John Mills on Labour and brexit

[medsec222]

I think it is perfectly simple. A referendum was promised, MPs voted for it to go ahead, and the majority voted to leave. I don't therefore see the need to vote in line with their constituents. They have to vote with the majority decision.

[Suff]

Yeah they do Aggers. It’s an American idea…. In the UK it’s Government of the Plebs by the Elite with a nod to the Plebs every 5 years.

It’s why the Americans are, essentially, electing people every 2 years. Senators are spilt into thirds and each senator has a 6 year term. Every 2 years one third of the senate seats are up for grabs. The house of representatives are only elected for 2 years, so the whole house is elected every 2 years.

This has the net effect of making the US government particularly easy to manipulate by the people and by pressure groups. So you can see that Trump, today, has all 3 government houses under Republican control. But if he annoys enough people, he could lose both the house AND the senate in 2 years time and, essentially, be crippled. 2 years later he would be up for re-election and the whole thing could be turned on its head.

Unlike the UK where you get to vote for a bunch of reprobates once every 5 years and have to suffer whatever their daydreams are for those 5 years, in the US the power to sway and control the government is very much in the hands of the people.

It allows Americans to vote with their hearts and make mistakes. Because they can tune that mistake in 2 year increments. They keep their politicians on a very short leash. They also have “election fatigue” which is a huge element of irony. The very mechanism which gives them control requires that they exercise that control. Many Americans can’t be bothered to do their duty any more than Brits can.

[Suff]

I think it is perfectly simple. A referendum was promised, MPs voted for it to go ahead, and the majority voted to leave. I don't therefore see the need to vote in line with their constituents. They have to vote with the majority decision.

medsec, if we had a sensible parliament they would have voted 100% to trigger A50. During the debate Every MP should then have stood up and said “The people voted for this result and it is our job to implement their vote. We make the laws and the courts implement them. Courts do not rule on the activities of this government”.

But we don’t have a sensible parliament so they have opened themselves up to the public interfering in Parliamentary business, every time they don’t like what is going on, by challenging the “right” of the government to govern in the courts.

With luck this will be visited on Labour, over and over again, during their next government (assuming they ever have one again). All they had to do was what WM (and I), want. Enact the will of the people. Directly and firmly.

At least there is a lesson learned here. If a government does not want a referendum they won’t call it. If they do call it, then it will be binding. I think the days of non binding referendums are, pretty much, done. After all, it became very clear that whilst it might not have been binding on the government, going against that level of backlash from the public would bring down any government at the next election. Sounds like binding to me.