Does Brexit referendum is Legally binding?

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We shall see what happens in the negotiations/debates between Scotland and England.

Scotland has a pawn in this game.

But a referendum is not something that should be taken lightly. I don't like the precedence it would produce should it not be implemented (except via another referendum disavowing this one).

The UK, officially, doesn't even have a written Constitution, as far as I can determine.

Not honoring the referendum means means governments can run helter-skelter if it chooses not to honor the will of the people.

Hopefully, the two-year period ordained by Article 50 can be used as a sort of "cooling-off" period. Then maybe there could be a referendum undoing the 2016 one.

Referendum canceling another referendum, this little Orwellian, would not you? But in the end we are talking about Great Britain

Another referendum would be a great political scandal, and raping in the ass, the will of voters.
This refendum was a political error on the part of David Cameron, but since wrote out a referendum should be regarded as binding.

Because it is as if the referee in league (soccer) football match, found the winners of the team that had fever goals than opposing team , such referee would be quickly been lynched by the crowd

Last edited by pawelk1986 on 27 Jun 2016, 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I believe you are exaggerating.

I don't advocate anything Orwellian.

With respect to the instant question, the answer is clear. Nothing in the legislation providing for the referendum speaks to the result being binding. In the absence of legislation, there is nothing to diminish the supremacy of Parliament.

There are, however, a couple of more interesting questions. To what extent is Parliament politically bound to honour the result? And what authority does the Prime Minister require to trigger Article 50?

In my view, the answer to the first question is, "Less, with each passing day." Since we are out of the realm of the legal and into the political, there are many factors that Parliament is free to bring into its consideration.

1) The 52% figure equates to less than 40% of the electorate--an electorate which excludes expatriate British citizens (present company included) whose rights as European citizens are being compromised without enfranchisement. It's well and proper that I can't vote in local and parliamentary elections in the UK. But on a question that touches on my citizenship rights, there is a political question about the threshold that should be met. Parliament could say, that in the absence of a mandate from a majority of the electorate (rather than a majority of voters) that it will take no action.

2) Westminster is, effectively, a federal Parliament. Although the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly are creatures of Parliament, and their objections could be overridden by statutory amendment, the political consequence of so doing may be greater than the political consequence of delay, or refusal, to give legal effect to Brexit.

3) The economic impacts are, as yet, unclear. The significant economic impact has not yet shaken out. Where is the new equilibrium for the pound? How many financial services firms will relocate significant parts of their trading operations to Frankfurt and Paris? How much tax revenue, currently generated by The City is going to have to be replaced on the backs of individuals and British companies?

4) If economic impacts are unclear, Security is potentially worse. What is the border plan in Ireland? An Open border was a centrepiece of the Good Friday Accords. Is that possible if the United Kingdom no longer permits free movement from Europe?

5) From Friday morning, it became apparent that the Leave campaign was based on at least two colossal lies. First, nothing like £350 million a week goes to Europe. Factoring in the UK rebate, and the value of EU transfers to the UK, the net savings to the Treasury are less than half that amount, and do not count the program costs of replacing the regulatory functions that are currently undertaken by the EU government. (The UK will have to have a means to create and implement food and drug regulations, and to negotiate air services agreements, after all). Second, because the UK is not and never has been in Schengen, the impact of EU membership on UK control of migration is minimal. True, Poles and Romanians can enter free of controls--but the net inflow of migrants to the UK isn't European. So if the referendum was based even in part on lies, then is it still politically valid?

and most importantly:

6) The United Kingdom is a Parliamentary democracy, not a direct democracy. It is open to a Prime Minister to Advise a dissolution, and fight an election. If the result of a "Did you mean it?" election is to elect a pro-Europe majority, then the referendum result is politically void.

As for the second question, there is no British Constitution to consult about the extent of the Prime Minister's power to trigger Article 50. However, the Westminster Convention is clear that an outgoing Prime Minister ought not bind his successor with actions that cannot readily be undone. So it seems clear that Cameron cannot, and Cameron's successor may need Parliamentary authority--and a majority of MP's supported remain.

Referendum is a referendum no matter the outcome (as long as it's done properly; I'm guessing this one was with its high turn out and no real evidence of fraud).

So, the government has to make it legal for it to be a free and democratic country.

Your argument is a political one, not a legal one.

The question was not, "is the United Kingdom a free and democratic country." The question was whether the referendum was legally binding.

Since the referendum was known, from the outset, to be an advisory referendum, I fail to see how a democratically elected Parliament withholding action makes the United Kingdom less free or democratic. If Parliament had said that it would bind itself to the result, and then acted to reverse itself, I would see an argument. But Parliament did no such thing.

So, referendums held in the UK don't actually matter, and it's up to the politicians to decide?

Then yes, that's not democracy and freedom, no matter what legislation says, nor what elected officials say.

A referendum is the ultimate say of the people, as is skips the individual opinions of a handful of people and gives it to the masses.

The British can always do small demonstrations "with pitchforks and torches" at the Palace of Westminster

Your theory of state doesn't exist in the United Kingdom. The source of legal authority in the United Kingdom is not--and never has been--the people. Sovereignty exists in Crown in Parliament, and nowhere else.

So while it's all well and good to complain that, "that's not democracy and freedom," that claim is irrelevant.

As for "freedom," you might want to take a look at the 20 or so countries that can actually be described as full democracies. (See [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index"]The Economist's Freedom Index[/url] for example).

At least half of these countries are constitutional monarchies, in which residual legal power resides in the Crown, not the people. Only one of them (Switzerland) has any significant tradition of direct democracy. Democracy and freedom are not interchangeable terms--the two mean different things. And while you might lament that Parliament's failure to enact the results of a referendum is not democratic, it doesn't make the United Kingdom any less free.

We're making money out of the £20,000 we have to pay the EU and hundreds of thousands of migrants we have to look after? Strange how we are £1.5 trillion in debt and seeping money all the time and Osbourne misses his borrowing targets by billions. It would have been insane to carry on with something that wasn't working and expecting different results.