Re: OT Gaming of petitions - the official response

[dennis]

Well to start with the option to leave if we don't like it.

Somewhat more intelligent than leaving because a load of lie told by brexiteers say it will be like.

[Tim Lamb]

That might be the appropriate time to change.

[Tim Lamb]

There is also the opportunity to form a strong enough grouping of like minded member countries to make changes.

[Robin]

How very droll.

(For those not in on the joke, what is commonly known as "signing the Official Secrets Act" makes bugger all difference to what a person can and cannot lawfully disclose. See eg

) In addition you will no doubt know that most government data sets are now a matter of public record. So if you have in mind data sets which cannot even be named then you are asserting that the petitions team have access to databases of exceptional sensitivity. I find that rather hard to believe.

Clearly you know best. But I am left wondering why - if these secret squirrel databases have better information about names and addresses than HMRC - that data isn't made available to HMRC but is to the petitions team.

[Tim Lamb]

In message <130420191903322147% [e-mail], Tim Streater [e-mail] writes

How do you define such a *sell by date*? All governments make decisions which a proportion of their electorate find offensive. Ignoring ephemera such as EU armies, have they actually or are they likely to do something so outrageous that we would vote them out given the opportunity? All EU member states must drive on the right? There's a Hare to start running:-)

Rhetorical stuff. I doubt they claim to be a democracy. But then, with democracy you could have Trump in charge.

>

[2987pl]

But have no way of knowing what you have currently will morph into over time.

[2987pl]

The majority who bothered to vote decided that now is the appropriate time to change.

[2987pl]

Have fun listing even a single example of that happening with the EU.

[2987pl]

Yes, most obviously with the silly idea that all EU countries should be forced to take a quota of illegals from africa and the middle east instead of sending them back where they came from.

[T i m]

<snip>

Exactly. Like any democracy it's there for the good of and run by us. If enough people (across all member states) agree something should change then it will.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

<snip>

What is it with the fanatic Brexiteers who seem completely unable to sell us on a single positive point re all of us leaving the EU but they know 100% that leaving the EU *will* be better than staying?

Cheers, T i m

[Robin]

I have only been seeking to understand why you held out the response you had from the Petitions Committee to mean there is no significant inaccuracy in the count of signatures. As I pointed out, their reply did not in terms say that. And as for checking against the Electoral Registers, they have long been notoriously unreliable as a register of residents. Electoral Commission research in 2016[1] showed they were only about 85 per cent complete (and much less than that for those under

35). [1]