United Kingdom Referendum on European Union Membership

[Gary J]

The Democratic Accountability part of the 5-President's Report does not seem to envisage anything which would actually create democratic accountability.

It is not directly relevant to the present UK referendum, but I would suggest that democratic accountability would only be improved by abolishing the Commission and the Council (in its executive role) and replacing them with a European Union government responsible to the European Parliament. The Council and the Parliament could then take there proper democratic roles as a bicameral legislature, with each body having at the very least equal powers and the full right to initiate and amend legislation on any European Union competence.

My suggestions may not deal with the objection that there can be no true democratic accountability, because there is no real European polity. It is far more likely to create something useful than the bureaucratic and diplomatic waffle of the 5-President's Report.

[Gary J]

Corbyn was suppose to be couped 24 hours after winning IIRC

Corbyn is currently supposed to be even more popular with the party membership than when he was first elected so how is that meant to work?

Presumably if the coup succeeds the Labour right hope that neither Corbyn nor any other left winger will secure support from enough MPs (currently 35 being required) to be nominated in the next leadership election. No doubt a predominantly left wing membership will be happy to choose between unreconstructed Blairite candidates. What could possibly go wrong?

[Gary J]

57 Tory MPs have said today they will vote against a George Osborne post-referendum budget.

As a budget is effectively a confidence vote, that pretty much guarantees the government will fall in the event of a no vote.

So a palace coup, or another general election? I'm not sure the general public would be able to cope with yet another election; but it would be completely unpredictable at this point.

I am not sure that the old conventions still apply.

In the pre-fixed term Parliament era the convention was that a government defeated on a major financial measure should either resign or advise a dissolution of Parliament. If it resigned then the conventional response was for the monarch to invite the Leader of the Opposition to form a government. In practice the new Prime Minister, being supported by a minority of the House of Commons, would then ask for a dissolution.

The convention was weakened in the UK in the 1970s, when the Callaghan minority government continued after losing votes on amendments to financial legislation.

Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 the conventions appear to have been largely replaced by statutory provisions. The House of Commons briefing note about the Act summarises the early election provisions.

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It seems to me that the Prime Minister, after defeat on a budget, could secure passage of a confidence motion and continue in office (if he thought it was worth being in office with mutinous backbenchers limiting what he could do).

[Gary J]

Question on the vote counting process.

From my understanding,
In a General Election, the ballots from each polling station are sent to a central 'Counting Room' in each of UK 650 ridings . Once all the ballots in the riding are counted. A riding official will announce the results, along side the candidates (and their huge ribbons). This process could take hours since it could take hours just to get  ballot boxes from the more remote locations.

Now, during the referendum ballot boxes will be sent to 382 local count venues.
Unlike in a general election where the numbers of voters is around the same. Local venues will very in size from 700,000 in Birmingham to 1,700 in the Isles of Scilly.

Why does UK count their ballots at these central counting station instead of the polling stations?

During elections in Canada they will count the ballots at the polling station, relay the results to Local Returning Officer, and the results are sent to central results system, where they are access to the media and the public. Most of the polling station take under 1 hour to count. You can get a projection in under an hour once the polls close in Central Canada. Unlike it the UK where you have to wait the following morning to actual results (not including the exit polls)

Tradition. This is the way we have counted votes since the introduction of the secret ballot in 1872. The parliamentary election practice was just adapted for referendums, when we started having them.