If during a trial, such as a murder trial, it is found that the police have broken the law in submitting their evidence, then the trial is abandoned. This doesn't mean that there will not be a retrial, of course. it simply means that the result of that trial cannot be taken as correct because the jury has been lied to.

However, in the case of the Brexit leave campaign, it will today be announced that the people running it have broken electoral law in at least four ways (See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44704561 ) In other words the jury - you and I - have been lied to and the result of the referendum, therefore, cannot be taken as being meaningful.

However, there is no question of a retrial, or re-referendum! Instead, the Leave campaign will pay a trifling fine and the fact that the UK is committed to a very uncertain and likely catastrophic future is allowed to stand!

Perhaps brexiteers will abandon their frequent cries of "The British people have decided" in favour of "The British people have been fooled!" which is closer to the truth although this is unlikely. By definition, they are NOT honest people.

Unite 'open to possibility' of new Brexit referendum
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/03/unite-union-new-brexit-referendum-labour-corbyn

Hope so. If they did I'd predict a huge shift to "remain".

I think it would.

But having got the answer they want by fooling them, the brexiteers have abandoned all pretence of obeying the "Will of the people".

How can a non-binding referendum come under electoral law? It was nothing more than a poll.

I think everyone was surprised the Tories honoured it but now we are starting to see what their corrupted version of it is.

Have heard the Remoaners are prepared to abide by the result of the Sweden England Game

So that's the line is it DD? Brexit would have been fine if the tories hadn't cocked it up!

In other words it's not the fault of those who voted to leave.

I've no love for the tories, but in this case, I have some sympathy for them. Not much, but some. You cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear. You cannot make a stupid decision into a wise one.

And if the referendum was 'nothing more than a poll' why on earth are we taking any notice of it? More recent polls are all for remain, by the way, but they don't count because ... Well, I'll leave you to fill in an implausible excuse.



In my case I won't abide by or reject it. I will ignore it completely. I couldn't care less which side wins.

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Not like you to get into the name calling game fish, I am a remoaner if that is a correct term, I voted to remain for many reasons, not the least, leave being led by the far right of the Tory party whose only aim is to turn this country into a low wage deregulated economy.

We were suckered into the so called referendum, purely because of a power struggle within the Tory Party, those having lit the fuse now standing back, they didn't put the country first they opted to promote themselves, and now we are left with a deeply divided government struggling to make some sort of order out of the mess, the people sold down the river by glib talk and money.

I understand a lot of people voted to leave, I don't pin labels on them that is a choice they made based on what they believed, although it is my belief a lot were misled on immigration and false promises made of a better Britain.

Other than easier holiday travel I can't understand what the average person see's in the advantage of being in the EU.

Turning our backs on the rest of the world and having very little control over our own trade is not a good thing.

The biggest growth of trade in the future most certainly doesn't lie within the EU, it lies with the rest of the world.

The basic principle of the EU is for the richer countries to subsidise the poorer countries with an objective to bring the wealth of the poorer countries up to the median level. This has not happened, the number of net contributors in the EU has dropped, the number of subsidised countries has increased - the EU has achieved the opposite of this basic principle. The main subsidisers are becoming subsidisers for life and those subsidies are increasing.

Using those subsidies to build metal clowns and the like I find very hard to justify, refurbishment of properties, improvements in road surfaces and the like would seem like money much better spent.

To put it even simpler .....

Would you sign an exclusive contract with one shop even though it wasn't the cheapest?

Would you join the Masons?

[quote=diggingdeeper]To put it even simpler .....

Would you sign an exclusive contract with one shop even though it wasn't the cheapest?

It depends on whether there were other benefits to be had that could offset the higher prices, again we were asked to make a game changing decision with little or no information on the consequences in fact with less information than buying a used car, but all we had to do is look at the salesman, glib with no moral conscience.

As we have had virtually no control over what the EU does and doesn't do further aggravated by little control over what our own Government agreed to with the EU, the comparison with signing up with a shop is not dissimilar.

What benefits are there being in the EU that are not hugely offset by the disadvantages, noting that deals like CETA did NOT include the free movement of people (so much for EU "red lines") also noting there are already open trade borders to the EU like the Isle of Man and Channel Islands as well as others that do not have free movement of people.

I think most people that voted leave assumed that there would be a natural default position of a full and hard Brexit and negotiations for trade and other deals would be taken from that position with the whole world, if the EU wanted to play hard-ball we would wait until they softened their stance.

Instead we started negotiations in the weakest manner possible which did nothing for our negotiations with the EU and let other countries try to take advantage while they saw us as weak.

The EU cannot stop us negotiating trade deals with other countries before we leave, they can only stop us making (ie signing) deals that could come into force before we left.

I think you are giving some that voted to leave more credit than they deserve, who voted purely on the immigration issue, and might I add will be very disappointed with a watered down approach being considered, and yes in their haste to give the people their choice ( read promote their own agenda) they put us at a distinct disadvantage.

As to trade deals with other countries we are also at a disadvantage, some will see us desperate to get a trade deal and will use it as an advantage to gain favorable terms, "oh what a tangled web they have weaved"

I agree that immigration was possibly a factor, however I would think that it wasn't immigration itself that upset people but the fact that the EU controlled the immigration and even promoted it against our country's wishes.

I see most of the concerns about the EU from the UK perspective can be narrowed down to control, ie sovereignty.

Germany has gone further past the tipping point of becoming a Muslim country than we have and perhaps had surrendered to the idea, perhaps we think that we can prevent that happening in the UK although the stats at the moment show that we will be unlikely to succeed.

Note that yet again, Germany has much more influence than the rest of the EU put together, in this case on policies of immigration. How can this be unless it is the United States of Germany? Just go through a list of the EU countries noting who would be for and who would be against mass immigration, Germany would be well out-voted! Only since Brexit has Germany been forced to climb down a few steps.

One of the many reasons i voted out & will always....apart from the corruption of the uks monarchy handing power to the EU over years with eager help of bilderberger mps & pms....was the story of a guy who took his childs hit & run not insured killer to the highest court yet it got thrown out by EU law under killers " right to family life " cause hed knocked up a uk woman. He did 5 mins in prison.
He cried outside court " i cant do anymore "
A disgrace. Totally.
As the great david noakes said 8 years ago " who do they work for? Not us...we pass eu laws in eu courts to eu rules etc etc "
The accountant for the eu got sacked / pension taken cause she highlighted 95 % of eu spending wasnt traceable . Basically fraudulent.
But 2009 lisbon treaty doesnt allow you to say anything against the eu.

The UK Monarchy hasn't handed anything over to the EU, just the politicians, usually knowingly against the will of the people.