I think we can all agree that this is a mess. For the avoidance of doubt, JC has said he voted Remain and would do so again, but is not in favour of re-running the referendum.
To solve a little local difficulty David Cameron has driven a wedge through the UK, with Scotland voting 62% to remain (68% turnout) and not a single council voting out, Northern Ireland remain at 56% (62%), England 54% leave (73%), Wales 52.5% leave (72%).
The posts here show how passionately divided we are - Condate, as I am a Remainer I'd be interested to know your reasons for Leaving, you seem very passionate - and it's the passion that makes a rerun of the referendum dangerous. Take a look at Question Time from Burnley a couple of weeks ago on the BBC iPlayer. If Cameron had been clear that the referendum was advisory, or had imposed a threshold of, say, 60%, both of which startegies have been used before, everything would have been different. Peoples' concerns would have been flagged and the government might have been moved to pay attention for a change; but he didn't. His arrogance and his ignorance of how most of the 'little people' lived, brought us to this.
I'm delighted that the Tory 'traitors' have demanded that Parliament has sovereignity over the decision to leave with reference to the deal. That pressurises the government to make a deal our elected representatives can agree with, instead of going off on a frolic of their own which we will have to fund. And that's what Leavers voted for, I thought. I'm not sure what happens if Parliament doesn't like it. Perhaps that would be the cue for another referendum. Perhaps that's why the Daily Mail is so frightened by the Parliamentary vote.
Labour Remainers' problem is that a lot of Labour supporters voted Leave. The party has to find a way of reconciling their concerns, and the best way to do that as things currently stand is deep scrutiny of the deal.
The question of how much national politics affects the local vote has no definitive answer. There's a trend where large conurbations tend to vote in the opposite direction to the party in power - so during the Labour administration the Labour vote here was about 5%, but has now risen to 13% in 2016 and that's without any substantial organisation locally. The Lib Dem vote was 54% in the local elections in 2010 - and has declined since, to 29% in 2015 but 36% in 2016. The decline may be connected to their betrayal of their supporters over the tuition fees bargain, you may remember everyone thought they were finished nationally. The difference between 2015 and 2016 is that turnout locally in a general election year is about 70%, whereas in a local election year it's about 43% on average, so perhaps Lib dem voters are more motivated to turn out during a local election. Interestingly in the 2015 general election Labour got 18% of the vote across Hazel Grove and 20% in 2017. And of course we got approx 50% of the vote in the Mayoral election.
What is to be done? Locally Labour needs to retain its majority on Stockport Council, and to do that we need to get out the vote. We have more than 800 members in Hazel Grove now, and most are in the Marple wards. Janet Glover got 1001 votes in Marple South in the local election in 2015, so we know the votes are out there, and we should be able to build on that. We only need every member to bring a friend and we're in with a fighting chance to win.
Nationally the Tories fiddle about with Brexit while the working poor get rock bottom wages; child poverty is at 30% - 9 children in every class of 30 - its highest since 2010; the NHS is sold to Branson and Co; and every day there's another scandal. A General Election would be very welcome.
And on passports, my partner's passport is green. She's Irish. I envy her.
