Why are Leave voters expected to compromise?

[brogdale]

Hi Everybody,

Not being a Leave expert myself, I often wonder what the origin is of the Remainers call for compromise the Leave side should partake in. Let alone that it was quite clear that the Britons were told once and a again that their decision would be final and that the result would be implemented (I would say, implemented without any compromise whatsoever), let's look at it from another side.

For argument's sake, let's for one minute look at the situation as if the shoe were on the other foot. That is, Remain would have won the referendum with 52% and Leave would have peaked at 48%. I know, an unpopular stance, but bear with me.


First of all: would Remain have 'compromised' with Leave in order to 'get the country back together again'?
Secondly: which elements would they have sacrificed, if any?

As I understood, the most important 7 things the Leave voters want to achieve are (in random order):
1. No longer be a part of (the rules of) the EU's Customs Union;
2. No longer be a part of (the rules of) the EU's Single Market;
3. Regain control of UK's borders by deciding on a case-by-case basis which people get to enter the land as well as which people do not;
4. Make the country's own laws;
5. Have the highest Court to which one has to answer and in fact of the nation be the British Supreme(?) Court in stead of the ECJ;
6. Get rid of the Common Agricultural Policy;
7. Get rid of the Common Fishing Policy.

Now, (again for argument's sake) let's say that in order to 'compromise' the Remainers had to give up 3* of the above 7* items, which would they choose to part themselves of?

I've not yet seen that question raised when a Remainer talks about a need for the Leave side to 'compromise' since figures are so close. And again, for a moment let's park the whole issue of it having been a binary choice.

I haven't seen anyone present the above hypothetical casus and should someone already have, please accept my apologies for having wasted your time and consider my message as if it had never been posted.

* Granted, 3 out of 7 doesn't accurately reflect the 52%/48% and in fact the Remainers should be prepared to give up more than merely three items, but for now let's leave (no pun intended) it at that.

No voters are in a position to "compromise" over anything with any other party. They were/are merely invited to express a binary choice in a plebiscite; beyond that, the response to that expression falls to elected representatives.

Maybe things work differently where you live?

 

[T & P]

The margin of victory wasn't 2%. The turnout (72.2%) was higher than it has been for any general election since 1992 I'm not sure what you are trying to say about British citizens living overseas but they certainly could vote in the referendum so long as they had been resident in the UK within at least 15 years - exactly the same rules as for general elections.

You're right. The margin was in fact a still narrow 3.8%. Not a two-thirds majority. Not a twenty-point advantage. Not aven a 10% margin of victory. It was very close, and certainly far removed from any notion of a clear mandate.

You're also right about the same right voting rights being afforded to expats. But unlike a general election which has limited effects on expats, a referendum on EU membership is of immense relevance and significance to expats, and it's nothing short if insane and thoroughly unfair and undemocratic that some were excluded from it.

As I said earlier, for me the biggest issue is that the gulf between what people thought were voting for and what it has all turned out to be is too great to ignore. Some Leave voters' reasons for voting Leave still stand today of course, but undoubtedly the reasons for other Leave voters have turned out to be highly unlikely to ever materialise if not based on a plain lie. Given what is at stake and how small the referendum margin was, demanding a second vote is far from unreasonable.

 

[redsquirrel]

You're also right about the same right voting rights being afforded to expats. But unlike a general election which has limited effects on expats, a referendum on EU membership is of immense relevance and significance to expats, and it's nothing short if insane and thoroughly unfair and undemocratic that some were excluded from it.

This is illogical, a general election has more "relevance and significance to expats" than an advisory referendum. A government could choose to leave the EU without holding a referendum - as was Labour Party policy for a time.

If you are going to argue that UK citizens should have been able to vote in the referendum regardless of how long it had been since they lived in the UK logically you have to apply the same to GEs.

As for "the gulf between what people thought were voting for and what it has all turned out", again this happens every election in history. Look at all the U75 posters who voted LibDem in 2010 only to be outraged by the LDs going into a coalition with the Tories (despite the fact that such was both consistent with their manifesto, past politics and statements the leadership had made).

Was the referendum undemocratic, of course it was. But was undemocratic for the exact same reasons that all elections in the UK are undemocratic (i.e. they are talking place under capitalism using representatives). Attempts to argue that the referendum was less democratic than other UK elections are liberal nonsense.

 

[collectordave]

Getting back to the topic.

Remain voters are prepared to compromise, see my earlier post can leave voters? (not heard that they should myself)

In the hypothetical case raised can anyone come up with a compromise to any of the seven points that does not lead to economic disater thousands of job losses and extra to pay for my monthly food bill?

 

[brogdale]

Getting back to the topic.

Remain voters are prepared to compromise, see my earlier post can leave voters? (not heard that they should myself)

In the hypothetical case raised can anyone come up with a compromise to any of the seven points that does not lead to economic disater thousands of job losses and extra to pay for my monthly food bill?

There is no topic to get back to here tbh...once voters had put down their polling booth pencil the entire process set train by their collective decision was once more back in the hands of those representing the parties of capital.

Any 'compromises' made on their behalf would be just that...and effected without any further reference to the electorate.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

A government could choose to leave the EU without holding a referendum - as was Labour Party policy for a time.

If you are going to argue that UK citizens should have been able to vote in the referendum regardless of how long it had been since they lived in the UK logically you have to apply the same to GEs.

It's a compelling argument, you're absolutely right as to the first point. Really referendums shouldn't be necessary in a constitutional bourgeois democracy: A party says it's going to do something, gets in, and does it. If that had happened Brits in Europe would have had to lump it.

But there was a referendum and it was promised that its result would be abided by although it was constitutionally not binding.

I think that at that point it departed from the norms of UK elections; it wasn't based on constituencies although presumably the electoral roll was used. I'd go so far as to say that the breakdown of who voted what by regions may not have been helpful. They could have said "The result is 'we leave' and that's the end of it".

That's all a bit of a sideshow though now. It wasn't what happened.

I would have voted for 'remain' but the result of the referendum has to be accepted. The answer to the OP is that 'Leave' meant many things to many people and 'Remain' meant the same thing to most people, though I'd like to think that such a close result in a decision to remain would have led to a rethink of the UK's relationship with the EU given that every other fucker is at least lukewarm about it. By which token I'd like to see 'leavers' say 'Yeah, it's not exactly an overwhelming case for leaving, is it?' And it's 'leave' that has to thrash out what was meant by the word.

 

[tim]

They should have been allowed to vote regardless of how long they've lived overseas - because at least for those who live in EU countries the result directly affects them.

If you've lived overseas for more than 15 years, you ought to think more about getting citizenship in your chosen home, rather than maintaing political rights in a country with which you must perforce have increasingly tenuous links

 

[andysays]

If you've lived overseas for more than 15 years, you ought to think more about getting citizenship in your chosen home, rather than maintaing political rights in a country with which you must perforce have increasingly tenuous links

This is a very valid argument, but it doesn't appear to be applied equally to British citizens living elsewhere in the EU as to citizens of other EU countries living in Britain (not saying that about you in particular tim, as I'm not sure of your position)

 

[T & P]

This is illogical, a general election has more "relevance and significance to expats" than an advisory referendum. A government could choose to leave the EU without holding a referendum - as was Labour Party policy for a time.

If you are going to argue that UK citizens should have been able to vote in the referendum regardless of how long it had been since they lived in the UK logically you have to apply the same to GEs.

As for "the gulf between what people thought were voting for and what it has all turned out", again this happens every election in history. Look at all the U75 posters who voted LibDem in 2010 only to be outraged by the LDs going into a coalition with the Tories (despite the fact that such was both consistent with their manifesto, past politics and statements the leadership had made).

Was the referendum undemocratic, of course it was. But was undemocratic for the exact same reasons that all elections in the UK are undemocratic (i.e. they are talking place under capitalism using representatives). Attempts to argue that the referendum was less democratic than other UK elections are liberal nonsense.

RE the impact of Brexit on expats: I’m not sure how anyone could argue that any given general election in the UK is going to directly affect the lives of British expats anywhere near as much as (let alone more than) a referendum on EU membership. I struggle to think of even 10% of the policies on any political party manifesto in any election that would actually affect the lives and wellbeing of expats. Exiting the EU however could bring about as massively significant and indeed life-changing consequences as one could imagine.

And if you really want to to introduce the angle that the referendum was only advisory, well that cuts both ways. If it’s okay to exclude some expats because the referendum was ‘only’ advisory, then it’s also okay to ignore the result of the vote.

 

[existentialist]

For argument's sake, let's for one minute look at the situation as if the shoe were on the other foot. That is, Remain would have won the referendum with 52% and Leave would have peaked at 48%. I know, an unpopular stance, but bear with me.


First of all: would Remain have 'compromised' with Leave in order to 'get the country back together again'?
Secondly: which elements would they have sacrificed, if any?

I think that the thing Leavers often forget here is that, if the boot had been on the other foot, nothing at all would have changed - remain was, in effect, the default option, the status quo. If the referendum had been in favour of remain, we'd simply have carried on as if the entire farce had never happened. Except, obviously, the Tory party would have continued to tear itself apart as its lunatic fringe committed repeated acts of self-immolation, and Farage would have continued to do his Schrödinger's Leader impression in UKIP.

The referendum was ill-conceived, probably because, in his hubris, Cameron believed that it was be a nice easy quick fix to shut up the Eurosceptics in his party - I think he believed that the population would have voted Remain by a significant enough margin that he could have used the result to beat his swivel-eyed loons into submission, and floated blissfully along on a happy cloud, dreaming of porcine congress and knighthoods. I think that the main reasons behind the population not voting remain were a) they were utterly pissed off with government in general, and their Leave votes were a way (as it turns out, an extremely effective way) of giving "them" a bloody nose, and b) sufficient people believed the outrageous lies being peddled by the Leave campaigns that they really believed it would just be a bit like stepping off a bus.

And, just to pre-empt the inevitable "what about all the lies the remain campaign told?" riposte, I'm always interested to hear what these lies were, but nobody seems able to come up with anything specific. There was all the Project Fear stuff, which I must admit made me cringe, but not nearly as much as when it has become increasingly evident that quite a lot of that fearmongering has turned out to be closer to the truth than we thought. Anyway, feel free to offer some suggestions about Remainer lies that match the ones that people like Boris Johnston has now admitted were lies...

 

[T & P]

As for "the gulf between what people thought were voting for and what it has all turned out", again this happens every election in history. Look at all the U75 posters who voted LibDem in 2010 only to be outraged by the LDs going into a coalition with the Tories (despite the fact that such was both consistent with their manifesto, past politics and statements the leadership had made).

I agree. But I also think the differences and special circumstances must also be considered. The referendum was a binary issue, whereas most political parties (and certainly all of the big ones are not a single-issue party but have multiple policies covering multiple issues. I know someone who preferred to remain but voted Leave solely on the £350m a week for the NHS promise. Her only reason to vote Leave turned out to be a pipe dream.

And the other difference is that unlike the result of a GE, which the electorate will have a chance to change no more than five years later, exiting the EU would in all reasonable probability be non-reversible for decades, if ever.

 

[redsquirrel]

RE the impact of Brexit on expats: I’m not sure how anyone could argue that any given general election in the UK is going to directly affect the lives of British expats anywhere near as much as (let alone more than) a referendum on EU membership. I struggle to think of even 10% of the policies on any political party manifesto in any election that would actually affect the lives and wellbeing of expats. Exiting the EU however could bring about as massively significant and indeed life-changing consequences as one could imagine.

Because it's the government that decides how and why the UK leaves the EU.

In the 80s if the Labour Party had got in then if they abided by their manifesto commitments they would have left the EU without a referendum.
The 2016 referendum was only carried out because the Tories got a majority in 2015. The current situation is largely due to May losing that majority in 2017. If there is another GE then Labour may get in an try to strike a different deal - or even got for a second referendum.

And if you really want to to introduce the angle that the referendum was only advisory, well that cuts both ways. If it’s okay to exclude some expats because the referendum was ‘only’ advisory, then it’s also okay to ignore the result of the vote.

I'm not introducing that angle, it's been used by the Remain crowd ever since the referendum.

And the other difference is that unlike the result of a GE, which the electorate will have a chance to change no more than five years later, exiting the EU would in all reasonable probability be non-reversible for decades, if ever.

What rot. The results of decades of Neo-liberalism are long-ranging and will continue to effect people for decades. The communities destroyed by Thatcher's closing of the coal mines are still suffering today, people all over Europe will suffer the effects of the EU attacks on them for decades.

For you this may be the most important issue for a decade or more but for many of us it isn't.

 

[Combustible]

And, just to pre-empt the inevitable "what about all the lies the remain campaign told?" riposte, I'm always interested to hear what these lies were, but nobody seems able to come up with anything specific.

George Osborne: vote for Brexit and face £30bn of taxes and spending cuts

The chancellor raised the stakes in the EU referendum debate as he said a vote to leave would require an emergency budget involving tax rises and spending cuts.

He said this would need to happen in the next couple of months. “You would have to show the British public you had a credible plan to deal with the public finances,” he said.

 

[existentialist]

George Osborne: vote for Brexit and face £30bn of taxes and spending cuts

Ah yes, that was fairly ridiculous. Mind you, I would believe anything George Osborne said about as much as I'd believe anything uttered by Johnson and Gove, so I probably discounted it as bullshit when I first heard it.

However, while we may not be looking at a catastrophe on the scale he was predicting, it looks quite likely that Brexit is going to cost us dear in terms of economic growth and stability, so while his numbers may be extravagant, the premise might be quite accurate. Which is more than could be said for the "£350m/week for the NHS" claim, which is demonstrably utterly baseless.

 

[scifisam]

If you've lived overseas for more than 15 years, you ought to think more about getting citizenship in your chosen home, rather than maintaining political rights in a country with which you must perforce have increasingly tenuous links

Some people who've lived abroad for more than 15 years have lived in multiple countries during that time, though, so won't necessarily have a "chosen home" or the right to apply for citizenship there. Academics, for example, particularly in the STEM fields, often have to move to several different countries, especially in the early stages of their careers. They wouldn't necessarily qualify for citizenship in the country they work at the end of those fifteen years and their job might have included a visa which was based on them being a British citizen, making changing even more of a headache.

Or they're people who accidentally ended up living abroad but always intended to come back when they retired or their kids grew up.

Or they didn't get citizenship in another EU country either because it was completely unnecessary - why put yourself through that expense and hassle if you have virtually the same rights anyway? - or because, like in Spain, one of the main countries UK emigrants reside in, if they gained Spanish citizenship they'd have to give up their British citizenship.

(Wiki cite with good links: Spanish nationality law - Wikipedia)

This particular vote was one that fundamentally changes their citizenship rights in the countries they live in, which could force them to apply for citizenship there and affect their right to live in the UK.

The referendum should have been conducted on new, different conditions to other elections because, unlike with a general election, it was supposed to be once in a lifetime. But that's just another thing the Tories didn't think through before Cameron went for a vote that he was sure would end up with a Remain vote.

 

[maomao]

If you've lived overseas for more than 15 years, you ought to think more about getting citizenship in your chosen home, rather than maintaing political rights in a country with which you must perforce have increasingly tenuous links

Should my wife be forced to abandon her Chinese citizenship (she's lived here 19 years and they don't allow dual nationality). Why? It would upset her parents and we may still run away there one day.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

For that matter, why should people living here who were not U.K. citizens not have had a vote? Why should they not be able to vote generally? If you live in the U.K. its politics affects you very directly.

 

[maomao]

For that matter, why should people living here who were not U.K. citizens not have had a vote? Why should they not be able to vote generally? If you live in the U.K. its politics affects you very directly.

Even the people in charge of the electoral roll don't understand that one. My wife has been harangued in both Hackney and Havering for not being registered to vote and they always seem to not believe that she's not allowed to.

 

[Supine]

I'm having my rights to freedom of movement taken from me. Fuck compromise

 

[tim]

Should my wife be forced to abandon her Chinese citizenship (she's lived here 19 years and they don't allow dual nationality). Why? It would upset her parents and we may still run away there one day.

I didn't suggest obliging anyone to change their nationality. However, if your wife has lived her for so long, perhaps she should consider making the change and become a full citizen with rights that such a status confers.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

If you've lived overseas for more than 15 years, you ought to think more about getting citizenship in your chosen home, rather than maintaing political rights in a country with which you must perforce have increasingly tenuous links

I am a citizen* in my chosen home. I'm in a political party that wants a socialist Europe; I can vote in all elections except general ones, which being able to do is scheduled as the next step in the process when EU citizens* are going to be able to vote in their place of residence; I speak the language and am involved in local life and its affairs.
That's what I want to continue, not just for selfish reasons. It matters to me. I am a EU citizen*.

* Depending on what you mean by citizen. There are nationals, communitarians and foreigners in Spain. I'm a communitarian, which is a very important matter for a lot of people including Spanish people working and studying across Europe, in other member states of the European Union. It's a big deal. They and I increasingly don't really see it as 'another country'.

The 'political right' and 'tenuous link' I'd have liked with my country of birth would have been to have some say in the change to my status that is coming into effect any day now, unless I can somehow continue being an EU citizen (for want of a better English word). The point of not becoming Spanish is that the whole idea of Spanishness as a legal status is withering away year by year.

 

[tim]

For that matter, why should people living here who were not U.K. citizens not have had a vote? Why should they not be able to vote generally? If you live in the U.K. its politics affects you very directly.

If you are an Irish or Commonwealth citizen, you already have the right. Currently, EU citizens have the right to vote in local and EU Parliamentary elections.

 

[maomao]

become a full citizen with rights that such a status confers.

What rights would they be? Other than voting? Cause she'd lose her right to go and live as a citizen in the country of her birth and she'd have to pay money for a visa every time she went to see her mum and dad. Worth losing that for the right to tick a box in a Tory safe seat? Or the safe Labour seat we lived in previously.

 

[scifisam]

existentialist - I'm a Remain voter, and even though I can't think of specific lies, there was an awful lot of really fucking insulting stuff coming out at the time, if you had any qualms at all about EU membership. I listened to Radio 4 a lot while working in the garden and the pundits there all acted as if anyone who had even the slightest issue with the EU was a massive racist who was incredibly stupid and probably liked to kick kittens.

I knew I was always going to vote Remain - regardless of the concerns I had about EU membership, I knew that leaving under a Tory government would only give the Tories more power to irrevocably take rights away from the non-rich (and said so at the time; I'm not speaking with the benefit of hindsight here), so it we ever did leave it would have to be under a Labour govt - and I was still really fucking insulted.

SO many pundits completely ignoring the effect migrant workers have on low-skilled and low-wage jobs. So many of them really going along with the "they're taking these jobs because low-skilled British workers are lazy" thing. As if British workers hadn't been happily doing those jobs in recent memory. As if people who are able to emigrate for work reasons from EU countries - therefore generally in relatively good health, without major caring responsibilities, often young and well educated (the education generally being provided in their home country for far less money than in the UK), but still willing to work at low-wage jobs, for a while, at least - are the average Polish, German or whatever worker.

I can't cite a specific R4 conversation I heard this in, but there were tons. They came up on programmes completely unrelated to the EU, too. It was really fucking insulting.

(I heard the same from some EU citizen friends of mine but at least they weren't being paid to say it, which you would think would require a bit more thought).

The reason I still voted remain, or one of the many reasons, was because we had just got a right-wing Tory govt that, due to the timing, would be in power for the whole of the exit process, and the chances of them changing matters to benefit low-skilled or low-pay workers, or anyone who wasn't super-rich, was essentially zero. But man, those arsehole pro-EU pundits did seem to be doing their best to make me change my mind.

 

[tim]

I am a citizen* in my chosen home. I'm in a political party that wants a socialist Europe; I can vote in all elections except general ones, which being able to do is scheduled as the next step in the process when EU citizens* are going to be able to vote in their place of residence; I speak the language and am involved in local life and its affairs.
That's what I want to continue, not just for selfish reasons. It matters to me. I am a EU citizen*.

* Depending on what you mean by citizen. There are nationals, communitarians and foreigners in Spain. I'm a communitarian, which is a very important matter for a lot of people including Spanish people working and studying across Europe, in other member states of the European Union. It's a big deal. They and I increasingly don't really see it as 'another country'.

The 'political right' and 'tenuous link' I'd have liked with my country of birth would have been to have some say in the change to my status that is coming into effect any day now, unless I can somehow continue being an EU citizen (for want of a better English word). The point of not becoming Spanish is that the whole idea of Spanishness as a legal status is withering away year by year.

The "idea of Spanishness" may be withering away, but the idea of Britishness is presumably going the same way, but neither have actually gone, yet. As to voting rights, isn't the one you don't have, that of voting in General Elections the most important one?

If I were you, I'd apply for Spanish nationality.

 

[redsquirrel]

For that matter, why should people living here who were not U.K. citizens not have had a vote? Why should they not be able to vote generally? If you live in the U.K. its politics affects you very directly.

Yes, within the limits of representative democracy I find this a bigger problem than those living outside the UK for 15+ years not getting a vote.

Fundamentally people should have the right to be part of the democracy of the communities they live and work in. The ability of vote in representative democratic elections is a small step towards real democracy but it's one that members of those communities should have regardless of their official citizenship.

 

[maomao]

that of voting in General Elections the most important one?

GE voting is most affected by the fptp system. Most votes in a GE happen in safe seats and mean fuck all.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

The "idea of Spanishness" may be withering away, but the idea of Britishness is presumably going the same way, but neither have actually gone, yet. As to voting rights, isn't the one you don't have, that of voting in General Elections the most important one?

If I were you, I'd apply for Spanish nationality.

I'm fairly sure that voting in everything where you live is the next step but I'm not sure when that is coming. But that particular rug is being pulled from under my feet!
I will take up Spanish nationality, not because I particularly want to be or not be Spanish but if it will keep me as a 'comunitario', preferably in a socialist Europe by then.

 

[tim]

GE voting is most affected by the fptp system. Most votes in a GE happen in safe seats and mean fuck all.

That is the case in the UK, although if you live in a marginal seat clearly your vote counts. However, you are responding to my comments to JuanTwoThree, who lives in Spain which doesn't have a FTP system.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

Fundamentally people should have the right to be part of the democracy of the communities they live and work in. The ability of vote in representative democratic elections is a small step towards real democracy but it's one that members of those communities should have regardless of their official citizenship.

I think Ireland is one of the few countries that say 'You live here=you vote here'. Eminently sensible, as you say.