Uniliever are a UK/Dutch company.Uni Not sure of my spelling.
They are. My understanding is their CEO wanted to relocate to Rotterdam but bowed to pressure largely from institutional investors (our pensions) who would find it harder to trade their shares afterwards? Hardly a shining endorsement of Brexit but still, better than losing the UK jobs
"Impartial journalism is not giving equal airtime to two people one of whom says the world is flat and the other one says the world is round. That is not balanced, impartial journalism.”
It is why I stopped watching Question Time. The BBC seem to make it a priority to give equal air time to experts/professionals and completely wacko Brexit nut jobs.
I think there are probably more compelling people than Alastair Campbell to try and win the Brexiteers over. I don't think anyone wanted to hear from him until he backed remain. But then, after all, spin is what is needed now to try to convince people to vote again.
Every single future option is a bad one. A Peoples Vote is one of the bad options, probably the important feature of the idea is if it is the least bad of the bad options.
I am sure someone has already linked to this, but a mate just reminded me. About the "No-one mentioned the Irish border before the referendum" thing...
"Impartial journalism is not giving equal airtime to two people one of whom says the world is flat and the other one says the world is round. That is not balanced, impartial journalism.”
It is why I stopped watching Question Time. The BBC seem to make it a priority to give equal air time to experts/professionals and completely wacko Brexit nut jobs.
With Peston, Boris gave his usual answer which anybody with half a brain would question deeper and Boris then throws in more bollocks and it is impossible not to be incredulous! It wasn't bias, it was incredulity! Is it not showing bias to react like a ridiculous answer makes sense?
I am sure someone has already linked to this, but a mate just reminded me. About the "No-one mentioned the Irish border before the referendum" thing...
The second sentence of that report gives away what was in fact a big problem: "Risking the wrath of leave campaigners by becoming the third foreign leader after Barack Obama and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to intervene...". The mood amongst Brexiteers was that foreign politicians shouldn't intervene in the UK's business. What was offered as sound advice based on solids facts was skewed by the swivel-eyed* as evidence of foreign politicos interfering in what should be the UK's 'sovereign' business. Therefore those that needed to listen most of all to Kenny's message most of all would have been those tutting away at the impudence of a foreign prime minister daring to comment on 'our' concerns.
I am sure someone has already linked to this, but a mate just reminded me. About the "No-one mentioned the Irish border before the referendum" thing...
The second sentence of that report gives away what was in fact a big problem: "Risking the wrath of leave campaigners by becoming the third foreign leader after Barack Obama and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to intervene...". The mood amongst Brexiteers was that foreign politicians shouldn't intervene in the UK's business. What was offered as sound advice based on solids facts was skewed by the swivel-eyed* as evidence of foreign politicos interfering in what should be the UK's 'sovereign' business. Therefore those that needed to listen most of all to Kenny's message most of all would have been those tutting away at the impudence of a foreign prime minister daring to comment on 'our' concerns.
*note the correct usage
Ironic really when probably the biggest foreign influence was Vladimir Putin.
I am sure someone has already linked to this, but a mate just reminded me. About the "No-one mentioned the Irish border before the referendum" thing...
The second sentence of that report gives away what was in fact a big problem: "Risking the wrath of leave campaigners by becoming the third foreign leader after Barack Obama and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to intervene...". The mood amongst Brexiteers was that foreign politicians shouldn't intervene in the UK's business. What was offered as sound advice based on solids facts was skewed by the swivel-eyed* as evidence of foreign politicos interfering in what should be the UK's 'sovereign' business. Therefore those that needed to listen most of all to Kenny's message most of all would have been those tutting away at the impudence of a foreign prime minister daring to comment on 'our' concerns.
*note the correct usage
Indeed.
Of course one of the 'foreign leaders' had every right to say something about the Irish border, the Irish leader. If only because the UK ought to realise that it will only have 50% of the border, the Irish the other 50%. I am not convinced the UK has yet realised that they don't have complete control of a border created against another country, so it follows that quite reasonably that the UK can't have it all their own way with regard to the border.
Boris might describe the issue as the tail wagging the dog, I think it is more akin to sharing a party wall with your neighbour.
I am sure someone has already linked to this, but a mate just reminded me. About the "No-one mentioned the Irish border before the referendum" thing...
The second sentence of that report gives away what was in fact a big problem: "Risking the wrath of leave campaigners by becoming the third foreign leader after Barack Obama and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to intervene...". The mood amongst Brexiteers was that foreign politicians shouldn't intervene in the UK's business. What was offered as sound advice based on solids facts was skewed by the swivel-eyed* as evidence of foreign politicos interfering in what should be the UK's 'sovereign' business. Therefore those that needed to listen most of all to Kenny's message most of all would have been those tutting away at the impudence of a foreign prime minister daring to comment on 'our' concerns.
*note the correct usage
Indeed.
Of course one of the 'foreign leaders' had every right to say something about the Irish border, the Irish leader. If only because the UK ought to realise that it will only have 50% of the border, the Irish the other 50%. I am not convinced the UK has yet realised that they don't have complete control of a border created against another country, so it follows that quite reasonably that the UK can't have it all their own way with regard to the border.
Boris might describe the issue as the tail wagging the dog, I think it is more akin to sharing a party wall with your neighbour.
Barnier missing a trick by not building customs posts on the Eire side of the border.
There have been a few interesting articles in The Irish Times over the last few days, which, even if they demonstrate only the degree of bewilderment felt by the EU27 about what the UK wants, do have at least some bearing on how the border issue may be addressed, and if it can be, given the relationship between the Conservatives and DUP.
Fintan O’Toole: John Bull, not Michel Barnier, is undermining the union
When it’s all over, what will be left for Northern Ireland to be united with?
Arlene Foster spoke this week about the DUP’s “blood red line” of avoiding any post-Brexit differences between Northern Ireland and Britain. The image was not in good taste, but it was revealing. When politicians resort to such overheated rhetoric, it is usually because they know deep down that they are protesting too much.
To really understand the hysteria about “the territorial integrity of the union”, we have to understand that it is not about what it seems to be about. Beneath the surface of anxiety about the EU’s Brexit proposals is a deep pool of panic about the union itself. For even the DUP must know that the blood red line of Britishness is now a thin red line. It has been worn away, not by the EU, but by the English. The union is being undermined, not by Michel Barnier, but by John Bull.
In his 2002 survey of modern British identity, Patriots, the historian Richard Weight noted of the English: “They have woken up en masse to the fact that their blithe unionism is no longer reciprocated and that their seamless Anglo-British identity is effectively redundant.” Since then, three very strange things happened.
The first of them is nothing. Almost the entire British political class pretended that nothing was happening in England and therefore did nothing about it.
The second was what usually happens when something very big is building up and everyone is trying to keep the lid on it: an explosion. The Brexit referendum vote on June 23rd, 2016, was about many things, but one of the main ones was the non-metropolitan English blowing the lid off.
Most astonishing And the third thing that happened is the most astonishing of all: after the explosion, the political class, as we saw again at the Tory conference this week, went back to pretending that it didn’t happen. The thing to be defended at all costs in the Brexit negotiations is the very thing the English were so deeply unhappy about – the union.
In the past few weeks, it has become clear that if there is to be the disaster of a no-deal Brexit it will be because, as Theresa May re-emphasised in her conference speech, the Tory Party, egged on by the DUP, has made “the integrity of the union” into the reddest of red lines.
Customs checks on goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland, even very low-key ones in warehouses or on board ships, would be an outrageous affront to the union. Hence, there can be no compromise on the Irish border question; hence there may well be no deal.
This is all very well – unionism is a perfectly legitimate political principle on both sides of the Irish Sea. Except that to fetishise it at this moment is to miss the point spectacularly.
The point is not just that the Brexit referendum showed how disunited the union is: Scotland and Northern Ireland voted one way, England and Wales another. It is that the great force that lay behind it is the emergence of English nationalism. The English blew the union up into the air.
Panicky governments It is Brexit itself that raises fundamental questions about the “integrity of the union”. The great show of rallying round the union flag and dying in the last ditch of unionism is nothing more than the usual last resort of panicky governments: denial and distraction.
Before Brexit there was a reasonable excuse for paying no attention to what is in fact the most remarkable political phenomenon on these islands in the 21st century: the astonishingly rapid emergence of a specifically English political identity. The excuse is habit.
In the (relatively short) history of the union since 1707, it was generally a fair assumption that trouble would come, if it came, from the smaller “partners”: the Irish of every stripe, of course; the Scots; possibly the Welsh.
The idea that Englishness would be the problem was absurd – England was so unaware of itself as a separate political community that its politicians and journalists could use “England” when they meant “Britain” and vice versa. The English had folded their national identity into two larger constructs – the empire and the union – and it would surely never be unfolded again.
But the empire evaporated, and the union’s long-term future began to look more and more uncertain. Two big things happen in the 1990s. The Belfast Agreement of 1998 made Northern Ireland’s place in the union an explicitly open question: Britain accepted that it could leave whenever a majority of its population wished this to happen. And the following year, the Scottish parliament was established. Over the next decade its existence would gradually establish the idea that Scotland’s place in the union is also contingent: the British government agreed in 2014 that the result of the referendum on Scottish independence would be binding – the Scots were shown the door even if they decided not to go through it.
‘Blithe unionism’ Yet it seemed to occur to very few people in the political mainstream that the English might react to any of this. Their “blithe unionism” would be unaffected. In fact, it was very profoundly affected. This was obvious in the 2011 census: fully 60 per cent of the people of England identified themselves as solely English. Remarkably, given that people could choose “English” and“British” if they wanted to, only 29 per cent of the English identified themselves as feeling any sense of British national identity at all.
Even more starkly, the important Future of England surveys in 2012 and 2013 showed that this re-emerging English identity was highly political. The English were saying very clearly that they did not see Westminster and Whitehall, the institutional pillars of the union, as being capable of representing their collective national interests.
The pace of this withdrawal of support from the institutional status quo is dizzying: in 1999, when the Scottish parliament was just established, 62 per cent of English respondents agreed that “England should be governed as it is now with laws made by the UK parliament”. By 2008, this had fallen to a bare majority, 51 per cent. But by 2012 it was down to 21 per cent.
This mass disaffection fed Brexit: there was a direct correlation between those who expressed a strong English identity and those who voted for Brexit. What happened in 2016 was essentially that the English outside the big multicultural cities staged a peaceful national revolution.
Clings to a fantasy And yet for the very people who claim to be on their side, it seems they need not have bothered. It is one of the weirdest facets of the current crisis that the DUP, which clings to a fantasy of an eternal union, has a much louder voice in Theresa May’s Brexit strategy than the English people, who have shown that they do not.
England’s roar has been muted; the stirring music of loyalty to an unchanging union turned up to 11. But what if the defence of the union ends up doing terrible harm to the English? What, in the end, will there be for Northern Ireland to be united with?
I have just come face to face with what will happen after Brexit for those ordinary punters who have become used to buying stuff (whether new or second hand) from another EU country. e.g. via eBay Germany.
It involves me "confessing" to a hobby. In my garden, I have a model railway...anyway my Swedish buddy who lives in Norway has always found it bizarre too. But when he was visiting a few weeks back, and asked me how much the stuff costs, he suddenly became interested when he discovered the eye-watering prices. So he asked himself whether anyone in Norway has this stuff, and found on the web a guy selling his entire collection for what I quickly ascertained to be a very good price. But, I said, transport costs would add a shed-load to the price. No problem, he said, I can bring it in the car, and in return you will fill the car up with Czech beer for the return journey:-) So, we did the deal.
And it was only then, after he went to pick it up, and filled the entire Volvo XC60 to the gunnels that we realised we had forgotten something. While Norway is in the EEA, and in Schengen, there are still some border controls. For example, coming in to Norway there is a strict limit on alcohol (he keeps the Czech beer in his Swedish house, a short drive down the coast, and brings it to Oslo a few bottles at a time). The chances of them stopping a Volvo SUV packed to the roof with boxes were not too small to ignore.
So I eventually managed to get through to Swedish customs to find out what the deal is in this case. The first part of their answer was positive. 0% duty on such gear. BUT...25% VAT!!!. Hang on, I said, Norway is in the EEA. Doesn't matter she said. VAT is charged on everything entering the EU, and Norway isn't in the EU. Hang on again, I said, this stuff is second-hand, maybe third hand. Doesn't matter, she said, It has never been subject to VAT in the EU, and must be now. Then she opened up a possible get-out in our case, which is that there is a lower limit of €300 on goods subject to VAT. I've paid ten times that, but there are a lot of items. So in principle we should be OK.
But the whole thing is a mess. Today my buddy was pondering that he could take the ferry from Oslo to Kiel, in Germany, but then we need to find out the German approach to VAT, their rate, and their lower limit.
So there you are folks. And this is Norway, the soft Brexit option. All eBay and similar traffic between the UK and the EU will suddenly become subject to VAT and duty issues which will be complex, opaque and vary from one country to the next, because of course the EU is not a 'super-state', each country has its own VAT and duty regimes in place. So if you are looking to take advantage of lower prices in France or Germany for stuff you may need around the house, you better get on and, as they say on Ebay, BuyItNow!
I have just come face to face with what will happen after Brexit for those ordinary punters who have become used to buying stuff (whether new or second hand) from another EU country. e.g. via eBay Germany.
It involves me "confessing" to a hobby. In my garden, I have a model railway...anyway my Swedish buddy who lives in Norway has always found it bizarre too. But when he was visiting a few weeks back, and asked me how much the stuff costs, he suddenly became interested when he discovered the eye-watering prices. So he asked himself whether anyone in Norway has this stuff, and found on the web a guy selling his entire collection for what I quickly ascertained to be a very good price. But, I said, transport costs would add a shed-load to the price. No problem, he said, I can bring it in the car, and in return you will fill the car up with Czech beer for the return journey:-) So, we did the deal.
And it was only then, after he went to pick it up, and filled the entire Volvo XC60 to the gunnels that we realised we had forgotten something. While Norway is in the EEA, and in Schengen, there are still some border controls. For example, coming in to Norway there is a strict limit on alcohol (he keeps the Czech beer in his Swedish house, a short drive down the coast, and brings it to Oslo a few bottles at a time). The chances of them stopping a Volvo SUV packed to the roof with boxes were not too small to ignore.
So I eventually managed to get through to Swedish customs to find out what the deal is in this case. The first part of their answer was positive. 0% duty on such gear. BUT...25% VAT!!!. Hang on, I said, Norway is in the EEA. Doesn't matter she said. VAT is charged on everything entering the EU, and Norway isn't in the EU. Hang on again, I said, this stuff is second-hand, maybe third hand. Doesn't matter, she said, It has never been subject to VAT in the EU, and must be now. Then she opened up a possible get-out in our case, which is that there is a lower limit of €300 on goods subject to VAT. I've paid ten times that, but there are a lot of items. So in principle we should be OK.
But the whole thing is a mess. Today my buddy was pondering that he could take the ferry from Oslo to Kiel, in Germany, but then we need to find out the German approach to VAT, their rate, and their lower limit.
So there you are folks. And this is Norway, the soft Brexit option. All eBay and similar traffic between the UK and the EU will suddenly become subject to VAT and duty issues which will be complex, opaque and vary from one country to the next, because of course the EU is not a 'super-state', each country has its own VAT and duty regimes in place. So if you are looking to take advantage of lower prices in France or Germany for stuff you may need around the house, you better get on and, as they say on Ebay, BuyItNow!
Can believe the Vote Remain campaign didn’t put that one on the side of a bus!
I have just come face to face with what will happen after Brexit for those ordinary punters who have become used to buying stuff (whether new or second hand) from another EU country. e.g. via eBay Germany.
It involves me "confessing" to a hobby. In my garden, I have a model railway...anyway my Swedish buddy who lives in Norway has always found it bizarre too. But when he was visiting a few weeks back, and asked me how much the stuff costs, he suddenly became interested when he discovered the eye-watering prices. So he asked himself whether anyone in Norway has this stuff, and found on the web a guy selling his entire collection for what I quickly ascertained to be a very good price. But, I said, transport costs would add a shed-load to the price. No problem, he said, I can bring it in the car, and in return you will fill the car up with Czech beer for the return journey:-) So, we did the deal.
And it was only then, after he went to pick it up, and filled the entire Volvo XC60 to the gunnels that we realised we had forgotten something. While Norway is in the EEA, and in Schengen, there are still some border controls. For example, coming in to Norway there is a strict limit on alcohol (he keeps the Czech beer in his Swedish house, a short drive down the coast, and brings it to Oslo a few bottles at a time). The chances of them stopping a Volvo SUV packed to the roof with boxes were not too small to ignore.
So I eventually managed to get through to Swedish customs to find out what the deal is in this case. The first part of their answer was positive. 0% duty on such gear. BUT...25% VAT!!!. Hang on, I said, Norway is in the EEA. Doesn't matter she said. VAT is charged on everything entering the EU, and Norway isn't in the EU. Hang on again, I said, this stuff is second-hand, maybe third hand. Doesn't matter, she said, It has never been subject to VAT in the EU, and must be now. Then she opened up a possible get-out in our case, which is that there is a lower limit of €300 on goods subject to VAT. I've paid ten times that, but there are a lot of items. So in principle we should be OK.
But the whole thing is a mess. Today my buddy was pondering that he could take the ferry from Oslo to Kiel, in Germany, but then we need to find out the German approach to VAT, their rate, and their lower limit.
So there you are folks. And this is Norway, the soft Brexit option. All eBay and similar traffic between the UK and the EU will suddenly become subject to VAT and duty issues which will be complex, opaque and vary from one country to the next, because of course the EU is not a 'super-state', each country has its own VAT and duty regimes in place. So if you are looking to take advantage of lower prices in France or Germany for stuff you may need around the house, you better get on and, as they say on Ebay, BuyItNow!
Can believe the Vote Remain campaign didn’t put that one on the side of a bus!
They should have put it on the side of a train - very apt!
Oof, thanks, I was not aware of that at all. I was in the pub after casting my vote, see below.
Background. Most is a shithole. A former mining town that has no future that anyone has identified. That applies to the whole area. In the local "county town", Usti, I can remember that in the late 90s the local council actually sanctioned building a wall down a street to separate the Roma from the rest. So this area has form for this sort of stuff.
And now the good news. The bigger of the two parties "expected to get a majority in the town hall". Well, leaving aside that a majority is difficult in a PR voting system with multiple parties, they still got nowhere near; they got 16%, around the figure that UKIP got in 2015, if I recall. The second featured party got 2%. The clear winner was another local party called "For Most" which got 29% and will comfortably form a coalition with mainstream parties. So it's ghastly, but even in a dump like Most, they fell short.
That by the way was the fairly satisfying picture across the country. There were Senate as well as municipal elections, the populists and extremists were out in force -and got pushed back, especially in Prague. The Czechs seem to have sussed them, and sought out the centre ground.
The photo shows the advantages and drawbacks of the PR system. It is my voting "slip". On the left hand side, my local council, Prague 6, where I had 45 votes to cast. On the right, that for the Prague City Hall, where I had 65 votes. You can elect to vote for an entire party, and still distribute other votes to people from other parties. So it does allow for you to represent your own shades of political opinion. But jeez its complicated. I went with my neighbour (and friend of @ElfsborgAddick), Vincent to vote on Friday before adjourning for beers. I had filled my papers in before we went, Vincent had not. He's a big bloke, and the sight of him towering out of the polling booth, wrestling with his voting papers with a perplexed expression, would have made a great photo, but would probably not have been approved.
I have a question or two for those advocates of another EU referendum.
What would the question/s be? Would it be a simple majority? Would it be binding? Will the result be nullified if the winning vote only has 37% of the total of eligible voters? Do you honestly believe it will resolve the differences of the two sides?
I have a question or two for those advocates of another EU referendum.
What would the question/s be? Would it be a simple majority? Would it be binding? Will the result be nullified if the winning vote only has 37% of the total of eligible voters? Do you honestly believe it will resolve the differences of the two sides?
I don't know the answers to the first four questions - in terms of the last question, no it wouldn't but I don't believe it would be about settling differences, it would be about doing what is right for the country (in my opinion).
Oof, thanks, I was not aware of that at all. I was in the pub after casting my vote, see below.
Background. Most is a shithole. A former mining town that has no future that anyone has identified. That applies to the whole area. In the local "county town", Usti, I can remember that in the late 90s the local council actually sanctioned building a wall down a street to separate the Roma from the rest. So this area has form for this sort of stuff.
And now the good news. The bigger of the two parties "expected to get a majority in the town hall". Well, leaving aside that a majority is difficult in a PR voting system with multiple parties, they still got nowhere near; they got 16%, around the figure that UKIP got in 2015, if I recall. The second featured party got 2%. The clear winner was another local party called "For Most" which got 29% and will comfortably form a coalition with mainstream parties. So it's ghastly, but even in a dump like Most, they fell short.
That by the way was the fairly satisfying picture across the country. There were Senate as well as municipal elections, the populists and extremists were out in force -and got pushed back, especially in Prague. The Czechs seem to have sussed them, and sought out the centre ground.
The photo shows the advantages and drawbacks of the PR system. It is my voting "slip". On the left hand side, my local council, Prague 6, where I had 45 votes to cast. On the right, that for the Prague City Hall, where I had 65 votes. You can elect to vote for an entire party, and still distribute other votes to people from other parties. So it does allow for you to represent your own shades of political opinion. But jeez its complicated. I went with my neighbour (and friend of @ElfsborgAddick), Vincent to vote on Friday before adjourning for beers. I had filled my papers in before we went, Vincent had not. He's a big bloke, and the sight of him towering out of the polling booth, wrestling with his voting papers with a perplexed expression, would have made a great photo, but would probably not have been approved.
I think that voting slip should be a model for any follow up EU referendum we may/may not have here. Just to make sure all angles are covered and people are clear about what they are voting for 😊
Glad to hear that common sense prevailed in the elections. The Roma population are easy targets for the ‘patriots’ looking for somebody to blame for their ills. I saw plenty of this in Hungary and Bulgaria. I thought the C4 piece was pretty good in that it got across both sides of the argument very well.
I have a question or two for those advocates of another EU referendum.
What would the question/s be? Would it be a simple majority? Would it be binding? Will the result be nullified if the winning vote only has 37% of the total of eligible voters? Do you honestly believe it will resolve the differences of the two sides?
That's four
If a deal can be negotiated, the question should be:
Do you want to 1. Accept the deal negotiated by the government? 2. Reject the deal negotated by the government and leave the EU with no deal? 3. Remain in the EU
If no deal can be agreed between the EU and the UK, the question should be a straight re-run of the 2016 question.
In the first case, a simple majority of first preference votes, or a simple majority of first plus second preference votes.
In the second case, a simple majority.
It would be binding in the same way that the 2016 vote was binding, ie not at all. It would simply indicate a preference and give a mandate to whichever preference is chosen.
No, it wouldn't be nullified on the basis of having such a small total vote. Disappointing. A less-solid mandate. A less clear expression of preference. But not nullified.
No, it won't resolve all the issues between the (two) sides. In the same way that the 2016 vote didn't. But, unlike the 2016 vote, it would clearly achieve two things. First, to give the government a direction to follow to solve the situation it has found itself in, ie unable to progress a decision due to parliamentary maths. And second, for the country to be joined in an informed debate, based more on facts and issues than conjecture, lies, undeliverable promises and dissembling.
Whatever the result of the second referendum/people's vote, we will know we've been lied to less, there will be less foreign state interference, fewer undeliverable promises will be made and we can move forward with the knowledge of what people want now, based on the facts we have all discovered for years, rather than what people wanted a few years ago, having been lied to for years.
While in principal I've been in favour of a second referendum, the following article by Robert Shrimsley gave me pause for thought. I think it would be right, if by now we are seeing polls regularly at least 55:45 Remain but we are not there, yet. In practical terms too, I think we have run out of time to do it before March 29th. I fear Shrimsley is right and we Remainers are into damage limitation here. Which in no sense means that we keep quiet about the damage, any more than I kept quiet when Thatcher was doing her worst.
Readers may remember the now diminished internet phenomenon of Second Life, a virtual world in which people could live the lives they did not currently have. They could create exciting and unrealistically desirable avatars, hoard cryptocurrency, and build new societies. It turned out to be less transformative, with many using it for gambling and virtual sex with other exciting and unrealistic avatars.
In the increasingly unreal sphere of British politics we have Second Referendum: a virtual world in which voters get to act out the lives they do not have. In Second Referendum a grateful nation is given the chance to rethink its first vote on leaving the EU and overturns its mistake by an exciting and unrealistic margin. The pound rises, investment floods in, Emmanuel Macron pats the UK on the back for having the good sense to see things his way. National unity is restored, once angry Brexit backers return to their lives grateful to hand decisions back to the political professionals and thankful to be spared the consequences of their foolishness.
The second referendum is no longer a digital dream. It is a distinct possibility; not yet probable, but certainly possible. Labour’s recent conference moved it closer. If all other options fail, MPs may back the so-called — and excellently branded — People’s Vote. Many arguments are made for it. Voters did not know the terms on which we would leave, lies were told, younger voters were denied a say. But the truth is that its advocates do not believe in a new vote; just in a new answer. It is entirely a device to stop Brexit.
It is an irony that should another vote happen, it will be due to the intransigence of Leavers. Instead of recognising the narrowness of their win and seeking to unify the nation, they pursued the most hardline of Brexits. More generosity and the deal would already be sealed.
There are significant logistical obstacles. What would the question be? Are there two or three options with a transferable vote? How long would it take? But, these are mere details compared with — and I write this as a Remain voter — more important political objections.
The only real justifications for a second vote are a massive shift in public opinion or an unpredictable material change in circumstances. Neither has occurred. Opinion polls show a small but clear lead for Remain voters, which suggests some Leavers have changed their minds but also factors in the two years’ worth of young voters (who skew Remain by seven to one) now eligible to vote. In truth, the country is still more or less split down the middle. A close win for Remain will settle nothing. And for all the Remainer confidence — and belief in an energised youth vote — there is no guarantee they would win. Voters rarely take well to being told to try again because they got it wrong. (Another plebiscite also kills the main objection to another Scottish independence vote.)
Some argue about Leave’s tactics, but the conspiracy theories are overhyped. Some fine investigative journalism has exposed the Leave behaviour but it has not, and cannot, prove it was decisive. Dishonest campaigning was not invented by Vote Leave and one cannot rerun a vote because the other side’s ads were more effective.
But most fundamental is the damage it will do to democracy. If Remain were to nick it back, where do the former 52 per cent turn next? The phenomenon of populism cannot be wished away and one of its causes was the sense of a political class that does not listen. It is a lesson EU leaders are still failing to learn. Leavers will view a second referendum as a plot by the political class to frustrate their decision. They will not be wrong.
If the previous campaign was ugly and divisive, imagine the next: a full assault on every institution of political stability with added venom for foreigners. From there a descent into pure populism is a small step and the next group of leaders will be less loveable than Nigel Farage.
For all this, Remainers are uniting in a way that Brexiters are not. Parliamentary paralysis may leave another referendum the only option and many Remainers are thus invested in maintaining deadlock.
A better alternative even at this stage would be for Remainers to work together to thwart the hardliners and deliver the most manageable deal in line with the 2016 vote. Customs union, single market, Theresa May’s Chequers plan — all are sub-optimal, but none is the worst outcome. This requires Remainers to accept that they lost but the second vote campaign shows them unready to do so.
Such a vote may halt Brexit, but the price will be higher than many assume. The virtual nirvana of Second Life had unpleasant unexpected consequences. Second Ref may be the same.
Good read @PragueAddick - here's another one, this time by David Allen Green:
Part 1 We are now only a few months away from 29th March 2019, which is when by automatic operation of law the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. (There are ways that this date may get delayed, and it is even still possible Brexit could get cancelled altogether. But a delay or cancellation currently looks unlikely.) This imminent departure is the legal truth around which politics is now revolving, or should be revolving. It is the starting point of any understanding of the UK’s current predicament: “Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it.” This exit of the UK from the EU has been a legal fact since 29th March 2017 when the Article 50 notification was served on the European Council. The notification was valid. There is no serious doubt about that. The Supreme Court insisted on primary legislation, Parliament passed the primary legislation enabling the Prime Minister to make a notification, a notification was drafted, and the Prime Minister signed it. A legal timer started its countdown.
The legal fact of the UK’s departure on 29th March 2019 is perhaps the only fact about Brexit about which one can be sure (though that fact can change). Everything else is uncertain. Looking at British politics, however, one can get a sense that this fact is not properly appreciated. There is, for example, what can be (no doubt unfairly) called the Brexit referendum re-enactment party, a bit like the Sealed Knot battle re-enactment enthusiasts but without the period costumes. The intention of these campaigners is to discredit the result of the 2016 referendum, so that the perceived “mandate” is extinguished. They have some good points: the Leave campaigns breached the law, false promises were made on the sides of buses and many other places, and people were misled into voting Leave when, had they known what was at stake, they would (or should) have voted Remain. And yet: – the 2016 referendum followed a 2015 manifesto commitment by the party which won that general election; – the 2016 referendum had as its legal basis a dedicated statute passed by Parliament and its question was approved by the Electoral Commission; – the European issue has dominated UK politics since at least the late 1980s and has caused (partly or fully) a sequence of political crises and problems and so it was an issue which needed to be resolved one way or the other; – there was a lengthy campaign where the government used a considerable amount of public money in its campaign for Remain; – the dangers of a Leave vote were pointed out in the campaign (even if dismissed as “Project Fear”): and – the vote was still for Leave on a heavy turn-out. The glaring question is not how Leave won the referendum but why Remain lost. The referendum vote was, of course, not binding. It was advisory (a point which I made at the FT before the vote took place). It would need parliamentary approval. The vote was not enough. And so there was – correctly – litigation to force the government to obtain parliamentary approval. But when this parliamentary approval was obtained, this still was not enough for many opponents of Brexit. The 2016 referendum result had to be discredited by other means.
Another feature of current Brexit politics is the blame game. This is popular among Leavers. The blame mongers fear that the Brexit the UK is about to experience will not be pleasant. This is not their Brexit.
But just as some Remainers want to pretend that the referendum result never really happened, these Leavers want to pretend that a successful Brexit was viable. Any Brexit, especially one done at speed and without preparation or thought, was not going to go well. And so either it would have to a Brexit existing in name only or it would be a catastrophic hard Brexit, with no continuity at all. There was never enough time, or (frankly) inclination, for there to be any other outcome. The ones to blame are those who supported the Prime Minister’s premature Article 50 notification: the MPs who voted it through and the pundits who clapped and cheered. They all should have known better. Those are the guilty men and women. Once that notification was made then nothing good or worthwhile was likely to come out of Brexit. (And that is why I once thought no government would be mad enough to send the notification. I was wrong.)
So we have a mandate which cannot be ignored and an approach to Brexit which cannot go well. The UK has got itself into a bit of a problem. The irresistible force of political legitimacy and the immoveable object of policy reality. What if anything can and should be done?
There are Remainers who will fight the UK’s departure to the very last day. In a way, they are to be commended, and they may still prevail. But there is an alternative approach. There is no obvious way to rid the UK of the referendum mandate, other than allowing it to be discharged. Even a further referendum (the result of which nobody can be certain) would not be enough, especially if there is a lower turnout. And there is probably not enough time now for the primary legislation required for a new referendum before March. One could hope that Parliament could assert itself, and go against the referendum result, but Parliament had its chance to “take back control” with the Article 50 legislation, and Parliament blew it. (This is not to say that the 2016 referendum result is absolutely binding. No electorate can bind another, and a referendum result is either democratic or irreversible, but not both. But I cannot see any way the 2016 referendum can now be reversed in practice.) On 29th March 2019 the mandate will be discharged. The result of the 2016 referendum will be honoured. The UK will be out of the EU.
And then what? What follows Brexit may be longer-lasting than the UK’s membership of the EEC/EU. The UK’s membership will have been 46 years, the next arrangement may be even more durable. At the moment, however, few people are putting any practical thought in to what follows Brexit. We have instead the referendum re-enactment players and the blame gamers. In terms of substance, rather than form, any future arrangement can keep the UK in the EU’s customs area, and can allow the UK to (in effect) be part of the single market. And as the mandate will have been discharged the referendum result will not (or should not) have any further purchase. On this basis, it would seem sensible to encourage the UK to enter the withdrawal agreement on offer – the so called “transition period” is in reality a continuity provision. And after 29th March 2019, the aim would be to convert the transition period into a permanent association agreement. I sometimes call this a “Burma Brexit” after the British Army’s dignified retreat in World War II which was skilfully converted into a impressive victory. Many Leave politicians will not be able to counter this, as it requires a grasp of detail which few have shown, and in any case their mandate will have been discharged. So rather than hoping for (and revelling in) disasters and setbacks, a wiser approach of those who value the UK’s ongoing relationship with the EU is to support the government’s attempts to get a withdrawal agreement in place. A “no deal” Brexit will make a close association agreement far less likely, as the best basis for such an agreement will be the so-called “transition” terms themselves. Of course, events may overtake this. Brexit could still be delayed or cancelled. But on the basis of things as they are now, we should be encouraged by the title of the book by the architect of the Burma campaign: Defeat into Victory.
It feels like the time when the government puts its deal or no deal to the commons will be the moment of truth. It is difficult to predict exactly what will happen. I think if there is no deal it will most likely lead us to another referendum. Where it might be more complicated is if there is a deal. I suspect in that case the government will say it is either vote for their deal or no deal. I think this is where there could be a forced general election.
Comments
Not sure of my spelling.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/oct/06/robert-peston-bbc-not-impartial-during-eu-referendum-campaign
"Impartial journalism is not giving equal airtime to two people one of whom says the world is flat and the other one says the world is round. That is not balanced, impartial journalism.”
It is why I stopped watching Question Time. The BBC seem to make it a priority to give equal air time to experts/professionals and completely wacko Brexit nut jobs.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/29/irish-leader-says-border-controls-may-return-if-brexit-vote-prevails
*note the correct usage
Of course one of the 'foreign leaders' had every right to say something about the Irish border, the Irish leader. If only because the UK ought to realise that it will only have 50% of the border, the Irish the other 50%. I am not convinced the UK has yet realised that they don't have complete control of a border created against another country, so it follows that quite reasonably that the UK can't have it all their own way with regard to the border.
Boris might describe the issue as the tail wagging the dog, I think it is more akin to sharing a party wall with your neighbour.
https://irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/can-checks-on-goods-be-construed-as-a-barrier-in-the-irish-sea-1.3652185
https://irishtimes.com/opinion/theresa-may-and-the-great-british-brain-robbery-1.3653128
https://irishtimes.com/opinion/most-surprising-thing-about-may-s-speech-was-that-she-survived-to-give-it-1.3651940
Meanwhile, both Diarmaid Ferriter and Fintan O'Toole speculate on the DUP and the United Kingdom it seeks to defend: https://irishtimes.com/opinion/it-s-hard-to-know-what-the-dup-is-about-anymore-1.3653129.
Fintan O’Toole: John Bull, not Michel Barnier, is undermining the union
When it’s all over, what will be left for Northern Ireland to be united with?
Arlene Foster spoke this week about the DUP’s “blood red line” of avoiding any post-Brexit differences between Northern Ireland and Britain. The image was not in good taste, but it was revealing. When politicians resort to such overheated rhetoric, it is usually because they know deep down that they are protesting too much.
To really understand the hysteria about “the territorial integrity of the union”, we have to understand that it is not about what it seems to be about. Beneath the surface of anxiety about the EU’s Brexit proposals is a deep pool of panic about the union itself. For even the DUP must know that the blood red line of Britishness is now a thin red line. It has been worn away, not by the EU, but by the English. The union is being undermined, not by Michel Barnier, but by John Bull.
In his 2002 survey of modern British identity, Patriots, the historian Richard Weight noted of the English: “They have woken up en masse to the fact that their blithe unionism is no longer reciprocated and that their seamless Anglo-British identity is effectively redundant.” Since then, three very strange things happened.
The first of them is nothing. Almost the entire British political class pretended that nothing was happening in England and therefore did nothing about it.
The second was what usually happens when something very big is building up and everyone is trying to keep the lid on it: an explosion. The Brexit referendum vote on June 23rd, 2016, was about many things, but one of the main ones was the non-metropolitan English blowing the lid off.
Most astonishing
And the third thing that happened is the most astonishing of all: after the explosion, the political class, as we saw again at the Tory conference this week, went back to pretending that it didn’t happen. The thing to be defended at all costs in the Brexit negotiations is the very thing the English were so deeply unhappy about – the union.
In the past few weeks, it has become clear that if there is to be the disaster of a no-deal Brexit it will be because, as Theresa May re-emphasised in her conference speech, the Tory Party, egged on by the DUP, has made “the integrity of the union” into the reddest of red lines.
Customs checks on goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland, even very low-key ones in warehouses or on board ships, would be an outrageous affront to the union. Hence, there can be no compromise on the Irish border question; hence there may well be no deal.
This is all very well – unionism is a perfectly legitimate political principle on both sides of the Irish Sea. Except that to fetishise it at this moment is to miss the point spectacularly.
The point is not just that the Brexit referendum showed how disunited the union is: Scotland and Northern Ireland voted one way, England and Wales another. It is that the great force that lay behind it is the emergence of English nationalism. The English blew the union up into the air.
contd....
Panicky governments
It is Brexit itself that raises fundamental questions about the “integrity of the union”. The great show of rallying round the union flag and dying in the last ditch of unionism is nothing more than the usual last resort of panicky governments: denial and distraction.
Before Brexit there was a reasonable excuse for paying no attention to what is in fact the most remarkable political phenomenon on these islands in the 21st century: the astonishingly rapid emergence of a specifically English political identity. The excuse is habit.
In the (relatively short) history of the union since 1707, it was generally a fair assumption that trouble would come, if it came, from the smaller “partners”: the Irish of every stripe, of course; the Scots; possibly the Welsh.
The idea that Englishness would be the problem was absurd – England was so unaware of itself as a separate political community that its politicians and journalists could use “England” when they meant “Britain” and vice versa. The English had folded their national identity into two larger constructs – the empire and the union – and it would surely never be unfolded again.
But the empire evaporated, and the union’s long-term future began to look more and more uncertain. Two big things happen in the 1990s. The Belfast Agreement of 1998 made Northern Ireland’s place in the union an explicitly open question: Britain accepted that it could leave whenever a majority of its population wished this to happen. And the following year, the Scottish parliament was established. Over the next decade its existence would gradually establish the idea that Scotland’s place in the union is also contingent: the British government agreed in 2014 that the result of the referendum on Scottish independence would be binding – the Scots were shown the door even if they decided not to go through it.
‘Blithe unionism’
Yet it seemed to occur to very few people in the political mainstream that the English might react to any of this. Their “blithe unionism” would be unaffected. In fact, it was very profoundly affected. This was obvious in the 2011 census: fully 60 per cent of the people of England identified themselves as solely English. Remarkably, given that people could choose “English” and“British” if they wanted to, only 29 per cent of the English identified themselves as feeling any sense of British national identity at all.
Even more starkly, the important Future of England surveys in 2012 and 2013 showed that this re-emerging English identity was highly political. The English were saying very clearly that they did not see Westminster and Whitehall, the institutional pillars of the union, as being capable of representing their collective national interests.
The pace of this withdrawal of support from the institutional status quo is dizzying: in 1999, when the Scottish parliament was just established, 62 per cent of English respondents agreed that “England should be governed as it is now with laws made by the UK parliament”. By 2008, this had fallen to a bare majority, 51 per cent. But by 2012 it was down to 21 per cent.
This mass disaffection fed Brexit: there was a direct correlation between those who expressed a strong English identity and those who voted for Brexit. What happened in 2016 was essentially that the English outside the big multicultural cities staged a peaceful national revolution.
Clings to a fantasy
And yet for the very people who claim to be on their side, it seems they need not have bothered. It is one of the weirdest facets of the current crisis that the DUP, which clings to a fantasy of an eternal union, has a much louder voice in Theresa May’s Brexit strategy than the English people, who have shown that they do not.
England’s roar has been muted; the stirring music of loyalty to an unchanging union turned up to 11. But what if the defence of the union ends up doing terrible harm to the English? What, in the end, will there be for Northern Ireland to be united with?
It involves me "confessing" to a hobby. In my garden, I have a model railway...anyway my Swedish buddy who lives in Norway has always found it bizarre too. But when he was visiting a few weeks back, and asked me how much the stuff costs, he suddenly became interested when he discovered the eye-watering prices. So he asked himself whether anyone in Norway has this stuff, and found on the web a guy selling his entire collection for what I quickly ascertained to be a very good price. But, I said, transport costs would add a shed-load to the price. No problem, he said, I can bring it in the car, and in return you will fill the car up with Czech beer for the return journey:-) So, we did the deal.
And it was only then, after he went to pick it up, and filled the entire Volvo XC60 to the gunnels that we realised we had forgotten something. While Norway is in the EEA, and in Schengen, there are still some border controls. For example, coming in to Norway there is a strict limit on alcohol (he keeps the Czech beer in his Swedish house, a short drive down the coast, and brings it to Oslo a few bottles at a time). The chances of them stopping a Volvo SUV packed to the roof with boxes were not too small to ignore.
So I eventually managed to get through to Swedish customs to find out what the deal is in this case. The first part of their answer was positive. 0% duty on such gear. BUT...25% VAT!!!. Hang on, I said, Norway is in the EEA. Doesn't matter she said. VAT is charged on everything entering the EU, and Norway isn't in the EU. Hang on again, I said, this stuff is second-hand, maybe third hand. Doesn't matter, she said, It has never been subject to VAT in the EU, and must be now. Then she opened up a possible get-out in our case, which is that there is a lower limit of €300 on goods subject to VAT. I've paid ten times that, but there are a lot of items. So in principle we should be OK.
But the whole thing is a mess. Today my buddy was pondering that he could take the ferry from Oslo to Kiel, in Germany, but then we need to find out the German approach to VAT, their rate, and their lower limit.
So there you are folks. And this is Norway, the soft Brexit option. All eBay and similar traffic between the UK and the EU will suddenly become subject to VAT and duty issues which will be complex, opaque and vary from one country to the next, because of course the EU is not a 'super-state', each country has its own VAT and duty regimes in place. So if you are looking to take advantage of lower prices in France or Germany for stuff you may need around the house, you better get on and, as they say on Ebay, BuyItNow!
Don’t know if you caught this @PragueAddick. It is a piece from C4 news on Friday about anti Roma issues in the Czech Rep.
Oof, thanks, I was not aware of that at all. I was in the pub after casting my vote, see below.
Background. Most is a shithole. A former mining town that has no future that anyone has identified. That applies to the whole area. In the local "county town", Usti, I can remember that in the late 90s the local council actually sanctioned building a wall down a street to separate the Roma from the rest. So this area has form for this sort of stuff.
And now the good news. The bigger of the two parties "expected to get a majority in the town hall". Well, leaving aside that a majority is difficult in a PR voting system with multiple parties, they still got nowhere near; they got 16%, around the figure that UKIP got in 2015, if I recall. The second featured party got 2%. The clear winner was another local party called "For Most" which got 29% and will comfortably form a coalition with mainstream parties. So it's ghastly, but even in a dump like Most, they fell short.
That by the way was the fairly satisfying picture across the country. There were Senate as well as municipal elections, the populists and extremists were out in force -and got pushed back, especially in Prague. The Czechs seem to have sussed them, and sought out the centre ground.
The photo shows the advantages and drawbacks of the PR system. It is my voting "slip". On the left hand side, my local council, Prague 6, where I had 45 votes to cast. On the right, that for the Prague City Hall, where I had 65 votes. You can elect to vote for an entire party, and still distribute other votes to people from other parties. So it does allow for you to represent your own shades of political opinion. But jeez its complicated. I went with my neighbour (and friend of @ElfsborgAddick), Vincent to vote on Friday before adjourning for beers. I had filled my papers in before we went, Vincent had not. He's a big bloke, and the sight of him towering out of the polling booth, wrestling with his voting papers with a perplexed expression, would have made a great photo, but would probably not have been approved.
What would the question/s be?
Would it be a simple majority?
Would it be binding?
Will the result be nullified if the winning vote only has 37% of the total of eligible voters?
Do you honestly believe it will resolve the differences of the two sides?
Glad to hear that common sense prevailed in the elections. The Roma population are easy targets for the ‘patriots’ looking for somebody to blame for their ills. I saw plenty of this in Hungary and Bulgaria. I thought the C4 piece was pretty good in that it got across both sides of the argument very well.
If a deal can be negotiated, the question should be:
Do you want to
1. Accept the deal negotiated by the government?
2. Reject the deal negotated by the government and leave the EU with no deal?
3. Remain in the EU
If no deal can be agreed between the EU and the UK, the question should be a straight re-run of the 2016 question.
In the first case, a simple majority of first preference votes, or a simple majority of first plus second preference votes.
In the second case, a simple majority.
It would be binding in the same way that the 2016 vote was binding, ie not at all. It would simply indicate a preference and give a mandate to whichever preference is chosen.
No, it wouldn't be nullified on the basis of having such a small total vote. Disappointing. A less-solid mandate. A less clear expression of preference. But not nullified.
No, it won't resolve all the issues between the (two) sides. In the same way that the 2016 vote didn't. But, unlike the 2016 vote, it would clearly achieve two things. First, to give the government a direction to follow to solve the situation it has found itself in, ie unable to progress a decision due to parliamentary maths. And second, for the country to be joined in an informed debate, based more on facts and issues than conjecture, lies, undeliverable promises and dissembling.
Whatever the result of the second referendum/people's vote, we will know we've been lied to less, there will be less foreign state interference, fewer undeliverable promises will be made and we can move forward with the knowledge of what people want now, based on the facts we have all discovered for years, rather than what people wanted a few years ago, having been lied to for years.
Readers may remember the now diminished internet phenomenon of Second Life, a virtual world in which people could live the lives they did not currently have. They could create exciting and unrealistically desirable avatars, hoard cryptocurrency, and build new societies. It turned out to be less transformative, with many using it for gambling and virtual sex with other exciting and unrealistic avatars.
In the increasingly unreal sphere of British politics we have Second Referendum: a virtual world in which voters get to act out the lives they do not have. In Second Referendum a grateful nation is given the chance to rethink its first vote on leaving the EU and overturns its mistake by an exciting and unrealistic margin. The pound rises, investment floods in, Emmanuel Macron pats the UK on the back for having the good sense to see things his way. National unity is restored, once angry Brexit backers return to their lives grateful to hand decisions back to the political professionals and thankful to be spared the consequences of their foolishness.
The second referendum is no longer a digital dream. It is a distinct possibility; not yet probable, but certainly possible. Labour’s recent conference moved it closer. If all other options fail, MPs may back the so-called — and excellently branded — People’s Vote. Many arguments are made for it. Voters did not know the terms on which we would leave, lies were told, younger voters were denied a say. But the truth is that its advocates do not believe in a new vote; just in a new answer. It is entirely a device to stop Brexit.
It is an irony that should another vote happen, it will be due to the intransigence of Leavers. Instead of recognising the narrowness of their win and seeking to unify the nation, they pursued the most hardline of Brexits. More generosity and the deal would already be sealed.
There are significant logistical obstacles. What would the question be? Are there two or three options with a transferable vote? How long would it take? But, these are mere details compared with — and I write this as a Remain voter — more important political objections.
The only real justifications for a second vote are a massive shift in public opinion or an unpredictable material change in circumstances. Neither has occurred. Opinion polls show a small but clear lead for Remain voters, which suggests some Leavers have changed their minds but also factors in the two years’ worth of young voters (who skew Remain by seven to one) now eligible to vote. In truth, the country is still more or less split down the middle. A close win for Remain will settle nothing. And for all the Remainer confidence — and belief in an energised youth vote — there is no guarantee they would win. Voters rarely take well to being told to try again because they got it wrong. (Another plebiscite also kills the main objection to another Scottish independence vote.)
Some argue about Leave’s tactics, but the conspiracy theories are overhyped. Some fine investigative journalism has exposed the Leave behaviour but it has not, and cannot, prove it was decisive. Dishonest campaigning was not invented by Vote Leave and one cannot rerun a vote because the other side’s ads were more effective.
But most fundamental is the damage it will do to democracy. If Remain were to nick it back, where do the former 52 per cent turn next? The phenomenon of populism cannot be wished away and one of its causes was the sense of a political class that does not listen. It is a lesson EU leaders are still failing to learn. Leavers will view a second referendum as a plot by the political class to frustrate their decision. They will not be wrong.
If the previous campaign was ugly and divisive, imagine the next: a full assault on every institution of political stability with added venom for foreigners. From there a descent into pure populism is a small step and the next group of leaders will be less loveable than Nigel Farage.
For all this, Remainers are uniting in a way that Brexiters are not. Parliamentary paralysis may leave another referendum the only option and many Remainers are thus invested in maintaining deadlock.
A better alternative even at this stage would be for Remainers to work together to thwart the hardliners and deliver the most manageable deal in line with the 2016 vote. Customs union, single market, Theresa May’s Chequers plan — all are sub-optimal, but none is the worst outcome. This requires Remainers to accept that they lost but the second vote campaign shows them unready to do so.
Such a vote may halt Brexit, but the price will be higher than many assume. The virtual nirvana of Second Life had unpleasant unexpected consequences. Second Ref may be the same.
Part 1
We are now only a few months away from 29th March 2019, which is when by automatic operation of law the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.
(There are ways that this date may get delayed, and it is even still possible Brexit could get cancelled altogether. But a delay or cancellation currently looks unlikely.)
This imminent departure is the legal truth around which politics is now revolving, or should be revolving. It is the starting point of any understanding of the UK’s current predicament: “Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it.”
This exit of the UK from the EU has been a legal fact since 29th March 2017 when the Article 50 notification was served on the European Council. The notification was valid. There is no serious doubt about that. The Supreme Court insisted on primary legislation, Parliament passed the primary legislation enabling the Prime Minister to make a notification, a notification was drafted, and the Prime Minister signed it.
A legal timer started its countdown.
The legal fact of the UK’s departure on 29th March 2019 is perhaps the only fact about Brexit about which one can be sure (though that fact can change). Everything else is uncertain.
Looking at British politics, however, one can get a sense that this fact is not properly appreciated.
There is, for example, what can be (no doubt unfairly) called the Brexit referendum re-enactment party, a bit like the Sealed Knot battle re-enactment enthusiasts but without the period costumes.
The intention of these campaigners is to discredit the result of the 2016 referendum, so that the perceived “mandate” is extinguished.
They have some good points: the Leave campaigns breached the law, false promises were made on the sides of buses and many other places, and people were misled into voting Leave when, had they known what was at stake, they would (or should) have voted Remain.
And yet:
– the 2016 referendum followed a 2015 manifesto commitment by the party which won that general election;
– the 2016 referendum had as its legal basis a dedicated statute passed by Parliament and its question was approved by the Electoral Commission;
– the European issue has dominated UK politics since at least the late 1980s and has caused (partly or fully) a sequence of political crises and problems and so it was an issue which needed to be resolved one way or the other;
– there was a lengthy campaign where the government used a considerable amount of public money in its campaign for Remain;
– the dangers of a Leave vote were pointed out in the campaign (even if dismissed as “Project Fear”): and
– the vote was still for Leave on a heavy turn-out.
The glaring question is not how Leave won the referendum but why Remain lost.
The referendum vote was, of course, not binding. It was advisory (a point which I made at the FT before the vote took place). It would need parliamentary approval. The vote was not enough.
And so there was – correctly – litigation to force the government to obtain parliamentary approval.
But when this parliamentary approval was obtained, this still was not enough for many opponents of Brexit.
The 2016 referendum result had to be discredited by other means.
Another feature of current Brexit politics is the blame game. This is popular among Leavers.
The blame mongers fear that the Brexit the UK is about to experience will not be pleasant.
This is not their Brexit.
But just as some Remainers want to pretend that the referendum result never really happened, these Leavers want to pretend that a successful Brexit was viable.
Any Brexit, especially one done at speed and without preparation or thought, was not going to go well.
And so either it would have to a Brexit existing in name only or it would be a catastrophic hard Brexit, with no continuity at all.
There was never enough time, or (frankly) inclination, for there to be any other outcome.
The ones to blame are those who supported the Prime Minister’s premature Article 50 notification: the MPs who voted it through and the pundits who clapped and cheered. They all should have known better. Those are the guilty men and women.
Once that notification was made then nothing good or worthwhile was likely to come out of Brexit.
(And that is why I once thought no government would be mad enough to send the notification. I was wrong.)
So we have a mandate which cannot be ignored and an approach to Brexit which cannot go well.
The UK has got itself into a bit of a problem.
The irresistible force of political legitimacy and the immoveable object of policy reality.
What if anything can and should be done?
There are Remainers who will fight the UK’s departure to the very last day. In a way, they are to be commended, and they may still prevail.
But there is an alternative approach.
There is no obvious way to rid the UK of the referendum mandate, other than allowing it to be discharged.
Even a further referendum (the result of which nobody can be certain) would not be enough, especially if there is a lower turnout. And there is probably not enough time now for the primary legislation required for a new referendum before March.
One could hope that Parliament could assert itself, and go against the referendum result, but Parliament had its chance to “take back control” with the Article 50 legislation, and Parliament blew it.
(This is not to say that the 2016 referendum result is absolutely binding. No electorate can bind another, and a referendum result is either democratic or irreversible, but not both. But I cannot see any way the 2016 referendum can now be reversed in practice.)
On 29th March 2019 the mandate will be discharged. The result of the 2016 referendum will be honoured. The UK will be out of the EU.
And then what?
What follows Brexit may be longer-lasting than the UK’s membership of the EEC/EU. The UK’s membership will have been 46 years, the next arrangement may be even more durable.
At the moment, however, few people are putting any practical thought in to what follows Brexit.
We have instead the referendum re-enactment players and the blame gamers.
In terms of substance, rather than form, any future arrangement can keep the UK in the EU’s customs area, and can allow the UK to (in effect) be part of the single market. And as the mandate will have been discharged the referendum result will not (or should not) have any further purchase.
On this basis, it would seem sensible to encourage the UK to enter the withdrawal agreement on offer – the so called “transition period” is in reality a continuity provision.
And after 29th March 2019, the aim would be to convert the transition period into a permanent association agreement.
I sometimes call this a “Burma Brexit” after the British Army’s dignified retreat in World War II which was skilfully converted into a impressive victory.
Many Leave politicians will not be able to counter this, as it requires a grasp of detail which few have shown, and in any case their mandate will have been discharged.
So rather than hoping for (and revelling in) disasters and setbacks, a wiser approach of those who value the UK’s ongoing relationship with the EU is to support the government’s attempts to get a withdrawal agreement in place.
A “no deal” Brexit will make a close association agreement far less likely, as the best basis for such an agreement will be the so-called “transition” terms themselves.
Of course, events may overtake this. Brexit could still be delayed or cancelled.
But on the basis of things as they are now, we should be encouraged by the title of the book by the architect of the Burma campaign: Defeat into Victory.