1/ Bear with, bear with. This is a long thread… EU Withdrawal is being debated in the H of C this week. MPs seem to think they have to support Brexit because it was “the will of the people”. Let’s just summarise the reasons why it’s not.
2/ The UK is a representative democracy. We pay MPs and peers to make intelligent decisions on our behalf. Referendums are not the way we generally do business, mainly because unlike an election, it’s hard to change our minds when the ‘facts’ change.
3/ MPs did not scrutinise the Referendum Bill properly. It was an advisory referendum that 'became' mandatory, & required a ‘simple majority’ of anything over 50% of the vote. Should have specified a ‘supermajority’ of 60% for such a profound change. politics.stackexchange.com/questions/1136…
4/ Cameron is supposed to have thought scrutiny was not needed because a Leave vote was unlikely. But look at the results of the 2014 EU elections, when the single largest block of MEPs returned were UKIP? bbc.co.uk/news/events/vo…
5/ In addition, the wrong electorate was asked to vote. The people with most at stake are the 3 million EU27 citizens living in UK. They had no vote, but Commonwealth citizens, whose lives would not be affected, did have a vote. Can that be democratic?
6/ Also evidence of some UK citizens living abroad not having the chance to vote (and not just those who’ve been abroad for >15 years) due to postal votes not arriving on time. independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
7/ The question we were asked – Remain or Leave? – was impossible to answer. There were so many types of Leave to consider. At the time, Leave campaigners assured us that Brexit would mean staying in the single market and customs union – something like the ‘Norway option’. 
8/ The Leave campaign was run on lies: £350 million a week for the NHS, they need our trade more than we need theirs, and Farage’s vile “breaking point” poster, which came out on the day Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right activist.
9/ And 'Immigration'. Oh dear. Arrival of EU citizens into the UK has actually had a very positive impact on the UK economy. It’s a lie to say they disproportionately take benefits, clog up our hospitals, and depress wages. independent.co.uk/news/business/…
10/ My favourite was ‘We will be able to trade with other countries’. We already can. Ever bought a Japanese TV, Korean phone, American software, Turkish T shirt, Malaysian vacuum cleaner…? We’ll lose that ability when we leave the single market & EU treaties no longer apply.
11/ We were told that other countries trade perfectly well under baseline WTO terms. Wrong. Only the poverty-ridden slave state of Mauretania relies on WTO terms. When did you last buy anything made in Mauretania? medium.com/@MrWeeble/who-…
12/The Leave campaign was boosted by Russian bots having unwarranted influence on British voters. Now who is 'taking back control'? wired.co.uk/article/brexit…
13/ There are serious doubts about where the Leave campaign got its funding. Both the DUP and Arron Banks made donations whose provenance are unclear. It is illegal for foreign donors to fund UK elections / referendums. theguardian.com/politics/2008/…
14/ Only after the fact i.e. after Cameron ran away from the mess he made, and May became PM, did ‘Brexit mean Brexit’. Many Leavers did not vote to leave the single market. They sure as hell did not vote to become poorer.
15/ Key economists, including Nobel prize winners, tell us there’s no chance we can be better off outside the EU. A vote for withdrawal is a vote for more poverty. Not a good look for our Honourable Members. independent.co.uk/news/business/…
16/ There’s also good evidence that the rich Leavers want to protect their finances from new EU legislation on tax havens and tax avoidance, which comes into force next year. So THAT’S why Theresa May and friends need a ‘hard Brexit’. ec.europa.eu/taxation_custo…
17/ So to summarise. The EU referendum:
- asked a gerrymandered electorate
- an impossible question
- to the wrong standard of proof
- after a campaign based on lies
- that was funded by dubious sources...
- asked a gerrymandered electorate
- an impossible question
- to the wrong standard of proof
- after a campaign based on lies
- that was funded by dubious sources...
18/ - and will deliver a Brexit most people didn’t vote for
- that will leave us all worse off
- unless we are tax-avoiding multi-millionaires
And recent polling suggests it’s no longer the ‘will of the people’ anyway.
- that will leave us all worse off
- unless we are tax-avoiding multi-millionaires
And recent polling suggests it’s no longer the ‘will of the people’ anyway.
19/ NOW... is it in any way possible our pathetic crop of MPs, most of whom voted through this wretched mess in the first place, might stand up and oppose Brexit? If they don’t, I swear the ballot box will shortly punish them big time. Why not ask your MP? /END
