
Over one million people sign UK petition for second EU referendum - nreece
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/over-one-million-people-sign-uk-petition-for-second-eu-referendum/story-6TbVnlJN05EOa2ceYxbxAJ.html
======
perlgeek
That's not how democracy works. If there is a referendum, and you don't like
the result, you don't just do a second referendum.

If you'd do that, you could achieve any result you want, just by doing it over
and over until. Due to voter's fatigue and/or daily sentiment, results will
vary, so you can pick a result by deciding when to stop.

It might make sense (though still be questionable) to repeat the vote if major
facts changed, but I don't see that happening. The stock market shouldn't have
been a big surprise, Cameron's resignation neither, nor the Leave faction
retracting some of their promises.

As much as I don't like the outcome of the first referendum, I think it would
be fundamentally undemocratic to do a second referendum.

~~~
sleavey
Well, Nigel Farage immediately claimed after the vote was finished that he
lied about one of the key statements made during the campaign (£350M/week to
be spent on NHS instead of EU). Does that qualify as a major fact changing?

~~~
perlgeek
As an outsider, this didn't surprise me very much, so I wouldn't count it.

I mean, it's obvious that even though the UK may be paying more money to the
EU than it receives, there are other ways in which the UK massively benefits
from the EU, which will be gone after Brexit is done. So that money isn't all
available.

It is also not very unusual for politicians to promise more than they can
keep.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It was a huge lie, after immigration it was probably the biggest vote winner.

Personally I think the Leave voters just realised that what they thought was
an irrelevant naming convention is going to have serious hardships in store.

Seriously: Johnson & Farage, the lead personalities of the Leave campaign have
come out and said the £350 million doesn't exist. Others are saying, from the
Leave campaign that we'll maintain the status quo with European trading. I'd
love for us to take it back, but if they were going to do that they shouldn't
have campaigned to leave.

The Bank of England had plans for handling the financial downturn,
uncertainty, and avoiding panic. Seems that none of the politicians for Leave
bothered to think beyond the vote itself.

Politicians campaigning on a specific point should face prison for fraud when
they U-turn on this scale. I'm not happy just to shrug and say 'what
scoundrels, eh'; it's bloody criminal, far worse than any of the normal
criminal frauds.

------
curun1r
The funniest/most interesting part wasn't the call for a second referendum,
but the second petition described at the end of the article:

    
    
      A map of the petition signatures showed that most came from England’s major
      cities, topped by London where there is a separate petition calling on
      Mayor Sadiq Khan to declare the capital independent from the United Kingdom,
      and apply to join the EU.
    

I'm not even sure how that could work, but it would certainly take a lot of
the impact out of the Brexit and prevent much of the chaos that's caused the
markets to react so strongly to the vote.

~~~
tim333
There's no way the independent London thing could happen in practice but a 2nd
EU referendum is possible. The Irish repeated their one, the Scottish one
looks like repeating. Go 2nd referendum!

~~~
HoopleHead
An Irish one ain't gonna happen. The majority Unionists' anti-anything-Irish
hatred and desire to remain British is far stronger than their wanting to stay
in the EU.

As an Irish Nationalist myself, the only outside chance for Irish unification
that I can see would be if Scotland voted to leave the UK first.

The Unionists in N. Ireland tend to identify themselves as "Ulster Scots"[1],
so the advent of a Britain without Scotland in it might just be enough to
loosen their attachment a bit. There is no great affinity for Wales and their
attitude towards England is not much warmer than the Scots have for the 'Auld
Enemy'

[1]([http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/what-is-ulster-
scots](http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/what-is-ulster-scots))

~~~
ProxCoques
I guess you've not been following Ian Paisley Jr on Twitter then...

Things are going completely through the looking glass right now...

~~~
HoopleHead
Interesting, I'll grant you. But it still smacks more of opportunism
[pragmatism, it you want to be charitable] than a Road to Damascus conversion,
On Paisley Jr's part.

Still. If a few loyalists find they can carry an Irish passport, without it
burning their skin, maybe that's something.

~~~
HoopleHead
UPDATE: Having suffered for my art by actually reading through some of Paisley
Jr's Twitter stream [which was as unreconstructedly "orange" as I expected],
it seems what he actually said was that people should avail of a SECOND
passport, if they're entitled to one. He never used the word IRISH. Another
case of Chinese Internet Whispers

------
arethuza
I don't think a second UK referendum is realistic and I'm personally pinning
my hopes on a second Scottish Independence referendum, but there is no doubt
that the close result is being incredibly divisive. I never thought I'd agree
with Nigel Farage, but he did say:

"In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way"

Of course, he meant a 52-48 Remain win - but I think the same principle holds
either way.

~~~
michaelt
If exit negotiations take a few years, and the European wanted to offer the
Brits a face-saving way to change their minds, they could adopt some internal
reforms / offer Britain a better deal. Wouldn't have to be a perfect deal,
just good enough to justify having another vote.

~~~
gakada
That's the last thing they will do because then it would encourage every EU
country to hold a referendum and do the same thing, which would kill the EU
easily.

[What I see as more likely is that the UK invokes Article 50, goes through a
financial crisis, and then the EU offer to cancel our Article 50 invocation
and let us stay in the EU if we join the Euro and Schengen.]

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
It's not obvious at this point that the EU will still be around a couple of
years from now.

I think if one more country votes to leave between now and then a
renegotiation and some core constitutional changes become more likely.

The basic problem is that the Leave side lied about the benefits of leaving,
but they were absolutely correct that the core of the EU has become a
neoliberal financial dictatorship with rather thin democratic wrapping.

If bigger cracks start appearing in the structure the leadership is going to
have a choice between accepting more real democracy, or having the whole thing
come crashing down.

Currently there are no bigger cracks visible, but the economic foundations in
most of the EU are very shaky - so who knows where we'll be a couple of years
from now?

~~~
Atropos
What about the UK? Their prime minister has resigned, the lead of the
opposition party is battling a motion of no confidence, the British pound
crashed 10% against the US-Dollar and Scotland wants to stay in the European
Union...

~~~
mirekrusin
it's more like ~6.8% than 10% but this will stabilise after initial hiccup of
course.

------
rubyfan
Funny how people don't understand how devicive a simple majority is. Also
incredible silly how we have "this or that" solutions from government and
politicians instead of fixing issues.

------
unknown_apostle
After France and the Netherlands rejected the original proposed European
Constitution (basically confirming the EU as a socialist superstate), they
came up with the Lisbon treaty. When Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty, they
were made to vote again one year later. I would say that some form of a second
Brexit vote with slightly changed conditions would be a very EU-like thing to
pull.

~~~
jeremysmyth
The EU didn't initiate this referendum though.

The Lisbon treaty was a result of complex negotiation, and Ireland was an
outlier, requiring a constitutional change to implement the change. The change
hadn't been effectively communicated, hence the negative initial vote. When it
eventually passed, it was after a number of small concessions had been made to
the terms of the negotiated treaty, and after a massive campaign to let the
people understand what was at stake. The referendum also made it absolutely
clear what the "next step" was for politicians, exactly what their mandate
was, and exactly what the procedural effect would be.

Brexit, on the other hand, stated a simple (probably overly simple) question,
with absolutely no details as to what the exit strategy would be (and actually
no legal status either; parliament could legally choose to ignore the
referendum results). There was no date attached to the question, no procedural
detail, no mandate to perform the exit in any particular way, no bureaucratic
clarity whatsoever. There were no "conditions" that could be "slightly
changed" in a re-run. This was a blunt-force thwack with no nuance, no
subtlety, and no room for renegotiation with the people.

In short, the Brexit referendum was about the least EU-like thing the UK
could've pulled.

------
frou_dh
An online petition? Damn, they're bringing out the big guns!

~~~
DanBC
This one forces the government to respond, and if it gets over a certain
number of votes it usually forces a debate.

------
mirekrusin
this statement is idiotic:

"We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the
remain or leave vote is less than 60% based (on) a turnout less than 75% there
should be another referendum"

it would mean infinite loop of referendums without consensus.

~~~
DanBC
What's wrong with that?

------
nreece
Link to petition:
[https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215)

And, as it says: "Government responds to all petitions that get more than
10,000 signatures."

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
But often the response is "LOL no."

~~~
tim333
Yeah they could ignore it quite easily. Although it's setting a record for the
most signed gov.uk petition yet. Also Boris who was quite popular now seems to
have a job going down the street without people booing and yelling at him
which will be harder to ignore.

~~~
DanBC
The other one was "Don't let Trump in, he's a dangerous idiot" which got over
5million votes. But they ignored that.

------
m-i-l
See also "EU Referendum Rules Triggering a 2nd EU Referendum
(petition.parliament.uk)" at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11975680](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11975680)

------
crdoconnor
Almost one million people decided the vote. This smacks of sour grapes to me.

~~~
sbarre
Yeah this feels like the "oh shit I didn't bother to go vote because I didn't
think it would matter" folks suddenly realizing they probably should have
stepped up..

~~~
qrendel
There are also allegedly numerous people who voted leave just to troll the
system and now regret it: [http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12024634/brexit-
supporters-regr...](http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12024634/brexit-supporters-
regret-vote)

------
mirekrusin
Democracy doesn't work by voting until you get results you want.

~~~
claystu
"Democracy doesn't work by voting until you get results you want."

What are you talking about? That's exactly how it works! You vote for what you
want and hope the majority votes the same and you keep doing it for the things
you believe in.

------
arthursilva
This exit was fueled by misinformation and misplaced excitement, I have no
idea how Britain's allowed themselves in this hole.

------
rrss1122
And over 50M voted for Leave.

------
unfortunateface
London throws it's toys out of the pram.

It's quite funny to see the commentators who never saw this result coming are
now the ones with all of the explanations as to why it has happened. Watching
them evolve a new narrative in real time is quite funny. Apparently 50% of the
country are racists, or so stupid that they have been easily duped by the bad
politicians. There couldn't possibly be any other explanations.

~~~
unethical_ban
Perhaps one of the biggest geopolitical events of a decade shouldn't have been
on HN. The irony of you talking about Londoners throwing out toys, then
locking your account because one story got through that you think is
incorrect... it's delicious.

~~~
unfortunateface
Just one more point.

I actually don't think that "one of the biggest geopolitical events of a
decade" should be on HN if it is not directly connected to Tech.

Here is a more fitting article to be on HN:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2016/06/24...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2016/06/24/how-brexit-affects-the-global-technology-industry/)

There are plenty of other forums for talking about this subject.

In the past, i've found HN Comments about political issues to be of the least
quality/value.

