That’s another part of the whole unspoken agreement between the monarchy and parliament. The queen does not talk publicly about politics. That way she stays a neutral head of state, and the country can behave as if it’s a modern democracy without actually confronting the issue of making the royals give up formal power.
Incidentally, that’s why there was such a fuss when some of the queen’s remarks were reported to the press by politicians, and given a political spin. Such things are Not Done.
Didn’t the Sun already tell us that the Queen was in favour of Brexit?
But hell, we’re already going to back to 1707 and destroying the Act of Union. Let’s keep going back and have a monarch refuse to give Royal Assent. That always works well. I think the last time was Queen Anne in 1708, so we’re in the same timeframe.
Nope. The people have spoken, they want the UK dissolved, so that’s what they’ll get.
It’s a town with almost no immigrants that voted to get the immigrants out. A town that has been showered with EU cash that no longer wants to be part of the EU.
Ebbw Vale votes “Leave”, putting its entire regeneration at risk?
Devastation is Nye.
Angry disenfranchised, blue collar and trapped in a post-industrial shit hole; living pay cheque to pay cheque or on Welfare is a larger demographic. And I’m sure the US has plenty of those.
I’d add another Like for the Iain M Banks reference if I could.
Officially, the Queen has no position. Unofficially, she has been reported as favoring Brexit.
The Palace did complain about that headline.
Heidi Alexander already did. So that’s Conservatives and Labour in utter turmoil. Not hard to see a snap election being called. And if so, doubt that Article 50 will be invoked before that.
Depends how UKIP would do in said snap election though. Mind you, if we could get the kind of voter turnout the referendum did, that could be… interesting. Plenty of pissed-off young people who’ve never bothered/had the chance to vote in the general and UKIP splitting the Tory vote? Hmmmm.
I’ve actually never seen a referendum in any jurisdiction I’ve lived in that wasn’t a way for a governing party to either avoid responsibility for implementing something stupid but popular, or killing something useful but unpopular.
I acknowledge the possibility of useful referenda, but they don’t seem common…
Yeah-- the current leadership of Labour and Tories didn’t seem keen on implementing disunion. Their replacements might just might see implementation of the referendum as a really good idea.
How would the factions in a modern English civil war shake out? People of fighting age overwhelmingly voted to stay, and I imagine a good number of olds and fascists who voted Leave are royalists who would reluctantly defer to the Queen.
Plus, nobody has guns. What are they supposed to use, harsh language?
Comfy chairs?
Nice to see dear old Nick Clegg got this pretty much bang on.
What Daneel is hinting at and what often seems to be the case is that in democracies, we do require a supermajority for several things. It’s an honoured principle of avoiding a tyranny of the majority. In the United States Senate, for example, they take this to an extreme with the rules for cloture, the famed filibuster. Or for impeachment, or for an amendment.
The next few weeks will be interesting for the UK, as they have to decide whether to just pull the trigger on Article 50 or decide that this means a resolution needs to be brought to the House of Commons to invoke Article 50, where some MP’s may decide to take the hit and vote against their constituents. Or some other institution could claim veto power over the resolution.
All this during the European Cup as well. I’m going to stock up on snacks, as I can only watch anyways.
Hopefully we’ll get another Brexit today.
But that’s not the story of the left having no use for neoliberalism’s losers, that’s the story of actual progressiveness being plowed under. Labour under Tony Blair wasn’t a left wing that didn’t care about the poor, it was more neoliberalism. And meanwhile, those people who were crying out about their lot in life were mostly voting for the Conservatives.
Youth unemployment is very high, but did youth vote to leave? No, they voted to remain. This is about people who still think Thatcher was the greatest prime minister of the UK believing that the problem is immigrants rather than themselves.
I get it that people are hurting and crying out for justice, and I get that calling them racist isn’t going to solve the problem. But I can’t think of anything that is going to solve the problem. People aren’t as a group going to wake up and say, “Wow, we’ve had everything wrong, time to build a society based on caring for one another instead of based on looking out for number one.”
Generational churn is the only viable solution, and in the mean time pointing out the fact that a lot of the impetus to leave was pure bigotry is mollifying for people who actually want something better.
I would have liked to see a stipulation that the vote required at least 50% each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well. If democracy is about the majority trampling on the minority then I don’t even understand why we want democracy.
Imagine getting a divorce because one morning you were leaning 51% towards it.
