when is a vote not a vote? And what is a referendum?

  

The issue of when a vote isn’t a vote interested the two weathermen.

 Weatherman  1 : So are we in or out of Europe?

Weatherman  2 :  We’re going to think about it.

WM1 : Didn’t we vote to leave? Isn’t it the communal will to leave?

WM 2 : The law doesn’t recognise communal will – it recognises decisions and votes made in Parliament.

WM1 : So we voted for what then?

WM2 : You chose either to authorise parliament to discuss  the conditions under which article 50 should be invoked,  or not.

WM1 : I heard David Davis say that Parliament voted,  by six to one, to pass the decision to the people.

WM2 : But they couldn’t do that. No person or body is recognised by the law as having the right to set aside legislation made in Parliament. Not even MPs.

WM1 : So what did they vote for then?

WM2 : MPs are a bit confused. They had forgotten that Parliament makes the laws. A simple in/out vote cannot repeal legislation.   

WM1 : So MPS don’t understand constitutionally what happens. How did they get to be MPs?

WM2 : Winning a vote in a general  election does not mean you understand how law works, and it’s becoming clear they didn’t.

WM1 : So they applied for and got a job without really having a grasp of their responsibilities when they were elected?

WM2 :  Maybe they just forgot...

WM1 : Everyone thought the vote was a trigger.

WM2 : But it was a request for Parliament to convene to consider the laws which tie us to the EU. If the referendum had said explicitly “in voting, I am authorising Parliament to circumnavigate Parliamentary sovereignty” then the legal challenge to the government’s wish to invoke article 50 may not have been possible. Leaving the EU repeals laws enshrined in our constitution and that requires an act of Parliament. The free movement of people across Europe was concreted in an act of Parliament. The MPs have a collective power to start the pneumatic drills to break it all up, but we don’t.

WM1 : So nobody understood what they were voting for?

WM2 : The people were mislead. But there is a request from the majority that new laws removing old ones should be passed. We can’t make laws.

WM1 : This could take a while then.

WM2 : Since it was the older generations who voted to leave, by the time we do they will be too old to care.

WM1 : So then there can be another referendum to overturn what has taken eons to achieve.

WM2 : It won’t overturn it – merely ask Parliament to look at it again.

WM1 : Pantomime season is about to start, but not just in the Theatres.