{"id":8266,"date":"2019-04-02T16:29:01","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T16:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=8266"},"modified":"2019-04-03T08:38:54","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T08:38:54","slug":"peoples-vote-and-revoke-right-options-in-wrong-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2019\/04\/peoples-vote-and-revoke-right-options-in-wrong-place\/","title":{"rendered":"#People\u2019s Vote and #Revoke: good options badly placed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday (March 29), the British Parliament once again \u2018took back control\u2019 of the Brexit process from our hapless government. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MPs held another round of indicative votes on what Brexit policy might possibly secure a majority in the House of Commons. Once again a set of\u00a0motions<\/a>\u00a0were tabled, and once again our representatives set about voting\u00a0Aye<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0No<\/em>to those selected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet again, no\nmotion secured a majority<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other people have commented on how a series of binary votes is\nprobably not the best method for weighing up many competing options. It prompts\npeople to abstain or stick to only their preferred option, in the hopes of\nhanging-in-there, becoming the last idea standing<\/a>. A \u2018single\ntransferable vote\u2019 option, where MPs rank the proposals in order of preference,\nwould be better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u2019m not here for that. Instead, I want to say this: The\n\u2018People\u2019s Vote\u2019 proposal<\/a> (put\nforward by Peter Kyle MP) and the \u2018Revoke Article 50\u2019 proposal<\/a> (tabled\nby Joanna Cherry MP) should have had no place in the \u2018indicative vote\u2019 process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Well, for two reasons. First, MPs are still considering how we might leave<\/em>. What they need to show (to the European Union, to the government, to their colleagues, and to us) is what could plausibly be written into the Political Declaration that accompanies the Withdrawal Agreement, setting out what we hope the end state relationship with the EU will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither #PeoplesVote or #Revoke are about leaving the EU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, they are about process<\/em>. The People\u2019s Vote idea is compatible with any of the proposals for leaving the EU. It could be a requirement of Theresa May\u2019s thrice rejected deal, Ken Clarke\u2019s Customs Union<\/a>, Nick Boles\u2019 Commons Market 2.0<\/a>, or George Eustice\u2019s EFTA\/EEA<\/a>(which wasn\u2019t voted on again last night).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Joanna Cherry\u2019s proposal is nothing at all to do with the Political Declaration. It is a sensible insurance policy against No Deal Brexit, saying that if we are in danger of crashing out of the EU then we either approve No Deal, or Revoke Article 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So while I think a People\u2019s Vote and the Insurance Policy are both desirable, it makes no sense to consider them as options alongside proposals about markets, customs and trade. I actually think that the prospects for both proposals have been damaged by being mis-categorised in this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttpss:\/\/twitter.com\/robertsharp59\/status\/1112830701748084738\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First published on the <\/em>author’s site <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured image: Houses of Parliament mit Big Ben: photo k_tjaaa CC BY 2.0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parliamentary paralysis: the real error is placing #PeoplesVote and #Revoke options alongside options for a deal, says Robert Sharp <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":8270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[421],"tags":[122],"class_list":["post-8266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-brexit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}