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!
Allan Miller,
It is worth pointing out that Dame Beckett’s referendum proposal was not to be a choice between Remain and a Brexit option, but a straight yes/no question on whatever Brexit option would be passed by Parliament. Seeing the current mood it is highly likely that the public would then vote against whatever the proposal would be, just like Parliament just did, resulting in a default no-deal crash-out.
It would help if people would realise that all this endless bickering will surely result in the worst of all outcomes, an accidental no-deal Brexit. The idea of voting on mutiple options was in principle sound, but there should be a process of stepwise elimination of the least favoured option until just one remains. In a climate where there are only majorities against particular decisions, this seems the only sensible way out.
What also doesn’t help is that some of the proposals put forward are pure fantasy. It is very disheartening to see that the one with the least votes against it, Ken Clarke’s Custom Union, makes no sense whatsoever. First of all a Customs Union will do precisely nothing to preserve frictionless borders and therefore it won’t help one little bit in Ireland, and secondly it isn’t a choice between a CU and the WA at all. To get into a CU with the EU it will surely be required to ratify the WA first!
It really seems as if the majority of the MP’s still don’t understand how any of this works, after nearly 3 years of faffing about. And if even Parliament doesn’t understand it, what hope is there that the general public will?
I think the country has managed to get its knickers in such a terminal twist that a no-deal crashout in just 2 weeks is now all but inevitable. MP’s can vote against this all they want, but they might as well vote against the incoming tide.
Social media must bear some of the blame for the current situation. I see share after share of numerous posts which are outright lies – two in particular, one on the Lisbon Treaty, and one on ‘EU grants’ given to persuade business to flee Britain, are very popular.
In the kind of ‘do your research’ manner that will be familiar to many here, one sees ‘look into the Lisbon Treaty’ in any number of Leaver comments, and many Remainers are saying “crikey, is this true?” It is in fact a tissue of lies, some of them hilarious (“the UK loses control of its space exploration programme”! 😅). But it appears in a typeface font, and conforms to prejudice, so is swallowed whole.
The other is likewise made-up. Member states cannot poach business off each other. Worse, once we are out, the gloves are off. The rules only apply to member states. Two forces will operate on businesses, both tending to push them EU-wards.
Concession to Brexiteers requires concession on the legitimacy of sincere points of view based on untruths and fantasy – the ALIEEEENS!!! jibe in my OP. It’s a hard one to swallow.
Allan Miller,
Social Media are for sure an almighty force in the public debate these days, and as you say, they are very dangerous when fallen prey to organised lying and deception. I think as society we have completely underestimated what a powerful tool the Internet has become in furthering political interests.
Even so, universal suffrage doesn’t require that everybody is right, or well informed. Democracy always carries the risk that the wrong ideas get majority support. I don’t think there is an easy solution to this apart from long-term education and information. The EU themselves should take part of the blame, they are quite useless at selling their idea and their benefits to the masses.
In the short term, I’m afraid that the only way people will learn is by direct experience. Harsh, but true I think.
There’s certainly no contrary evidence to your claim!
faded_Glory,
You are making a sound case for the ranked, transferable preference referendum I favour.
Of course this itself would be subject to endless bickering by Parliament before the public got anywhere near it.
I would meanwhile note that, for some people, a no-deal Brexit would be anything but ‘accidental’. I’ll fight for Remain and risk ‘no-deal’, ta; I am in no mood to make concessions to these wrecking chumps. All forms of Brexit are as useless as each other, from where I stand. If we end up no-deal, you can blame me if you like.
You can’t be referring to that one small enlightened group from Northern Island, Arlene Foster and her merry band, can you? They’re my last one hope that Brexit fails! Unless Anna Soubry gets the notice she deserves.
faded_Glory,
Thomas Paine and others suggested representation!
The one daily blog from the Leave side that may be worth following is Eu Referendum by Richard North.
He is a strange kind of guy. A dedicated Eurosceptic whose mind is totally made up that the UK should be out of the EU, but to his credit he has worked for many years on a plan (“Flexcit”) to achieve this without wrecking the economy at the same time. His idea was for the UK to re-join EFTA and thereby remain in the EEA and Single Market for at least some time. I have read this plan and spent a fair bit of time on his blog, and it is fair to say that he is not stupid, stays true to the facts, has a deep grasp of the technical issues and remains level-headed with respect to the political realities. He stays well away from all the tired tropes and memes from the Leave side which is very refreshing.
Having said that he is also quite a prick, with a vile tongue and zero tolerance for errors and mistakes which can be quite offputting. He has managed to make himself a persona non grata with the powers that be, and so his reasonable Leave plan hasn’t got any traction anywhere outside a small circle of followers. He was part of the pre-referendum Leave Alliance, a separate group from the criminal idiots of Vote Leave.
The later stages of Flexcit are quite weird and I can’t support them, but at least he sees Brexit as a process that needs careful managing rather than as a one-off event that will solve everything in one go. As far as Leavers go, he is one of the more sane ones.
Representation doesn’t prevent a Trump, or a Boris Johnson.
Not solely! Anyone who favours simply kicking over the table and picking up the pieces – the hard Lexiters, UKIP, Major’s ‘bastards’. It’s like someone trying to separate Siamese twins with a hatchet.
A bizarre situation indeed. Remainers are their hope that it succeeds.
She has impressed me greatly, no mean feat for a Tory.
For sure, the perfect system does not exist. But the present intersection of representative and popular democracy is unseemly. 3 years on, it might be time to stop pretending that a narrow margin in a poll was a perpetual mandate.
Allan Miller,
The public made a mistake in 2016. For a little while I had some hope that a sensible Government would limit the damage, but Mrs. May’s Lancaster House speech on 2017 blew that out of the water (the one where she decided to take the UK out of the Single Market). Then, I was hoping that Parliament would over time come to see some sense and take the right decisions. Last night put an end to that illusion.
Going back to the public now would, I fear, double down on the 2016 mistake. A small win for Leave would help nothing. A small win for Remain would make the underlying divisions far worse than they already are. I really think that the country would be at risk of very serious disturbance. We’d surely see violence on the streets, or worse.
I now think the least worse future is perhaps a crash-out. It will be economically painful but hopefully people will finally understand that being in the EU isn’t nearly as bad as they think. There might even be an emergence of sense in Parliament and Government and moves to repair the damage. Perhaps people might reunite in the face of shared suffering…?
Or not. Frankly, I give up.
faded_Glory,
I’ll see your civil unrest and raise you martial law, and emboldening of the fascists.
But as I smirkingly say when Leavers raise this: “Project Fear, mate!” 😃
Do you really think that a revoke to Remain would be the end of the matter? The EU question will remain a festering sore in British society and politics, we can fully expect the Tories to swing even further to the right, and we would undoubtedly see a bunch of UKIP MP’s after the next GE. Moreover, there will quite likely be another EU referendum in the next 5 years because of Treaty change, and the whole nonsense will start all over again.
Remaining at this stage would just be just a short term sticky plaster. The genie is out of the bottle and getting it back in will be very hard. A painful Brexit might be the only thing that could accomplish it. And again, as an EU citizen I have serious doubts about the value that the UK in its current mood would add to the EU. Nothing personal, mind you.
Of course not. Nothing’s ever the end of the matter.
I’d accept that, since I favour PR. We cope with 10 DUPers OK, except when we’re trying to do something mad and they hold the balance. The alternative is to implement UKIP/DUP policy right now. Have to say, as well, that most political predictions have fallen short of the mark. Doesn’t mean they all are wrong, but I wouldn’t bet my house on one.
Let’s make sure we don’t have any say in that!
Haha. Some kind of Rube Goldberg Brexit with no chaos theory or unintended consequences. Do A then you do B then C then maybe get to D. A plan almost fiendish in its simplicity! 🤔
No, it’s fair, but applies equally to the EEA.
Anyone want to address Article 13? I have no idea what it will actually be when implemented, but I’ve read stuff that indicates it will be massively disruptive.
For example, the primary meme subreddit has just banned all uploads from Europe, because no one has guidelines as to what will be enforced.
I have read that building designs are copyrighted, and that you will have to have permission from the architect to publish pictures of buildings, even if they are just in the background.
In the old days, when the American congress debated laws, such weirdnesses were hashed out before passage of laws, and when the letter of the law seemed onerous, the debate could be cited as to the intention of the law. Nowadays, laws are written by lobbyists, and congressmen don’t bother reading them.
Anyway, my one and only British correspondent, who opposes Brexit, says Article 13 is a gift to Brexiteers.
About five posts ago, you were anti-deliberation–saying it’s just an opportunity for graft. Hard to keep up with you.
I don’t recall saying that. Can you find the quote where I said deliberation leads to graft?
I recall addressing election procedures, any of which can be corrupted.
It is my intention to argue for awareness of fraud and corruption, and to attempt political systems that limit the damage.
petrushka,
It still has to pass individual nation executives, and, despite what some would have us believe, they are sovereign. There is no doubt that the EU can be moronic. This is true of any legislature.
I don’t trust internet gossip. Is there anything actually good about Article 13?
It looks like Prohibition to me, with about as much chance of succeeding. The problem I see is the danger of selective enforcement of a law that cannot possible be fairly and evenly enforced.
The failure of Prohibition does not imply that alcohol is without evils. Same with other drugs.
petrushka,
I think it has a reasonable intent, to protect copyright. But I’m not particularly behind it. I’m a bit nonplussed about the ‘cookies’ thing too. I believe it was EU-instigated, that we have to expressly accept cookies. But I don’t see what ill that deals with.
I think that depends on what you read, who you believe and who benefits. Must confess I was only vaguely aware of the regulation until just reading the Wikipedia entry. I see it has yet to be incorporated in EU law, as “it must be approved by the European Council (EC) on 9 April 2019”.
Well, they had help! But the bigger disaster was the missed opportunity by Nick Clegg (the leader of the one-time third force in British politics – the Liberal Democrats*) who totally messed up his one chance at greatness with the 2011 referundum on voter reform.
*ETA
I keep looking for the browser setting:
Just accept cookies, and tell the web site to f*ck off with that nonsense about asking permission.
Just use Brave, and don’t visit sites that require cookies.
I must have been less attentive to or forgotten more about that 2011 referendum than I thought. One telling comment from the Wikiperdia article:
Tim Ivorson of the electoral reform campaign Make Votes Matter responded by quoting the petition’s text that “The UK has never had a say on PR. As David Cameron himself said, the AV Referendum was on a system that is often less proportional than FPTP, so the rejection of AV could not possibly be a rejection of PR.”
Sure.
You also put down all academic approaches to voting before mentioning the views of some mathematician whose proposals you like. I kind of get where you’re coming from.
Having lived the first half of my life in a PR system and the second half in FPTP, I am totally convinved that FPTP is far inferior to PR. It doesn’t pass the fairness sniff test at all. Just look at the table here:
http://blog.alex.org.uk/wp-uploads/VotesAndSeats2015.png
Can you spot what is wrong?
I don’t believe I said there is something wrong with deliberation. I said it doesn’t happen. The time is spent on virtue signalling.
faded_Glory,
Well, I think FPTP disenfranchised the Liberal Democrats to the extent they are no longer a realistic vehicle for change; But I see the Greens and UKIP were worse off still. It’s unfortunate about the Greens – but UKIP!
PS @ faded_Glory
And the DUP got the highest ratio of seats to votes which is why they are now the tail wagging the dog.
ETA Hang on a minute! Isn’t NI voting done under some proportional method?
Well, a fair voting system should be independent of whether someone would prefer one or another party – isn’t that the meaning of fairness?
I actually think that it is much better to have representatives of all major political views in Parliament rather than to leave some out, when they will profile themselves as victims and outcasts and so gain more popularity than they otherwise might have.
Also, the viewpoints they stand for should be discussed openly in Parliament where they would at least come under some public scrutiny rather than spreading like wildfire in the bubbles of the blogosphere. The meme of ‘the evil Elites ignore us’ is a very strong one. False tropes such as Allan Miller mentioned above would be much easier to deflate if they were openly discussed in the place where they, in the end, matter most.
Not for elections to Westminster, I’m afraid.
ETA: which raises the question, how has STV worked out in practice in NI?
faded_Glory,
I’d agree that PR would be better, UKIP or no. I think it would draw their teeth somewhat as well, despite more MPs at least initially. It’s the perpetual protest vote, which stops being a mere protest when it actually counts. Fringe candidates are often an alternative to spoiling your ballot; you’d be a bit more careful if they stood a chance. Let’s see if they can find any solution to a problem which isn’t ‘leave the EU’.
A lot of Leave votes were protests too, since most thought it wouldn’t get through.
The tricky thing to handle might be the likes of SNP, DUP, Plaid etc. Regional interest parties (UKIP, of course, also being regional: English Nationalists).
Good piece here about these reptiles. I was unaware of the ‘suicide vest’ metaphor. It’s rather worrying. Here’s one possible timeline: May’s deal goes through with her head as the incentive, Boris becomes PM, tears it up and gets what he wanted all along, and fuck business (he actually said this). ‘The People’ suddenly discover that leaving the EU solved nothing, he persuades them that, actually, it’s the Muslims…
This is why I can’t bring myself to cede an inch to these cretins.
The good democrats of the far right are planning to riot tomorrow, on what should have been Brexit day.
Allan Miller,
By not ceding an inch you risk precipitating a fall of a mile with a very hard landing. If Mrs. May’s latest shenahigans fail and the UK crashes out in a forthnight, you may wish that you had opted for a tactical retreat in a war that will last decades to come.
Yeah, we are of course talking hypotheticals, since I have no power and no-one reads my Facebook!
If we crash out without a deal, it is what (I am being told) 17.4 million voted for. So who am I to stand in the way of democracy?
It is their pigeon. I am financially insulated from the consequences, like its rich manipulators (I can afford to retire and my money’s not substantially in Britain, I mean, not that I swank around in a top hat!). The people aggressively pushing it less so, of course, and the Tories will do nothing for the regions most affected by it, from where its core support comes. When people see that leaving the EU did nothing for them, if it’s too ‘soft’ they’ll blame that. And either way they’ll blame the Asians. Disaster nationalism, one might say.
My belief is that all forms of Brexit are more damaging than Remain. If I risk the worst of all in sticking to that, so be it. It’s what The People want after all. I’m just a straw in the wind.
The risk is political gamesmanship, not me.
Allan Miller,
My use of ‘you’ was of course not aimed at you personally, but at all those who desperately cling to their unmoveable lines – Brexiters and Remainers alike. Ferrets in a sack with the predictable result that we will all drown.
I just don’t see any common ground that can be securely occupied, in a country split 50/50. If I perch myself there and still find myself tumbling into ‘hard Brexit’ territory, I wonder why I bothered. So even concession carries a substantial risk. The loons will not perch there with me, Mr Reasonable in a patch-elbowed cardigan and pipe working together to make the country grate (sic) again.
But (to go round in circles a bit) I would have to concede that a tiny majority shortly to be more than two General Elections ago reasonably decides a course for a generation. That, I can’t do. A chap has principles!
If we leave, on any terms, this will mean 10 years with one news item, a succession of elections and international embarrassments, and no apparent return beyond appeasement of unreasonable people gripped by an idée fixe. If someone would take to the streets to oppose a vote on the known landscape, they have surrendered the democratic moral high ground.
Of course – my response was similarly impersonal, in its use of the first person!
Trending massively: a BBC reporter asked an unnamed Cabinet Minister why May was bringing (half) her deal back a third time. Reported live on air, his words: “Fuck knows. I’m past caring. It’s like the living dead in here”. 😀
No kidding. Spot on.
Allan Miller,
My reading of Mrs. May is that her top priority is keeping the Tory party together. She knows that both revocation of Article 50 and a no-deal Brexit are very likely to split the party. That is why she clings so tenaciously to her plan – she thinks that it is the kind of compromise that really every Tory ought to be able to support, given the alternatives.
She has a point somewhere – she has whittled down the opposition quite markedly already. I think she is not ready yet to give up. Who knows, she might be right yet.
faded_Glory,
It’s clear that numbers are moving in her direction. I don’t quite know how she got past Bercow just by slicing the document, but she is tenacious. It’s also obvious that no-deal is a bluff, for her at least.
Iain Duncan Smith gave the game away though. He urged Members to support it to put a stop to all talk of putting anything to the people. Later, they can just ditch it. He rather proves my point, that give them an inch they will take a mile.
I know we are poles apart on this, but this is a gross affront to democracy to me. It was 3 years ago ffs …
I feel like a passenger in a horror-film bus where the driver has turned into The Screaming Skull and all the locks have flipped shut.
Duncan Smith, for Americans who haven’t zoned out (you have your own Screaming Skull, I know!) was Work and Pensions Secretary responsible for some very unpopular reforms which hit high-unemployment North East communities particularly hard. That they are hand in glove with him is one of the many peculiarities of this situation.
No danger of his becoming PM thank goodness. He’s a former leader.
Not enough to result in any plan.
Allan Miller,
Believe me, I don’t like it any better than you. It is just that I don’t think that there is a simple, short and painless solution to the conundrum. Trying to turn the clock back to June 22nd, 2016 is a pipe dream. The country is deeply split, emotions are running high, and what we really need is cooler heads to prevail, to find some kind of middle way to douse the fires instead of stoking them up even more.
Anyway, it is anybody’s guess what will happen next. I don’t recognise this country anymore as the one I came to 28 years ago. It looks more like Spain in 1936 (from what I’ve read about that). And the sad thing is, it is all self-inflicted.
At this point the MPs have accepted the truth of Madhyamaka, as promulgated by Nagarjuna:
Brexit or no Brexit
Both Brexit and no Brexit
Neither Brexit nor no Brexit.