Quote (thesnipa @ 12 Dec 2019 19:02)

the only thing the Scottish can all agree on is "do not make eye contact with the street homeless" was a joke. on the flight over multiple brits/scots gave me this advice and on the streets people bustle right by them without making any eye contact.

Quote (Saucisson6000 @ 12 Dec 2019 19:18)

Hms yeah ok... So to make it topic related: SNP is against Brexit and against inequalities which could result of it. SNP could make an alliance with Corbyn and organize a new referendum. This is a real output, early results in 4 hours.

Quote (fender @ 12 Dec 2019 19:11)

in practice this might turn out to be true, but logically and theoretically it's complete horseshit. it might be a popular narrative with those who fear a second referendum, but a general election is not a one issue decision, even though brexit is obviously a central one for this one, i'd give you that.

however, it is not at all clear what exactly a vote for any specific party entails in terms of hard / soft / no brexit, at best it's a soft-ish support for the current party leadership's stance on it.
in order to make your 'built-in second referendum' claim even somewhat fair, you'd have to count the votes, and not just MPs, you'd also have to pool all parties that don't support johnson's plan, including a percentage of tory votes to account for conservative MPs that actually support a second referendum.
just claiming that a failure to stop the tories from "winning A majority" implies a confirmation of whatever is the current pary head's interpretation of the first referendum is simply absurd. it's incredibly dishonest, ignorant to how general elections in the UK work, and stupidly biased - so i guess i shouldn't be surprised that you fully bought into it.

a second referendum would not be 'changing the rules', that's just lazy logic. there simply is no clear 'outcome' that has to be 'protected', otherwise we wouldn't have seen the brits struggle for years to even decide what they bring to the negotiations with the EU. if anything, the fact that it IS such a "monumental" decision supports the need for a more specific exploration as to what the people actually want, especially considering how much more clear the realistic options are now, how insane some of the campaign promises were. and believe me, i hate to be making the case for this, i supported a hard brexit from day one.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ 12 Dec 2019 19:25)

Only if Corbyn becomes PM, which is super unlikely. Also note that the SNP is not particularly popular in England and Wales. Forming an official or unofficial alliance with them would have hurt Labour quite a bit as far as I can tell.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ 12 Dec 2019 19:37)

I get your point, and it is a fair point to make, even if I (obviously) see things differently.



However, just one quick question: imagine Remain had won by the same narrow 51.9% to 48.1% margin. In this scenario, would anyone take Leavers seriously when they call for a second referendum, or would they be laughed out of the building?

Would the victorious Remainers emphasize the voters' rejection of the Brexit idea in the referendum and that the vote of the people shall be respected? Or would the victorious Remainers be open to arguments along the lines of "in the 2016 referendum, plans on how to actually do Brexit were not fully fleshed out yet, and it got rejected so narrowly that the referendum, in fact, produced no clear outcome. people didnt know exactly what they were rejecting in 2016, therefore, they shall get a second chance to vote on it"?

... no, of course not. If Remain had won by the same tiny margin, there would be no discussion whatsoever that even such a narrow outcome is enough to reject the Brexit idea, and neither the left-leaning press nor the Remainers would even think of holding a second referendum.

Quote (fender @ 12 Dec 2019 20:24)

i don't know if you were trying to set this up for me, or if it was unintentional, but leading brexiteer nigel farage already answered your exact hypothetical weeks before the referendum, stating "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."

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furthermore, while i get what you're saying, i think the very nature of the options is too different to make this a completely fair comparison. brexit, even in it's most naive imagination, is inevitably linked to major changes. there already WAS criticism about 'leave' being just one option back then, the different main paths did not just magically appear after the referendum. the same can NOT be said about the remain option, so in that regard a vote to remain, even a close one, would have been more convincing in nature. this is not saying remainers were more informed, i'm purely looking at the possible implications of the outcomes.

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also, in case of a remain win, literally nothing would have stood in the way of another referendum down the road - if something had changed that made it clear there could be a majority in support of leaving the EU after all. you have to distinguish between just holding a vote over and over in a short time period, with no significant political developments or societal changes until you like the result, which i also strictly oppose, and votes that are separated by those kind of factors.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ 12 Dec 2019 20:41)

Of course Farage et al. would have called for another referendum if Remain had won. My point was that he'd be laughed out of the building and almost no one would take him seriously.