Tim Shipman’s *All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class *and Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem (there’s a third volume to be published early next year) are the best accounts of what happened. Shipman is the political editor of the Sunday Times - a conservative paper from the Murdoch stable but not a rabidly Brexiteer one - and he has really deep access, plus he’s an entertaining writer to boot.
Honestly, I feel bad recommending two actual books, but there’s been a lot of stuff going on, and anything short is just going to be surface gloss.
For a more legalistic take on things, there’s David Allen Green’s writing in the Financial Times and at his own blog Jack of Kent.
I guess she is going to take it to the wire with this delay. Make a big show of making plans for No Deal with lots of very alarming leaks about the consequences. Hoping that the protests against the Withdrawal Agreement start to diminish as MPs realise that her WA is the lesser of two evils.
I am sure she will repeat endlessly that (driving the economy off the edge of a cliff) is the democratic will of the people expressed by the Brexit referendum and her government intends to honour that commitment because she regards it as in the national interest of the British people. Because, as you know, the most important thing is safeguarding the borders and keeping immigrant out unless they are very highly qualified indeed.
She repeats the same kind of dogged mantra in every interview.
Yup, we democratically voted to shoot our foot off.
The UK will, however, have won the sovereign right to hobble around in circles for decades to come safe within our borders.
It will be a Pyrrhic victory if it comes to pass.
I am wondering if the public mood will turn as we peer over the brink, because there is a simple solution to this madness.
Right now there is no majority in Parliament for:
May’s Deal
Cancelling Brexit–remain in the EU
A Norway type deal
Crashing out with no deal
New General Election
New Brexit Referendum
With Parliament basically paralyzed it could end up the default crashing out with no deal–as that is what will happen if nothing is done to avoid it.
And that could cause years of problems.
Of course May’s response is to kick the can down the road–but the road will come to an end March 29.
Yes, the road ends and we drive off the edge of the cliff at the end of March. What is yet to be determined is how fast we fall and how hard we hit the bottom.
If May were to request an extension from the EU (on her way out the door of Number 10, of course), on behalf of whatever government succeeds hers to help sort the mess, wouldn’t it be pretty much definitely and gratefully granted?
From the outside, the brain-dead obvious solution is to hold a new election. I mean, sure, heads will explode, people will throw tantrums, May will be accused of being worse than Hitler, and she may even have to resign.
But she could hold a new election, with three options, ranked-choice:
Cancel Brexit.
Brexit with the deal we have.
No-deal Brexit.
And if she does that, and if she weathers the storm, I think she’d come out looking way better than she could with any other approach.
Is she just afraid of being called worse than Hitler?
Yeah, sorry, I meant “referendum,” but brainfarted, and saw the mistake too late to edit.
Seriously, why isn’t she calling for a new referendum? How could the backlash to doing so possibly be worse than what she’s gonna go through if she doesn’t?
Why would you think that? Article 50 is clear. And more to the point, the EU has a very strong interest in NOT facilitating an exit from the EU. They want the other 27 nations to stay. The incredible mess that is Brexit is actually quite helpful in strengthening the rest of the EU. No Brexit would be acceptable, but so would a hard Brexit. Why should the rest of the EU prolong their experience of Brexit if they don’t have to? And they don’t have to: their position is solid.
They’ve already indicated that they are willing to prolong the article 50 period.
For the EU, the ideal outcome would be the UK changing its mind and returning as a full member on the same terms as before. The worst outcome would be a no-deal Brexit, because it would impact the EU as well - not as much as the UK obviously, but it would still be harmful to the EU.
I explained in that post how it would make the situation worse. It would solve nothing and waste a lot of time. And there isn’t a lot of time to waste.
