On Tue, 8 Nov 2016 12:05:45 +0000, "Clive D.W. Feather" wrote:

On 07/11/2016 13:35, tim... wrote:
So why are they desperately pushing ahead with Brexit despite it being
because it's what the people voted for

But it was a non-binding advisory vote.

If the government had intended it to be binding on them, they could have
written one line into the referendum Act to say so. Which would have
also saved them an embarrassing defeat in the High Court (and, I
predict, a repeat in the Supreme Court).

When a government is defeated in a general election the outgoing PM advises the monarch to ask the
leader of the winning party to form a government. But if this is only advisory, the Queen doesn't
have to follow it, does she? Well of course she does because "advised" in practice means
"instructed".

Similarly, the people "advise" parliament in referendums. But in practice after every referendum,
parliament does as instructed by the people (Europe in 1975, Scottish, Welsh, London, North-East
devolution, N. Irish border, alternative vote, Scottish independence). Why should this one be any
different?

Cameron promised to "implement what [we] decide" but then resigned instead. Ball is now in May's
court.

We had a civil war in the 1640s. There was unrest in later centuries to reform the franchise. In
1910 the House of Lords had to be faced down, and suffragettes broke windows, chained themselves to
railings and one died in a spectacular way under the King's horse at a race meeting. The Remoaners
had better be careful about provoking conflict today.