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What Paddy Ashdown said when he thought Remain would win Given the recent Brexit-related shenanigans, it seems appropriate to post this video showing what the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, said as the referendum votes were being counted but before the result was known.
“I will forgive no one who does not accept the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken, whether it is by one percent or twenty percent.”
Update: Nicholas (Unlicensed Joker) Gray very reasonably asked what Baron Ashdown is saying now. When he was asked last December if he remembered saying the words above, this was his response:
“The UK people voted for Brexit – but not this Brexit. Their vote has been hijacked by the extreme Brexiteers to support their own prejudices. This is not respecting the vote it is abusing the vote for extremist nonsense which damages the UK.”
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But what is Paddy saying now? We in Australia don’t know, so don’t know if he has contradicted himself.
I seem to recall Hillary and her supporters saying something about how deplorable it would be not to accept the results of an election they knew she could not lose.
Times change, but what never changes is that what’s deplorable for the deplorables is no sin for the anointed.
“The UK people voted for Brexit – but not this Brexit.”
Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?
Apparently the people voted Leave in order to tweak one or two things, but keep everything else exactly the same.
I only remember there being one question on the referendum ballot paper
there was no part 1a ,b, c, or d.
Everyone is, of course, entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own reality.
Both the EU bureaucrats and the Remain campaign made it quite clear before the referendum that the four pillars – freedom of movement of goods, services, people, and capital – were indivisible. Leaving the EU meant leaving the common market and the customs union.
Pace Mr. Pantsdown, knew exactly what they were voting for.
Seems straight-forward, doesn’t it? On it’s face, the “not this Brexit” comment is disingenuous and dishonest.
But, legally and technically, the comment works, because you’re always at the mercy of the wording chosen for a referendum question, and that’s where I think Leavers were out-maneuvered.
As a simple and everyday matter of legal interpretation, you could satisfy this vote in a number of ways, one of which being to remove the UK from the list of member nations of the EU but leave it subject to all of the EU laws and regs – which is essentially May’s proposal.
You can certainly argue that the spirit of the constituency’s vote was otherwise – that people were contemplating a hard Brexit – and I think you’d have the stronger moral argument.
But this is going to be a legalistic, technical argument. I think you got played by the parliamentarians.
Thread winner.
What the effing hell is extreme Brexit? I’m going out of the front door of my house in a little while. Shall I go out moderately or do an extreme exit from my house? Mr. Ashdown is being patronising and insulting by suggesting that leave voters didn’t actually realise that they were actually voting to leave when they voted to leave.
The vote HAS been hijacked by the politicians. And politicians gotta politic:
Thomas Sowell “No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems – of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.”
Mr Ashdown is a despicable liar.
The British people voted to LEAVE the European Union – no more money for the European Union, and its laws (regulations) to no longer be law in this land.
Finis.
What the Referendum should have asked is ‘Should Britain pour money into the E.U.?’
Thanks’ Natalie! He does sound like a Remainer. Still, does he have a point about how things are now?