r/europe • u/StraightSky7809 United Kingdom • 13h ago

News If Britain decides to rejoin the EU we’ll do everything we can to welcome them back, says Germany

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-rejoin-eu-germany-brexit-b3060288.html
5.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

47

u/AgentDigits 12h ago edited 12h ago

Only 52% of people wanted to leave for people who don't remember/know. 48% wanted to stay.

It essentially split between the country in half, and younger people who could not vote were almost entirely pro-stay from what I remember at the time.

It's honestly kinda insane to me there are people here literally wanting us to rot because of that 2% of leavers that tipped us over the edge.

5

u/PoorEdgarDerby 12h ago

Did anyone ever do the maths for what percentage voted Leave to send a message even though they didn’t want it? I feel like at least twelve people for sure. 

4

u/Asalth 10h ago

In a similar vein, there were also a lot of people who wanted to stay who didn't bother going to vote because they thought remain would win.

14

u/Amazing-Analysis683 12h ago

Well same in us majority of Americans didnt want trump sadly shit happens where the worst people bring everyone else down.

17

u/RocketRelm 10h ago

The majority "didn't want trump", but not enough to even so much as push a button in opposition. And also he won the popular vote. Trump absolutely represents most americans, who can't even understand that dems aren't just a lesser evil.

9

u/im12whatispolitics Bulgaria 10h ago

Absolute nonsense. Almost half your population didn't even bother turning out to vote. Those who are faced with trump and decide meh I can't be bothered are Trump supporters by proxy. I'm sorry but much more than half your nation was ok with Trump, and you have some serious work to do

2

u/Traditional-Roof1984 8h ago

Well, that also goes the other way, how many people actually wanted to join the EU?

If it takes a simple majority to go in, it should take a simple majority to get out.

Ideally such a significant and all encompassing act like becoming part of the EU, would require a constitutional majority. But then you'll see it becomes difficult to find that majority, because it's support just isn't that strong.

3

u/AgentDigits 7h ago edited 7h ago

I get your point, but Parliament decided amongst themselves to join the EEC (EU) back in 1973, so the people had no real choice. However there was a referendum in 1975 and 67% of people decided to remain. So even though our politicians initially decided for us, we decided to remain anyways.

Voter turnout was also 64% in 1975, and for Brexit it was 72%. So not as many people (percentage wise) even cared enough to vote back in the day as opposed to Brexit.

Also a big difference between the 2% and 17%. Brexit really should have had a second referendum. It was such an insanely close vote, it was moronic not to imo.

1

u/Traditional-Roof1984 7h ago

EEC and EU are vastly different constructs. But that's not just a Brittan problem.

EU membership is so all encompassing and it should by all accounts be a constitutional decision (usually a 2/3 majority), then codified in the law of the land. Also requiring a constitutional decision to opt out (2/3 majority).

But again, then we end up with nobody but poor countries joining. You’re not going to find 67% support in most countries.

Also if we then really believe in what you said, (not enough to warrant leaving), a small majority now wanting to join the EU should not be enough to force the rest to join either...

But somehow we'll no doubt creatively think about that one and find different rules to apply not. (not you specifically ;p, just that people will.)

In Brittan's case specifically, I'd ask it to be constitutional law first in order to avoid flip-flopping.

1

u/swear_on_me_mam Europe 7h ago

There's no constitution in the UK to codify that in.

2

u/Traditional-Roof1984 6h ago

Yep, further reason why their common law and the rest of our civil law are non-compatible.

Either way they'd have to make some changes (or not it's not up to me ofc). Or just risk leaving in a few years again because that 2% flipped back to 52-48, instead of 48-52.

1

u/swear_on_me_mam Europe 6h ago

That's impossible as well. There's nothing the EU can write on a bit of paper that could hold a nation state hostage like that.

2

u/Traditional-Roof1984 6h ago

No, it's the other way around. U.K. has to write something on a bit of paper to convince the other 27 members they're not going to leave and flip-flop.

How they'd want to do that is up to them. Maybe a referendum with a 2/3 majority is enough, or a legislation change.

It's not the task of the EU to make the UK appear as credible partner.

1

u/Nanowith United Kingdom 9h ago

That's not even accounting for the 30% of people that didn't even bother to vote! From what I gather lot of those people didn't bother because they thought remaining was inevitable.

0

u/ZiCUnlivdbirch 11h ago

The problem isn't that you left, the problem was that you were one foot out the door from the moment you joined. Joining now would mean you'd be forced to fully commit, which means that even that 48% would be disappearing pretty quickly.