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Parcel Of Rogue's avatar

The Referendum was in the uniquely dreadful situation that it was setup legally as an advisory Referendum, but that Cameron had told the public that they would definitely carry it out.

By making it advisory, the Leave side could be as lying, confusing and misleading as they liked, campaigning from several positions at once, with none of them producing the final outcome and not to have any of this challenged in the courts. By contrast in Switz, the maximum 4 campaigns p.a., need to write a clear manifesto and if campaigning strays out of that area and they win, the result is thrown out by courts, as happened quite recently. Rep. Of Ireland also have far better methods and safeguards. I heard a complaint from there that nobody asked them for their input.

Nor did Cameron have the power to force Parliament to carry out any particular deal, so he couldn't even make them carry it out. Nor did he stay and supervise the process as he had pledged to voters.

If a particular version of Brexit had been written down, maybe 1/3-2/3 of Brexit campaigners would have rejected it and it is highly unlikely that voters would have got it over the line. But Cameron was more concerned with appeasement, giving every bit of red meat to his ERG right that they asked for. Now we are living with the terrible consequences.

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Parcel Of Rogue's avatar

Will the Tory Party offer to take us back in? It's a well strange idea and not one I have any insight into, but they were ruthless enough to make people want out against all the expert views and with public opinion changing fast or the Leave vote dying off, it might give them some sort of a boost. But the Tory Party is not going to spring back on the back of any one measure. If they have a future it would be a long process.

If the Tories did support rejoining or some similar position, it would give the green light to Labour and the LibDems to push harder. It would remove an EU presumed red line against giving the UK full membership in case the Tories came back to want to Leave a 2nd time. If it did revive the Tories a bit it might also be at the expense of ReUK. So it can only be good thing long term and stranger things have happened. One of them is walking around, having been beaten by a lettuce.

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