They are advisory to Parliament which is sovereign.

David that is an opinion not necessarily facts regarding how pensioners feel. One can really only comment on ones own feelings.

We are burdens on the workers they have to pay us pensions, house many of us give us health care. The concept of us paying NI to keep us in our old age went out of the window decades ago.
The wealth of pensioners varies greatly but none of us wants to give up a single penny to help the less fortunate amongst us, we want all our own wealth and WFA as well.

David49

ronib

Seriously- the pharmaceutical companies make huge profits …. Best not continue with this discussion.

They are bankrupting the whole western world, making us live so long the workers cant afford to pay our bills.

They are bankrupting the whole western world, making us live so long the workers cant afford to pay our bills.

... yes, but the fault lies not with living longer with curable illnesses / conditions, more with the unparalleled profitability of the industry. And yes, I do know about R&D costs.

It is one thing to keep the elderly alive just for the sake of doing so, but quite another if they are living reasonable lives with manageable illnesses.

Perhaps there might be more workers to 'pay the bills' if having children was not so prohibitively expensive, if working parents did not have to fork out half their income for childcare, and, indeed, if workers were paid an income that more resembled the reality of the cost of living, and the wealth gap between workers and CEOs didn't continue to widen.

Yours is the kind of rhetoric that pits the young against the old continuing the resentment against these 'burdens' on society. We should be clamouring for a more equitable society, not one that would prefer the old to FOAD.

... and anyway, living longer is not entirely down to the pharma industry as any brief study of anthropology will show you.

ronib

Seriously- the pharmaceutical companies make huge profits …. Best not continue with this discussion.

They are bankrupting the whole western world, making us live so long the workers cant afford to pay our bills.

Pharmaceutics are another industry where the cost of research is immense. Research is paid for out of profits.

Seriously- the pharmaceutical companies make huge profits …. Best not continue with this discussion.

We rely on the results of research to fund the developments that enable us to have the income to employ the nurses and teachers and pay pensions.

As I write this I am listening to Desert Islands disks. The subject is a professor of pharmaceutics, who is making drugs more efficient, so that they can be more effective, she is dependent on reaerch grants like those funded by Horizon.

It’s okay I have a fair idea on how funding works….. am just curious that in this current political climate, money is found for institutions but not for pensioners….. teachers and nurses…

Perhaps you just don't understand how research funding works, ronib.

I don't have time now, but I'm sure growstuff will be along to tell you.

I think Sunak signed up the UK to pay £15 billion for Horizon so let’s hope for a bit more funding Growstuff. Academics and researchers publish papers on their work so it’s hard to see that their names would be excluded before Horizon. Perhaps you know differently?

yggdrasil

A referendum has no binding fact unless followed up by legislation. And a referendum usually has certain constraints, the number of people who actually answered being one of them, and the proportion in favour or against.
The number of people who actually voted at all was <50%
The difference between pro and anti was <10% All of this means the referendum was never valid in the first place, and calling it 'a major victory for leave' is arrant nonsense

Exactly. But parliament did choose to follow through. An idiotic, undemocratic position perhaps, but we can all see that governments can be both perverse and idiotic.

MaizieD

ronib

Funny that Horizon Payment - £2 billion in and £1 billion back. That’s not my idea of a good deal….. am I missing a trick? Growstuff

Missing a trick? I think you are, ronib.

There's a multiplier effect in there, too.

Exactly! British-based scientists and researchers have been able to participate in international projects, but not as the lead institutions. That means they have no control over the funding and don't get the credit for the results.

ronib

Funny that Horizon Payment - £2 billion in and £1 billion back. That’s not my idea of a good deal….. am I missing a trick? Growstuff

£2 billion a year paid; £1 billion in a few months.

The point is that it's going to take a bit of time to re-establish our reputation as a reliable recipient of funding. Funding is usually granted in multi-year cycles. It could very well be that the UK receives £2 billion (or more) by the end of the year.

M0nica

Dickens

Written into the 2015 EU Referendum Act, there should have been a clause that if Leave won, there would be a second referendum - for Leave voters (and others) to approve (or not) the specific terms of leaving.

This would have prevented all the claims that Brexit was "not implemented / 'done' properly".

Dickens When in a hole stop digging, To try and sort the errors of one referendum bu proposing a second, there lies madness.

Referendum results should influence public policy for no longer than the time of one parliament. At the next election each party can include their plans for handling the results of the referendum in their manifesto. and saying nothing speaks as loudly as a detailed policy.

Dickens When in a hole stop digging, To try and sort the errors of one referendum bu proposing a second, there lies madness.

The choice was Leave or Remain. Michael Gove, when asked if we should stay inside the Single Market, said, "No. We should be outside the single market. We should have access to the single market, but we should not be governed by the rules that the European Court of Justice imposes on us, which cost business and restrict freedom."

But no one explained what was meant by having access to the Single Market.

Also, Daniel Hannan said "nobody is suggesting we would give up our position in the free market in Europe".

Discussions before the referendum were not consistent - how were voters supposed to know what 'kind' of Brexit - or relationship, the UK would have with the EU after leaving it?

Personally, as a Remainer, I was happy with the binary choice, but I keep hearing from Brexiters that "it wasn't done properly"... that was the point I was making. How could it have been done properly when the only choice was "Leave"?

So why should the results of a referendum be binding for a longer period than a Parliament and if you think it should be, how long should it be binding, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years and why?

I doubt it is or was binding. If anyone actually cares perhaps begin again?

We voted remain, we're well and truly over Brexit, life moves on.

Dickens

Written into the 2015 EU Referendum Act, there should have been a clause that if Leave won, there would be a second referendum - for Leave voters (and others) to approve (or not) the specific terms of leaving.

This would have prevented all the claims that Brexit was "not implemented / 'done' properly".

Dickens When in a hole stop digging, To try and sort the errors of one referendum bu proposing a second, there lies madness.

Referendum results should influence public policy for no longer than the time of one parliament. At the next election each party can include their plans for handling the results of the referendum in their manifesto. and saying nothing speaks as loudly as a detailed policy.

Written into the 2015 EU Referendum Act, there should have been a clause that if Leave won, there would be a second referendum - for Leave voters (and others) to approve (or not) the specific terms of leaving.

This would have prevented all the claims that Brexit was "not implemented / 'done' properly".

In fact I would go so far as to say that the government was obliged to revisit the entire fiasco, because we have suffered both economically and societally from the effects of a completely bodged job based on a barely legitimate result. In fact didn’t the courts rule that it was in effect illegitimate?

M0nica

I agree with those who say referenda are not binding, so I will put the question another way.

For how long should any government feel bound to respect the wishes of the electorate as revealed in a referendum. When should they be free to make decisions about the governance of this country, including international treaties, without regard to a past referendum results?

They are not binding; the Brexit vote was not taken with set margins agreed and was barely legitimate. If a government wants to go back on Brexit then there is nothing to stop them. Maybe they can negotiate terms better than those we had before.

CariadAgain

Basic answer = a lot longer than blinkin' Starmer is trying to make out.

I would say the result of a national referendum should, as a rule of thumb, be deemed to last a generation (so, say, 20 years?) - ie not however long Starmer cares to make out.

I would say the result of a national referendum should, as a rule of thumb, be deemed to last a generation (so, say, 20 years?) - ie not however long Starmer cares to make out.

That would require legislation. Prior to the referendum. As well as a decisive majority number.

The Leave / Remain referendum was not legally binding, so there is no time limit.

I don't believe Starmer has any intention of campaigning to rejoin. He wants a better relationship with the EU / Europe, and that is not at all the same thing.

It’s good to be optimistic MaizieD

ronib

Funny that Horizon Payment - £2 billion in and £1 billion back. That’s not my idea of a good deal….. am I missing a trick? Growstuff

Missing a trick? I think you are, ronib.

There's a multiplier effect in there, too.

ronib

MaizieD how could anyone forget Boris Johnson and his £350 million a week message? The difference is that I didn’t believe it. The British economy is thought to be £140 billion poorer a year ? out of the EU… I read somewhere.

You may not have believed it, ronib, but thousands did.