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Parliament must vote on whether the UK can start the process of leaving the EU, the High Court has ruled.
This means the government cannot trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - beginning formal exit negotiations with the EU - on its own.
Theresa May says the referendum - and existing ministerial powers - mean MPs do not need to vote, but campaigners called this unconstitutional.
The government is appealing, with a further hearing expected next month.
- Rolling reaction to Article 50 court ruling
- Kuenssberg: Will this mean early election?
- The High Court's judgement in full
- Brexit: All you need to know
A statement is to be made to MPs on Monday but the prime minister's official spokesman said the government had "no intention of letting" the judgement "derail Article 50 or the timetable we have set out. We are determined to continue with our plan".
Plebiscites only count when plebes vote the way they're told.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04 2016, @09:10AM
I think there are two major responses to this.
The first is that what you're saying is what everybody thinks because of a typical phenomena that everybody thinks everybody else is an idiot. In most polls of perceived intelligence in the US you'll find a ballpark of 90% of people thinking they're smarter than 50% of people and 50% of people think they're smarter than 90% of people. Look at the polls on actual policy issues. By and large the populace gets it right, quite often when politicians get it wrong. People are certainly subject to propaganda and advertising, but so are politicians, and it's easier to fool a few hundreds of people than a few hundreds of millions of people.
The second point is that politicians don't know what they're doing. I used to be somewhat conspiratorial in that I thought politicians were mostly acting stupid for rhetorical purposes - US popular culture is trending against intelligence and so acting a fool or at least, shall we say 'colloquially', was just a self marketing deception. But now that we have the sort of real access to politicians discussions and plannings that they expected to be held in confidence, it's clear that it's not an act. Our leaders are no better than the mean in terms of intelligence and worldview. In many ways I think their general trends of narcissism likely puts them slightly below the mean as narcissism tends to make objective considerations all but impossible. Even if I don't think highly of the public I'd take 300 million idiots coming to a decision over 300 idiots coming to a decision anytime. It removes the essence of personal corruption and transforms it onto a national in which case we can at least finally truly be held accountable for own actions as they actually would be our actions.
And as a final aside, there needn't be any reason we keep the current majority, let alone plurality, pass systems. Require 70% approval for anything to be passed and it ensure that only things that the vast majority of society, with all of its diversity of opinion and thought, supports would pass.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04 2016, @10:35AM
Competent people are always a minority, except in the few things where incompetence prevents survival. And the nanny state ensures that those things are ever fewer. The populace's total incompetence is a crop that is carefully raised and nurtured.
To argue for simple democracy in our day, is simple. And representative of majority. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04 2016, @10:41AM
And as a final aside, there needn't be any reason we keep the current majority, let alone plurality, pass systems. Require 70% approval for anything to be passed and it ensure that only things that the vast majority of society, with all of its diversity of opinion and thought, supports would pass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 04 2016, @02:28PM
Which is better, being ruled by a bunch of people flying by the seat of their pants and not knowing what they're doing, or being ruled by a group of very competent people who are in it just for themselves?
Pretty much the root question in this election, too :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 05 2016, @07:11AM
Again, read the emails. Hillary's own staff bemoan her ineptitude. One referencing her "not knowing which planet she's living in" in regards to her general disconnect with reality and lack of practical knowledge. Countless other emails make similar allusions. And Trump also isn't exactly mensa material either. And aside from their own staff finding them incompetent, their positions are far from nuanced or based on what they find objectively best. It all comes down to the fact that you're basing your opinion of them based on the one and only thing they're skilled at - image crafting.