UH OOOOOOH
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46446694
Who would've thought. Brexit is such an appalling mistake and it should be ditched asap.
Also, the ECJ Advocate General has let on that the UK can unilaterally stop Brexit by just rescinding their invocation of article 50. Holding the door open in case you guys want to come back.
Shouldn't they honor the first referendum by leaving first?
No.
So what happens now? Ignore the will of the people? This how we preserve faith in our democratic system?
Ideally, we treat the referendum for what it was: purely advisory, non-binding and never intended to shackle the government to what a miniscule majority favored.
The will of the people can also change. People voted on a pipe dream of what Brexit might be and how it would pan out. Those who voted Remain all wanted the exact same and very concrete thing. Those who voted Leave are a basket case of people who all have a different view of what Brexit should be. Some want a complete no deal severance of all ties with Europe. Others want to remain in the Single Market with limitless trading, or to adopt one of the many other types of arrangements (Canada / USA / Norway / Switzerland style...), or only to stop people from freely moving and working in the UK, or a million other things. There's thousands of people who are going "well, I wanted to leave the EU but not like that - that's a terrible idea and not worth it". It's like someone saying they just want to get rid of their special membership card at the local supermarket and then be told afterwards that this also means they'll be banned from the store entirely. Your hardcore Brexiter might say "if we're leaving on those terms and maintain a trade relationship with the EU, then we're just following their rules without having a say in them - that's an even worse situation than what we had before, fuck it", while your mild Leaver might have the opposite opinion and say "woah, I wanted out of the EU bureaucracy but not if it meant we'd have to close our entire border and miss out on billions in trade with the EU, fuck that".
It's not really the will of the people when you force them to deal in absolutes and make a simple yes/no decision on an incredibly complex topic they likely don't even fully understand the consequences of and don't even know what the outcome will look like. It's like being asked to choose between a free holiday abroad (sounds great!) or just staying at home, when choosing the first unexpectedly has you travel 3 days in the back of a garbage truck to get to a grimy motel in the shittiest part of another country. Had you known that the free trip would be like that, you would've never agreed to it. It's hardly the people's will when it relates to a topic they've been fed dozens of lies, empty promises and misleading propaganda about. It's no longer informed, accurate or truthful at that point.
And this is by far the best way to keep faith in our democratic system. There's a reason we more or less ditched direct democracy. Specialization is a cornerstone of societal and economic development and progress. The more complicated stuff gets, the less we can all be experts at everything. It's why instead of every household learning how to make its own crappy shoes, baskets, houses and food, we now have people who specialize and excel at all these things so that we trade our skills for the best results. Same thing applies here. We can't all be experts with years of experience and degrees in trade, diplomacy, law, science, environmental policy, economics, healthcare and so on, which is why we elected people who share our values but do know these things to represent us and make informed, beneficial and smart decisions based on our votes.
Brexit is a horrible mistake and that's becoming more obvious by the day. Asking John Doe who couldn't even tell you what the EU is and who's oblivious to the fact that it subsidizes more than half his agricultural business to make a huge decision after reading bold lies in the Sun about how Europe is going to make Juncker the new King of England is insane, and then following up on it over the tiniest minority is even more so.
Just fuck my Brexit up