From Psyops and data mining to blatant lies on buses and billboards, to call it a fair referendum would be idiocy.

You missed the mammoth in the room in the 1st ref, no one really knew what it would entail as all we were getting was bullshit, especially from the leave camp. Check up on who told the most lies on the fact check sites, channel4 s one is very reputable. Now we are much more informed and can make a reasoned choice. Wouldn't you agree cyclepath????

Brexit is already having it's human cost. I lost my partner and son as a direct result of brexit and the xenophobes who voted for it. Rant just getting started. In the next couple of days, with ailing health, a lack of money and a heart so heavy it could sink a ship, I'm driving 1200 miles to collect my son for some access. Nearly died last time, too many miles on shit roads and we nearly had a head on, with my young son in car. This is brexit is the raw. When they left it sent my body into crisis and I nearly died this january. Your reasons may be complicated but the reality is simple, brexit destroys, from our humanity in our treatment of others to families torn apart. It has brought the english festering racism to the surface. This country or at least 52% of it, disgusts me.

Why do you class everyone as a xenophobic who voted for brexit, we all have our reasons for and against brexit. I am sorry about your partner and son and this has nothing to do with racism for me

@Cyclepath Without the xenophobies, there would not have been enough votes to get Brexit through which is why many of the aims of leave were to appeal to racism. So I stand by what I said. And xenophobia is in us all, admit it or not, it is in our very DNA. Fear of those not like you, and when appealled to you may not even realise it is part of your decision making process

So you're 100% for a process which is more likely to disadvantage the poorest in our society first because you think this will hurt the politicians? I'm not following your logic here my friend.

@Savage - sorry why did Brexit lead to your family leaving?

@GoldenDoll She was french and received abuse on day one after ref, some of my own family voted brexit, now ex family. She started to suffer depression and paranoia, believed to many of her in limbo friends that she could be detained and deported and turned on me, even though I was against brexit. Much I still don't understand myself, just that the day before brexit we had a future, the day after we didn't. My son is 3 in a couple of days, a birthday with one parent, he is the real victim.

see above reply

Have you been keeping up with everything that has been coming out about the Ref. From over spends to psyops. And public will is shifting as people learn what's been going on in the shadows. It's not over yet as there is a clear case for a rerun Ref.

So you are satisfied that it was a democratic vote? Very many had given little thought to the reality. Democracy IMPLIES informed consent and only now are we finding the full facts. Yes we do need more democratic mechanisms education. The cry to 'get on with it' is a childish response . Second referendum or new election in a few months !!

Hi Guys. Yes I'm aware that social media was awash with lies prior to the vote. That the money trail behind the creation, distribution and amplifications of those misleading or untruthful posts are very murky with many investigations pointing the finger at campaigns illegally coordinating in attempts to bypass spending limits. So far not very different from many other votes I've experienced. Moreover this time round we have the wild claims being made about the technical prowess of the social media campaign. In truth over 10,000 facebook developers took advantage of facebook's deliberately loose security policies to scrape their users' friends' public profile data, Selling that data to a third party was illegal in the sense that it was a breach of contract with facebook. It was not a hack. The effectiveness of using this data to target influencers in the debate is an open question.

I'd be more concerned about the involvements of foreign governments in an industrial scale AstroTurf campaign. Foreign governments trying to influence elections is nothing new. Obama's "back of the queue" comment is small fry compared the the allegations of US election rigging in Iraq. I'm not trying to defend those strange bedfellows, (the Leave campaign and Putin's FSB) through some sort of tu coque argument. Just establish that the form of interference was in campaign tactics rather than a direct attack on the voting process. As far as I can see every vote counted was cast by a legitimate voter and (pretty much) every vote cast was counted.

However we the public have arrived at our opinion we are notoriously resistant to recognising how we form our beliefs or changing our minds. It may not have been marqis of queensbury but the blows have been landed and the opinions formed. I can easily find anecdotal tales of "Bregret" but a mass change of opinion is harder to support.

Objections can certainly be made on the number of late postal voting applications that disenfranchised those British citizens who were living in Europe. Then too the Non British, European citizens living, studying and working in the UK who were disenfranchised by the legislation calling for the vote are of even greater concern. Add in the 16-18 year old and those who've reached majority since the vote and maybe that's enough to swing it. But that just goes to show how close it was.

So yes there are no shortage of irregularities to point to and probably more in number and scale than usual. Enough to declare the whole thing null and void? I don't think so and frankly I don't care either way.

Even if it were proved that Vladimir Putin personally burned every ballot paper and replaced them with fakes, we're not going to see another referendum before the Article 50 date rolls round. It's now too late now to legislate for one. Moreover it would make no difference. The referendum provided the political will but legally the only vote that matters is the one held in the Houses of Parliament in March last year. Remember the one that passed with the landslide support of a three line whip from the opposition. That lit the fuse and unless something exceptional happens the countdown will proceed to zero.

If you expect to stop Brexit then it's a vote in the House that you need. And all that can do is ask the EU27 if they wouldn't mind unanimously agreeing to disregard our earlier article 50 notification. If they don't all agree we might hope to throw ourselves on the mercy of the European Court. Encouraging noises have been made from across the negotiating table should we choose that path but there are no guarantees and it I have little cause to hope that anyone currently sitting on this side of the table is going to try it.

What I'm not so clear on is the shifting of public opinion you mention. As mention earlier I can easily find anecdotal tales of "Bregret" but a mass change of opinion is harder to support. I've seen headlines touting polls announcing opinion swings in both direction. Polls can be very misleading and poor predictors of electoral outcomes but if there's a opinion poll series that has been asking the same questions over a period of time that shows decreasing support for Brexit that would be of interest. Yet it would have to move a long way to return me to my pre referendum understanding of euro scepticism being a fringe belief. Without such a swing stopping brexit doesn't solve the main problem - we still have a country divided on what's become the main issue of the day.

@MattHardy shifting public opinion is everywhere. [facebook.com]

@Savage nfortunately I haven't been everywhere just my own bubble of liberal metropolitan moderately privileged and smart people. (I'm striving for elite but can barely reach knave) But it sounds like you're offering nothing beyond what I've already acknowledged. Anecdotal tales of "Bregret" Headlines touting polls announcing opinion swings in both directions. Here's specific examples from recent weeks of completely opposing headlines about swings in public opinion.
[order-order.com]
[uk.businessinsider.com]
Cherries ripe for the picking. I'm sure that my critical thinking skills and moderate levels of academic prowess would help me find flaws in either. But those same critical thinking skills tell me that I wouldn't be human if I didn't have a a tendency to be more lenient on the one I hoped to be true. And maybe those critical thinking skills will also have a harder time reminding me to avoid Ad Hominem and the Genetic fallacy in that case of the article I'd like not to be true, Especially when I know just how unreliable Guido has been in the past and that the man behind Guido is called Mr Staines or Mr P Staines to be more precise... (Titter ye not)

@Savage You wrote "...t a mass change of opinion is harder to support. " It would only take a swing of 1% to make it a dead heat. Any more and the result of the first referendum would be reversed.

@Red_Cat my point is that it's so close. That being close is a problem. It doesn't matter if it's slightly over 50% or slightly under 50% of the population who have been sold this pup that's still too many.

Exactly what this petition calls for. Signing cost nothing, doing nothing costs everything

What lies don I refer to, where do I begin. 1st, lets put a\way the rubbish about both sides lies. It was factchecked more than once a\nd the stay camp told mostly truth, around 90% truthful while the leave camp were very distorted when it came to the truth.I think it was around 70% bullshit. Big difference to the stay camp. Then lets talk SCL the psyops company and cambridge analytic. No sign of anything free and fair. And this isn't an election, it is a permanent change which is already sinking the country. Jobs are already moving tnalo Europe and our rights are leaving to. And the one reason for this whole debacle is rarely talked off, the new EU laws coming in just after we leave, reigning in the elites and tax dodgers. I can't see why any rational person having looked at asll the pros a cons, especially the cons, and still thinkj it a wise move. And if you think it a done deal, your wrong, if we don't wanty it, we have to stop it. And as for my motivations, I lost my partner anjd young son to brexit, my partner was french and couldn't take living in little england, from racial abuse in the street to her fear of being deported. I know it wasn't going to happen but the UK spooked EU nationals with our built in zenaphobia. So, if anyone has something positive to say about Brexit, let's hear it so I can blow it out of the water. You may think signing a petition isn't going to change anything, but how can anything change unless we do something.

Like i said lies on BOTH sides......... Politicians lie ......'Shocker' It really didn't matter to me what they said at the time.. I try to make my own mind up about things and not follow a crowd of conventional thinking with its own agenda either way. Thats why I don't have a twitter or facebook account If you are making your mind up by listening to unverified sources on the net that can be easily manipulated you have not developed a critical approach to decision making and again like I say making 'emotional' decisions, this is my point really.

There were a myriad of different reasons people voted the way they did lets have it right. People always vote for selfish reasons or a perceived short term gain. From what you say I can now see why you probably voted the way you did, but can you look at the reasons why people might have voted the other way? I'm not saying you have to be in total agreement with them but I would suggest taking a more balanced look at this, there is more to it than Blue vs Red or xenophobia on its own. I also acknowledge your right to protest and have a petition etc, what I'm saying from a pragmatic point of view is the vote already happened and you can't get it rerun as that's the very definition of 'undemocratic' . If you want to try and effect change what you should be doing is supporting any 'legal' challenges to the original validity of the vote not trying in vain to turn back time as it were and have it again.

for example: [theguardian.com]

My reply to you was just to ask you to restate your position so the rest of the community could debate this properly, and you have so thanks.

The "clear result" you refer to was a margin of 2%. That is not much of a mandate, especially as the reality of Brexit is becoming more apparent by the day.

There was never a referendum on Proportional Representation. It was about Alternative Vote, which is quite different. Don't let anybody tell you that we voted about PR.

That's true, It's as close to electoral reform as we've ever got however, and my point is still valid I think. What I'm saying is the more important referendum for me was the one where we could have affected change of the 'rigged' electoral system specifically designed to keep the status quo.

Under AV/PR system Cameron never gets elected and there is no Brexit vote.

The pragmatic truth is getting even one more vote than the other side is a clear result, or are you saying no democratic vote should be seen as legitimate unless its more than a 2% mandate? How is that democratic, however If you don't believe in democracy then that is a different debate altogether.

@pictomaniac In a sane world a result of less than 2% lead should reslult in further consultation and debating and talking. Looking at the pros and cons, getting the people become more informed. And in a sane world, once enough facts wrre known by enough of the people the right choice could be firmly made. Anyone know of a sane world we could try this on