Parliament should make final decision on whether to leave EU, barristers say

[Matilda]

More than 1,000 barristers have signed a letter to the prime minister urging him to allow parliament to decide whether the UK should leave the European Union.

The letter describes the referendum result as only advisory because it was based on “misrepresentations of fact and promises that could not be delivered”.

(snip)

Aidan O’Neill QC, an expert in constitutional and EU law and one of the signatories, said: “The Brexit referendum has made clear that the UK is not a united nation state, but a divided state of nations. It has given no mandate or guidance as to what our nations’ future relationship might be with Europe, and with each other.

“If the UK is to survive the result of this vote, a consensus needs to be built up about the way forward. Fully informed discussions and deliberations within and between our parliaments is the only proper constitutional way to achieve this. Precipitate or unilateral action by the UK government to trigger article 50 will simply further divide us.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/11/brexit-parliament-should-make-ultimate-decision-on-whether-to-leave-eu-barristers-say


Does the Government want to be helped out of the fix it's in? Or don't they think they're in a fix at all? I have no idea how things are on the ground, except for media stories, which may be biased one way or the other.

[Denzil_DC]

1. Private Eye editor Ian Hislop summed it up

on BBC TV's Question Time on Friday:

... Mr Hislop, who was speaking on Question Time yesterday, didn’t think the Remain voters should stay quiet.

‘Even if you lose the vote you are entitled to go on making the argument,’ he said.

The editor of Private Eye compared the situation to when a political party loses a General Election.

He argued the opposition party didn’t remain silent and was entitled to keep making its argument heard, just like the Leave campaign should.

http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/08/ian-hislop-hit-the-nail-on-the-head-on-brexit-5994922/ (short video at link)

[Ken Burch]

2. If this did get put before the HoC, would it be a free vote or a whipped vote?

And which way would the Tories crack the whip in the second instance?

[DetlefK]

3. Isn't it suspicious that no british politician has something nice to say about the EU?

Even the Remain-camp was campaigning on negativity: They didn't say why the EU is good. They talked about why leaving the EU is bad.

First they give the EU shit whenever they can and blame it for everything while enjoying its benefits, for decades.
Then their voters decide to leave the EU.
And all of a sudden these asshats masquerading as british politicians are paralyzed because they don't want to leave the EU but they also can't bring themselves to say something nice about the EU.


- "I never liked you and I want out of this relationship."
- "WTF? You are leaving me?"
- "Whoa! Slow down! I never said anything about leaving you! You know what? Ignore all this talk about how I hate you. I'll come back to you in a few months whether I'm actually leaving you or not. And in the meantime we go back to business as usual."

[Matilda]

4. Do they also perhaps not want to admit

that the vote was badly planned in the first place? Did Cameron and friends just assume it was going to go their way and not bother to set a few salient facts before the people?

Because from here - and of course, this could be a misconception - it looks as though the Leave decision was made on racism alone, and amongst some older people, a desire to go back to the past, to pre-EU Britain. Neither of which is practical or sensible.

I could imagine that, if Greece had its own currency, there might have been a case for a Grexit made, but for Britain, it seems a very foolish choice.

Surely the politicians owe it to the people to try again, if it's legally viable?

[DetlefK]

5. Greece never should have joined the Euro and now it can't leave.

Greece falsified financial documents and lied in order to join the Euro. With an own currency, there would have been tools to take care of Greece's economic cash. But now it's part of the Euro, those tools aren't available and it can't leave the Euro without incurring further damage.
Even greek politicians say so.



As Brexit is not legally binding, there are ways to avoid Brexit... Except no british politician can bring himself to make the case for ignoring the referendum (or redoing it). Because they can't even imagine being nice to the EU.

[Matilda]

6. I don't understand how they were accepted

given their economic shambles.

Same for Italy - with their huge black economy, how could they function with the same monetary structure as France and Germany?

It's a mystery to me, but then, I don't understand high finance.

[DetlefK]

7. Easy:

The ECB demanded that Greece hand in documents outlining what shape their economy is in. Debt, deficit, taxes andsoforth.

Greece falsified some numbers to make themselves look better.
Some other statistics even Greece didn't know, so they just made stuff up. (A former greek finance-minister said so in an interview. The whole greek ministry of finance was technologically outdated and they simply didn't know some of the data that the ECB was asking for.)

Greece handed in those documents containing made-up and falsified numbers.

At the ECB, virtually nobody believed these numbers.
But they couldn't accuse Greece of lying.
And the EU had no right to double-check and demand to see greek government-files for themselves.
So the ECB had no choice but to accept that suspicious report.



The sad thing is: Greece was on its way towards meeting the ECB-criterias. Without the 2008 recession, Greece would have fulfilled the stability-criterias by ~2030, 2040.

[Matilda]

8. I didn't know they'd deliberately falsified documents.

Or that they were so ignorant, although it does go a long way to explaining how Greece got itself into such a mess.

I can understand why, diplomatically speaking, the EU couldn't accuse them of lying, but I don't see why they couldn't have been asked to provide full documentation to back up their claims about their economy. And if there's any doubt, why can't the EU say, "sorry, not at this time?"

[DetlefK]

9. The whole negotiations about founding the Euro were very, very delicate.

IIRC one block was lead by Germany, demanding strict criteria to ensure a stable currency, and the other block was lead by France, demanding looser criteria, so more countries could join. The Euro-project was on the brink of failure several times before it even started.
Singling out Greece and demanding that they (and only they) produce extra documentation would have meant yet another diplomatic complication.

I saw in a documentary that Greece falsified documents, but here is an article.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-05-26/greece-cheated-to-join-euro-sanctions-since-were-too-soft-issing-says