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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Many have made excellent points on both sides of this in the recent posts, but I don't think this one's gotten the credit it deserves.
There can be reasons to go against this, but I don't recall any good ones being posited for this specific case.
@poop:
Do you agree with the quoted bit. At least vis-a-vis the integrity of democracy?
If not... care to show me how I'm being stubborn and not seeing your reasons?
If so... what are the outstanding circumstances that we should consider in making an exception for this specific issue?
We (or at least our elected reps) have tried repeatedly (and failed repeatedly) to action the vote of the referendum. From this, one must ask why not? If it were clearly the will of the people to have a no-deal referendum, then it should have been done. The issue, however, is more nuanced than this, as I don't beleive all Leavers are like Ong and all 'arrrrrrugghgghg no deal is better than remain'. If they were so headstrong, the government would have wanted their votes and gone ahead with a no deal. That it didn't happen suggests that the government thinks the consensus (such as there was) was to achieve a Brexit with a proper deal in place.
Or, one could argue the gov't realises how bad virually any deal would be for the country and is simply waffling in the hopes that the country will come to its senses and stop supporting Brexit. Don't know.
But in principle, if a referendum has a clear majority (and I don't think this one does) then the gov't should fulfill it. That this referendum was so close is probably one reason the gov't doesn't feel compelled to push it through no matter what. They probably feel it's better to piss off a few Ongs than to ruin the country, dunno.
Edit: I would add that, given the outcome was so close, the gov't should also accept that the will of the people may have changed by now. Further, there's all sorts of problems with the referendum question being ill-posed as yes/no, when the issue is so much more nuanced than this. This is why you don't let the general population run the gov't. Most people don't have enough expertise to make informed judgments on the future of their country.
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