Rory Stewart's citizens' assembly proposal.

[DonPeffers]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48653990    The EU "would be willing to renegotiate" a Brexit deal, says Tory leadership hopeful Jeremy Hunt, adding "they want to solve the problem".  'The EU has previously said the withdrawal agreement reached with the UK cannot be reopened'.  

 

Meanwhile, fellow leadership contender Rory Stewart insisted "there is no new negotiation with Europe". Instead he proposed setting up a citizens' jury to break the Brexit impasse.

 

Under Stewart's plan, a group of 50,000 people would be selected randomly from the electoral register. Those people would get a phone call in late July to check they were available to participate.

A polling company would then whittle the number down, making sure the final group was representative of the country. That group would be given three weeks to make recommendations which Parliament would then be able to approve or reject.

 

BBC article states   Rory Stewart prefers trying to push through the current deal, agreed by Theresa May.  (and rejected 3 times by The Commons). However he says, if that failed, he would turn to the option of a "Brexit assembly" of citizens to thrash out a compromise.

 

So Rory's answer is a citizens, Brexit assembly (of say between 50 to 250 citizens) to solve Brexit in 3 weeks!!!!! : HOWEVER the MPs can still reject the conclusion if they don't like it!!

 

I reckon that with so many of the public sick to the back teeth of the subject it seems likely that only the die-hard extremists would volunteer.

 

https://fullfact.org/online/referendum-results-by-constituency/

 

17.4 million people voted to leave and 16.1 million voted to remain in the EU referendum.

“By constituency  406 Leave,  242 Remain”

“By MP   160 Leave | 486 Remain”

 

When the 'leavers' lost the 1975 EU vote the nation just got on with it and, apart from some MPs plotting, Joe Public just got on with his life even when John Major denied the electorate a referendum on the 1992 Maastricht Treaty (which started the EU integration bandwagon going) and then Tony Blair denied an EU vote on the 2001 Nice and 2007 Lisbon treaties.

 

Don't ask for the voters' view if you have no intention of listening.

 

Now where is that opium pipe?

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

I fail to see what any citizens' jury could achieve with the existing, immutable, agreement. There's far more than the Irish backstop wrong with the May proposal anyway. I don't see how we can leave by any means except by default under Article 50 and the Withdrawal Act as Parliament has repeatedly rejected the only available 'deal' and the default under the laws above is to leave under WTO rules if no agreement is made. Of course Article 50 could be rescinded but the recent scenes in Hong Kong could well be reprised in UK if that were to happen.

 

Rory Stewart is fundamentally a remainer and we've been that way before haven't we? Against all of the predictions Boris Johnson won the mayoral elections twice, and it's not inconceivable that he could do the same in a GE if it is times well. Whether he turns out to be a disastrous PM or not only time will tell, but if he were to win a decent majority then that could be rectified sometime down the line. Personally, while I don't really believe in him, I do believe he may be the best pragmatic choice.

[Captain Colonial]

The problem has always been incredibly simple - the whole thing has been done bass ackwards.  

 

1) Repeal Article 50 (wait for it...)

 

2) Negotiate and agree the best possible deal for leaving as agreed by the EU and Parliament

 

3) Re-trigger Article 50 and leave

 

We don’t need to ask the public again.  This is a democracy, not a plebocracy.  We pay those self-serving idiots a very good salary to do the right thing on our behalf.  Why pay them and then make the decisions ourselves?

 

We are not in a position of strength here.  In a marriage, you can’t just walk out of your house and expect to be able to walk back through the front door again whenever you like.  When you’re buying a car, you don’t sign the contract and then negotiate which car you want.  It’s ridiculous.  Putting a deadline on this means we’ve only shot ourselves in the foot.

[jeff oakley]

I thought it was very telling that May voted for Rory Stewart as her replacement, the only true remainer on the list now. It seems to confirm her heart wasn't really in leaving and why she caved in so easy when the EU said no.

 

As for the citizens jury, how does he think that would work? If they came out to leave the remainers would go nuts and vice versa. Simple facts we voted to leave elect a leader to do just that and draw a line under this.

 

It will cause us pain but we will get over it as everyone will know what is happening and when. It is the uncertainty that is harming our reputation and has pushed Germany to the brink of recession. 

 

 

[Lyonspride]

They'd just hand pick the jury, it'd be rosie cheeked toffs and academics, who because of the proliferation of far left wing views in the UKs academic circles, would end up voting for us to exit the EU on paper, but actually remain fully attached to it.

 

[DonPeffers]

19 hours ago, Captain Colonial said:

The problem has always been incredibly simple - the whole thing has been done bass ackwards.  

 

1) Repeal Article 50 (wait for it...)

 

2) Negotiate and agree the best possible deal for leaving as agreed by the EU and Parliament

 

3) Re-trigger Article 50 and leave

 

We don’t need to ask the public again.  This is a democracy, not a plebocracy.  We pay those self-serving idiots a very good salary to do the right thing on our behalf.  Why pay them and then make the decisions ourselves?

 

We are not in a position of strength here.  In a marriage, you can’t just walk out of your house and expect to be able to walk back through the front door again whenever you like.  When you’re buying a car, you don’t sign the contract and then negotiate which car you want.  It’s ridiculous.  Putting a deadline on this means we’ve only shot ourselves in the foot.

 

  https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/article-50-options    Could the UK buy more time by revoking Article 50?

 

"Until December 2017, it was not clear whether the UK could end the Article 50 process. However, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that a member state could decide to revoke the Article 50 notification unilaterally.

However, the judgment made clear that the purpose of the extension should be to remain in the EU – not just to buy time."

[SootySport]

Parliament has voted not to allow a no deal,

 EEC has said there will be no re-negotiation of the deal offered.

 

Bit of an impasse there, what happens next?

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

If the final deadline passes and no deal has been agreed, well....  No Deal! It's a bit like Canute legislating against high tide - futile.

[Alan France]

Rory will make a passable future Liberal leader.

[Blatman]

Leave Article 50 where it is and we leave on Oct 31, somewhat late...

 

Say to the EU, if you want to trade with us, come along with the deals you want and we will decide if we like them. 'Cos there's no law that says we have to trade with you. Once you're out of the club, the club can't enforce it's rules on you, right? Yes I realise that sounds petulant and clumsy but we as a nation have lots of money to spend. Surely we're big enough and ugly enough to decide for ourselves who we spend it with?

 

I've said it before. Do we really think that the EU is going to tell the German government (for example) that German businesses like VW, Porsche, Mercedes, Bosch, Siemens etc can no longer sell their stuff to the UK? It's ridiculous. Germany and it's economy would tank faster than 2008...

[corsechris]

Quite agree - I don't understand where this entirely apologist/defeatist attitude has come from.

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

9 hours ago, corsechris said:

Quite agree - I don't understand where this entirely apologist/defeatist attitude has come from.