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European Union referendum: UK goes to the polls [UK Independence Day]
BBC ^

Posted on 06/23/2016 2:32:04 AM PDT by UKrepublican

Voting is under way in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. A record 46,499,537 people are entitled to take part, according to provisional figures from the Electoral Commission. Polling stations opened at 07:00 BST and will close at 22:00 BST. It is only the third nationwide referendum in UK history and comes after a four-month battle for votes between the Leave and Remain campaigns. In common with other broadcasters, the BBC is limited in what it can report while polls are open but you can follow the results as they come in across the BBC after polls close on Thursday evening.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: brexit; brexitwins; brixit; eu; europeanunion; livebrexit; nato; referendum; uk; unitedkingdom
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To: UKrepublican

Good luck. I share your pessimism about Leave winning. The big money and globalists are supporting Remain. I have been following the debate closely. What is most disturbing to me is the major support Remain is getting from 18-24 year olds. The UK education system must be similar to ours by indoctrinating our young with the pap of globalism and multiculturalism. Diversity is deemed a strength. Nationalism is the embodiment of bigotry and racism.

I predict a comfortable win for Remain. The U.K.
will eschew the opportunity to get off the Titanic.


81 posted on 06/23/2016 4:32:31 AM PDT by kabar
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To: Gay State Conservative

So then the reverse could be true as well: If Brexit FAILS (GOD forbid), then a newly elected Parliament could vote to LEAVE and ignore the results of the vote, no?


82 posted on 06/23/2016 4:32:40 AM PDT by Maverick68
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To: SamAdams76

(Don’t give HILLAry any ideas! She will arrange a heart attack)


83 posted on 06/23/2016 4:33:49 AM PDT by hoosiermama (Trump is exposing the Fifth Column in the US)
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To: UKrepublican

My mother is English. Our whole family is watching the results closely. Thanks for making this thread! Prayers up for Brexit!


84 posted on 06/23/2016 4:40:41 AM PDT by rsflynn (Life is hard....twice as hard if you are stupid -- John Wayne)
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To: Maverick68
So then the reverse could be true as well: If Brexit FAILS (GOD forbid), then a newly elected Parliament could vote to LEAVE and ignore the results of the vote, no?

Again, theoretically, yes. Brexit could occur by an Act of Parliament, but, again, ignoring a Referendum result would trigger a constitutional crisis and cause the intervention of the Queen.

If a government specifically campaigned on a policy of leaving the EU and won an election based on that campaign, that would be different - in that case, the election would be considered a de facto referendum in its own right.

85 posted on 06/23/2016 4:42:12 AM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: Moltke

I want Brexit because I care about England. I don’t give a twit about Brussels.


86 posted on 06/23/2016 4:51:26 AM PDT by Fhios (The U.S needs Hillary like a fish needs a bicycle.)
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To: Cboldt
Nonbinding referendum. Have fun!

Are you kidding? This vote is nonbinding?

What a bunch of wussies!

87 posted on 06/23/2016 4:56:35 AM PDT by sailor76 (GO TRUMP!!! Make America Great Again!)
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To: sailor76
Are you kidding? This vote is nonbinding?

It has to be - Parliamentary Sovereignty is at the core of the British Constitution, so the Parliament cannot be bound by a Referendum.

However, failing to follow its results would trigger a major Constitutional crisis and is realistically not going to happen.

88 posted on 06/23/2016 4:59:29 AM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: UKrepublican

But wait, provisional ballots? Are there any? Absentee ballots?

Last minute, late polls or uncounted districts yet?

These are the things that we’ll see if we know the fix is in.

It’s like the city districts in the states which come in late...they see how many votes are needed and then gin them up. And somehow there are never any poll watchers in these areas to witness it.


89 posted on 06/23/2016 5:04:01 AM PDT by CincyRichieRich (They've set up the system to protect themselves from us...we need to take it back.)
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To: UKrepublican

Google Predicts Landslide Win for Brexit Leave

http://investmentwatchblog.com/google-predicts-landslide-win-for-brexit-leave/


90 posted on 06/23/2016 5:09:56 AM PDT by Jamesmm
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To: UKrepublican

I’m praying for you and your country. Do you have faith in the integrity of the vote and the counting?


91 posted on 06/23/2016 5:14:02 AM PDT by Rusty0604
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To: UKrepublican; Clintonfatigued; fieldmarshaldj; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; the scotsman; ...

I averaged 5 of the most recent polls from 5 different outfits, I didn’t count what I hope is an outlier that had remain at +6 (from ComRes who seems to have consistently favored remain), and what I got was remain +0.2%.

I’d be on pins and needles all day where I Brit. We’re all pulling for you.


92 posted on 06/23/2016 5:16:03 AM PDT by Impy (Never Shillery)
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To: naturalman1975

I didn’t know the monarch had any power left.


93 posted on 06/23/2016 5:20:18 AM PDT by Rusty0604
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To: naturalman1975

Thank you


94 posted on 06/23/2016 5:25:55 AM PDT by Maverick68
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To: MeganC; beaversmom; miss marmelstein
Ping for your interest.

What do you think will happen?

95 posted on 06/23/2016 5:33:51 AM PDT by KC_Lion (Never Killary!)
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To: moose07
Hey Moose!

How are things going over there? What did you think when you went to the Polls?

96 posted on 06/23/2016 5:34:12 AM PDT by KC_Lion (Never Killary!)
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To: KC_Lion

I think they’ll choke.


97 posted on 06/23/2016 5:36:13 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: With my own people alone I should like to drive away the Muslims)
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To: miss marmelstein
Why do you think so M.M?

What do your British Friends say?

98 posted on 06/23/2016 5:37:50 AM PDT by KC_Lion (Never Killary!)
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To: SamAdams76

The stay people are younger but like here less likely to turn out. Absentee vote 28% but older more likely leave according to what I am seeing


99 posted on 06/23/2016 5:37:52 AM PDT by BigEdLB (Take it Easy, Chuck. I'm Not Taking it Back -- Donald Trump)
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To: Rusty0604
The Monarch still has a lot of power - but it can only be used in very specific circumstances and a good government avoids those circumstances arising.

They are referred to as the reserve powers.

They include:

The power to refuse to resolve Parliament on the request of the Prime Minister. This last came close to happening in 1910, but Edward Heath specifically asked the Queen for her assurance she would grant him an election if asked as late as 1974 (when he agreed to take office as head of a minority government).

To appoint a Prime Minister of their own choosing. The Queen did this in 1963 after the conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan resigned from office on the grounds of ill health and it emerged that the Conservative Party had no mechanism to replace a Prime Minister who had resigned - she agreed to use her power to do so, but told them to come up with a procedure to avoid it happening again.

To refuse the Queen's Consent to allow laws on a very limited number of subjects to be debated in Parliament. The Queen did this in 1999 (the last time she exercised any of her powers) to prevent debate on a law that would have given Parliament the power to authorise military strikes on Iraq without the Monarch's consent - she did this at the request of the government of the day that didn't want the change (it was proposed by a group on the extreme left of the Labour Party and was opposed by both the Labour government and the Conservative opposition so had no hope of passing and would have just wasted Parliament's time).

There are other powers but they either haven't been used for so long, they are considered largely dead, or they just relate to formalities that aren't that important.

In the type of situation being discussed here - if a government ignored a referendum, the Queen's right to appoint a Prime Minister of her own choosing and/or to dismiss a government from office and call a general election would become relevant as the Queen would be entitled to act to ensure Parliament respected the will of the people.

While no Monarch has had to do this in the UK since 1834, it has been done by the Queen's representative in Her overseas Realms - it happened in Australia in 1975 when the Governor-General Sir John Kerr, dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his entire government from office, after Whitlam could not present a legal plan to continue governing without a budget, and refused to ask for an election. The powers are real - but a competent government would not make the Queen use them.

If you go back to the British election of 2010 which resulted in a hung Parliament, you might remember that there was a period in which Prime Minister Gordon Brown was trying to stay in office by making a deal with the Liberal Democrats. When he finally gave up, he is known to have told the Liberal Democrat leader that the Queen had made it clear he'd run out of time - she'd given him the chance to make a deal if he could, but in the end, while she didn't step in, she told him that he knew what decision he had to make. And being a good Prime Minister who respected the way things are, he did the right thing, rather than force her to intervene. It's very unlikely any Prime Minister will ever force the issue.

(The fundamental control on the Queen's powers is that the last time a Monarch abused them and went too far, he had his head chopped off - the Monarch understands that the British people will only accept the use of these powers to protect the Constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom and abusing them would bring down the Monarch and possibly the entire Monarchy. But the powers are there for resolve an actual constitutional crisis.)

100 posted on 06/23/2016 5:40:41 AM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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