Tag Archives: peoples vote

Caron Lindsay

How can the Government proceed with Brexit if there’s evidence the public has changed its mind?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 26th May 2018 - 9:04 am

Of all the constitutional crises talked about round Brexit, surely the biggest is taking an irrevocable step that doesn’t have the backing of the British people at the point that it is made. If the UK exits the European Union on 29th March next year, it’s starting to look as if that move will not have the backing of the electorate.

Prospect magazine has analysis of YouGov polls conducted over the past two years which suggests that Remain would win a referendum on the Brexit deal. That surely means that the Government’s full-speed-ahead, devil-may-care approach to Brexit has no democratic …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 36 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Actually, Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP could help win a People’s Vote on the Brexit deal.

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 20th May 2018 - 1:55 pm

Nicola Sturgeon was on the Peston show today talking about various aspects of Brexit. One thing struck me when she was pressed on the issue of a People’s vote of the Brexit deal. She said that the SNP won’t be the block to that but if there was to be another EU referendum, the big question for Scotland would be what would happen if we got the same outcome, where Scotland voted to remain and Wales and England voted to leave.

To be honest, I think it would be so much better if the SNP threw their massive campaigning energy behind securing a vote that means we can all stay in the EU. I reckon we could do a lot better than the 62-38 result. To be honest, the SNP sat the last one out. Our local SNP didn’t do much because they said they were tired after the Scottish elections.  It was the Lib Dems who ran the street stalls and did all the work.

It is unlike the SNP to be tired. For three years up to the Independence referendum in 2014 they were everywhere. They campaigned their hearts out. For the last month of the campaign, you couldn’t go to the shops to buy your rolls in the morning without seeing a posse with saltires and Yes leaflets. In that referendum, there was an 84.6% turnout. In the EU referendum, only 67% of people voted.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 12 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Don’t be fooled by Labour’s posturing on #peoplesvote

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 22nd April 2018 - 12:46 pm

In the last few days we’ve had some tantalising hints that Labour may be willing to support a public vote on the Brexit deal. John McDonnell said on Friday that Labour weren’t ruling it out. Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said on Marr that if there were sufficient public demand, Labour might think again.

So should we all breathe a sigh of relief and think that this might happen any time soon?

Not a chance.

For a start, Emily Thornberry’s threshold to determine what might be a suitable level of public demand to get them to change their minds was 80-90%. You don’t get 80-90% of people backing anything. Even the Monarchy at the height of the much loved Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations  was only getting 75% support.

So let’s not hold our breath waiting for the Labour leadership to back a vote on the deal. But why are they doing this? It’s all part of their deliberate tactic of making their policy as ambiguous as possible. This is exactly what the Leave campaign did, too. Nobody understood what Brexit would mean because they tried to make sure that the details were as non-existent as possible.

The reason they’re drip-feeding it all now is because there are some important local elections coming up. A lot of them are in Remain voting metropolitan areas in places like London and Manchester. They must be getting some indication that their stance on Brexit is costing them so they are trying to make it sound like they might just go for the vote on the deal.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 19 Comments
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