claretspice wrote:One other point - I'm fascinated by this argument that there's a mandate for no-deal because the ballot paper didn't distinguish between the different types of Brexit that were on offer.
At one level, it's perfectly true. The ballot paper made no such distinction. But that is as much an argument for supporting Theresa May's deal as it is for supporting no deal. Perhaps more so. And yet of course, many of those politicians who voted against May's deal because it wasn't their conception of Brexit, are now conveniently hiding behind the wooliness (inadequacy, you might say) of the referendum question to support a no deal brexit (which all credible evidence points to causing an immediate and significant recession).
You cannot have your cake and eat it.
You can find support in what certain campaigners said for the fact that "leave" could mean "leave with no deal". But the irony here is that these were primarily remain campaigners, and the inverse is true - the overwhelming message of the leave campaign was that a deal was inevitable and leaving the EU did not entail a cliff-edge, no deal brexit.
The ballot paper does not answer the question "what sort of brexit should we have". In that situation, it strikes me the grown up answer is, "one that does the least harm - based on expert evidence - to jobs and prosperity in this country, and which does not cause particular harm to any one nation within the UK". Quite obviously, that's not no-deal.
Hi spice, that's a remarkably specious argument you are making. The question was remain or leave, and logically and rightly so. Let's consider it from the remain side; should the question have been "and how do you want to remain?" Of course, if we voted remain we were agreeing that our government and MPs would to make these decisions on our behalf, including negotiating and positioning the UK relative to other 27 members of the EU. The same, of course, applies on the leave side.
It is also, logically, irrelevant for the leave decision, again, not least because the UK agreed with the EU to have 2 stages in leaving: 1) withdrawal agreement and 2) future trade relationship. Finally, wherever we are on 31 Oct it is the final position. It can and will change in the future.
We can and will have different views about the future when (if?) the UK leaves the EU. Those things, just as if we didn't leave, are the responsibility of our Gov't - and subject to scrutiny and support or opposition in parliament.