There’s no way they wouldn’t let it happen. There would be uproar like never seen. We don’t do that sort of thing over here, IF leave wins - we will be leaving one way or another.
Boris Johnson will become PM sooner rather than later.
Sounds like a preview of the U.S. elections this November...
The fact that it’s neither automatic nor instantaneous, even if Leave gets 51% of the vote, is actually good for the Leave side.
It means you can vote Leave as a protest, but without worrying too much that you’re making a horrible irreversible mistake. It will still be incremental change and will take years to effect.
Isn’t Brussels the real muscle in the EU?
The only thing the people of the UK will be leaving is their sovereignty.
I think Brexit is a dumb euphemism for this.
Why not just say what it is?
Written from a British point of view... A leave victory would have ramifications all over Europe from the discontented masses. Are bureaucrats from every country going to foil all those people? I don’t think so. Austria is already defying immigration orders.
Thursday 23rd June will be Independence Day.
Or Fried Breakfast eating Surrender Monkey Day.....
Your pessimism about electoral fraud is, I think, misplaced. It’s a very long time since there was any significant fraud in a UK election, although there have been some (relatively minor) abuses with the growth in postal voting. The very local and public counting system makes it very difficult. It’s also untrue, by the way, that ‘Cameron’s party is under investigation for cheating’. The only investigation I’m aware of is a rather technical issue about the attribution of electoral expenses to the national rather than the local party.
As for ‘it won’t be allowed to happen...’ it needs to be remembered that the ONLY reason this referendum is happening is not to do with irresistible public demand (the EU always polled rather low on the list of public concerns) but with internal differences within the Conservative party. The Tory Eurosceptics would never have allowed Cameron to remain leader if he hadn’t included the referendum promise in his election manifesto. For the same reason, there’s no way Cameron’s government will survive if he fails to see through the referendum outcome. The entire referendum campaign has been a blue-on-blue fight, with an extraordinary degree of mutual public venom from the two Tory factions. The Labour Party (and for that matter UKIP) have been scarcely visible.
And the idea that the EU itself will somehow prevent Brexit is fanciful - the power of the EU to enforce anything on its member states is actually very limited.
If the Brits stay in the Eurozone they will just ignore the part they don’t like about it.
If they leave the Eurozone they will keep the parts they like about it.
Bureaucrats have their own way of thinking. Whenever there is talk about cutting back or lowing authority, their first inclination is to “cut the meat and protect the fat”.
Say you have a dozen programs, only one of which is popular and efficient, whereas the other 11 are wasteful and bloated. So you offer to cut the popular one. This puts pressure on those who want to cut.
In this case, there are likely at least *some* EU programs that work well and are liked by the British. So they will offer to end these immediately, while insisting that the unpopular and stupid programs can either not be eliminated or can only be eliminated at great cost and time to Britain.
And, it will get worse. Popular goods flowing back and forth will be curtailed, while unpopular things, like immigrants, won’t be. They will even make things like TSA lines for people who want to cross the border in either direction. It is, and will be, pure harassment.