What do you think a confirmatory vote is?

nheather

Labour are in the news today with several of their party saying that it is important that JC doesn’t drop their desire for a confirmatory vote.

But, to be honest, I’m not sure what is meant by a confirmatory vote.

It has been raised a few times as an option in the reason indicative votes - and then the description has been along the lines of “any agreed deal will be put to a public vote”.

To me this is very clear, parliament agree a deal, be it no-deal, May deal, customs union, CM2.0, Norway , whatever, let’s call it Deal X, but before progressing any further it is put to a public confirmatory vote which would mean

“Should the UK proceed with Deal X? YES or NO”

The problem with this is that it is a very expensive way for the public to say “NO” putting parliament back to square one.

But I wonder, because of the way so many MPs and people welcome the idea with zest, whether they think a confirmatory vote is a modified and biassed re-run of the referendum along the lines of

“Should we leave the EU with Deal X or remain? LEAVE WITH DEAL X or REMAIN”


Interested to hear what you think a ‘confirmatory vote’ is?

Cheers,

Nigel

Greg Hook

If, and it is a massive if, a deal gets agreed by parliament, then a confirmatory vote should give the public the chance to say yes or no to it.

You could have two or three questions, as you said above.

Should the UK proceed with the deal agreed by Parliament? Yes or no
Should the UK leave with no deal? Yes or no
Should the UK leave the EU? Yes or no

Trollslayer

They are following the American habit of just making up words.
Indicative would be more accurate.
I think they are throwing words around so they can ignore it if they want.

Rasczak

I don't think that would necessarily put Parliament back to square one.  MPs would be informed by the decision and continue to use their own judgement to find a solution which would probably mean choosing between  no deal and revoke.

Trollslayer

It would help to balance the needs for practicality with the public's wishes.

nheather

So far we are agreed then, it is exactly as it reads, “here is the deal, do you want it or not”.

I get that parliament want to shift the responsibility from them to the public but to me it seems like a massive waste of money and time because this is what is most likely to happen in my mind.

Lets say it is still 52% leave, 48% remain.

So most of the remainers would vote “NO” because they don’t want to leave.

And the leavers will be split between the moderates and hards so there is a good chance many will vote “NO”.

So the most likely outcome of any confirmatory vote against a LEAVE deal will be “NO”.

Of course a trick the MPs might play is “let’s remain”.  Of course they don’t want to be being seen as undemocratic so they will pass the buck over to the public as “Do you want to remain in the EU? YES or NO” which is effectively re-running the referendum but with the question reversed.

But that would need to be manipulated carefully.  Eiether of the main parties would want to make the public think that the other party came up with the idea and they were forced to play along.

Cheers,

Nigel

Bl4ckGryph0n

Fixed it, and kept it to two options

krish

"no deal" still too emotive?

Bl4ckGryph0n

Yup

krish

But Noel Edmonds could return on polling night with a Deal or No Deal special

Apparently already in rehearsal - here they are with the No Deal oooh WTO terms outcome ...