EU Referendum / BREXIT

[Trigon]

This is the way we always choose however. At a general election a party will win an outright majority in the house of commons with as low as 35%-40% of the votes cast. Turnout can be as low as 60%-65% so a party can have an outright majority in the commons with as little as 24% (or thereabouts) of the electorate. We had a referendum only a few years back on the notion of proportional representation for parliament but it was overwhelmingly rejected by the people. So every five years we force the will of a far smaller minority through to make decisions that will impact every facet of our lives for years to come.

If that is the case, would anyone happen to have any statistics showing which demographics had a higher turnout? It would be interesting to see.

[Oniya]

This looks to have some useful breakdowns.  (FT is the Financial Times)

[ReijiTabibito]

For some reason, all I get is a popup asking for a subscription plan...but there are other sources out there.  (I've got one, I just would have to find it again.)

Generally speaking - though this is in the US and not the UK, but I would imagine it would be similar over there - the older crowd tends to show up more on election night than the young people.  This is partly because the Boomer generation - those in their 50s to 70s, now - was really the last generation that was able to come of age in an era where political participation was really inculcated and, more importantly, mattered.  Here in the US, the first Boomers came of age during the mid-60s, where political protest and campaigning accomplished things aside from changing the label on the face presented to the nation.

There's a guy I listen to - Kyle Kulinski - who notes that one of the major reasons the current presidential election in the US has been so radically different from past elections is that, unlike past cycles, this time the millennials are getting involved.  Things are changing because young people A: are fed up of a system that's been programmed against them from the start, B: have a candidate (whether you think it's Trump or Sanders) who represents them; and C: are looking at the mess that's being left for them by their parents and going "NOPE! Not having any of that."

The low turnout for young voters has traditionally been attributed to things like 'political apathy,' or ignorance, but those could not be true.  A lot of my millennial friends (I have a lot of them, since I am one) are finally excited about this election because they're talking about things like universal healthcare, universal education, spending more to fix problems at home rather than abroad.  The universal education thing in particular is big - there was an article I'll have to look up again, but one of the things it said that kept the young crowd disinterested was that we were told, in effect, "there's no money to support you going to college, which we've told you all your life you need," and then hearing the people on the political circuit talking about spending more on Medicare and Social Security.

In short, you want young people to vote?  Start talking about issues that matter to them - though that would require getting off your arse and actually speaking to them.

[Oniya]

Yeah - when I tried going through the direct link just now it did it to me as well.  I used the Google phrase 'Turnout demographics for Brexit vote' - it may be that coming in through a search engine gives you an opportunity to view the page without the subscription.

[gaggedLouise]

Turkey quite frankly has in the 11 years since it applied failed completely to make headway on reaching the criteria for joining. There was never any chance of Turkey joining in the foreseeable future. Politicians certainly said they hoped Turkey might one day join, but the prospect was more wishful thinking than realistic.

I think part of the problem here is that upper-rank politicians who are themselves involved with the higher floors of "big EU" politics and negotiations - or who could be so involved some day - are often very unwilling to separate "wishful thinking" talk, hyperbole and realistic assessments of where things are at, here and now. It just tends to matter more to them that they must not cause trouble or embarrass anyone who is in a negotiation or a campaign (the EU always has a ton of negiotiations and planning going on, and much of it lasting for many years) than to explain to their citizens or to the media what's realistically happening or what we can expect. In this case, yes, Turkey has been on the bench wanting to join for a very long time, and pushing for it: there's not much that's happening (on the surface anyway) and it would be a difficult road ahead, plus frankly nobody wants to have to invest gazillions of  euros in Turkish farming, fishing and railways - but very few top politicians in the EU are going to come out and say that, because it would be "too embarrassing" and "help the wrong people on the political scene". The same with Turkey having a dodgy record on human rights, civic rights (freedom of print, for instance) and decent courts. If any high-level politician said those things to clear the mist a bit, Turkey would fluster and protest, and several politicians and bureaucrats from various countries would rush out and say this is not true, they are a very worthy candidate and a valued brother whom we are taking very seriously.

This kind of technocrat politics might not be unique to the EU but it's accelerated a lot with the growing EU level and the need to drum up support with a bunch of foreign politicians and countries. And the old French/continental trend of talking in hyperboles, buzzwords and opaque periods when it comes to explaining what Europe is about, what it means, hasn't helped things. It just seems to blur the distinction between realistic statements of fact and sugared visions or long-term goals even more. It's become almost impossible, with many politicians, to get them to talk clearly about the difference between ground realities or likely trends in the near future and professed goals - all too often they only want to talk about what they are "working towards" on a ten or fifty year future basis, or what they would like to see get in place. Without even admitting that this is over-the-rainbow talk.

Turkey is strategically a heavyweight country, both because of its location and its being almost the only big "native" muslim power in the near east with a half credible tradition of working democracy and secular society. It's a country that Europe really wants on their side to help handle the ever-present wars in the Levant, the threat of terrorism and so on, and to keep some kind of check on the border regions of Russia, Syria and Iran. So Europe and most European governments really want a good working relationship with Turkey and this gives Ankara some real bargaining chips, but most likely Paris and Berlin don't really want Turkey to join the EU as a full member (it would be a massive headache to have to get them on board with many things once they're in). It would be great if more politicos felt free to talk openly about this but they simply don't, because no one wants to throw a lot of spanners in the works for their EU brothers, or for their own careers.  ^_ ^

[Trigon]

Another update; Doesn't look like there is much of a chance that a second referendum will be held: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-what-is-eu-referendum-petition-david-cameron-a7105596.html

[Kythia]

Corbyn got his ass kicked in the vote of no confidence (what a totally unexpected result, right?).  He's decided to carry on and rip the parliamentary Labour party to shreds at precisely the time the Conservatives are ripping themselves to shreds.  Because its not like we're facing a national crisis and need some decisive action, no sirree bob.

[Renegade Vile]

Corbyn got his ass kicked in the vote of no confidence (what a totally unexpected result, right?).  He's decided to carry on and rip the parliamentary Labour party to shreds at precisely the time the Conservatives are ripping themselves to shreds.  Because its not like we're facing a national crisis and need some decisive action, no sirree bob.

Decisive action from politicians? What dream land are you living in?!
No, but, this comes as no surprise to me. Whatever happens, it'll be handled poorly and there'll be scapegoats.

[Polymorph]

Corbyn got his ass kicked in the vote of no confidence (what a totally unexpected result, right?).  He's decided to carry on and rip the parliamentary Labour party to shreds at precisely the time the Conservatives are ripping themselves to shreds.  Because its not like we're facing a national crisis and need some decisive action, no sirree bob.

Not sure how serious they were, but the SNP put in a motion to be recognised as the official opposition party as they had 54 members and Jeremy Corbyn only had 40 MP's left. It was rejected.

The anti Corbyn MP's have reportedly being looking into the legal question of who actually owns the name the name labour party, presumably with the intention of splitting the party. Despite the vast majority of the MP's being against him it seems they are still uncertain they could unseat him if it was put to a vote of the membership. Or whether they could get the unions that provide 75% of labour donations.

[hamish1024]

Heh, I saw the SNP thing. They're taking the piss, of course, but hard not to admire their style.

What I don't get with Corbyn, is that he was obviously pretty torn on the issue of EU membership.

As was the general population.

So... the parliamentary Labour party think that having a leader whose views are reflective of the general mood of the population is a BAD thing?

Or, are they just trying to get a stronger Remain candidate in, now that the battle has passed and has been lost (because they have an aversion to being on the winning side of anything)? Am genuinely confused.

It's very easy to argue that this whole crisis is an entirely Conservative mess (personally, I feel they deserve to lose their reputation for economic competency over this) - but Labour are going out of their way to jump up and down and shout "no, it was our fault, too!". Even though I'm sure I read somewhere that Labour voters backed remain by roughly 60-40.

I'm not especially pro-Corbyn, I just don't understand why Labour don't just shut up and concentrate on cleaning up this Conservative shambles. (I'm not massively partisan, but I'll be annoyed if an unelected Boris is handed the top job as a "reward" for more or less destroying Britain)

Also, it's probably saying something if I have to come to an adult RP site to ask serious political questions :)

[Polymorph]

I'm not especially pro-Corbyn, I just don't understand why Labour don't just shut up and concentrate on cleaning up this Conservative shambles. (I'm not massively partisan, but I'll be annoyed if an unelected Boris is handed the top job as a "reward" for more or less destroying Britain)

Also, it's probably saying something if I have to come to an adult RP site to ask serious political questions :)

This goes right back to his election as party leader almost a year ago. 80% of the MP's are Blairite New labour, Corbyn is Old labour and a socialist. They hated him from day one, but could not split off to form their own party because all the grassroots support and unions and their cash were with Corbyn. They simply saw the BREXIT result as the ideal moment to strike. Corbyn was always a Eurosceptic, most analysis I read was of the opinion that they basically blackmailed him into the REMAIN camp with threats of splitting if he did not.

[Kythia]

I think that 60-40 split hides some complexity though.  Now, this is purely my own analysis, which is mine, and I'm still noodling around looking for figures so don't ask me for any but: look at the areas one call broadly call "Corbyn strongholds".  The Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire.  My home in the North-East.  South Wales.  These working class semi-socialist Labour strongholds.  They voted Leave and overwhelmingly so (although my actual home of Newcastle did us proud and Liverpool which one could class in the same breath also voted Remain - I tend to chalk that to hatred of Johnson though).  Then look at the broadly Blairite regions.  London sticks out like a sore thumb here.  I don't believe Corbyn carried "his" people, in brief.

And if he's allowed in the election for leader, I doubt they could unseat him.  However, as I understand it its not clear he would be.  The issue is that potential candidates require 50-51 MPs supporting them to even be a candidate.  Corbyn doesn't have that.  Apparently, though, there's an argument to be made that the sitting leader can automatically be a candidate.  I haven't terribly followed the complexities of it, lawyers are involved.

[Polymorph]

And if he's allowed in the election for leader, I doubt they could unseat him.  However, as I understand it its not clear he would be.  The issue is that potential candidates require 50-51 MPs supporting them to even be a candidate.  Corbyn doesn't have that.  Apparently, though, there's an argument to be made that the sitting leader can automatically be a candidate.  I haven't terribly followed the complexities of it, lawyers are involved.

It's good to have something to watch now that Game of Thrones has finished. Poor Jeremy got stabbed by his brothers more times than Jon Snow.

[Kythia]

It's good to have something to watch now that Game of Thrones has finished. Poor Jeremy got stabbed by his brothers more times than Jon Snow.

Quite honestly I can understand why they're annoyed.  They've watched the party they (presumably) care about head down a trail that will cost them the next general election and been cast as undemocratic elites in the process.  Yeah, there's probably some element of revenge here which is obviously not productive but is, I feel, understandable.

[ReijiTabibito]

This goes right back to his election as party leader almost a year ago. 80% of the MP's are Blairite New labour, Corbyn is Old labour and a socialist. They hated him from day one, but could not split off to form their own party because all the grassroots support and unions and their cash were with Corbyn. They simply saw the BREXIT result as the ideal moment to strike. Corbyn was always a Eurosceptic, most analysis I read was of the opinion that they basically blackmailed him into the REMAIN camp with threats of splitting if he did not.

Over here, there's at least a similar feeling with regards to Donald Trump and the Republicans - to explain.  The GOP isn't stupid, they know that they're losing ground against the rising tide of progressive thought that comes in from the left, even though Congress itself is moving to the right and has been for some time.  The main thing they lose out on are social issues, like abortion, gay marriage, and the transgendered, because of socially conservative policies.  The die-hard conservatives - most of whom now sit within the Tea Party caucus - have stuck to their guns and gotten hammered hard for it.  There's been absolutely nothing keeping the GOP from ditching its social conservatism except for - similar to Corbyn - the massive number of voters and money that comes from such sources (Evangelical block, the South, etc).  I forget who it was, but someone was saying that a Trump triumph is all the push the Republicans need to abandon conservatism once and for all as a failed experiment, at which the question becomes (or rather, they acknowledge that the question has been since the 60s) not whether or not government should be big or small, but where it should be.

[Cassandra LeMay]

And if he's allowed in the election for leader, I doubt they could unseat him.  However, as I understand it its not clear he would be.  The issue is that potential candidates require 50-51 MPs supporting them to even be a candidate.  Corbyn doesn't have that.  Apparently, though, there's an argument to be made that the sitting leader can automatically be a candidate.  I haven't terribly followed the complexities of it, lawyers are involved.

The rules are fairly simple, but silent in an important point: Any nominee neds the backing of at least 20% of the Parliamentary Labor Party (PLP). By the current definition the PLP is made up of the 231 MPs plus the 20 MEPs. (Until a few years ago, can't remember when exactly the change was made, the PLP was defined as MPs only, but recently MEPs have been included too.)

The main problem is that the party rules only talk about "nominees", but are silent on the question if an incumbent counts as a nominee or not. That's why no one is really certain if Corbyn could enter the race by virtue of his current office alone, or if he would need the backing of 51 members of the PLP.

[Remiel]

By this point, actual British political news was basically indistinguishable from a random word generator

Brexit explained for Americans.

[Beorning]

Wow. The situation in the UK really seems to be an utter mess...  :o

[HairyHeretic]

http://satwcomic.com/brexit-to-the-right

[Kythia]

Wow. The situation in the UK really seems to be an utter mess...  :o

Yeah, we fucked it up good and proper. 

The UK government has only limited powers to call a general election so the chances of the new PM calling one are slim.  He can't call one just because he feels like it, recent legislation means there is a process to go through.  I go to and fro over whether there should be another plebiscite of some description - there are sane arguments in both directions.  However, I don't think there'll be a general election before 2020 which is the next "scheduled" one. 

Quite honestly, I don't think we will actually leave, though how much of that is wishful thinking I don't know.  Even if we do I'm pretty confident Scotland will stay with us and I'm absolutely cast-iron certain Northern Ireland will.

[Polymorph]

https://youtu.be/37iHSwA1SwE

This actually aired almost thirty years ago and seems bizarrely prophetic.

Italy's banks have crashed and it's government seems ready to contravene EU rules on state subsidies and bail them out. 5star, a Eurosceptic party just won 18 out of 20 mayoral elections held in Italian cities, including winning Rome.

France's politician with the highest approval rating is the far right Marine Le Pen and on course to win next years first round of the presidential election.

Norbert Hofer, a far right candidate for Austria's president failed by 30,000 votes to win and the Austrian supreme court just overturned the result due to voting irregularities and ordered the vote to be rerun.

Hungary is holding a referendum on whether to accept the EU ruling that it must accept a quota of refugees and will almost certainly vote against accepting them. Poland, the Czech republic and Slovakia are very likely to follow Hungary's example.

Greece, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus are still more or less bankrupt states with each around 25% unemployment and having to implement austerity measures dictated by the ECB in return for bailout money to keep the countries afloat.

Jean Claude Juncker, president of the EU commission and the man expected to head negotiations on Brexit has been shoved to one side and told to shut up by Angela Merkel and the negotiations will now be carried out by the European council instead.

France and Spain, who have independence issues with Corsica and Catalonia have vetoed any talks with Scotland independently of the UK and would likely veto any attempt by Scotland to join the EU without Britain to try to head off independence bids in their own countries.

[Renegade Vile]

https://youtu.be/37iHSwA1SwE

This actually aired almost thirty years ago and seems bizarrely prophetic.

This entire show was prophetic and also a history lesson since this same stuff has happened countless times in the past. Awesome show.

Italy's banks have crashed and it's government seems ready to contravene EU rules on state subsidies and bail them out. 5star, a Eurosceptic party just won 18 out of 20 mayoral elections held in Italian cities, including winning Rome.

France's politician with the highest approval rating is the far right Marine Le Pen and on course to win next years first round of the presidential election.

Norbert Hofer, a far right candidate for Austria's president failed by 30,000 votes to win and the Austrian supreme court just overturned the result due to voting irregularities and ordered the vote to be rerun.

Hungary is holding a referendum on whether to accept the EU ruling that it must accept a quota of refugees and will almost certainly vote against accepting them. Poland, the Czech republic and Slovakia are very likely to follow Hungary's example.

Greece, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus are still more or less bankrupt states with each around 25% unemployment and having to implement austerity measures dictated by the ECB in return for bailout money to keep the countries afloat.

Jean Claude Juncker, president of the EU commission and the man expected to head negotiations on Brexit has been shoved to one side and told to shut up by Angela Merkel and the negotiations will now be carried out by the European council instead.

France and Spain, who have independence issues with Corsica and Catalonia have vetoed any talks with Scotland independently of the UK and would likely veto any attempt by Scotland to join the EU without Britain to try to head off independence bids in their own countries.

As easy as it would be to blame the EU for many of these economical problems, it actually has less to do with it than you might think. Like in most places in the West, many of the nations you mention suffer from utterly corrupt and inept morons at the top who display short-term thinking and have no concept of long-term investment. I see it here in Belgium all the time. The economies of these countries have been driven into the ground almost primarily by the inability of its politicians to counter setbacks on a global scale such as the bank crisis from some years back. The EU doesn't help, but the UK's economy has been ripped to shreds by its own idiot leaders who devised self-destructing schemes such as how student loans are handled and basically cause countless millions of pounds of debt to be written off and become money the government never sees back.

As I've said from the get-go, if the UK wanted to leave the EU, it should have done so either a decade ago, or it should have waited to weather the storm. Leaving now would leave the nation economically isolated for longer than it can handle. Poverty in the north of England for example, is bad enough with the lies that BREXIT will magically cure these issues.

I'm all for leaving the EU, since it's a shell of what it was originally intended to be, but I hope Flanders holds off on doing so for the time being, and we're one of the few with a healthy economy left so that's saying something...

[Polymorph]

Yes, I can certainly agree with the vast majority of that.

In the case of Greece and Italy in particular. After Greece's crash for example the EU investigation came to the conclusion that Greece in effect had no working system of taxation worth the name. Italy only qualified for entry into the Eurozone at all by an extremely dodgy deal on the derivatives market that lowered it's national deficit in 1997, but would cost it 8billion Euros the following year after it had joined.

The thing is that these chronic problems were widely known in financial circles at the time. The decision to allow them entry to the zone appears to have been pushed by the federalist politicians on idealogical grounds against all sound economics. In this respect the EU by ignoring it's own carefully laid out criteria for Eurozone entry set in motion a car crash that was almost inevitable.

Britain's failings? You barely touched upon the series of series of insane decisions that were made. Selling gold reserves when gold was at an all time low, massively undervaluing the sell off of state owned assets and selling off it's part ownership of oil companies for a short term profit at the expense of long term returns are amongst other inept decisions.

Leave a decade ago, if only we could of. Better still not to have signed Maastricht in the first place Unfortunately the opportunity for the referendum only came to us now and that by accident. Yes, the timing was bad, but we waited 23 years for the opportunity and if we had voted to remain there is no certainty that a second opportunity would ever have presented itself.

[Renegade Vile]

Leave a decade ago, if only we could of. Better still not to have signed Maastricht in the first place Unfortunately the opportunity for the referendum only came to us now and that by accident. Yes, the timing was bad, but we waited 23 years for the opportunity and if we had voted to remain there is no certainty that a second opportunity would ever have presented itself.

I know the feeling, here in Flanders we get referenda for things such as the European constitution. We voted in large majority against it and the politicians were forced to heed it. Our prime minister did make an underhanded comment about the general populace being too stupid to understand the situation. But oh, we understood all too well. It's easy to recognize a wallet-filling scheme for the select upper class. Needless to say, they tried again with an altered constitution, and it failed again. I believe third time was a charm because they cheated their way out of even asking us.

[EuphoricDysphoria]

This goes right back to his election as party leader almost a year ago. 80% of the MP's are Blairite New labour, Corbyn is Old labour and a socialist. They hated him from day one, but could not split off to form their own party because all the grassroots support and unions and their cash were with Corbyn. They simply saw the BREXIT result as the ideal moment to strike. Corbyn was always a Eurosceptic, most analysis I read was of the opinion that they basically blackmailed him into the REMAIN camp with threats of splitting if he did not.

Personally, I don't think that was his only motivation. I think he took a good look at the Johnson/Gove/Farage alliance and decided that these were the absolutely worst circumstances under which we could leave the EU. The choice was not just 'in' or 'out' but between an increasingly far right government completely unchecked, or one that had to respect basic EU directives such as Human Rights, Employment Rights and so on. If Boris Johnson had drawn up a new bill of British rights, the working people of Britain would have an even worse deal than those in the US.

Corbyn has used this coup arguably to his advantage by replacing the MPs who resigned with actual socialists instead of blue Tories.  The Blairite middle-of-the-road pale blue narrative is (despite the mainstream media's best efforts) finally dying a death in the wake of the Chilcot report. The Tories' rabidly right wing, pro 1% government needs combatting with a stronger narrative than the neo-liberalist pap spouted by the likes of Owen Smith. To my mind the only real answer to the utterly unprincipled shysters in the 'Nasty Party' is a politician with actual principles, an actual social conscience and an actual interest in the plight of the working class.

Corbyn is a Euroskeptic but I do think he's realised the benefit of being on the inside pissing out, than on the outside pissing in, however much it costs us financially. The EU may have its drawbacks but there has been no major conflict in Europe since its inception, so in those terms it has been a success. Communication over conflict SHOULD always be a no brainer.

For the bemused Americans perusing this thread, the following hyperlink will take you to a layman's explanation by Whinnie The Pooh (totally SFW, some expletives): https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/pooh.png