[Closed] Handy pasteable letter/email to your MP to vote against Brexit. 5 min job.

trouble is, the Unicorn campaign wasn't very clear, half the voters wanted a blue unicorn and hate red unicorns, and the other half think a blue unicorn would be a disaster.

And unicorns only come in red or blue.

26% blue unicorn, 26% red unicorn. 48% voted to keep the horse we've got already.

Democracy is not as simple as one person one vote. Jefferson talks about the need for 'educated citizenry' and whilst i would not call the voting population uneducated, I think many were uninformed or lied to and an uninformed poll is not democracy.

Yes, i believe in democracy, but part of the 'suck it up' argument must also be that we have exactly the kind of parliamentary democracy we chose as such, our MPs represent their constituents and can be expected to act in our best interests and respond to our requests, lobbying or petitions. That's democracy too. so 'suck it up'.

For the 'move on' crowd, where is it you suggest we move on to? What is it you think should happen now, beyond leaving the EU. What 'control' which you were desperate for will you exercise? What do you want to do? What do you imagine will happen that will improve life for us?

This referendum is a case of ask a stupid question, get a very stupid answer.

Purple unicorn please

ah I see, you want people to vote but then you want our MPs to ignore this and vote according to their principles?

Can you see a problem with this? Undemocratic?

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ah I see, you want people to vote but then you want our MPs to ignore this and vote according to their principles?

Can you see a problem with this? Undemocratic?

I want the MPs to do what they think is best for the country, it's why we have a parliament, it's why they are our representatives. We voted for them and they are individually responsible. Entirely democratic.

This is a valid argument

Jefferson talks about the need for 'educated citizenry' and whilst i would not call the voting population uneducated, I think many were uninformed or lied to and an uninformed poll is not democracy.

We seem to have one or two generations now with no political engagement or understanding, or less capacity to understand the implications of political actions beyond the short term

But as a disappointed remain voter, so is this:

arguing that we should now try to nullify the result of a democratically held referendum because we don't like the outcome is exactly the sort of crap people didn't like about Europe.

We as a divided (and diminished) nation need to figure out how to do this and do it as well as we can rather than trying to further alienate and disenfranchise a huge section of our populace by ignoring their opinion because we "know better".

I'm not in the "suck it up" camp, but I'm struggling to see how we can square the circle and move forward without it becoming increasingly fractious and destabilising. And I can certainly see no one even on the fringes of the political leadership campaigns with the integrity, courage and vision to achieve it either.

And god only knows what might get sucked to the top in this particular vacuum.

26% blue unicorn, 26% red red unicorn. 48% Stick with the horse we've got.

Just spend billions of pounds strapping a horn on the horse, renaming it a unicorn, and pretending the 52% got what they wanted.

screwing the economy, trade, the people, the future and a united progressive Europe

Indeed, and since doing that will be far more electorally harmful than ignoring[1] the finely balanced referendum result, it won't happen.

Article 50 will not be invoked.

So relax. Stop the hysteria.

[1] Perhaps the ignoring will need to be spun a bit to make it look like 'not ignoring' but none the less, it will be ignored.

ah I see, you want people to vote but then you want our MPs to ignore this and vote according to their principles?

Can you see a problem with this? Undemocratic?

As I said above, it seems the only reason Leave can now put forward is "we won the referendum".

The unwillingness to address the subsequent backtracking by their campaign leaders is not going unnoticed.

[quote="Pawsy_Bear"]ah I see, you want people to vote but then you want our MPs to ignore this and vote according to their principles?

Can you see a problem with this? Undemocratic?Well, not really. For a democracy to work the people need to be adequately educated to understand what they are voting for. Going by whats been trending on google.co.uk since the Leave result, i'd put quite a significant amount of cash on them not understanding, or fact checking by using the daily mail.

One snippet that springs to mind is an Asmiov quote that a colleague used a few weeks ago in relation to something else altogether, “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

Democracy seems to be too dangerous a toy for us lot to be allowed to play with.

If you saw a toddler with a loaded gun, you'd take it off of them.

This makes me feel sick to the core - you either have democracy and the gullible screw up everyone's lives including their own, or you do the 'right' thing and ignore the gullible.

I can't get my head around the Strength Through Ignorance Britain.

A nation that now seems to model itself on kamikaze pilots, because blind self-harm is now seen as desirable to prove a point.

ah I see, you want people to vote but then you want our MPs to ignore this and vote according to their principles?

Can you see a problem with this? Undemocratic?

We as a divided (and diminished) nation need to figure out how to do this and do it as well as we can rather than trying to further alienate and disenfranchise a huge section of our populace by ignoring their opinion because we "know better

I think this starts with anyone from the leave camp either at political level or at individual (forum) level demonstrating to us that there is a rational reason for leaving and that there is a vision or plan of what to do when we leave. otherwise. If they are unable to do this, and those who voted remain are able to do so, then the evidence is that remainers do / did in fact 'know better'.

So please, put the debate to bed, let any of the leavers here come forward to explain their vision and we can start to 'move on'

And TBH, reading some of the stuff on here, and face book, and the internet at large does make me think we need a staged voting progress. Starting off with multiple choice questions about the facts as they actually are, instead of how the politicians spin them.

Indeed, and since doing that will be far more electorally harmful than ignoring[1] the finely balanced referendum result, it won't happen.

Article 50 will not be invoked.

So relax. Stop the hysteria.

[1] Perhaps the ignoring will need to be spun a bit to make it look like 'not ignoring' but none the less, it will be ignored.

So please, put the debate to bed, let any of the leavers here come forward to explain their vision and we can start to 'move on'

Give them time, as soon as they write something it gets taken off the list by one of the bosses

Why not just limit voting on important issues like this to party members?

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CharlieMungus - Member

I want the MPs to do what they think is best for the country, it's why we have a parliament, it's why they are our representatives. We voted for them and they are individually responsible. Entirely democratic.

They could have course have done this before the referendum, and told us that no, it's dangerous to give "a toddler a loaded gun" and tabled a motion to prevent the referendum being held. In practice you're wanting them to decide it was a silly idea after we've shot ourselves dig the bullet out and make everything back the way it was.

Their ignorance is I'm afraid to say no less valid than your knowledge. The political classes of this and many other countries had, until last Thursday, a vested interest in keeping us stupid. The failure is in not educating, in cultivating apathy and alienating people from the democratic process. It isn't the "fault" of the electorate when the explanation of the system they're given is "it's too complicated you wouldn't understand" and "that's just the way it is".

We should, I thoroughly agree, be making our opinions known to our MP and asking them to represent us, we should be holding them to account and demanding the sort of settlement we reach with the EU. But the way forward is categorically not backwards.

The referendum saw the largest voter turn-out in my voting life, we should take the positives (and there are not many) from this and use this to engage with people to motive and re-enfranchise,to involve people and develop a society in which people feel they are represented and believe politics is something which involves them rather than just effecting them.

The lesson to be learned from this debacle is painful but,if it wakes people up to the reality of their responsibility that's a good thing, if it makes people hold our politicians to account that's a good thing, if it makes us think "what will they do? Will they help me? Is this in my interest and the interest of my children" rather than crossing the box next to their favourite colour once every five years that's a good thing. If it means we end up years from now with a choice of good candidates rather than least worst that's a very good thing indeed.

It pains me to say it but these are things a remain vote wouldn't achieve in my life time. They are things which not enacting article 50 will do more to prevent that it will to encourage.

The financial losses are inevitable, but markets do founder and fall also inevitable is that they do recover. (and I hope they do so sooner not later as like many my job is distinctly at risk.)

We can try and make something of this,to go forward, to make ourselves better or we can squabble and fight and make a bad situation worse, taking what hope there is and swap it for a smug sense of satisfaction as Rome burns and we play or fiddle having told everyone this is what will happen.

This country that the leavers want back, it's a country with an unwritten constitution which has evolved through 300 years of fudge, muddle and compromise. This is supposed to be one of its primary virtues. The same goes for the body we are presently trying to extricate ourselves from. There is no precedent in UK history, nor the history of the EU, for leaping off the edge of a cliff in this fashion. I guess that's why the Scottish independence referendum panned out in the way it did, and why the next one, if there is one, will probably do the same.

I can't see that either body is going to change that, despite the fact that all parties are presently reeling from the vote and waiting for the dust to settle on its implications.

Such a cruel paradox - When in earnest1 the notion that 'out' is attributable to a lack of education or intelligence ..

I voted remain, I wholeheartedly want to remain and I think leaving will be a financial and moral disaster for the reasons some leavers want to leave.

I'll send the letter, but what I DON'T want to happen is for the Commons to reject the referendum - we cannot have 17m people getting off their arse and voting for a thing and then be seen to be ignoring them, that will make things worse - there are lots of reasons why we find ourselves here, and voters feeling ignored by their Government is pretty near the top.

Equally, 16m people got off their arse and voted to maintain the status quo and I think most people on both sides will agree that the offering the Leave campaign gave has turned out be less than accurate - the NHS won't be getting £250m a week and there will be financial pain.

I don't want them to have a plan that makes 17m people happy, or 16m people happy because really it'll make 33m unhappy because the argument will only carry on and be louder and messier than ever.

What we need is a plan that can make 90% of the 33m happy.

Brexiters and Remainers, this is of course completely hypothetical but if our new Prime Minster offered a Hybrid Membership within the EU:

Reduced payments and equally reduced economic development money for the UK - say 50%.

Free movement of workers within the EU in exchange for membership of the free market, but limited to existing members, veto power over new member states and/or free moment for those member states.

Would that be enough for you to be happy?

Democracy doesn't always work:

[url= https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/17/boaty-mcboatface-wins-poll-to-name-polar-research-vessel ]Boaty McBoatface[/url]

Brexiters and Remainers, this is of course completely hypothetical but if our new Prime Minster offered a Hybrid Membership within the EU:

Reduced payments and equally reduced economic development money for the UK - say 50%.

Free movement of workers within the EU in exchange for membership of the free market, but limited to existing members, veto power over new member states and/or free moment for those member states.

Would that be enough for you to be happy?

But all the actual evidence points toward it being a really bad idea

Which is worse though, Brexit or Jeremy C unt 😆

You just wont let it lie will you?

Well, no, not until this country returns to democratic rule; not novelty referundums that put decisions in the hands of the uneducated masses, NONE of whom I voted for…

Just to be clear, in the letter I postedi didn't ask for my mp to vote against the referendum. I only asked him to vote against if it was not in our interests to.

Important difference

There is still an outside chance that negotiations bring forth a path where it is in fact in our interest to leave (however personally I do not see where this is coming from at the moment)

However the title does, sorry for that, it's inaccurate

The failure is in not educating, in cultivating apathy and alienating people from the democratic process

I absolutely agree with this. Chickens have come home to roost. Not that it helps us with anything in the meantime.....

Chickens have come home to roost

put decisions in the hands of the uneducated masses

Quite right. We can't have hoi polloi having a say in anything.

😐

The failure is in not educating, in cultivating apathy and alienating people from the democratic process

Agree also. Would add to that a lack of support, financial and otherwise, for communities affected by the decline of heavy industry and /or those affected by migrant influx (I say this as someone who is pro-migration)

Their ignorance is I'm afraid to say no less valid than your knowledge.

The UK joined for trading not for handing over sovereignty, and definitely not to be ruled over by unelected self-serving cretins. And still you fools bleat on about democracy after losing a democratic vote. If it wasn't so pathetic it would be funny.

Whilst everyone is entitled to an opinion, not everyone is entitled to have that opinion taken seriously

Four legs good......

The UK joined for trading not for handing over sovereignty, and definitely not to be ruled over by unelected self-serving cretins. And still you fools bleat on about democracy after losing a democratic vote. If it wasn't so pathetic it would be funny.

Whilst everyone is entitled to an opinion, not everyone is entitled to have that opinion taken seriously
Four legs good.

I'm not sure of this, there is a degree of culpability to ignorance, i don't mean stupidity, i mean a reluctance or refusal to engage with the information available.

How about if they mistrust the information being provided? For example if the people providing the information have a stake in the outcome, or are outright biased by the nature of their employment or even just their own beliefs? If you think that there were many, or even any, [u]truly[/u] impartial representations of information out there in the referendum then you must be utterly hatstand.

Rather than being reluctant or refusing to engage with the information provided, I would suggest that a large proportion of the electorate very much engaged with it, and dismissed is credibility as they believed it to be biased, fear mongering, partial and aimed at manipulating their vote towards a desired outcome.

If you spend decades serving the public up with a bowl of shit and continually swear blind that its chocolate ice cream, then don't act surprised when at some point they finally cotton on and throw it back in your face.

charlie - your link is borked.
[url= https://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978 ]yer tis[/url]

So, enfht, as above. What do you expect or imagine will happen now to improve our lives?

and to what extent do you think the likely leaders post-brexit will be less cretinous or self serving than the people to whom you refer?
Who are the people you call unelected?
Which 'rules' do you actually object to?

How about if they mistrust the information being provided? For example if the people providing the information have a stake in the outcome, or are outright biased by the nature of their employment or even just their own beliefs? If you think that there were many, or even any, truly impartial representations of information out there in the referendum then you must be utterly hatstand.

Rather than being reluctant or refusing to engage with the information provided, I would suggest that a large proportion of the electorate very much engaged with it, and dismissed is credibility as they believed it to be biased, fear mongering, partial and aimed at manipulating their vote towards a desired outcome.

this is where reasoning and rationalisation come in. of course there were no impartial sources, but that is why you have to make an informed decision form information and data from a number of sources

First thing you could educate people on is how to spot a biased newspaper article or media piece.

The UK joined for trading not for handing over sovereignty

It never handed over sovereignty. It handed over some power.

And you do that to get the benefits - we all do it, day in day out. Fact of life. It's like paying taxes - it's necessary.

First thing you could educate people on is how to spot a biased newspaper article or media piece.

Yes, the same way we analyse text in English Lit. or even when we decide whether or not something we read on the web is credible