The financial sector effectively has its own private city already.
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It’s really weird that the New IRA would be targeting Scotland, though (especially since Scotland were very much in favor of remain). This has a lot of people baffled and who were initially assuming it couldn’t possibly be the IRA. Everything’s screwy now.
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The referendum was a terrible idea. “Do you like Europe? Circle one: Y/N”
Anybody with a mild dislike of even one European country could easily vote no. Most people don’t put a lot of thought into their vote. That’s why we elect representatives - they can take the time to craft laws and research the issues that go along with something like Brexit. Instead, you got, “My ex-wife was from Spain - I couldn’t stand her. I vote to leave the EU!” as an actual vote, millions of times over.
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Yes. yes. kinda. and no. As others have pointed out the original referendum was advisory, ie. non-binding, since legislative authority lies solely with Parliament, as it does in all Westminster systems. Cameron shit the bed by allowing such a irresponsible plebiscite in the first place. Another referendum would not be “undemocratic” however. It would be just as ‘democratic’ as the first one. Here in Canada we have had two Quebec referenda over separation. Because the ‘yes’ side lost in 1980 did not mean they were forbidden from trying again, which they did in 1995, and lost again (barely). There is no law saying the Parti Quebecois couldn’t try again, and again…Another ‘Brexit’ vote would only take serious political guts, something completely lacking in Britain (and the rest of the developed world) as of late. Having stared into the void, the majority of the British public has now very likely come to their senses and would likely vote to remain. The Brexiters would scream bloody murder for a week or two, then drown their sorrows in the nearest pub end of story.
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Brexit is like an infection that just won’t clear up. 
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Let’s not encourage kids to become politicians. That’s cruel.
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Something, something ‘will of the people’.
That and it would involve the complete implosion of the Conservative Party - something that would be good for the country, but something Tory MPs will do anything to avoid.
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And a self-inflicted infection at that. Almost three years now picking at the scab…
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The IRA hates Scottish people because they’re, you know, racist…
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Agreed, and like any scab if you keep picking at it, it will leave a big scar. A scar that will disfigure the uk for decades to come.
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Pretty sure the IRA hates puppies and kittens because the puppies and kittens won’t summarily hand them the governments of two whole nations.
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I have a friend living in the UK and he had this to say to me In January when I asked him for his opinion on something I had read -
" No Deal will be absolutely catastrophic for the U.K. Anyone who tells you different is either out to profit from it by shorting Sterling or they’re a complete idiot. A number of MP’s out for No Deal fit into the latter category (Ester McVey, Owen Paterson, Nadine Dorries, Andrea Jenkyn and Bernard Jenkin, individuals so dense light bends around them) and the former (Jacob Rees Mogg, Boris Johnson, Steve Baker, shameless profiteers and political chancers only out to feather their own nests).
As for the People’s Vote, there isn’t a majority for it in the House as of yet, and those on the Tory benches with a hard-on to Leave (aka Headbangers) are fundamentally opposed to the very idea of a second vote. Why? Well…
We’ve had the spurious suggestion by the Headbangers that a second vote would be damaging for democracy - yes, you read that right, more democracy is bad for democracy… - while others suggest (and it pains me to say it, rightly) that the mandate for the original referendum result is yet to be implemented.
But here’s the thing: referendums in the U.K. are not legally binding unless the legislation created to bring the thing into “being” states as such; one such example was the Scottish Independence referendum where the result was legally binding because the legislation indicated as such.
Thankfully, the original ref’ result wasn’t legally binding. It’s only being followed because of political considerations, so it follows that, should those political considerations change as in the public have changed their minds on Leaving as the reality of Brexit looms larger and larger on the horizon, a second vote to determine the next course of action becomes more probable and almost necessary.
The issue with May’s Deal are the self imposed red lines, her sidelining of Parliament in this entire process and her failure to bring Remainers like myself on board. Further, the disgraceful and shameful nature in which the Executive is acting as a proto-dictatorship brings further disrepute to May.
The Executive is subordinate to Parliament: we had three Civil Wars to establish this fact. And yet, this government has - albeit legally but underhanded if you ask me - been granted the power to keep or remove legislation from the statue book at the whim of the specific minister and was done so because of expediency.
What this means is, a minister in say DEFRA can remove legislation that he or she feels fit to remove as leaving the EU means that piece of legislation regarding say livestock transportation no longer applies to this country. No big deal you might think, but the kicker is this is being done by fiat and without any Parliamentary oversight. A very worrying development.
Coming back to the red lines, she had the chance yesterday to bridge the gap after that mauling and yet f*cked it by referencing only those 17.4 million who voted to Leave back in 2016 as the only people Parliament needed to satisfy.
It’s another in a long list of mistakes she’s made these past two years. The biggest in my book are her failures on guaranteeing EU citizens rights (like my other half), framing Freedom of Movement as a one way thing, when in fact it’s a reciprocal mechanism and her pandering to the Headbangers by refusing to take No Deal off the table.
She claimed triumphantly in the House that “…we’d be putting an end, once and for all, to FoM…” which is not only shortsighted and hugely damaging for the NHS and numerous industries, but also damaging to the life chances for U.K. citizens.
Previously, we could live, work and love in 27 different countries without red tape and without the need for visas etc. That ceases to be come 29th March.
What yesterday hopefully means is that Parliament is taking back control of the process of leaving (if at all) and, ironically seeing as many Leavers campaigned on this point, asserting its sovereign power."
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I know this may not be what you meant. But the modern Republican terror groups, despite the names. Have pretty much zero connection to the IRB/IRA from the Irish War of Independence.
They are instead; late, mostly unconnected follow ons from the Anti-Treaty side of the Irish Civil War. Originating at the earliest about a decade and a half after that particular conflict ended, and for most after the formation of the Republic of Ireland in the late 40’s. Early groups claimed direct continuity from, or orders to keep fighting from Michael Collins. But there’s nothing but forged documents and people too young to have actually been involved in the Easter Rising to back that up. Plus Collins was assassinated by the Pro-treaty faction during the civil war.
The successors to the IRA proper are the Irish Defense Force, the current military of the Republic of Ireland.
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The British people did not invoke British law. The British government invoked the EU’s article 50 which says (basically) “We don’t like you any more and are leaving”. The British people can vote all they want but it won’t change the fact that article 50 was invoked. And I am fairly certain article 50 doesn’t allow take backs.
The EU cannot let Britain call “do over”. Other member states could reasonably interpret this as “Britain tried to negotiate a better deal via article 50 and failed, but were let back in with no penalty. So let’s try and see what we can get. If it doesn’t work, we just weasel back in”. It would destroy the EU.
So not only does the EU have no reason to grant any concession to Britain, it is actually has valid reasons to say “Yeah. You started this. There’s the door, and show yourself out.”
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It doesn’t explicitly but the EU court what decides such things recently decided that it does allow take backs and take backs could be unilateral. So the UK can technically undo its invocation of article 50 without EU approval or action. And EU leadership has been not so subtly hinting (and in some cases explicitly saying) they’d probably be cool with that.
So as it stands if the UK Parliment had the will to do that they could.
But they wont. And have been making a pretty big deal about how they won’t, even as the EU keeps pointing at different potential escape hatches.
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Thank you madam/sir/other for the clarification.
If I drank I would probably be an alcoholic now.
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The difficulty with the second referendum plan…
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They can. They totally can.
Only for the shits who created this mess.
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