dgfitz a day ago

Brexit?

Reply View 7 replies
  • satellite2 a day ago

    Countries that don't regularly have popular votes face the challenge that any vote is considered as a vote of confidence in their current government. It basically only reflects the popularity of the government and people do not evaluate the face value, the core of the issue. Having a real democracy takes a lot of training and effort.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • mahkeiro a day ago

      Exactly this. In Switzerland, you generally have 3-4 vote periods per year with 0-8 different subjects). This is needed to make sure that people vote on the subject.

      Reply View 0 replies
  • dataflow a day ago

    Brexit was 52% of voters voting to leave, but that was only 37% of the electorate. [1] It wasn't >50% of the electorate, let alone >50% of the population.

    [1] https://fullfact.org/online/brexit-referendum-electorate-lea...

    Reply View 3 replies
    • _blk a day ago

      ...I'll argue that those that didn't participate in that vote elected to opt out. I.e. Don't cry if you didn't care to participate and then don't get what you wanted.

      Reply View 2 replies
      • dataflow a day ago

        This is a referendum that changes the fundamental rules of the game, not a pizza order. The onus isn't on the population to waste their time vetoing your bad or mediocre ideas, it's on you to come up with good ideas. And disgusting your constituents enough that they abstain entirely should very much not be a viable strategy. If you want to change the constitution, you gotta convince people that you're doing something good, including those who are hard to convince. That's literally the entire point. If you're not managing that, clearly your change isn't good enough to make.

        Anyway, I wasn't even trying to argue in favor of this position, or against it. I was merely replying to the parent comment that Brexit did not meet the threshold that their parent comment had suggested.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • maigret a day ago

          People got lazy lately after a long peace time. Saying “it can’t get worse than that” with 5-10% unemployment. Yes this is not good, but it can get way worse than that. Also “my vote doesn’t count, and everyone is bad”. Enemies of democracy have pushed this a lot lately, internet make it trivially cheap and easy to spread. Nations like UK are in the find out phase.

          Reply View 0 replies
  • [removed] a day ago
    [deleted]
    Reply View 0 replies