At the same time, how is that not the fault of those low information, low interest voters ? And what alternative do they have to slap them down with ? It’s not like there’s a magic party or politician that will give them an exit from the EU without any negative consequence or changes to the way things are done, all free of charge and with a complimentary handjob.
Labour can call for an election, just like they can call for anything else, but it doesn’t follow that what they call for will be delivered. They’re the opposition; they don’t command a majority in parliament. They will usually be outvoted.
Well, there is also the a fourth option, of endorsing the deal negotiated with the EU. True, Parliament has voted to reject it twice, but if they can vote twice they can vote three times, and therefore they can accept it. Whether they are likely to do so is another matter, but it is certainly open to them.
There’s a view that they have rejected it so far in part because the option of further delay remains available, and therefore rejecting it does not irrevocably commit them either to a no-deal brexit or to revocation, or to the choice between those two options. But at some point the option of more delay runs out, and at that point it’s possible we may discover that, much and all as they dislike May’s deal, they prefer it to no-deal.
And I certainly think it makes sense to criticize May on the soundness of her red lines and her refusal to abandon or revise them as time went on. But “things would be different if things had been different” isn’t a particularly illuminating take.
But “things would have been different if May hadn’t made them as they are” is.
Here’s a BBC article, with helpful flow charts, as to what could happen next.
This is not correct. Labour have repeatedly called for a new general election. In fact, Corbyn called for a general election yet again last night, immediately after the result of the vote was announced.
But they do not have a majority in parliament to force an early general election.
Thanks. As I’ve said, I’m a bit unsure of the system.
I think there is now a reasonable chance for another referendum.
- There will be a vote today excluding the possibility of no-deal. This should pass by a large majority.
- There will be a vote on Thursday to extend article 50. Again, it’s likely this will pass.
There will then be further votes on several options, and if Labour supports a new referendum, backed by the other opposition parties and a few Tories, they may well win the vote. Of course, it depends what precisely the question(s) will be in the new referendum, and this will be a matter of hard negotiation.
The EU will certainly be willing to extend article 50 to accommodate another referendum.
And Remain will likely win a further referendum… then the UK can wake up from the whole bad dream.
This is the most positive outcome, and it seems to be a real possibility. There is a growing feeling in Parliament that since there is no majority for any option, the only thing left to do is to put the question back to the public again.
I applaud the developments, the prospect of blue skies being resumed and the possibility of the BREXIT omelette being unscrambled expediently by denying the eggs were ever scrambled in the first play, 'twas just a national acid trip or summat.
… but riddle me this … what happens if the 2nd referendum is 51:49 or tighter either way?
And as a supplementary, if a large majority passes the motion of excluding “no deal” what do the Hard BREXITers do? They accept that as a vote of no confidence in their stand and take their medicine/medication or continue as malignant spoilers?
Nobody [sane] imagines that a second referendum could settle the question to general satisfaction. Ambitions are much more limited; it’s enough that a second referendum would actually make a choice, which Parliament is evidently unwilling or unable to do. It would be a choice that would deeply dissatisfy a large minority of people, but that’s going to be the case regardless of how the choice is made.
They carry on. A motion declaring against no deal is not an effective decision to exclude no deal; for that Parliament must affirmatively choose (a) a deal with the EU [that the EU is willing to make - it should be necessary to say that, but apparently it is], or (b) revocation of Art. 50. And as long as Parliament does neither of these things, supporters of no-deal will carry on, since Parliament has chosen to leave the possibility of no-deal open - or, at any rate, has not chosen to close it off. And why would its supporters abandon it if its enemies choose not to exclude it?
Many leavers were expecting a Norway option when they voted Leave in 2016.
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And it wouldn’t even rule out leaving the EU in the longer term.
The UK’s level of intertwining with the rest of the EU is incredibly complex and would require a decade of concentrated unpicking to effect a constructive withdrawal. If the voters really want that then by all means let’s do this properly, not stupidly and destructively as is being done now. Those who think we should simply cut the Gordian Knot here by means of a no-deal withdrawal are forgetting that we need the rope to be as intact as possible afterwards.
The ERG don’t want anything to be intact afterwards. Don’t forget that Rees-Mogg’s father wrote a book called Blood in the Streets: Investment Profits in a World Gone Mad. Also The Sovereign Individual about disaster capitalism. It opens with the quote “The future is disorder”.
What they want is a chaotic environment with greatly reduced regulation, or no regulation, for the benefit of billionaires, big corporations, vested interests, bankers and hedge fund managers.
They don’t keep their money in the UK, but in tax havens overseas. They won’t lose anything in a disorderly Brexit, and they stand to gain a lot.
I’m aware of that, but the ERG are not the entirety of Parliament nor of the country.
Frankly, I think Remainers should be leading with “If we abandon Brexit it will royally screw Jacob Rees-Mogg, and that’s a goal the whole country can get behind.”
Even better:
“If we abandon Brexit it will royally screw Boris Johnson + Jacob Rees-Mogg, and that’s a goal the whole country can get behind.”
So, very late to this thread, I rarely dive into GQ for sanity reasons (I have enough time sinks in my life), so my apologies if the fact that I’m not going to go back and read all the past posts means that I’m bringing up a question or issue long laid to rest (and feel free to simply point me to the relevant posts if that is the case).
But aside from the question of Should We or Shouldn’t We to a British Exit from the EU (which I have “no dog” in, as the saying goes, as a US citizen and resident), I am extremely puzzled by the apparent chaos in the process on the UK side. For a culture that is stereotypically associated with Very Proper Behavior, the way the whole thing has proceeded seems incredibly rudderless.
I did some light Googling on what the basis for British Parliament procedure is, and how laws or decisions get passed, and so on - for the US Congress, this guiding basis would be the Constitution (which thanks to a childhood infused with Schoolhouse Rock I can sing as song lyrics: “We, The People, in order to form a more Perfect Union…”). The UK is a “Constitutional Monarchy”, so I figured, what’s their Constitution?
But… there isn’t one? WHAT?
Rather, there isn’t an actual single document or set of documents, but a “series of previous laws” that were written and enacted under whatever procedure seemed good at the time, “unwritten practices which have developed over time and regulate the business of governing” (as I found from this explanatory website from the UK at the top of my search results, though it doesn’t appear to be a government one).
So what the heck sets the parameters and the order of events for something like this? Shouldn’t that have been Step Zero, “hey, before we have this Very Serious Decision at a National Level, let’s get straight how it’s going to go?”
I mean, I get that this would only have been relevant had the referendum come back with a majority “Yes”, which Cameron didn’t expect. But after his very near miss with a similar referendum on Scottish Independence, which brought up very similar specters of “OMG if this comes back Yes we have No Idea what will happen next”, he just went and did it again, at an even higher level of disassociation? Never mind the personal irresponsibility of such a decision on Cameron’s head - shouldn’t the British Goverment itself had said, “Right - no more referendums that alter the national composition until we set some rules first?”
Then there’s the question of what the referendum actually “binds”. Apparently nothing, because it’s not legislation on its own, simply an expression of mandate from the people.
But even aside from all that - the fact that the PM got to call a vague referendum with no specifics, “I’ll just leave that for Parliament to flesh out down the road if/when that becomes necessary conditional on a Yes vote, and now it’s their baby, see ya” - how is it that a “government” is formed that then negotiates a deal with the EU for withdrawal, over a period of several YEARS, and then fails to get it passed?
I don’t mean how is it possible for such a complicated issue to have so many shaded opinions on the matter - I get that. I mean, based on the simple English language definition of what it means to have a negotiation, two parties try to come to a mutual agreement, and if it is achieved, that forms the agreement.
So how can the UK government themselves be arguing about a proposal that was already accepted by the EU (the other party)? Shouldn’t they have hammered out the framework and boundaries of a UK-acceptable proposal first, and THEN taken that to the EU table? I mean, imagine if you’re on the other side of it - you spend 2+ years talking over something, giving and taking, finally coming to a common point, and then the OTHER person says, dang, I can’t do that now?
OK, I also get that that is not a great way to have leverage in a negotiation, going in with your “best price” already visible on the table. But then the negotiator that is sent in MUST have full carte blanche rights to sign, with final authority, to make that negotation meaningful, or else whatever authority is behind that agent needs to be much closer in the loop at every step.
Finally - as I understand it, ultimately “all power derives from the Monarch”. So is it possible for the Queen to step in and just say, “As Monarch, I am blowing the whistle, everything stops and resets until you sort out exactly how this can be done sensibly, once more from the top?” Serious question.
Oh, and an actual Brexit specific question (rather than a general “what the heck is up with the British system of government that enabled this chaos” question):
What exactly are the “Irish backstop concessions” that “hardline” Brexiters are seeking from the EU?
The “Irish backstop” is an agreement that in order to prevent the reintroduction of a hard border between the UK area of Northern Ireland and the rest of the island that forms the EU member Republic of Ireland, NI will continue to exist in a customs union with the EU (allowing free flow across the border), “until we revisit this topic in the future”, or some such. Yeah?
And hardliners object that this vague agreement means the EU could theoretically avoid that discussion by never coming back to the table, thus leaving NI in the EU customs union forever, which would implicitly mean NI is “kind of” part of Ireland and “different than” the rest of the UK, which is unpalatable to the Democratic Ulster Party of UK Loyalists in Northern Ireland.
I get that.
So, what is it the “hardliners” want, then? It sounds like they still agree that a backstop is necessary on Day One, and the only issue is how to achieve a winding down of that backstop, which… They also don’t have a transition plan for? It’s another case of “that’s going to be someone else’s job to work out the details down the road, but we will agree that this is what we want in general terms, with no idea on how that is to be accomplished and at what cost?” (Has nobody learned that this is simply not a viable way to operate anything, not a project plan, not a business, and definitely not a country?)
So what they want is… An explicit agreement from the EU that the UK can cancel the backstop whenever it wants to? How can they agree to that, because wouldn’t that “cancel the backstop” really mean “replace it with another agreement”? What if the UK were then to say “OK we’re ending the backstop by… Enforcing the UK rules on Ireland and now THEY’RE different from the rest of the EU, and you can’t disagree because you already gave us carte blanche to rewrite the agreement concerning NI and IRL, hahaha!”?
Nm
Yes, those questions have been answered before, more than once.
Just read the previous discussion on this thread, and perhaps other threads. It’s not up to other people to do that for you.
Oh, what the hell, I’ll give it a go.
Yes, it should have.
If he had done so, I think Cameron feared huge chunks of his party would float to UKIP.
In any other situation, you would be absolutely right. No Government would have launched a referendum, or started Brexit negotiations, without an agreement on what Brexit is.
But the paradox is that to define Brexit is to destroy it. It only won the referendum because Brexit was undefined. It simply meant ‘Brexit’. There’s certain people on this board - people here will know who I mean - who still, to this day, insist that only their personal view of Brexit is the correct one, and all others - including May’s - are treasonous betrayals of the people’s will.
So we have this circular firing squad whereby everyone in government agrees Brexit should go ahead, but nobody wants to define that Brexit, because to do so means Brexit can’t happen.
Instead, the Government has hobbled along for years in the hope that it could get people who adhere to the other different definitions of Brexit to implode or defect to May’s flag.
Again, in normal times, the final authority would be Parliament passing an Act to make whatever agreement that is made have domestic legal force. But we have another paradox in Brexit. Brexiters insist Brexit is about parliamentary sovereignty, but they also don’t trust Parliament to enact ‘their’ view of Brexit. It also helped to try to keep it out of parliament’s hands, as it prevented awkward discussions about what Brexit means that would cause Brexit to fail.
Yes, she could, but it would be the uttermost direst circumstances, and would likely be the last thing the Queen would do as monarch, besides her abdication.