Stop Playing Politics with our Future
What don’t we want?
A people’s vote on the Brexit deal.
Why not?
Because that’s what got us into this mess in the first place!
Have you ever entered a PIN, had it rejected, and in utter disbelief retyped the exact same digits? …what happened?
Same action, different results?
Things do change. Some promisingly so for a Remainer: The Daily Mail now has a new (more Euro-friendly?) editor, the Unions are actively backing us to stay and there’s a constant demographic shift in favour of membership.
But these are small changes that feel like clutching at straws. Remember in the spring of ’16 when leaving never seemed conceivable?
The Robbed Delusion
I voted to remain along with almost everyone I know but am surprised, even from within this bubble, how many conversations I’ve since had along the lines that Brexiteers must now be seeing the error of their ways. The pound has plummeted and inflation bites… a little. Growth forecasts are revised down (and up again, down again) but this is hardly the economic apocalypse George Osborne foretold. More like the kind of low-key cyclical stuff that happens all of the time in rich countries… and couldn’t that all be the fault of bumbling politicians trying to derail the process anyway?
Personally, I don’t see any new information to have transformative effects on the voting masses. Everything that has transpired in the past couple of years was known at the time. A lot wasn’t focused on, most topically the Irish border, but even that, so easy to point out as a non-starter now — and why did we even bother if the Good Friday agreement depends on EU membership — even this impasse is only impassable if you buy into the conventions of the current politic. Why, actually, must there be regulatory harmony throughout the UK when Northern Ireland has a different set of civil laws? It is the only region where same-sex marriage is not legal. If basic human rights are not shared then why customs standards?
Were Cameron’s mantle lifted by someone with talent, belief in Brexit and charisma, one who would have romped home a massive majority last year where May collapsed so spectacularly, I could well imagine them shifting the border to the Irish Sea.
When it comes down to it, the hurdles we trip on are because almost no one in parliament actually wants out of Europe.
The extent to which some Remainers were “right” comes from our being the political classes, limited by the same world view. We want to expand and improve our multicultural, socially liberal, economically flexible society. Educate everyone on how much better off they are within it. Share more of the wealth, make it more inclusive, certainly, but not tear it up and start again.
Exchange rates, inflation, GDP, what we were wrong about is not what would happen to these measures but whether they mattered to the debate. I see very little evidence that Remain has accepted that we lost the referendum. Hear a lot about Leave’s lies and cheating, the amount of campaign overspend, but until we face up to what we did wrong we won’t win next time. Leavers aren’t the ones who need to face new realities.
Debating Society
Before the original referendum I made the point that neither side has any interest in our making an informed decision. It was all politics, jostling for power, trying to inherit the crown. No one actually cared about us, the people, we were pawns in their game. Somehow, we’ve all come out convinced that the “other side” was manipulated, that now the dust has settled they’ll see through the deception.
The £350m? Johnson was still making that claim as Foreign Secretary in Sept 2017.
What recession? A recent growth forecast worries about the ability of a sluggish Eurozone to hoover up our discounted exports.
Both sides can claim their predictions have come true, or will when we actually leave, and that the others have proved false. That anyone still believed any of it on polling day is testament to what a disaster the whole debate was.
I’ve written before on the limitations of democracy (see below, embedded), one of the key points being: the only incentive inherent in our system is to win. Boris Johnson epitomises this; no one knows what he actually believes, he defies all reason but wins.
This is what was fundamentally wrong with the last referendum and there is nothing to imply it has changed in the slightest.
We’re not getting everyone around a table, laying down impartial facts and calmly asking for an informed decision. Another referendum will be more of the same: demonising lies, inciting hatred and distorting facts — how many people will read, and understand the implications of, the terms they’re voting on anyway? The same tactics used in the general electoral cycle but rather than being aimed against politicians, for whom it is part of the job, here the vitriol is directed at us: Immigrants, now also Brexiteers and Remoaners, people on the street actively challenging your values, corrupting your society and holding you back. No longer the politicians fucking you over but your neighbours. No one needs that. No country needs that. Not again.
But what could possibly go wrong?
It doesn’t sound like there were many Leave voters on the 20th October protest, or that the speakers were extolling the virtues of direct democracy, this was an attempt to overturn the original result.
I can sympathise with that. Those of us who wish to stay in the EU shouldn’t just shut up and accept the outcome, we don’t about anything else. I don’t just throw my hat in and vote Tory because they won last time. Or declare it a done deal: why have another election? The country has spoken.
But I certainly don’t share the opinion that we have nothing to lose. At the moment Brexit is being muddled through by a parliament who are generally opposed to leaving. Theresa May seems a lot less keen on No Deal than she was a year ago, all talk is of kicking this as far down the road as possible, buying all the time they can.
Put it to a vote and what would the options be?
a) Yes to the terms
b) No and crash out
c) No and stay in*
d) No and go back to the drawing board because it actually needs to be thought about?
[*assuming the referendum is conditional on this being on the ballot — it is not clear that either options c) or d) are viable without the consent of the EU]
Does that break down to b) and c)? Does anyone who wishes to remain really want to gamble 50/50 on c), having lost the last referendum?
For a Remainer we, as a country, are about to make the biggest mistake of a lifetime because firstly, we held a referendum and secondly, people assumed they had nothing to lose.
Let’s not do that again.
So…What then?
I’ve been charged with writing a positive post script to my essay that otherwise finished there, with the typical cynicism of a critic and no new ideas.
My initial reaction was that doing something, to feel active and engaged, isn’t necessarily better than doing nothing. Like changing lanes in a traffic jam, or turning off so at least you’re moving, even if that extra 10 miles takes more time than waiting; it may not feel as helpless, that doesn’t make it advisable.
Really the time to stop Brexit was at the election in 2017 but all the young votes went to a lifetime Euro-sceptic, firmly entrenching in the 2-party deadlock. If the Lib Dems currently held the of influence the DUP things might look very different.
A second referendum is probably now the only way to actually stop Brexit completely, but, as discussed, I don’t think that the Remain camp have learnt anything from the last vote, we’re still in denial. The polls haven’t changed much, with undecideds enough to reverse any lead.
A soft exit, however, is very achievable, because that’s what everyone in both houses of parliament wants.
Most Labour MP’s don’t want to leave but won’t vote against their constituencies. Neither do the Tories; with euro-sceptic rebels numbering less than 50 there is a substantial majority for the softest exit possible. To look at Keir Starmer’s 6 tests, he doesn’t appear to want a hard Brexit either but we all know that maintaining the “exact same benefits” to the single market was never something Brussels could offer.
Sadly, Labour are currently on “permanent election footing”, meaning that their only focus is on winning power, so despite pretty much all MP’s being agreed on what is best for the country we are in a situation where crashing out of the EU without a deal is a very real risk, and any deal that might actually get passed needs to be acceptable to the DUP and Tory rebels.
Party Pooper
The Meaningful Vote, as it currently stands, is acceptance or rejection of the deal already brokered. Although it may, the EU is under no obligation to accept amendments, extend the negotiating period or let us retract Article 50, so the best situation we could be in is that the light Brexit majority get on with negotiating something that might not harm the country too badly. Instead we have a prime example of what I talk of in the attached essay, how party politics trumps all good intentions because the only goal is winning.
Membership isn’t key to Corbyn’s agenda but it matters to his support base. By relaxing the whip, something he never respected until he held it, he could prevent the worst of exits.
It is hard to imagine May accepting cross-party help, it would severely weaken her long-term position, but she might just grab the lifeline.
So, if you want to march, write to your MP, Momentum, start petitions, that has to be the message: a free vote on the deal. This is bigger than your party.
Simply, STOP PLAYING POLITICS WITH OUR FUTURE.
Might not sound like much, so maybe it’s achievable.
We Remainers have more friends inside parliament than out.
Better ideas openly welcomed…
