These are all arguing after the fact though. The Brexit referendum was rightly regarded as the biggest political decision of a generation – far more so than a general election.
The Labour leader (or the leader of any party with national ambitions) would have to have an extremely strong reason to overturn, ignore, or try to amend the result of that vote.
Let’s examine the points individually:
leaving the EEA is, and should have been, a different question.
You do know that you can be in the EEA and not in the EU? See Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Maybe it should maybe it shouldn’t but that’s irrelevant to the current question. Both sides set out their arguments and a vote was taken – politically (as opposed to legally) the decision cannot be overturned by saying “actually we should have asked a different question” – the country would not stand for it.
The referendum had a multitude of faults but perhaps the biggest among them was that it offered a binary choice between two non binary options….
But that’s always the issue with any referendum about a complex issue is it not? Nevertheless every voter going into the booths knew that was the case in advance.
Leave means a hundred different things to a hundred different people and there certainly isn't a majority mandate for the hard Brexit May and the Tories are forcing on us.
We know theres no majority for a hard Brexit so whats wrong with a Norwegian type deal, the hard leave campaign will go berzerk, am not interested, this is about democracy not what they want, they have to prove to us that the majority of people voted for a hard Brexit, do that and they've won the argument.
The situation today is a Tory government are imposing a Tory hard Brexit based on Tory ideology and telling the country this is what you voted for. it's a lie and the biggest abuse of our democracy in our lifetime.
In which case the Tories will be duly punished at the next election by the electorate. As you say, there was no detailed plan about what the outcome of the referendum would entail – it was not even legally binding – only advisory. The people voted to hand over the power to the politicians to negotiate the terms of Leave/Remain – including the option for a Hard Brexit. If a mandate was required Theresa May could call a General Election tomorrow and – by every opinion poll published – be confident of increasing her share of the vote to reiterate it.
The option of a second vote on the terms was specifically ruled out before the referendum and would clearly make no sense anyway. Why would the EU countries be incentivised to offer anything other than a crap deal knowing that, as long as they did so, Britain would vote in a second referendum to stay in the EU?
That's like saying that the people voted to go on holiday, but nobody ever mentioned where or when or with who and the people who said that going on holiday was a good idea were liars.
There was also a very narrow margin for a holiday, a margin that the people in favour of a holiday said that they would consider to be meaningless if they lost.
Parents ask for a family holiday to be put to the vote and it was decided to go on holiday. Parents can decide when or where the holiday will be however there must be one – it’s no good saying “we are actually not going to have a holiday because the margin was too small”.
Oh dear, was Show me the Mané starved of attention over the weekend? Looks like he's started his merry-go-round spinning, ..
As usual, nothing of substance to address here – I included your reply only for the sake of being comprehensive.
For Labour, there is no argument that the referendum has been called illegally or gerrymandered or had any lower standard of debate than any recent election or lacks a mandate (as the evidence shows one could be obtained if it were sought via a General Election) therefore the only option would have been to abstain from the A50 vote ("Jeremy's showing no leadership"), whip the MPs to vote against the referendum result (electoral suicide due to the distribution of votes in the constituencies and which would likely have resulted in a larger rebellion than was seen in the other direction), campaign for amendments ( a list of which were put forward and subsequently rejected) or to trigger the process decided upon by the referendum.
It's an intractable problem for anyone leading the Labour Party - and not one that anybody has offered a realistic solution for.
It may well turn out that Corbyn will do the party a huge favour by acting as a Night Watchman to absorb the vitriol over this period and allow a new leader to emerge unencumbered and untainted by what has gone on.
