I am sick of people claiming that it is unfair because that majority vote of 52% is less than half the population.
What is unfair is that it's one rule for an English majority in 2016 when it was a completely different rule for a Scottish majority in 1979.
And also of course that the English politicians lied to Scotland in the recent independence referendum, saying the UK would remain in the EU and an independent Scotland wouldn't be allowed to join it, and now they are reneging on that clear commitment to remain in.
We Scots remember 1979 - we had a big majority of those who voted in the devolution referendum, but because the YES vote was fewer than 40% of all eligible voters it was treated as insufficient to justify a major change, and the devolution act was abandoned, leaving us stuck without devolution for another couple of decades. Now the LEAVE votes amount to less than 40% of the eligible voters (less than 30% of the population, but I've never seen the proportion of population mentioned by anyone but you) so now less that 40% is plenty to force a major change because it's right wing Englishmen that want it, and to hell with the majorities agains LEAVE in Scotland, NI, and Gibralter. Now a very short time after Scotland was bludgeoned into voting to stay in the Union by an English threat to veto any application from an independent Scotland to join the EU, we have voted by large majority (62% as opposed to lthe leave majority of much less than that in England) that does represent more than 40% of the eligible voters in Scotland but we're being dragged out of the EU against our will by a bunch of English politicians who will do anything as long as Murdoch likes it. Try thinking hard about that, instead of listening to English extreme right-wing politicians, and you'll see how a Scotsman can see this so-called "overwhelming majority" as nothing more that a deliberately false description of the result. Less than 52% of votes is NOT an overwhelming majority, and in fact there is a very solid precedent for saying that less that 40% of eligible voters is not enough to mandate any major change (and the 1979 devolution would have been a pretty minor change compared to leaving the EU).
Anyway, if the PM continues as her latest story indicates and we have a real hard Brexit instead of something softer we will probably discover in about 27 months' time that the remain campaign's prophecies of economic doom and disaster weren't scare-mongering after all, because we will effectively lose access to the common market. This isn't because the tariffs imposed would keep us out. That idea is nonsense - the pound has fallen enough that even when account is taken of our increased sterling costs due to the lower pound our prices including those tariffs although higher than before in sterling would be lower in Euros or whatever currency an EU country uses. We will lose access because we will have removed from our law a pile of regulations and standards and there's no reason certifications from a British government body should be accepted if the standards and regulatory conformance being certified is no longer part of British law.
"Try thinking hard about that, instead of listening to English extreme right-wing politicians"? Really? Somewhat patronising, very unlike you and totally uncalled for. This is the kind of assumptive vitriol I am talking about.
I have never used the term "overwhelming majority"
As for "unfair is that it's one rule for an English majority in 2016 when it was a completely different rule for a Scottish majority in 1979" this should have been clearly set out by all sides and the government BEFORE the referendum. I do understand that different rules have been applied at different times. I agree that a single definition, or at least one selected from a fixed set of definitions, for results should be stated in advance and used.
In stating that "English politicians lied to Scotland in the recent independence referendum, saying the UK would remain in the EU and an independent Scotland wouldn't be allowed to join it" you are probably correct or they just stated the context of that time. The Brexit referendum was not on the cards at that time. Of course, it could be the former as I am somewhat cynical.
There were many places with "majorities agains LEAVE" but it was an overall decision. Always would be. How could it be otherwise? Any other places come to my mind? Yes. London for example. Yes, London in England. (My turn to be patronising???)
And it has already been stated that the vast majority of "a pile of regulations and standards" will not be revoked. I think that the claim that these will be removed is as much to be believed as the NHS funding statement on the side of the bus i.e. unbelievable.
It seems like too many people are selecting what facts they want to portray after the result. Too little facts were discussed before.