Untangling the excessively tangled.

[Workingman]

What a mess!

Farage has resigned from UKIP, forthwith, as he "wants his life back". He says that he "has done his bit" following the vote to leave the EU.

How very nice of him to now walk away. This decision is in the same league as Cameron's quitting as PB, but not just yet. Maybe Nigel has seen the writing on the wall for UKIP and wants to get back to making money in banking.

His decision, however, pales into insignificance when compared to the legal challenge now being raised against invoking A50 without the consent of Parliament.

A company of lawyers, Mishcon de Reya, argues that under the UK constitution the decision to trigger A50 rests with Parliament. It is, of course, acting for business clients and academics. The argument goes that the referendum was not legally binding and that a PM has no executive powers to invoke A50. It says an act of Parliament to override a previous act of Parliament, the 1972 European Communities Act, is required to give a PM those powers

What a move that would be. MPs. largely Remainers, voting on an act to enforce the Leave vote.

All of the things I have read about legalities post Brexit must surely have been known before the referendum was tabled. Why were they not cleared up before the referendum took place? All of this shilly-shallying is hurting the country and makes the UK look inept.

[Suff]

Yes I received an email that Farage had resigned. I don't blame him. If he had acheived a seat in Parliament I don't believe he would have stood down. But it is what it is.

As for the challenge to the decision of the people. Let me try and make the argument more clear.

Government issued a referendum because they felt that the decisiion was something that should be decided by the population as a whole in a single issue vote. Conspicuous democracy. Because the government did not feel that their campaign and manifesto's of the last election empowered them to make that decision alone.

This "lobby" wants the government to make that decision because they don't like the democratic decision of the people.

If we want a UKIP governement in 2020; all the current administration needs to do is allow this petition to go through and then vote to rrescind the will of the people.

What would you do????

[Workingman]

I am not sure.

I always knew that the referendum was not legally binding, and that did worry me. Had it been made binding from the very beginning then the pathetic challenges now coming forward could not happen. That, however, is in the past and here we are today.

I voted to Remain, as many of you will have guessed, and I am getting increasingly annoyed that the democratic voice of the people is being attempted to be railroaded by groups who want their own way or no way. I would feel exactly the same if the roles were reversed.

We voted for Brexit and, by hook or by crook, that is what we should get.

[Suff]

I am not sure.

I always knew that the referendum was not legally binding, and that did worry me. Had it been made binding from the very beginning then the pathetic challenges now coming forward could not happen.

Yep and if it had been 100,000 votes and most of the seats solidly for Remain, then the MP's might have played games with it. But; Tory seats were massively for Leave and northern Labour seats were massively for Leave. Way too many MP's face defeat at the next election if they play political games with this.

The worst thing happened, that could have happened, for those who want to try and overturn this with the MP's and that is that the largest block of Remain voters were in London, for a relatively small number of MP's. If you took London out of the picture it would have been nearer 10% for Leave.

That means a hell of a lot of MP's have to look closely at what their constituents would do to them at the next election if they turn traitor and block their will.

Had we not had the Indyref and had Labour and the Lib Dems not watched themselves being sliced to death in Scotland, perhaps they might have thought about it.

The really funny thing is that FEAR is the populaces greatest weapon now. All those MP's who tried to scare the population into doing what the MP's wanted are now facing the boot on the other foot. Perhaps all the Brexit voters need to make their feelings known. Firmly, in terms of "you want your seat next election, then get on with doing what we voted for"...

[Workingman]

I was washing some pots this evening when a thought popped into my head: 'Did they make it not legally binding in case the vote did not go their way, or there was not a huge % gap between the two sides?' And you know what? I think they might have done.

I would not trust them as far as I could throw Big Ben.

[Suff]

Possibly they made it non binding in case it was really close. But they got the shock of their lives when they found out how wide the gap was...

[Suff]

So, the verdict is in and the PM can trigger A50 without parliament.

Mind you, forget the Royal Prerogative. If I recall correctly Parliament passed the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum. Effectively enshrining the Lisbon treaty in UK law. The Lisbon treaty says that the PM and ONLY the PM can trigger A50...

So the lawyers who want to stay in might want to consider that they are hoist by their own petard. Because the very power they want to rule over the UK makes their little petition nothing more than a childish temper tantrum.... Because that power gives the sitting PM the sole discretion to trigger A50 and there is not one single thing they can do about it..

At least the EU laws have some uses...