If you haven’t signed the ‘Revoke Article 50’ petition yet, this teenager will give you good reason to
Eloquent: ‘Amelia’, 16, charmed the Question Time audience with her perfectly-judged summary of everything that is wrong with Brexit.
More than 1.6 million people have seen 16-year-old Amelia’s eloquent verbal assassination of the EU referendum and the reasons leading up to it – so I may be preaching to the converted here.
But her words were so well-chosen that they demand a hearing here:
Oh my days. This 16 year old absolutely nailed it on #BBCQT last night. Possibly the best thing you will see today. pic.twitter.com/NVCCWCk89M
— Rachael Swindon (@Rachael_Swindon) March 22, 2019
I don’t mind admitting that I’ve been speaking and writing publicly for decades and I’m in awe of this young lady’s way with words.
She was arguing for a general election – and some might say this is because she is a member of Labour’s youth wing – but this may be a forlorn hope.
I think a better option for now is signing the petition calling for Article 50 to be revoked, halting the UK’s departure from the EU – at least for the time being.
If it attracts more signatures than the number of people who voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, then prime minister Theresa May will be in a very tricky position indeed.
She has refused to accept that the petition should have any weight – but ignoring a document signed by one-third of the country would itself be a negation of democracy and would almost certainly trigger a constitutional crisis that would, at the very least, eject her from Downing Street.
At best, it would lead to both the revocation of Article 50 and the general election that Amelia demanded.
The petition currently stands at 4.1 million signatures. It may run until August 20 but, at the rate names are being added, will certainly top the number of ‘Leave’ votes in the referendum before the revised date of Brexit, if Mrs May’s deal is rejected again by Parliament next week.
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Shocking reflection on today’s education but then it isn’t the first time unelected dictatorships have tried to brainwash the gullible young
Gullible? That’s almost amusing but I can see that you’re trying to impress that bizarre point of view on us. This young lady saw what happened very clearly and communicated it accurately. YOU need to think very carefully about what you write in future. It tells us a lot about you.
By ignoring the will of the people who voted previously, that means democracy is dead. By allowing the new vote to count will only strengthen the EU and will will never get out.
It’s the same people. Refusing to allow them to change their minds is also ignoring the will of the people. What about the fact that many who voted for Brexit have passed away and will not have to live with the consequences of their choice? And what about the will of those who were not allowed to vote in 2016 but will have to deal with it for the longest time? It seems to me that your idea of democracy is that it should only be allowed as long as you get what you want, and that isn’t democracy at all.
So we keep voting until the government and EU get what they want? We had a vote, that should be it.
Indeed? And what of Theresa May’s Brexit deal? Should Parliament keep voting on that until she gets what she wants?
Why are you so determined to deny people the opportunity to say they have changed their minds? Does democracy only count, for you, as long as you get the result you want?
‘It’s the same people.’ Is it the same people? How do you know this? What makes you think we have changed our minds?
I know you will probably be rude to me as you are to others who have a differing opinion to yours. However, you don’t disagree with my comments when they are regarding how the DWP treat the ill/disabled. i.e. I think similarly/the same as you on that topic.
I think you should cherish all your readers and not be rude to us just because we differ on SOME of our opinions. I accept the fact that on some topics we do not think the same, but I wouldn’t dream of insulting you in my comments.
It’s the same people because it is the UK electorate. Whether enough have changed their minds to make a difference has yet to be determined.
A disagreement is a disagreement. If you think I am rude at any time, take a good hard look at the behaviour to which I am responding.
People on both sides of the debate have changed their minds. It seems that majority of those who are calling for another Referendum are Remainers. There is no guarantee of the result; have those people considered that the result might be the same? What then? I do think that it would set dangerous precedent, though.
As far as those who were ineligible to vote, because of their age, that’s just the way that the cookie crumbles; you have to draw a line somewhere. I wasn’t old enough to vote in the previous referendum; should we have had another, when I was? What about General Elections? Should we hold another every week, because people came of age?
The result of the Referendum has yet to be enacted, this is the main issue with holding another referendum. Personally, I have no problem with another, as long as the first is honored, else what was the point in having it in the first place? It comes down to a simple question: what do our votes mean?
It’s logical that the majority calling for a second referendum are remainers; leavers are still getting what they want, even if the means by which they get it are crooked. They seem to forget that the ends never justify the means, as the saying goes. It could be argued that the whole dialogue on Brexit since the vote has been about preventing it from being hijacked by crooks who want to use it to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us.
Why have you repeated the false comparison between a referendum and a general election? People who are too young to vote in general elections will have a chance to vote in a new election when they come of age; those who are too young to vote in a referendum that will affect them for the rest of their lives will never have a chance to express their view on it. That’s the unfairness.
As to honouring the first referendum: ALL UK Parliament referenda are only indicative. Parliament’s only duty was to note the result; it had no obligation to act on it. The point in having it was to find out what people thought. The problem with it is that people were unduly influenced by those who employed criminal methods to exert that influence, therefore the result is suspect.
This goes back a lot further than Cameron, at least to when John Major overcame huge opposition to ratify the Maastricht treaty. People were calling for a referendum then and didn’t get one. The idea of a referendum on some aspect of our EU membership has been kicking around ever since, I’m surprised so few remainers seem to remember that.
Why the attack on remainders at the end of this comment? It is hostility like this that is increasing the division in the UK today. What is your intention in doing so?
Mike You write about the fact that many who voted Brexit have passed away etc. Well possibly many who voted Tory have passed away, does that mean we should have a general election ? A vote should always stand even if some people were not old enough at the time, can not turn around and say, i was not old enough, i want a re-vote. And why do people keep insisting that it was all old people who voted out and many of them dead now, where is the proof of this ? Are we to believe that only old people voted leave and none of the younger generation
We WILL have a general election. But the vote to leave the EU is being treated as irrevocable; there will be no opportunity to alter the decision unless people demand it, which is what they are doing. You are comparing two different things, and that is unfair.
The principal is the same, Mike.
Untrue – clearly.
No, Mike, the principal IS the same. You hold a vote and you implement the result.
We were told, at the time of the Referendum, that this would be forever, that there would be no going back so, we must choose carefully. I used the expression, “you can’t jump back into the plane.” We have had to live with the result of the last Referendum for more than 40 years. what we voted for, back then, barely resembles that upon which we voted in 2016.
The principle is NOT the same, for the reasons I have already stated. You have not refuted my argument; in fact, you have reinforced it.
The 2016 referendum was a gross abuse of the electoral system. To involve the whole electorate in an ill thought-out plan to settle what was a long running Tory Party squabble was an abuse of the system. To tell barefaced lies to the public was an abuse of public trust. To gerrymander the electoral roll in order to exclude large groups of people who had a genuine interest was an abuse of the system. To allow financial fraud to heavily influence the campaign was both corrupt and criminal. The 2016 reerendum was, to sum up, a serious abuse of public trust by the Nasty Tory Party.
We have been lied to and treated as ignorants by a bunch of imbeciles. Many of us have been misled by a number of people who purport to care about our country.
We have been fed with lies and subterrfuge into believing the supposed caretakers of our country were doing what was best for our people.
You have access to the internet, evidently. What research did you do? Since when was the trust of politicians held in such high esteem? I’m sorry to have to say this but the onus was on you to know what you were voting for.
I have just discovered that there have been many petitions to revoke Article 50, which either failed to get the required number of signatures, by some margin, I might add, or else were rejected. I just thought that you might want to know. I guess that the number of signatories depends, entirely, on how well publicised the petition is, given that the highest number, on petitions regarding Article 50, barely exceeded 145,000, most were between 12,000 and 3,000 and some as few as 25. That this petition has gained national coverage is garnering signatories.
It started gaining signatures in a big way after Theresa May made her daft statement to the nation last week. It only gained national coverage after the government ePetitions website crashed because it was taking around 2,000 signatures per minute.
I think the reason it started gaining signatures might be as simple as people running a web search to find something like it, and it being top of the list. Would genuinely like to know how it became so popular, so quickly.
An effective campaigner, no doubt! Her talents are wasted!