Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes. That's why Brexit was such a big upset, it bucked the trend (the management miscalculated, nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise).
It was virtually 50/50 and should not have proceeded. The bar to leave was set too low. 2/3rd better, and larger turnout should have been mandated. 16 year olds should have voted. The campaign to stay too weak. Mass confusion. Some particularly pernicious lies on the leave side too convincing. Brexit wasn't 100% going to happen, it was more like...
> nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise
I think you're right, you see this sometimes where the powers that be are extremely over-confident in themselves and think "sure, let's put this thing up for referendum and show those stupid right-wingers how unpopular they really are." Which works until it doesn't.
A US example was Proposition 8 in California (banning same-sex marriage) in 2008. I have zero doubt the thinking was "sure, let's put it up for a vote and show those morons how behind the times they really are." When it passed, in _California_ no less, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and accusations of all sorts of treachery. Anything but doing a little self-reflection and considering that maybe it wasn't as popular an idea as they thought. Didn't matter in the end, courts said "yeah well too bad, you can't ban it anyway, sorry" (kind of funny those legal arguments never came up BEFORE it could even be put up for a vote, again showing the level of confidence on display).
What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway").
> What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway").
There was an attempt.
A campaigner managed to get the courts to issue a verdict that the referendum was not binding, and Parliament must then have a vote on whether or not to implement the result.
Parliament then duly voted to implement the result.
A long time ago I walked into a public library to get a library card, already my ID in hand. Staff looked at me aghast "why would we need an ID for a card, that'd be ridiculous!". I feel Brits take privacy quite seriously.
GCHQ has done it's job of obfuscating it's existence pretty well, for most Brits to still think they've had any privacy at all for the last few decades.
That’s tinfoil hat nonsense. Of course there is privacy, otherwise those agencies wouldn’t be constantly lobbying for more invasive surveillance powers. What would be the point of that, if they could already read everything?
Well, they would have loved to stop migration and voted in droves for brexit for that. Cant have that though, democracy or not, can vote for any party, but cant have that result they all promise before the vote closes and never deliver once the vote is in.
Actually that was by design of the anti-Brexit faction.
Before you get ranty at me - I voted remain. But your comment is revisionist. The pro-Brexit shysters were not in power. After the referendum, whichever way it went, the pro-Brexit people were not going to be given power, it was not an election.
They had no mandate to implement anything. Any plan they promised would have been irrelevant to the UK government and had no more force than you or I scribbling on a pub napkin.
You know who was in power, who was in a position to make a plan, arguably whose duty it was to make a contingency plan if the referendum went south?
The very pro-EU faction at the head of the Tory government. But they didn’t. They told the public they weren’t making a plan so that it didn’t look like a low-risk option that the country could go for and be OK. The lack of plan was no accident, it was a Remain-side tactic.
The Brexiteers were/are wrong, hateful, shysters in so many ways. But your ire in this specific case should be aimed squarely at David Cameron. The Brexit shysters just didn’t have any power, and Brexit voters voted without a plan because it was the choice they were given.
Britain leaving the EU purely because a majority voted for it in a popular vote is a pretty bad example to use in support of the claim that democracy isn't real. It's probably this sort of vague cynicism about democracy that led Cameron to call the referendum in the first place, only to discover that people can actually vote however they like!
It works better with an informed electorate. However, one of the reasons that voters don't bother informing themselves is the campaign of cynicism aimed at convincing them that all political parties are the same, that their vote doesn't matter, etc. etc. One might just as well say that an informed population requires democracy: why bother keeping track of national policy if you have no control over it?
In the days after the Brexit vote, it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence on Britain's membership of the EU. Lazy and cynical anti-democratic rhetoric just feeds into that cycle of ignorance and stupidity.
Yes, you're entirely right. One further, I was at a talk from a law professor at a big uni once, where he had printed the entire text of the Medicare bill on a giant pile of paper. He explained that it had taken him, a professor, several months full-time to understand everything at stake; what chance has a representative to do so, let alone on every bill? What chance has a voter? What does it mean for democracy that no one with decision powers understands what they decide?
Which is how autocracy governments get hold of countries without military action, it only needs enough patience and uninformed electorate to win the election.
They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship.
Forcing political speech to be truthful (or at least have a reasonable expectation of being truthful) with serious consequences (jail time) for knowingly lying would go a long way to counter the misinformation that caused Brexit.
Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes. That's why Brexit was such a big upset, it bucked the trend (the management miscalculated, nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise).
It was virtually 50/50 and should not have proceeded. The bar to leave was set too low. 2/3rd better, and larger turnout should have been mandated. 16 year olds should have voted. The campaign to stay too weak. Mass confusion. Some particularly pernicious lies on the leave side too convincing. Brexit wasn't 100% going to happen, it was more like...
Leave 17,410,742 51.89% Remain 16,141,241 48.11%
I dunno about 2/3rds, but there should definitely be some kind of supermajority required for things like joining or leaving the EU.
Even a 55% requirement would be a lot better than a simple majority imo.
Then we'd have to hear the Brexiteers whining on and on about democracy.
This way we get to see their project fail.
I don't know which one is better.
> nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise
I think you're right, you see this sometimes where the powers that be are extremely over-confident in themselves and think "sure, let's put this thing up for referendum and show those stupid right-wingers how unpopular they really are." Which works until it doesn't.
A US example was Proposition 8 in California (banning same-sex marriage) in 2008. I have zero doubt the thinking was "sure, let's put it up for a vote and show those morons how behind the times they really are." When it passed, in _California_ no less, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and accusations of all sorts of treachery. Anything but doing a little self-reflection and considering that maybe it wasn't as popular an idea as they thought. Didn't matter in the end, courts said "yeah well too bad, you can't ban it anyway, sorry" (kind of funny those legal arguments never came up BEFORE it could even be put up for a vote, again showing the level of confidence on display).
What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway").
> What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway").
There was an attempt.
A campaigner managed to get the courts to issue a verdict that the referendum was not binding, and Parliament must then have a vote on whether or not to implement the result.
Parliament then duly voted to implement the result.
>What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way
All that happened was that Britain exchanged limited Eastern Euro immigration for unlimited non-EU immigration.
https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/2060561179408548029
A long time ago I walked into a public library to get a library card, already my ID in hand. Staff looked at me aghast "why would we need an ID for a card, that'd be ridiculous!". I feel Brits take privacy quite seriously.
And yet, they voted for the governments that killed privacy and established surveillance in public, because they love privacy so much.
GCHQ has done it's job of obfuscating it's existence pretty well, for most Brits to still think they've had any privacy at all for the last few decades.
That’s tinfoil hat nonsense. Of course there is privacy, otherwise those agencies wouldn’t be constantly lobbying for more invasive surveillance powers. What would be the point of that, if they could already read everything?
those agencies aren't the ones lobbying. take a look at the 'ngos' lobbying for chat control.
Well, they would have loved to stop migration and voted in droves for brexit for that. Cant have that though, democracy or not, can vote for any party, but cant have that result they all promise before the vote closes and never deliver once the vote is in.
Not only the Brits. Take a look at this, especially the charts, and compare it to what us Europeans are getting - that's democracy for you.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-07/seven-ou...
Absurd to suggest that anyone voting for Brexit knew what they were voting for - by design of the pro-Brexit shysters.
Not sure that's an argument that shines good light on brexit voters.
To be fair (a) I don't think he was trying to do that, and (b) I'm struggling to think of an argument that would shine good light on brexit voters ?
Perhaps that they're wonderfully trusting people who believe whatever politicians that Gary down the pub thinks are the best ?
Brexit voters were plain gullible.
Actually that was by design of the anti-Brexit faction.
Before you get ranty at me - I voted remain. But your comment is revisionist. The pro-Brexit shysters were not in power. After the referendum, whichever way it went, the pro-Brexit people were not going to be given power, it was not an election.
They had no mandate to implement anything. Any plan they promised would have been irrelevant to the UK government and had no more force than you or I scribbling on a pub napkin.
You know who was in power, who was in a position to make a plan, arguably whose duty it was to make a contingency plan if the referendum went south?
The very pro-EU faction at the head of the Tory government. But they didn’t. They told the public they weren’t making a plan so that it didn’t look like a low-risk option that the country could go for and be OK. The lack of plan was no accident, it was a Remain-side tactic.
The Brexiteers were/are wrong, hateful, shysters in so many ways. But your ire in this specific case should be aimed squarely at David Cameron. The Brexit shysters just didn’t have any power, and Brexit voters voted without a plan because it was the choice they were given.
Almost as if democracy isn't real and all statecraft is driven by intra-elite conflicts.
Britain leaving the EU purely because a majority voted for it in a popular vote is a pretty bad example to use in support of the claim that democracy isn't real. It's probably this sort of vague cynicism about democracy that led Cameron to call the referendum in the first place, only to discover that people can actually vote however they like!
Democracy requires an informed electorate. Just having the right to vote isn't enough.
It works better with an informed electorate. However, one of the reasons that voters don't bother informing themselves is the campaign of cynicism aimed at convincing them that all political parties are the same, that their vote doesn't matter, etc. etc. One might just as well say that an informed population requires democracy: why bother keeping track of national policy if you have no control over it?
In the days after the Brexit vote, it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence on Britain's membership of the EU. Lazy and cynical anti-democratic rhetoric just feeds into that cycle of ignorance and stupidity.
Yes, you're entirely right. One further, I was at a talk from a law professor at a big uni once, where he had printed the entire text of the Medicare bill on a giant pile of paper. He explained that it had taken him, a professor, several months full-time to understand everything at stake; what chance has a representative to do so, let alone on every bill? What chance has a voter? What does it mean for democracy that no one with decision powers understands what they decide?
Which is how autocracy governments get hold of countries without military action, it only needs enough patience and uninformed electorate to win the election.
They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship.
No it doesn't, democracy means rule by all the people not rule by some educated elite.
"Educated" and "informed" aren't the same.
Two things:
- Education is not "elite", it's open to all.
- Informed is not "educated".
Forcing political speech to be truthful (or at least have a reasonable expectation of being truthful) with serious consequences (jail time) for knowingly lying would go a long way to counter the misinformation that caused Brexit.
Unless Brits are ready to rise up and topple their government, this poll means nothing.
They can rise up on occasion; The Guardian news outlet frequently linked here on HN was founded following the Peterloo Massacre (1812).
That sacrifice didn't see fruit for two decades until the Reform Act 1832 opened the franchise to allow more the right to vote.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832
Oops, looks like they'll need to roll out more "think of the children"-shaped propaganda first. Or maybe a terrorism scare?
Or make a different poll :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
I knew it would be YM or YPM, both documentaries in the form of comedic fiction.