The Telegraph don't seem to understand democracy any more!

[Kermit power]

Just having a browse around over lunch, I came across this Tabloidesque headline on the Telegraph website.

The 89 MPs who show contempt for referendum voters"

What, you may ask, have these MPs done to deserve such an accusation?

They have dared to vote against Theresa May's amendment supporting Brexit!!!

OK, so there was a referendum. Over 50% of the voters supported leaving. On that basis, I'd expect the motion to pass, and it did. In fact it passed with a far greater margin of victory than the actual referendum did.

In this country, we vote for MPs to represent us in our constituencies, so if an MP's constituency voted in favour of remain, to my mind, that MP would be showing contempt for the referendum voters if they actually supported the amendment!

Conveniently, in the article, they not only list the 89 MPs to be publicly pilloried and shamed, they also list how their constituencies voted in the referendum.

Of those 89 MPs, a grand total of six represent constituencies who voted leave. The remaining 83 all represent constituencies who voted remain, in some cases to the tune of over 70%.

Those 6 MPs who represent constituencies that voted leave are, in my view, quite deserving of the Telegraph's accusations of showing contempt to voters, but I'd say the Telegraph itself is showing greater contempt by chucking this accusation at the MPs who voted in accordance with their constituents' democratically declared wishes.

[Kermit power]

paulrockliffe said:

I understand what you're saying, but if those MPs voted to delegate the decision to the people, then they should be voting in line with the result. I know that Ken Clarke voted against the referendum bill, but what about the others?

It was a National vote too, so the outcome shouldn't then be translated into a constituency-based result when it's enacted.

If you're going to take that view, then why do we bother with individual constituency MPs at all?

[Kermit power]

Phil1 said:

Kermit power said:

paulrockliffe said:

I understand what you're saying, but if those MPs voted to delegate the decision to the people, then they should be voting in line with the result. I know that Ken Clarke voted against the referendum bill, but what about the others?

It was a National vote too, so the outcome shouldn't then be translated into a constituency-based result when it's enacted.

If you're going to take that view, then why do we bother with individual constituency MPs at all?

For the rest of the time when they don't pass the decision back to the people. They don't get to say, oh it's down to you lot, then when they don't like the answer decide to make the decision after all. Especially when that opposes the decision of the people.

So in that case, shouldn't they be directly reflecting the choice of the nation and agreeing between themselves which MPs vote for and against to pass it by as close as they can get to 52/48?

[Kermit power]

Pan Pan Pan said:

Yet another attempt to try to divide the result of the referendum. The UK voted to leave the EU. The MPs have now been given three votes on the matter of leaving the EU. The first when they voted 6 to 1 to hold a referendum on whether the UK should remain in or leave the EU in which it was stated in writing that the result would be abided by.
The second was in the referendum itself, where every single politician in parliament was given the opportunity to vote on whether they wanted to remain or leave, and in which the UK voted to leave.
The third vote was concerned with the triggering of article 50 by the end of march 2017.
How many more votes are going to be put in the way of respecting the UK voting public`s wish to leave the EU?
In the referendum the fact that some areas voted to leave, and some to remain is irrelevant, the overall result was that the UK would leave the EU, and meeting that requirement of the people of the UK is and should be what MP`s are focusing on now. they are already past the point where the vote of their particular constituency has any bearing on the matter.

Were you perchance the author of the Telegraph article?

In answer to your question of how many more votes will it take, the only possible response is "however many are required by our constitutional process".

The referendum was a non-binding, advisory action. Parliament would be very wrong to ignore the result of that referendum, but they would be equally wrong to press ahead without respecting the usual checks and balances of how our democracy works.

If every single MP were to vote in accordance with the way their constituency voted in the referendum at every voting stage, we'd still be leaving the EU, and the will of the people would've been represented as closely as possible at each stage of the process.

What I don't understand is why people like you and the DT columnist are so insecure over the issue? Why does a vote by 89 out of 600+ MPs make you think that the democratic process isn't going to achieve the same result as that requested by the referendum result?

All that would've happened if we didn't have this process is that Theresa May would've been forced to make a statement along the lines of "My new team and I, none of whom have any experience of doing the jobs we're now doing, are just going to have to take 6 months to figure out what's what about how the country runs, then we'll sort out this Brexit stuff".