Guest post: The referendum
Guest post by Maureen Brian, originally a reply to a question about whether Brexit is binding or not.
The majority in Parliament is certainly for remaining though the whole process seems to have unhinged one or two minds so that it’s difficult to say who would vote which way after the referendum! Some may see it as morally binding: others will not and that’s whichever way the result goes.
All the legislation supposedly “imposed by Brussels” operates through laws passed by Westminster. That includes the treaties at various stages of the EU’s development. In many cases passing that legislation repealed earlier UK legislation so that we can’t just roll them all into a ball and repeal the lot. That would leave us with no laws on things like food safety, exhaust emissions, motorway signage and about a million other things. They would have to be done one by one and given a very small majority already, fractious Tory party and in all probability vast amounts of emotion and pique it could take twenty years! No-one but me seems to have thought of this. It’s not come up in the debates or press coverage.
Then there’s the question of whether Cameron, if still in post, should have preliminary discussions with the other 27 states before he pulls the plug – invokes Section 50 which then gives us two years to get out, nowhere near long enough!
If Parliament should decide to over-ride the referendum result, as it could, then an entirely different set of shenanigans will be triggered, possibly with parties splitting, one or more general elections with unworkable results and a completely impotent government for however long that takes. Not that it’s very competent now.
If you ask me what’s going to happen then sorry but I haven’t the faintest idea. I may get a hint on Thursday night as I’m a Counting Agent at the count in Halifax i.e one of the Labour Party’s official observers. Results will be counted for Calderdale MBC then fed to the regional collation place, then announced. It could be mid-day Friday when we have the full result.
The Leave people seem to be splitting – great criticism of a UKIP poster which was just too close to a well-known and easily found for comparison Nazi propaganda film. Other Leave leaders really do not like it! Then Boris is proposing even more immigration “as long as we control it” plus an amnesty for illegal migrants already here for some time. That will not go down well with many supposedly on the same team. Watch this space.
I was also wondering whether or not the ‘referendum’ was binding. In Australia if a majority of voters in a majority of states vote for a Constututional amendment the government must accept the result.
Since Britain doesn’t have a written constitution, it appears that the government could sabotage a pro Brexit vote, and as is the usual EU custom, procrastinate until the voters decide ‘correctly’. Btw, I don’t have any opinion as to whether the UK should stay or leave.
That is a good point (I won’t pretend to be anything like an expert on international law)–I said to my boss the other day ‘if we leave the EU that means we won’t have to do (particularly confusing, challenging and labour-intensive set of assurance procedures) any more, right?’ but I believe you’re right, these procedures are not only ‘EU law’ but also UK law, and would have to be specifically repealed by us.
Probably the second key point made by the Brexit camp is that a leave vote will return sovereignty to the UK Parliament (Their first key point being immigration of course)
So it would be rather ironic if Parliament used its sovereignty to stop the UK leaving the EU.
@3 it might be ‘ironic’ but not inconceivable, if a majority of members of the U.K. Parliament were currently, or in the near future, pro EU. There’s no reason to assume that the opinions of MPs would have the same distribution as a popular vote. So we’re back to the original question—” Is the so-called ‘referendum’ binding?”
I’m currently doing a MOOC provided by Edinburgh Uni about the referendum. The most interesting bit has been short interviews with various Professors of European Stuff. One of the questions asked was whether a referendum result was legally binding. It isn’t, of course. The government is not obliged to follow the result. The problem is that while it isn’t a legal requirement it almost certainly is a political requirement. Having called the referendum it would be political suicide for the party that called it to not abide by the result – unless, of course, they could point to a sudden change in the political environment.
It is also estimated it would take several years to pass UK legislation to replace the EU ones.
My own personal opinion (based only on what I’ve observed, so worth exactly what you paid for it) is that up until very recently Brexit was going to win by a very small margin. Since the murder of Jo Cox and Farage’s misstep with that appalling poster I think that small margin is swinging the other way. As you say, some of the “Leave” faction have been forced to take a good look at their fellow travellers and it may have shaken them out of their complacency about far-right company. I now predict “Remain” will win by an equally small margin.
And that small margin means that Farage will be able to continue shooting his great frog mouth off (seriously, has anyone seen such a batrachian looking man? I sometimes wonder if he has ancestors from Innsmouth) claiming that X factor meant that people didn’t vote honestly/correctly/the way he wanted. I have no doubt he will try to use Jo Cox as an excuse to say the vote wasn’t for Europe but against extremism, which he completely agrees with but we should have another free vote to get the real result. Because the man is complete scum.