Brexit – you may have heard of it. For 40 years, since the UK joined the then Common Market, there has been a substantial ‘Eurosceptic’ mood in both main political parties and in the country. This has been influenced by a never-ending stream of misinformation in the tabloids, claiming the EU is responsible for every one of its readers’ many ills – including a few they didn’t even know they were bothered by until the papers told them – and spreading alarm that the EU’s ‘ever closer union’ means that it is becoming a federal Superstate, complete with army, president and anthem. To a proud ‘patriot’, this is anathema.
The rest of us simply don’t see it that way, and regard the visceral reaction to our ongoing membership with puzzlement. We value the notions of common cause and unity in a continent still bearing the deep scars of two World Wars that started here, while the requirement for 28 nations to agree policy, unanimously or by majority according to area of impact, offers some protection from the petty politics of the individual nations, whose negative aspects we are amply demonstrating to the world right now. Most law is made by the individual nations, and that will continue to be the case. The rest is voted on by elected delegates. The idea that the remaining 27 nations are willing parties to surrendering their nation status for fully centralised rule, with Britain alone seeing what is really going on … well, it looks a bit mad. Many people in Scotland want to both leave the UK, and remain in the EU as a separate nation. This would make no sense if the ‘death of nation states’ view of the future held any water. And equally proud nations like France, Germany, Italy, Spain … ? I mean, come on! When someone claims ‘Superstate’ as a reason for exit, I regard them as I might someone grabbing the steering wheel and shouting “ALIEEEEENSSSS!” (permissible, of course, when there really are aliens).
Due – it seems to me – to that relentless anti EU propaganda from billionaire-owned tabloids, the national mood has become increasingly Eurosceptic. A political party, UKIP, started with a sole aim in mind, to exit the EU, garnered a lot of support, particularly from what is still termed the ‘working classes’. Due in part to our peculiar constituency system of election, they were unable to gain any seats in Parliament, but ironically, in the EU Parliament’s Proportional Representation system, they gained several seats in order to harangue those on the EU ‘gravy train’ while collecting a fat paycheck, plus expenses and a £75,000 pension.
This drift of support from Conservative candidates to UKIP was a concern for Conservative leader David Cameron, then in a coalition government, and so in the 2015 manifesto, he offered a commitment to hold a referendum on the matter. Manifesto pledges are not really worth the paper they are written on, being honoured as often in the breach as the observance, but Cameron was true to his word, sadly, and on 23rd June 2016 we were offered a simple choice: Remain in the EU or Leave the EU (a question laughably naive, in hindsight, but adjudged by the independent Electoral Commission as least likely to confuse the plebs). To everyone’s surprise, including their own, Leave won, garnering 17,410,742 votes to Remain’s 16,141,241. Although a not-insignificant 1.3 million difference, the real margin, the number who would have to change their minds to wipe out the win, was just 634,750. We have been arguing ever since about what people meant when they placed their X in the ‘Leave’ column. It may seem obvious, but it isn’t – there are almost as many flavours of Leave as Leavers, from a cocky two fingers to the EU in its entirety, by midnight on referendum day if poss (oh, and can we negotiate a trade deal with you please, this powerful bloc we’ve just told to fuck off), to non-voting but expensive membership such as that enjoyed by Norway who takes all the rules and has no say in them, to full-blown NWO tinfoil-hatters.
Leavers were like the dog that caught the car, unsure what to do next. The great thing about referendums being of course that there is no accountability. You can say what you like, you’re not the one who will have to deliver. Eurosceptics were largely professional sideline snipers.
Cameron resigned immediately – my turd, you clean it up. Within a short period of time all three main parties lost their leaders. For the Tories, Theresa May emerged, eventually getting in unopposed when the other candidates wisely dropped out. In the UK, we do not directly elect our Prime Minister – ironically, given the ‘EU is undemocratic’ trope regularly trotted out. They are elected as MP by their constituency, in her case leafy Maidenhead in Berkshire. You don’t live there, you can’t vote for her. They then become PM by becoming leader of the party, elected by members (if anyone else stands).
For Labour on the other hand, Jeremy Corbyn, an old-school socialist, emerged. He had enthusiastic support, particularly among the young, and they were quite strident in their dismissal of ‘centrists’. “Why not just fuck off and join the Tories?” was a common taunt, which probably won’t be their opening line when they turn up on those same centrists’ doorsteps at campaign time asking for their support. To his supporters, he’s beyond criticism. To his detractors, he’s just a very naughty boy.
May was emboldened by the polls to try a ‘snap’ general election in 2017, to “strengthen my hand in EU negotiations”. Really, it was an attempt to smash Corbyn. The nation said “no thanks” and returned the Tories (having said “no thanks” to Jeremy too!) with a reduced majority. She had to rely on the Ulster Unionists, a group of 10 hard-line religious fundamentalists representing just 300,000 voters. Northern Ireland, I should mention, voted as a region to Remain (as did Scotland). I hope you’re keeping up; there will be a test. Now, Northern Ireland is an issue no—one had given much thought to. It’s long been a line of ‘Trouble’, but since we were both in the EU, and after long negotiations all parties had signed up to the Good Friday Agreement, a general, if uneasy, peace had returned.
However, the Border will now be a boundary between Britain and the EU. Since we have (maybe; ask me again on Friday) exited both the Single Market and the Customs Union, WTO rules (not EU rules) mean that there will have to be checks – a return of the hated ‘hard border’. There are naturally concerns, and the EU has offered a ‘deal’ that involves an extended Customs arrangement. This requires a far greater say of the EU in our affairs – the very thing Brexiteers were trying to get away from – while simultaneously removing us from a seat at the table that decides these rules. Genius. Eurosceptics hate it and so do Remainers. It is an utterly pointless move, both agree. But whaddyagonnado? The referendum was split close to 50/50, and no-one thought to put in supermajority safeguards, so a compromise that absolutely no-one wants seems the only way to, in the leaden phrase uttered by politician after politician, ‘respect the referendum’.
The ultras are having none of it. They want to crash out without a ‘deal’, a position most people with brain cells regard as absolutely insane, and not one to be inferred from any individual Leave ‘X’ with any confidence. Yet they act as if ‘the 17.4 million’ (another leaden phrase) all wanted, and still want, exactly that. Even the dead ones. Most Remainer MPs meanwhile dare not talk of cancelling Brexit altogether, but talk of something softer but still Brexit-y, with Customs this and Single that, without really coming up with anything concrete. The EU are understandably losing patience. They have been the soul of diplomacy and patience in my view. When Donald Tusk remarked that “there must be a special place in Hell for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan”, Brexiters were furious, missing the nuance that by resenting the slur they own up to having no plan…
“May’s Deal” has been soundly rejected by both sides in two record-breaking defeats in Parliament – and she wants to bring it back a third time! She’s convinced that if she plays chicken, and it’s that deal or ‘no-deal’, then her deal it is. This gives some flavour of the general unpopularity of no-deal, that it can be used as a threat – “if you don’t stop I’m going to turn this car right around!”. But now, the EU are saying if it’s defeated a 3rd time, you either go now or you have a longer extension and take part in European elections (did I mention that the EU is undemocratic?).
We aren’t ready. Not by a long chalk. In my area, IT, I know that it takes yonks (Google it) to put a system in place, and they haven’t even started – because they don’t know what we have to do! But May’s steely determination, with hardliners’ boots on her neck, has brought us to this ill-prepared impasse – a non-choice between two unpopular options that were not even on a ballot paper in 2016, and we HAVE to do it because … ‘it’s the will of the people’. Now where have we heard that before?
There is a febrile atmosphere. A pro-Remain MP, Jo Cox, was murdered in 2016, and all MPs who dare to retain Remain sympathies have received death threats (I am not aware of any such threats being made to Brexiteers). Even a lady who started an online petition to simply abandon the whole thing – more on which shortly – has received multiple death threats. The reasonable Leavers find common cause with racists, thugs and Nazi sympathisers. In this climate the Prime Minister took the extraordinary step on Wednesday of appealing directly to ‘the people’ and blaming MPs for the impasse, something one would imagine happening in some banana republic, not dear old Britain where our quaint system involves people donning ritual wigs and banging on a door with a big ceremonial stick from time to time. Given the recent assassination, she might be more careful how she whips up ‘the people’. The Government is making plans to impose martial law – martial law! – in the event of no-deal disruption. We’re hoping not to have to actually do it, they add, a little unnecessarily.
I have gone on at far greater length than I intended about the background to this; I was merely intending to mention and show a few pictures from the march I attended yesterday in London, where over a million people *** – mostly middle-class, it must be admitted – came from all over Britain to make their voice heard, and demand a vote on the actual options available, which weren’t known in 2016 when the blank-cheque ‘Leave’ option was ticked (or crossed, I should say). Seems reasonable? You’d think so, but this is Britain. No end of Leavers, both in power and out, still insist that the referendum – that 634,750 excess – be ‘respected’, 3 years down the line. Many Remainers agree. But surely that phrase must have a sell-by date? 1.5 million people have died since, a similar number have attained voting age. That demographic shift alone favours Remain, because Leave is most heavily favoured in my g-g-g-g-generation (yes, Roger Daltrey is a Brexiteer).
It also seems a matter of basic fairness that Leavers should give their final assent to the preferred method of leaving, given they weren’t asked and the options differ markedly. If Remain happens to rank above any given Leave option available, they should be able to say so. Yet many – including our own Prime Minister – have explicitly stated that such a vote would be ‘undemocratic’. The irony of this was not lost on the crowd yesterday, many placards making mention of May’s three attempts to get her deal ratified while denying ‘the People’ any further say. Indeed, the placards and the general mood of the march made one swell with pride at the crazy Britishness of the whole thing. We stood in a 2-mile queue for an hour, then shuffled good-naturedly along, smiling apologies when feet got trodden on, with barely a policeman in sight (apart from Downing Street, where numerous officers stood in front of the gates, another 8 more behind brandishing submachine guns. “We only want to talk to her”, we might say, like an estranged husband trying to get past his ex’s mum).
A particularly clever brand of trolling has been invented by a group know as ‘Led By Donkeys’. This started as a chat in a pub by 3 mates. They decided to mock up a tweet of some genuine Leave-leader words, get it printed as a full-size billboard, and then stick it up guerilla-style in the dead of night. Subsequently they crowdsourced a bit of funding, rented legitimate space and hired a professional to do the pasting. When they got a bit more cash, they hired an ad van – ironically the same van used by UKIP founder Nigel Farage during referendum campaigning – and used it to follow Nigel about. The van was at the march yesterday, rotating some of their greatest hits – “If this is 52/48 Remain it’s unfinished business by a long way” (N. Farage); “It might make sense to have two referendums actually … ” (J Rees-Mogg); or the classic “A democracy that cannot change its mind ceases to be a democracy” (D. Davis). The latter was also printed up on a sheet 100 yards across and held up for the news helicopters to film, a stroke of genius.
Contrast this with the behaviour at many Leaver events. The committed are really angry, without apparent dilution by the self-deprecating, ironic streak of the average Remainer. Many point to civil unrest as a reason to cave in – some violence is a virtual certainty, but one that should not faze a bulldog nation that stood up to Hitler, the IRA and ISIS, as patriots never stop reminding us.
In parallel with all this, the previously mentioned petition, on an official government website, suddenly blew up on Wednesday – moments after May had delivered her ‘you, the people’ speech. ‘I’m on your side’. she said. It got under everyone’s skin. Within a short period the petition was being shared far and wide, as people sought the only means available to distance themselves from the “hive-mind with but a single thought” this obsessive woman tries to portray us as. 1,000 signatures a minute, it crashed the site several times. 2 million a day at peak (Thu/Fri), and presently sitting around the 5.3 million mark and rising. That’s 5 million people who just want to say “Stop” – not even “put it to the people”; Stop. Leavers are falling over themselves to try and discredit it, one site with terrible journalistic standards but a seat on a BBC panel trying to make something of the fact that many signatures were from ‘foreign places’. The fact that citizens are still allowed out of the country from time to time may help to explain this sinister pattern! Or you’ll hear it’s bots, or it’s people with 10,000 email addresses each and a lot of time on their hands … I jokingly commented that most of the people on the march yesterday were robots or foreigners, plus a bunch running from end to end like a kid in a panoramic school photo to bulk the numbers. It was almost Trumpian in scale!
Now, will any of this make a difference? Perhaps not. As I write, we leave on Friday, with no deal. Please send blankets.
*** Intellectual honesty demands that I dial this figure down. Crowd experts say about half that figure. Fair enough. Nonetheless, my Facebook post saying I was going picked up 27 ‘likes’, none of whom went. I’ll assume their support, and multiply it. I’ll discount the one Brexiteer who was possibly confused which march I was talking about!
Yeah, it’s bad. Dunno if it’s the stupidest, but it’s down there.
Tell your old buddy, patrick!
Why do we have elections? I ask as someone who has been disenfranchised for most of my adult life. Only ask if you want to know more!
walto,
Never my buddy! We were civil. That’s the British way.
ETA at least it used to be!
That’s fine for groups the size of a tribe. It works for larger groups when they are threatened by external forces. In my youth there was a whole genre of movies devoted to the sense of camaraderie in wartime. When war became unpopular, the threat became aliens.
It’s why leaders stir up wars and threats of wars. It’s why we have hundreds of minor wars going on all over the world. Because people feel good as members of a threatened tribe. And politicians are vampires, feeding on the blood.
I think the goal is (or should be) to find out what the people want.
Why have you been disenfranchised? keiths and phoodoo get a chance to talk to the authorities?
Hit the nail on the head, there!
walto,
It’s the concept of safe seats. UK has constituencies which means you only get to vote for the local member of parliament. That’s it. My first MP was Gerald Nabarro. Didn’t matter if I voted for someone else, this is who I got.
Oh, the penny just dropped! 🙂
So the definition of the process not working is that you always lose.
I have voted since 1968, and never for the person who won the presidential election. Usually I have voted for minor candidates, women, when they were on the ballot.
Despite never winning, I am fairly comfortable with the direction of the world as a whole. I think the internet has shoved a lot of icky sights into our face. If you look only at the news, you think things are getting worse. But they aren’t.
We just see things that were out of sight before.
Sorry to quote myself but that Wikipedia article is hilarious, see Monty Python reference.
Alan,
Walto’s point is simple. Voting is not intended to establish consensus. In fact, it’s a way of deciding things when consensus is absent.
So to criticize voting for failing to establish consensus is to misunderstand the point of having elections in the first place.
Where I live, things are a bit quiet. Men tend to overindulge on red wine and there is a surplus of widows. The armoury on the front doors is a sight to behold. Number of widows murdered in their beds by unknown assailants – zero. Amount of anti – intruder expenditure by widows – immense.
walto, to Alan:
The funny thing is, while Alan has censored me, I have never tried to silence him.
So explain what the point is.
keiths,
Oh, really? You seem to have no difficulty commenting.
Allan Miller,
Unfortunately, even if the UK somehow stays in, the wrangling will continue. There will be a new Commission and a new EP this year. It is pretty likely that they will work towards a Treaty change during their stint in office. That will mean another referendum in the UK – and so the whole circus will start all over again.
The only way to escape that is to leave now and park yourselves in a very close orbit, picking the economic fruits whilst avoiding the political fallout.
Alan,
I explained it in that very comment:
Enjoy our chlorinated chicken, UK!
I have a colleague (Irish citizen, US spouse) who recently left a job in the UK to take a position in the US. They mentioned that the uncertainty of Brexit’s effect on immigration law and their ability to work in the country was a factor.
I’d advocate a final referendum, assuming that the MPs in the House of Commons can’t summon the gumption to withdraw Article 50.
walto:
keiths:
Alan:
Alan Logic:
If you aren’t being censored now, it’s impossible that you were ever censored. And never mind the 30-day ban. Look, a squirrel!
Alan:
walto:
Alan:
That’s not disenfranchisement. You were able to vote. The franchise is not a guarantee that your chosen candidate will win.
Aha. I couldn’t figure out what he was saying at all. Can that really be it? He only gets to vote where he lives?
(Nah, that can’t be it. I mean, Can’t he vote against this person each election if he doesn’t like the representation he’s getting?)
I mean, I like proportional representation too, but not having it isn’t technically disenfranchisement.
Misleading headline.
Up till Brexit, one of the few causes I’ve felt strongly about was a move to add an hour to our evenings year round. I’ve favoured lighter evenings for years. It had massive cross party and public support, and was favoured by many organisations including several accident charities. The Bill was attacked by the Daily Mail – a headline ‘Berlin time’ in a Germanic font, which is bloody ironic considering the Mail’s dark history pre-war. That it’s also Paris, Madrid, Oslo time was not mentioned. It was filibustered in Parliament by that snivelling shit Jacob Rees-Mogg, largely because it was seen as alignment with Europe. So when these knobheads start talking about democracy and the will of the people, I think to that.
Now we are (possibly) out, we will lose this opportunity to better align daylight with the waking day when the rest of Europe scraps clock change (according to longitude, countries will choose the last change in spring or autumn). And no matter what case can be made for following suit, you can bet we won’t ‘cos we’re Britain and it’s what we do.
This tale on a relatively trivial matter is the whole situation in miniature.
Nimrods.
Heh! I’m trying to keep my true feelings under wraps! 😃
walto:
For any confused Brits — “nimrods” is an insult in American English, not a reference to skilled hunters deserving of having airplanes named after them.
It’s an obviousinversion of meaning via sarcasm. Like Mighty Warrior, or Tarzan.
petrushka,
I’m sure it started that way, but it’s since been generalized to refer to any dimwit, such as those opposed to the European clock change.
That’s true. I think it started with Bugs Bunny calling Elmer Fudd a nimrod.
Somehow the hunter part got lost, and what’s left is the dimwit connotation.
I think it’s the sound of the word.
petrushka,
Yeah. I remember hearing it for the first time, in Sunday school. Several of us laughed.
The government has unsurprisingly rejected the petition I mentioned – biggest ever, currently standing at near 6 million signatories, on its own bean-tin telephone to the corridors of power.
By a margin of 650,000, a 13-12 split.
The last bit is just dense – you hear it again and again in Brexiter arguments. A manifesto is a lengthy set of promises, not one, and an election integrates a host of issues both local and national. Most constituencies are safe seats for Labour or Conservative (except in Scotland). Elections are decided largely by swing between the two in marginals. If both parties decide to uphold the result, there is no voter choice. (Technically though, the electorate rejected the Labour manifesto … !).
They are listing a series of non-independent events. The leaflet’s commitment (made by a previous administration, not ‘this’ one as stated) has become a binding contract for both sides in perpetuity – constitutionally unprecedented. In an election, there’s a candidate whose promises can be held to account, and got rid of. Not here.
2.5% of the electorate has died since 2016. A similar number has attained majority. But ‘17.4 million’ has become a static totem. As we rumble on to discuss our ‘future relationship’, the numbers will keep changing at about that rate, half a million a year. But there is absolutely no recourse.
Ah, well, mustn’t grumble
You only have to ask. Allan Miller has gone into a bit more detail about the safe/marginal system of constituencies in his comment above mlne, where voting (against the winning candidate in safe seats*) makes no difference to the result and tiny swings in opinion in a few marginal constuencies can and do produce huge distortions in parliament numbers.
Again, you can ask. I have no idea where you get to this from what I wrote. I must try and eliminate my obtuseness.
Technically, no but effectively it is if you live in the safest Tory seat in the country and vote for another candidate.
And, having lived abroad for more than fifteen years, I can no longer vote in UK elections. I also can’t vote in my adopted country as I haven’t yet applied for French citizenship. (Residency only allows me to vote in local elections and European elections.)
ETA*
Allan Miller,
This comment deserves a wider audience. You can post comments on the Guardian website (though the rate folks comment on hot topics does bury the good stuff – you’d get voted up I’m sure!)
I admit that I assumed that this was the type of disenfranchisement that you were referring to; perhaps because that’s my situation too.
But I’m willing to bet that walto is quite aware of the effective disenfranchisement caused by FPTP voting; remember that he wrote an OP on the failure of FPTP voting (and score voting) to achieve his egalitarian goal. Safe seats are a hot topic in the USA too; even money walto has a poster or T-shirt with the original Gerrymander cartoon on it. Re-read his response in that light. I suspect he was being a little tongue-in-cheek, safe in the knowledge that a certain someone wouldn’t get the joke…
Don’t know much about England, but in The States, many elections are close. One election at the state level was ruled a tie, and decided by a coin toss.
If presidential elections were chosen some other way — say by popular vote — the dynamics would be completely different from what is current. People who are currently “disenfranchised” would have an incentive to vote. Third party candidates would decide most elections by siphoning enough votes to flip the majority. Bill Clinton was elected due to this effect.
The electoral system is not bad. It would be better if it were implemented at the precinct level. It dilutes the effects of fraud, because corrupt precincts could not disproportionately effect the larger result. People say fraud is a non factor, but as results get closer, it becomes more important. In the recent elections, many national races were decided by hundreds of votes. It is easy to manufacture votes in the hundreds, because we do not have positive voter IDs, and because we have no good system for validating absentee votes.
All of the academic systems I hear about just seem to assume integrity, but American elections have never had the level of integrity that makes really close elections trustworthy.
Ah, that makes much more sense.
Quite right.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
Allan Miller,
Great post, Allan.
Yes. There is a fairly well established history of some voting precincts being corrupt. The percentage may not be high, but when a vote is close, they can decide an election. One famous example is the long counts that decided the 1960 election of JFK. The entire election was decided by a few votes in Texas and Illinois. Several precincts in each state held back their results until it was known how many votes were needed to flip the election. It was widely regarded at the time as fraud, but there was no one willing to force an investigation.
Under the system I’ve seen proposed by a mathematician, precincts would each have an equal number of voters, and each would have one electoral vote, decided by majority.
Is this a problem? In the last presidential election, the Green Party forced recounts in three states. The recount was terminated in Michigan when it was discovered that several inner city precincts had more votes than voters. Quite a few more.
In Pennsylvania, a precinct held back absentee vote counts, and when they were finally counted, they were 100 percent for one candidate.
My problem with academic theories of voting is they never seem to take fraud into account. any viable system has to assume that the system will be corrupted, and the very first goal should be to make that difficult.
Intimidation and suppression are also problems.It’s difficult to get the vote honest.
petrushka,
I’m more than OK with close votes deciding between flesh-and-blood candidates. At least you can hold them to account, and vote again in a few short years. But a policy…
Events move apace. May’s deal, soundly rejected twice and refused readmission by the Speaker without substantive change, is now garnishing support from people who previously resigned over it, and said they would rather remain.
The carrot? May has said she’ll go if it gets through. That’s all kinds of wrong.
My annoyance over it is tempered by the fact that Brexiters who aren’t after a shot at the top job are just as furious.
Except the one you’re proposing here?
Allan Miller,
I continue to be impressed by the depths of venality to which many politicians will sink.
Not surprised, mind you, just impressed.
The one I am proposing is specifically intended to limit the scope of infection.
That does not mean it actually works, or that it is perfect.
I am suggesting that rules that work is small communities where everyone knows everyone else may not scale up to cities, states nations, and the world.
Any system that does not assume that people are corruptible, and that money and power will infect any system that does not have an effective immune system, is defective.
My observation is that modern campaign technology produces near ties in many contests. Near ties invite cheating.
That is the first problem to mitigate.
petrushka,
Do you think there would be fewer near ties, or just that a small group of precincts couldn’t do as much mischief in the case of a close election? Fwiw, I have nothing against it (if there are only two candidates) as far as it goes. Fraud reduction is always good.
MP’s have now voted on 8 options to test for a possible direction – including revocation and putting it back to the people. They all failed.
… although the least worst failure was Public Vote. Not that I’m particularly sanguine that the country will do any better with this question.
It would help if people stopped saying ‘respect the referendum’. They should make a decision, not second guess an evanescent intellect that coalesced for just one day in 2016, mumbled something vague and then shuffled off, muttering to itself.
Allan Miller,
Look on the bright side. An independent Scotland and a united Ireland may flow from the mess. Both in the EU. No more United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – just England and Wales.
Well, that’s a whole other arena of ongoing disruption! Yay to the second, but I’d note we’d be getting rid of a hard border in Ireland, then setting one up on this island!
As an aside, some of the most intelligent commentary has come from Ireland. The comments section of the Irish Times has an articulacy and insight rarely matched on this side of the Irish Sea.
Allan Miller,
Yup. From the Troubles to today with their gay Prime Minister, their escape from the malign influence of the Catholic Church, sensible abortion laws developed through citizen’s assemblies are changes I would never have predicted in 1974.