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Glory be, the solution is found!
“A citizens’ assembly could break the politicians’ Brexit deadlock”, says a bevy of the great and good.
Remainer strategy:
1) Campaign for a REAL referendum on Europe.
2) When you lose the referendum, spend two and a half years complaining that it was nothing but a “glorified opinion poll.”
3) Campaign for a REAL glorified opinion poll.
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Just finished the article. This caught my eye:
Yeah, what a great idea. A quiet and polite public discussion without shouting or arguing, of people seeking common ground!
It could be like France this past week, or a Tommy Robinson march through a no-go area in London, or our Antifa having a polite discussion with attendees at a Trump rally! This will be SO much more productive and civilized than some formal meeting of chosen representatives!
People could bring their unicorns . . .
The core strategy has been to present the normal process of argument and debate as “chaos”.
Now sure, the Prime Minister has been duplicitous in her dealings with her own party and arrogant in those with Parliament, but Brexit really isn’t as complicated as the remainer-dominated media likes to make out. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act was passed, with the full consent of Parliament, in June. It says we leave on the 29th of March next year. Period. No ifs, no buts, no requirements for Withdrawal Agreements with the EU. An amendment was tabled to provide for a second “meaningful vote” should any draft agreement be rejected, and it failed.
“WTO rules” are the GATT: an agreement. There is, therefore, an agreement available to us, the default for trade with any other country, should the bilateral one negotiated with the EU prove unacceptable to Parliament. Which it has. This makes life slightly more difficult in that the government, in its hubris, has dragged its heels on timely provisions for a WTO Brexit, but it’s not the end of the world.
They are, quite simply, making mountains out of molehills in an attempt to overturn the biggest vote in British history.
Remainers keep telling us that we need another people’s vote so that the electorate will now include the people who were only 16 or 17 in 2016 and therefore too young to vote.
If their eagerness to consult new voters on this matter persists then we will need a referendum every two years.
But we know that their enthusiasm for the seeking the opinions of youngsters and everyone else will end as soon as a result goes their way.
Vote until you give the “correct” answer.
Perhaps if your normal British subjects all wore yellow safety vests for a week while going about their normal everyday business. Do you think someone in Parliament might notice 50,000 or so of those?
I think a Citizens’ Assembly could be a very good idea. When you are creating a political union through a democratically legitimate process, you publish the prospective Union’s basic law and the potential constituent units then organize Citizens’ Assemblies (called Ratification Conventions under the American precedent) to assent to be bound by the Union’s legal structure.
The EU published just such a Constitution in 2004. If the authors of the article are suggesting that the EU roll back the Lisbon Treaty of 2007 and resume ratifying the 2004 Constitution through a process along these lines, then the proposal is very interesting. Otherwise they are merely (gloatingly) profitting by the cynical repackaging of that Constitution (which acknowledged its role as a change to the constitutions of member states) as a Treaty (which, although sunstantially identical in content, denied it).
So, IIUC,
WHEREAS parliament (as Sam Duncan , December 17, 2018 at 6:14 pm, points out) has voted to leave the EU on the 29th of March next year, with no requirement for a “meaningful vote” (or any other kind of vote) should any draft agreement be rejected, thereby defaulting to the GATT agreement.
WHEREAS parliament can (probably) be relied on to reject the current draft agreement, which the EU can (probably) be relied on not to allow to be altered in the smallest detail.
WHEREAS parliament is not relied on (by the numerous writers of the Grauniad article) to form any majority for any way of avoiding this unrolling march of events.
THEREFORE the Grauniad demands that about as many people as are in parliament are to be ‘randomly’ chosen to make a fresh ‘recommendation’.
Nothing in the above shall be construed to mean that a random selection of British people are superior to the great and good of parliament and their attendant chattering classes.
If the Left are willing to game something as irrelevant as the BBC Question Time audience, what do you think the “Citizen Assembly” will be like?
“To make progress we should instead trust their wisdom…”
Isn’t that what David Cameron promised to do? I seem to remember “…it’s your decision, the government will implement what you decide…”
Until, of course, the stupid plebs took the wrong decision; then, all of a sudden, their wisdom counted for nothing.
The second referendum is a sideshow, it won’t happen now. If it does it will be one to take us back into the EU, not keep us from leaving, that ship has just left dock.
This week the May government finally seemed to realize that the hard-core leavers were right all along, that the EU cannot be trusted and a “no deal” preparation is the way to go, and they’ll also realize that they could just wait for the EU to come up with a better deal (because they really do not want a “no deal”).
I assume when the nebulous Ms May got the brush off by her kissing cousin Mr Juncker a little light came on in her head, and now the wheels of “no deal” have already started turning (albeit they should have started years ago but there you go).
After this, and the promise that May will abdicate soon to placate the rebels, it has only taken the useful idiot Corbyn to declare a “no confidence” vote that has now seen her party united, if she plays her cards right she will come out of this with a medal, and that’ll be by a clean break with the EU not messing about with referendums.
If anyone is still in favour of the European Union – look what a collection of utter swine dominate the “Remainers”, left establishment filth – from the “Conservative” Kenneth Clarke (it was he who, last week, called the vote of the British people in 2016 a “glorified opinion poll”) to the “Guardian” and the “Independent” and the BBC (as well as Sky News and Chanel Four).
The statist establishment are in support of the European Union – that should tell people all they need to know.