Our elected leaders should be chosen on the basis of qualification, not representativeness of arbitrary characteristics. In a team do you select as leader the person who is the most average? I would hope not. Now if you were to argue that the leader should be representative of the people's values and desires, then yes - that would be correct. Except that's the precise opposite of what you argued. You do not see individuals. You see group identities.
Since this is a UK political thread, it seems appropriate to phrase my reply like this: hear hear!
Why would they need a second referendum if they stood on a remain manifesto and won a clear majority in Parliament? In that instance they simply revoke Article 50.
The main argument is that a referendum should be done on the basis of choosing between what's actually available, not vague promises that aren't real. Also that it should be done on the basis of truth and knowledge, but that's too idealistic to be practical. Both sides will inject as much bias as they can. They did in the first referendum and they'd do it again if we have another referendum. But what we could do is have a referendum based on the options that are actually available, not vague promises that aren't real. A straightforward multiple choice containing only the choices that can be chosen - remain fully in, a few options for partially in to varying degrees, fully out. That's it.
There is no deal. There never was a deal. The EU have been upfront about that from the start - they even published a handy chart explaining the various types of relationships a country could have with the EU and how each one included one or more of the things the UK didn't want (paying into the EU, free movement of people, ECHR jurisdiction), leading to the conclusion that the only way the UK could have those things was to be completely out of the EU, hard brexit, no deal, WTO rules only, no trade agreements, no security agreements,
nothing. There is no deal. There never was a deal. There never will be a deal. The deal is a lie. If you were, for example, signing a contract to buy a car and there were various options of financing, servicing, warranties, etc, would you want to know what the available options actually were before signing or would you be OK with signing to buy the car without knowing what the terms were?
I'm not concerned about going off-topic because the OP's topic is just their usual irrational prejudice with the Conservative party leadership contest being nothing more than a backdrop for it, but I do have a position on that contest - why would anyone
want the job? It's a poisoned chalice. Maybe not as much as when May took the job (why? she's not stupid and not completely ignorant, so she must have known it was an impossible job and she'd get the blame for the failure), but still a poisoned chalice. Their only hope is to blame everything on May, but that will be increasingly flimsy.
[..] I think we still haven't got to grips with the voting demographic on Brexit. All leave voters wanted to leave. Remain also had a portion of voters who were Anti-Eu but didn't want to risk the economic damage or preferred to be in rather than out or swerved to remain at zero hour. Not all remain voters were flag waving federalists and that is what may cause issues with a new vote.
That's me, that is. I
don't support the EU, but I voted remain because I decided that it was probably less bad for me than leaving. I'm not rich enough to be confident of being able to afford the economic damage that will be caused to the UK by leaving the EU, even in the best case scenario of it being only temporary. The EU is less authoritarian than the UK. The EU has a better record on work/life balance, protection for poor workers, etc. The EU is bigger and thus better able to stand amongst the increasing trend of larger political/economic blocs. If the UK is in the EU, they're not competitors so there's much less chance of stuff in the UK moving out of it. Banking, for example. There's not much reason to move it from London to another city in the EU, but if London isn't in the EU then there is more reason to move it. The UK needs it in London, it's an important part of our economy. So I'd prefer the UK to remain in the EU not because I think the EU absolutely wonderful, have the EU flag tattooed over my heart and want to make it wholly a United States of Europe thing but because I think it's a safer and slightly better choice.
