Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 28 replies
  • Subscribers 17 subscribers
  • Views 3496 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Would the engineering community support a second referendum?

Timothy East
I would......
  • 0
    Tim


    Is there a benefit in spending money to commission an opinion poll of engineering professionals, either within membership of the IET or more widely?  It is of course perfectly reasonable to explore the potential implications of various courses of action, which the IET tried to do in advance of the earlier referendum. However, perhaps inevitably some members took this as being politically partisan and asserted “not in my name”.  If we have something genuinely insightful to offer, that hasn’t already been said then we should give our expert advice. Otherwise IMHO we have to just monitor developments and respond appropriately.


    The issue is clearly an emotive and divisive one, in which there are (IMHO), no gains to be had from an internal IET debate now. Many of the issues, such as around engineering education, training and skills in the UK , existed long before the idea of “Brexit” and will still need dealing with whatever the eventual outcome.  

  • 0
    What should the second referendum be about? If it is a full blown repeat of the first referendum - should the UK leave the EU or remain in the EU - then if the outcome is remain, millions of leave voters will feel betrayed which will add tons of fuel to the fire for UKIP. IMO such a result will stir up a hornet's nest and backfire in a very nasty way.
  • 0
    What is perhaps surprising is that there has been no debate here (and I haven't seen much anywhere else in the IET, although I haven't looked particularly) regarding the best way to manage the fall out from the referendum we did have - irrespective of how any of us voted.


    As an example, many of us are involved in EU standards, both developing them and ensuring compliance to them, and what is going to happen there is a very interesting subject with big implications for UK engineering. Hopefully the IET is involved in giving advice to the government on this, but if so it would be quite interesting to know what they are saying.


    Unfortunately we are now in the position where the "B" word can't be mentioned in any context in the UK for risk of fights breaking out...it seems to have become the biggest taboo we have. So we are in the utterly bonkers position of going through a seismic change without feeling we can have positive and helpful discussions, as Mercutio might have said on seeing both sides of the debate: "a plague o' both your houses"! Or as a primary school teacher might say: "I don't care who started it, I need you both to work together to clear this up."


    Andy
  • 0

    Arran Cameron:

    What should the second referendum be about? If it is a full blown repeat of the first referendum - should the UK leave the EU or remain in the EU - then if the outcome is remain, millions of leave voters will feel betrayed which will add tons of fuel to the fire for UKIP. IMO such a result will stir up a hornet's nest and backfire in a very nasty way.




    And it's not acceptable for millions of remain voters to feel betrayed?  It wasn't exactly a clear vote!


    But Andy's comments are correct, we will still need to deal with Britexit when it actually happens.  However, we don't have any idea of what could be the end agreement - so you can't plan what you will do about it (or you assume the worst).


    Personally, I suspect that leaving the EU will not actually resolve all the issues that the UKIP voters are moaning about (some of them, yes). 


    Interestingly, I noticed a survey recently sent out by the IET asked about this...

  • 0

    Mark Tickner:



    ....we will still need to deal with Britexit when it actually happens.  However, we don't have any idea of what could be the end agreement - so you can't plan what you will do about it...


    But hopefully the IET (as a body) can influence that agreement...if it can't, then it does rather call into question one of the key claimed strengths of the IET ("Our collective opinion is trusted by government and industry")...but of course also begging the question of what that "collective opinion" is in this case, and how it will be determined. A  very interesting test case for the IET...

     

  • 0
    I agree with what you say Andy - it is the 'elephant in the room' that's going to affect generations (good/bad - who knows). The reason I would support a 2nd referendum is because the first one seemed to be based short on fact and long on fiction. The end result would be whatever it would be but at least it would have been a decision based on fact (or as close to fact as politically possible).

    Personally I hate the idea of exiting the EU at a point when the world is becoming ever fractious and tribal. There are common goals such as climate change to try and cope with. I have European friends who are just as bewildered by it all and I'd like them to feel welcome here. Just my opinion.


    Hi Roy

    The question was posted out of curiosity - I'm not expecting the IET to invest time or money taking it further. Its just a question in a discussion forum
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Is there any analytic report of the characteristics of crowds who vote for 'yes' and who vote for 'no'?
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Is there any analytic report of the characteristics of crowds who vote for 'yes' and who vote for 'no'?
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Is there any analytic report of the characteristics of crowds who vote for 'yes' and who vote for 'no'?
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Is there any analytic report of the characteristics of crowds who vote for 'yes' and who vote for 'no'?

Community Rules & Guidelines