What do you think a confirmatory vote is?

nheather

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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
 
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
 
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.
 
“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.
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.
 
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It would help to balance the needs for practicality with the public's wishes.
 
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
 
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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 enhanced ties with the EU as deal agreed by Parliament? Yes or no
Should the UK leave with no deal? on WTO terms? Yes or no
Should the UK leave the EU? Yes or no
Fixed it, and kept it to two options :)
 
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 ...

News-7-633x371.png


:devil:
 
Confirmatory vote = pass the buck vote. Because the politicians in the Westminster bubble have no idea what to do.

Flummoxed vote would be a better description.
 
If it were a confirmatory vote it would be yes/no on Mays deal.

As soon as you have remain as an option you are just re-running the referendum.
 
If it were a confirmatory vote it would be yes/no on Mays deal.

As soon as you have remain as an option you are just re-running the referendum.

That’s what I interpret how the confirmatory vote as described in the house of commons works.

But it seems a lot of people (including MPs) seem to think it will be the deal or remain.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
That’s what I interpret how the confirmatory vote as described in the house of commons works.

But it seems a lot of people (including MPs) seem to think it will be the deal or remain.

Cheers,

Nigel
The general voting public will not study the deal in any detail. We expect our MPs to have done that before they voted. If it was voted down by Parliament why put this deal as an option? It is obviously a bad deal.

As things stand Parliament has given us nothing to confirm....Unless its a rerun.:(
 
The general voting public will not study the deal in any detail. We expect our MPs to have done that before they voted. If it was voted down by Parliament why put this deal as an option? It is obviously a bad deal.

As things stand Parliament has given us nothing to confirm....Unless its a rerun.:(

Not sure what you are saying. Where have I suggested that a deal that had been voted down would be put to the public vote.

From the start I have stated that my understanding of the confirmatory vote is that Parliament eventually decide something and then it is out to the people as “do you agree, yes or no”.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Not sure what you are saying. Where have I suggested that a deal that had been voted down would be put to the public vote.

From the start I have stated that my understanding of the confirmatory vote is that Parliament eventually decide something and then it is out to the people as “do you agree, yes or no”.

Cheers,

Nigel
I wasn't contradicting your post, just talking through this confirmatory vote idea. Many have suggested that it should be a vote on May's deal or remain....
That to me is a stitch up.
 
I wasn't contradicting your post, just talking through this confirmatory vote idea. Many have suggested that it should be a vote on May's deal or remain....
That to me is a stitch up.

Yes any deal or remain question would be biassed. A bit like:

Arranging a meal for the project team at work

Asks team whether they would prefer Indian or Chinese
Comes back narrowly in favour of Indian
Bugger, I wanted Chinese, I know what to do
Tells team that I have spoken to the Indian and they have a restricted menu that day
So asks them to confirm whether they would prefer Prawn Vindaloo or Chinese
Answer comes back Chinese - yay, I got what I wanted and it was all their decision, I gave them free choice

Cheers,

Nigel
 
"Confirmatory" - of what? TM's deal? Leaving the EU? Hasn't been decided yet. But the language implies that Parliament would expect the public to rubber-stamp ('confirm') whatever deal they proposed. I do think that for something as important as this an indicative or confirmatory vote is a sensible thing to do.

As to what the question would be, Parliament has voted against allowing us to leave the EU with No Deal (or on WTO Terms), so that's out. Thereafter I suppose it depends how they want the vote - or votes - to go.

Would they give us one vote with 3 or 4 choices? E.g. Deal X, Deal Y, Remain or None of the Above.

Or would they do it with two rounds: Round 1: Deal X or Deal Y. Then Round 2: Winning Deal vs Remain.

Or do it the other way round: Round 1: Remain vs 'A Deal'. Then: Deal X vs Deal Y.

Fact is, we don't have direct democracy, so no matter how often MPs talk about 'the will of the people', or how many referenda/votes we have, ultimately Parliament decides, not us.

One thing is abundantly clear though and that is that the MPs have acted in their own and their Parties' interests and not in the interest of the country. They should have set aside their ideologies and got together to sort this out a long time ago.
 
Rebranding the referendum. Marketing ploy and pass the buck. Let's face it, Labour are desperately trying to avoid being held accountable when the music stops and no chair left to sit on.

Peoples vote version x.x and we (Labour/momentum/Len) can blame the people.
 
"Confirmatory" - of what? TM's deal? Leaving the EU? Hasn't been decided yet. But the language implies that Parliament would expect the public to rubber-stamp ('confirm') whatever deal they proposed. I do think that for something as important as this an indicative or confirmatory vote is a sensible thing to do.

I know they haven’t come up with anything to confirm yet. The reason I have asked the question, is that I agree with you, that the confirmatory vote comes into play once parliament have agreed on a way to leave but then asks the public “are you okay with this approach, yes or no”.

So if/when TM and JC rush through some bloody awful Frankenstein approach which is the TM deal with customs union bolted on, just so they don’t have to go through the European Elections, Labour in particular seem keen that the public should be asked to go with it or not.

I started this thread because that doesn't make much sense to me so asking what you guys think. These are some issues I have with it

(1) waste of money and time because there is a very high probability that a true confirmatory vote to any leave deal will come back as a ‘NO’. Because there are 48% of people who will say NO because they don’t want to leave at all. And of the 52% there will be some that don’t like that method of leaving.

(2) there isn’t time. If TM and JC want to rush something through to stop the European Elections, there isn’t time for them to do that and arrange a nationwide vote.

(3) I hear a lot of people, including MPs that are interpreting any confirmatory vote as “do you want this or do you want to remain”. That is not how I read the definition of the confirmatory vote but I worry that this could be used to set up a loaded biassed question.

(4) I also think that what most of the MPs really want is to agree that we should revoke article 50 and put that to a confirmatory vote which would essentially re-running the referendum but with the question reversed. I’m convinced that they would live to do this, but it depends on if either the conservatives or labour have the guts to declare themselves as undemocratic risking their future. I’m sure that many of the more stupid MPs are thinking that by putting it to the people to confirm would cancel out any non-constitutional behaviour on their part but whether the party leaders will take the risk is another matter.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
That’s what I interpret how the confirmatory vote as described in the house of commons works.

But it seems a lot of people (including MPs) seem to think it will be the deal or remain.

Cheers,

Nigel

If it's that (deal or remain), then its not confirmatory, imo.

We've already voted to leave, so, if it's confirmation that they want, it's a simple choice between how we leave. Deal (sellout) or no deal (leave).

Anything else is Referendum No 2 (to try a result that the establishment like (EU style)).
 
If it's that (deal or remain), then its not confirmatory, imo.

We've already voted to leave, so, if it's confirmation that they want, it's a simple choice between how we leave. Deal (sellout) or no deal (leave).

Anything else is Referendum No 2 (to try a result that the establishment like (EU style)).

Think we are agreeing. A confirmatory vote, as it has been defined in Parliament, is not actually useful. It isn’t a choice between options, it si a “we would like to go with this, can we or not”. Total waste if time and money in my opinion, for reasons I have already given, because for any leave deal the answer will in all probability be NO.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
As I understand it the main difference between a Confirmatory Vote (CV) and the previous referendum is that Parliament would not need to debate what to do after the CV as it would be decided, in two different forms, beforehand with legislation ready drawn-up and ready to enact. The CV result would then trigger which piece of legislation was enacted automatically.

The previous referendum was only advisory with MPs making final decision, or not in this case so far. o_O

As I see it, and allowing people to have the opportunity to change their mind from before, we could have a two part question with a stipulation that both parts be answered as a requirement for a valid vote along the lines of:

1. Do you want to leave or remain in the EU?
2. If leaving do you prefer for the current Withdrawal Agreement (May's deal) or No Deal?

The result would then be enacted in law and we would move-on .... unless someone launches a legal case disputing the need for the first part of the question as that had already been answered previously or Farage calls for a best of three. :D
 

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