UKC

If you, like me, are horrified that now admitted illegalities during the referendum campaign appear to have been known to the Prime Minister and other key personnel before triggering A50, but not released to Parliament when they were asked to vote on it, you may wish to consider signing the following petition:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241848/signatures/new

At the very least, it could help increase media coverage of the facts and the cover-up, which has received extremely poor media coverage since it was admitted by the Leave campaign a couple of days ago, itself timed to coincide with Yaxley-Lennon's march so as to be most easily buried.

In reply to john arran:

Great, hopefully this will bring the issue more into the light if nothing else, making the issue harder to dodge when people are talking about the possibility of a second referendum.

In reply to john arran:

Unfortunately they haven't really admitted their illegalities, claiming that they ran out of money to pursue their appeal, and would have won...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47755611

An alternative story - Gisela Stuart has claimed that they couldn't prove their case because they'd destroyed all their data. Cue mocking laughter...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-vote-leave-drops-appe...

In reply to john arran:

It's shocking that more people didn't know how corrupt and gangster like the un elected eu dictators are before the vote - we would definitely left by now if we hadn't been lied to ! 

In reply to Timmd:

Or it will confirm the Remoaner attitude and help strip away  our democracy some more !  Moan whine bitch and complain

= Remoaner 

In reply to Monkeysee:

Yes, If only the Illumminati hadn't hidden that shocking footage of the EU Prison Camps in Brussels, and the huddled millions in Europe awaiting the midnight knock on the door from the feared and shadowy M.E.Ps. Wake up, sheeple! 

In reply to pebbles:

The current vice president of the eu commission has just lost his seat as president of Slovakia. Defeated heavily by a newcomer running on an anti corruption ticket. Her predecessor was assassinated though for investigating links between criminals and politicians. 

In reply to summo:

Any actual accusations to accompany your implications?

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

None. Just pointing that perhaps not every politician in the eu is as clean as a whistle. He was resoundingly thrashed by the voters though. We have the Ukrainian comedian and erodagan just lost too. Lots happening in Europe, despite many claiming the eu is stability. The reality is everything changes with time, regardless of which political club you favour. 

On the Brexit corruption; who knows. Were Camerons UK marketing leaflets ever costed? Every house, paper plus postage. Can't have been cheap. 

In reply to summo:

As examples of corruption in the EU I find those curiously unconvincing for some reason that I can't put my finger on.

In reply to summo:

Schrodinger’s EU: undemocratic yet unable to prevent surprise election results in member states. How DO they do it?

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

I didn't say the eu was undemocratic(Nor have I ever), he was defeated in Slovakian elections not eu. 

But, when he was elected as vice president of the commission, who did you vote for? We didn't have choice, he was chosen by MEPs. Which is interesting, as it's a bit like MPs appointing Lords, which so many find unacceptable, but it's fine if the eu runs a similar system. Both are open to bias and vested interests. 

In reply to summo:

MPs do not appoint Members of the House of Lords.

Comparing the flaws in both systems is a fruitless exercise, simply because they are such different types of system. Nobody voted for Theresa May as Prime Minister - not even the membership of the Conservative Party had a say in her appointment as leader of the party - and yet, because of the way the UK system works, we are stuck with her, in all her uselessness. 'We' didn't have a choice. 

In reply to summo:

Lords are appointed for life or worse inherit their power.

It's more like appointing civil servants. Eliminating cronyism from the process is frankly impossible, if we directly elected like we do our MPs then the cronyism just shifts to the stage of candidate nomination/funding as happens with MPs. C'est la vie, you don't have to like it but before you burn it all to the ground I want a concrete proposal for a better replacement. Currently all I hear is whiny bellyaching.

jk

In reply to summo:

£9M. Absolute buttons compared to the billions we've squandered since pursuing your lunacy. Backing remain with their dreary pamphlet is about the last responsible thing our government did!

jk

In reply to john arran:

Great April fool.

A petition how wonderful .

In reply to Bob Kemp:

Isn't destroying data a little bit illegal. I was always told to keep my work diaries for at least 5 years.

Gisela Stuart... soooo plausible. Never been able to understand what flicks her switch. What on earth is it all for.

In reply to Harry Jarvis:

My mistake. A mp goes to the pm and says that some jolly rich chap in my yacht club wants to donate a squillion if you make them a Lord. 

Or, you write a report saying a politically party isn't racist and hey presto you're a Lady. 

There have been various votes of confidence and elections etc recently and she scraped through. The people might think she is dire, but they don't want Corbyn and the Tory party at least for a few more weeks don't want another leader either. 

Yes. I agree it's outdated two party adversarial politics. Some form of PR could only be better. 

In reply to summo:

Yes, your mistake. Not for the first time, nor, I suspect, the last. Your characterisation of the process is some way from the truth. 

With that, I agree entirely. 

In reply to Harry Jarvis:

Truth then?....

So if an mp doesn't decide who gets a seat in the lords who does? I am counting the pm as an mp, who as party leader is clearly influenced by their own MPs. 

In reply to summo:

Over here we got a parliament largely staffed with clowns and buffoons and the possibility of Boris as PM is looming. A comedian as prime minister sounds like a markedly improvement to be fair.

More like MP's electing the PM. We don't have a choice on who the UK's PM is, he/she gets chosen by the MP's and you don;t have a choice on who is chosen.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

We look forward to your constructive suggestions...

In reply to Monkeysee:

Snarky posts work much better with evidence. 

In reply to Bob Kemp:

Suggestions on a petition ? 

And would it make any difference ?

In reply to Pete Pozman:

I'm not sure of the wider legal position, but in the case of Leave EU it might depend on when they destroyed the data, as they're under investigation by the ICO:

'The ICO noted “it is a criminal offence to obstruct an ICO audit or destroy information covered by it”.'

- https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/01/leave-eu-arron-banks-insura...

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Will be interesting how it plays out. There seems more and more people from non political backgrounds being elected. I don't think it can be a bad thing. There are more roots into politics than PPE at Oxbridge.

Was TM leader in the 2017 general election? Who comes next and when though that is different. Gordon Brown was never elected and took the UK into the Lisbon treaty(although Milliband signed it).

Do you a think a USA style system is better? Where it's more about voting for the person first and their party politics second. Blair is an example, Labour badge, tory lite policies. 

In reply to Pete Pozman:

Adrian mole anyone? 

Hmrc requires tax records, receipts, invoices  etc.. I'm not sure diaries are that critical. Unless you are Trump and have things like "May 2017.. had biggly good meeting with  FSB about election rigging today, amazing man, so wise"

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Suggestions as to alternatives, as you're so cynical about petitions. 

I do agree that they don't do a great deal when we have a government composed of politicians who lie, dissemble and avoid responsibility, and historically e-petitions don't accomplish much anyway. What they can do is help get issues aired and get people a little more involved in the democratic process. They do more good than harm.

[Edit - I just remembered Tony Blair's road pricing scheme, which I think is probably one of the few examples of a successful e-petition in that road pricing is pretty much off the agenda these days after a big response to a petition, even if not completely dumped.]

In reply to summo:

Now that we've moved on from slagging off the democratic credentials of the EU (whose Commission Presidents are elected from all elected reps) and onto the democratic credentials of the UK (whose Lords are appointed by a single person), isn't it great that if all goes wrong next week we'll be able to bask in our new control over inequities we've had control over all along?

In reply to john arran:

I'm 100% sure I've never used the phrase taking back control! No democracy is perfect, I would say the UK and the eu systems both have flaws. I see no solution though. As there are worse examples out there like the usa.

Will be curious with the slovaks case, can you represent your country on the commission if your own country don't want you anymore. 

In reply to Bob Kemp:

I think I'm just sick of it all now .  Especially since the last petition topped 6 million and I got a email about it saying basically  sod off from the government.

Nobody is listening at the high levels of government or opposition .

Local elections soon and I cannot vote for anyone that's got a chance of getting in .

I'd blow all the political parties to hell now for the utter incompetence they have displayed. 

I suspect I'm not the only one of the population to feel this way.

In reply to summo:

Agreed. If anything it reminds people that politics are not just for the career politicians, even oif it usually ends up in shambles.

So you agree that the UK voters do not have a choice to who the PM is then? She was voted as leader by the tory party, as MP by 30000 people in Maidstone, and as PM by the Tory and DUP MP's. 

No, i'm happy with a representative democracy both in the UK via MP's and in the EU via MEP's + council.

In reply to summo:

Errr.... The commission, or more specifically staffers in the commission, don't represent individual countries. They just come up with ideas and proposal for the advancement of the EU members as a whole under the direction of the Council of Europe and EU parliament. It is not a representative role.

Also, he's not the Vice-president of the "EU Commission", but a vice-president (out of 6 or 7 currently) and more specifically in the European Commission for Energy. It is a civil servant/diplomat position, and not a political one

Not to take it in a bad way, but honestly, if the whole 'unelected beureaucrats' thing is an actual concern rather than an oft used and misleading beating stick, a little bit of research into how the EU works and some fact checking of the lovely tabloid headlines you may encounter would do well to assail your concerns. Obviously only if you are genuniely concerned and interested in facts though, otherwise just read the Express for more inspiration for ways of attacking the EU.

In reply to Monkeysee:

To be honest, as a remainer, while disappointed I was reasonably 'fair enough' with Brexit so long as any workers rights, food standards, environmental protections and human rights in the UK weren't diminished following it, because it's the nature of democracy that one doesn't always win, but if the referendum had been a binding one, rather than advisory, because of these irregularities it would have been declared null and void.  With that in mind, any stripping away of democracy would be to follow this referendum through.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Not quite the case. She was not elected as leader of the Tory party by the party. The only people who voted for her as leader of the party were 199 Tory MPs. The other four contenders were either eliminated (Gove and Fox), or withdrew when it became obvious to them that they would not receive sufficient votes to be put forward to the wider party membership. Quite why these two - Leadsom and Crabb - ever thought they were contenders is beyond me. 

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Or the Mail, Telegraph, Times, etc. etc.