Honestly? I think she sees the unity of the Conservative Party to be a higher call than the unity and prosperity of her country.
It’s utterly alien to you and I.
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I agree for an unconventional reason: in the span of three years, a not-insubstantial percentage of the population will be new voters, or no longer voters. The vote was close enough that if a lopsided percentage of the new voters want to remain, the current mood of the public might have legitimately changed even if no one individual changes sides on this issue. (Thus, my original feeling that this decision was so substantial that a supermajority for “yes” should have been required to prevent possible absurdities like this, but I’m not going to tell the Brits how to run their affairs.)
Do you feel a referendum to cancel brexit should require a supermajority?
In three years (or sooner) the magnitude of the disaster should be evident, and with any luck when Boris and the other lackwits come out to say how great things are they can get met with rotten eggs and tomatoes.
Just do it long enough after the Hard Brexit for me to visit London on the cheap after the pound plummets. Silver linings, etc.
The bottom line reason for why it’s politically impossible to ignore the referendum result or have a second referendum is that there is an immovable anti-EU base in the UK, but there is no equivalent pro-EU base that is quite as stubborn. It’s a bit more complicated than that but that’s the gist.
Brexit happens to be an issue that divides both the Tory and Labour parties, which essentially means voters can either demand an acceptable outcome as a prerequisite for party loyalty, or can choose to vote for their preferred party regardless of the issue. If you had a pro-leave Conservative party and a pro-remain Labor party, there would be a significant chunk of supporters of both parties whose Brexit stance was not represented by their party, and the same would be true in the reverse. The reason this isn’t happening is that since the referendum, leave supporters feel emboldened to apply a brexit purity test to politicians, whereas remain supporters mostly say “well I don’t want to leave, but if I don’t vote Labour we’re going to end up with cuts to social services/if I don’t vote Tory we’re going to get our taxes raised”.
This really is a great example why holding a referendum to try to appease a hardline base is a terrible idea, because the hardliners are the ones that are going to hold your feet to the fire if they get their desired result. It also shows that there are cases where it actually does make sense to be a single-issue voter or be willing to vote for a spoiler candidate over a divisive issue. Of course in the case of Brexit, there is another layer to this, which is that 1 month is not nearly enough time for a spoiler faction to compel either of the major parties to go back to taking a remain position hold a second referendum.
Possibilities in order of likelihood:
[ol]
[li]May negotiates a cosmetic change to the backstop (like, the backstop will be yellow instead of purple) that gives more moderate ERGers cover to vote for it. May’s Deal passes. BREXIT.[/li][li]No change to deal. Vote goes down to the wire and May wins the game of chicken. Moderate remainers bottle out and vote for the deal. BREXIT.[/li][li]Tory moderates grab the steering wheel and negotiate May’s Deal plus a Customs Union (AKA, Corbyn’s Deal). BREXIT.[/li][li]Article 50 suspended. Government falls. National Coalition negotiates Norway+. BREXIT in name only.[/li][li]Article 50 suspended repeatedly and indefinitely. We always intend to Brexit but never actually get around to it. Schrodinger’s BREXIT.[/li][li]Article 50 withdrawn unilaterally with a promise to hold a second referendum to be decided by single transferable vote May’s Deal vs Corbyn’s Deal vs No Deal Brexit vs No Brexit. [/li][li]Crash out with no deal. BREXIT[/li][li]Article 50 withdrawn unilaterally with a promise that we never need mention Brexit ever again. NO BREXIT[/li][/ol]
A big part of the problem is that none of the major players can possibly tell the truth because it would end their political career. If a politician does accidentally tell the truth, they get crucified in the media.
Another part of the problem is that there is no majority in parliament for any of the options currently on the table. The most popular (and sensible) options are opposed by the two main party leaders because, to support them would end their careers and probably destroy their parties.
Possibilities in order of my preference:
[ol]
[li]Government falls. New election entirely wipes out all of the current political parties because they are no longer fit for purpose. New leader emerges who can persuade the country that Brexit is a very bad idea. NO BREXIT[/li][li]Article 50 withdrawn unilaterally with a promise that we never need mention Brexit ever again. NO BREXIT[/li][li]Article 50 withdrawn unilaterally with a promise to hold a second referendum to be decided by single transferable vote May’s Deal vs Corbyn’s Deal vs No Deal Brexit vs No Brexit. I think Corbyn’s Deal would win.[/li][li]Tory moderates grab the steering wheel and negotiate May’s Deal plus a Customs Union (AKA, Corbyn’s Deal). BREXIT.[/li][li]Article 50 suspended repeatedly and indefinitely. We always intend to Brexit but never actually get around to it. Schrodinger’s BREXIT.[/li][/ol]
The BBC, in their sham Vox Pop interviews always manages to round up a bunch of idiots to say “I’m fed up with talking about Brexit. Why don’t they just get on with it?” At my most cynical, I think there is but a tiny distance from that view to “I’m fed up with talking about Brexit. Why don’t we just forget the whole thing?” I think a gifted but cynical politician like Boris Johnson could pull that one off.
There would be cheers throughout the land!
Looks like 8 Labour and 3 Conservative MPs have split with their parties and joined an Independent group of MPs.
This is going to put huge pressure on the leadership of each party to accommodate the profound concern felt about their position on Brexit. At the moment both parties are dominated by their Brexit factions.
If the Conservatives lose more members, could they lose a vote of confidence? May won the last no confidence vote 319/306.
General election imminent?:dubious:
But only the first 2 options in your list can be achieved unilaterally. The rest require the EU to play along which I highly doubt they will at this stage of the game.
This makes a soft brexit about 50% more likely, IMO.
I didn’t rate this as likely but I do think it is possible. And I don’t think the EU would block it.
Barnier’s line has been that the current deal is the only one possible given May’s red lines. He has hinted that a different deal would be possible with different red lines.
Several EU honchos have hinted that they would be open to delaying Brexit if there were a chance of making useful progress.
How big is May’s margin in the House of Commons? Labour defections to an independent group don’t change the balance of power, but Tories leaving the fold are significant.
314 Conservative + 10 DUP
May’s government was already a minority government, but had a majority with the supply and confidence agreement with the DUP. That’s now technically a minority, but one seat is vacant and one belongs to the Speaker of the House who doesn’t vote. Also, there are seven Sinn Fein seats, and those MP’s don’t sit in Parliament.
https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/current-state-of-the-parties/
I guess I don’t understand why they didn’t do a second referendum that laid out the more nuanced options for Brexit to the public, if they were having issues actually figuring out what they would do. Couldn’t they have had a second, follow up referendum detailing the various options, and, perhaps, another option which was something along the lines of remain in the EU for now while we work out an actual plan to get out down the road? That way all the options were part of the original, very vague referendum (hard to believe that they really had one that was essentially leave or stay :eek:) but to refine what, exactly, people were voting for. Because it seems to me that the leave folks were very divided in what that means. I suspect that if they had crafted the original referendum into a more nuanced list there wouldn’t have been sufficient votes to do anything but stay.
I’m assuming that it’s too late to do something like this now, and it seems the punt option is off the table, though honestly, as someone not from the UK but who has quite a few friends who are, it seems to me the best of bad options would be to punt…to basically go back to the EU, say the UK will simply remain in while it tries to come up with a comprehensive plan to leave at some future date, then go back to the UK and basically say there will be no Brexit without an actual plan to leave. If said plan never happens, well, them’s the breaks kiddies…learn to play nice and know what you are asking for.
From what I can tell (and certainly open to correction), Cameron decided to hold the referendum to squash the Euro-sceptics in his own party and didn’t think it would pass. In other words, no thought put into what happens if the dog catches the car.
A better option would have been to say from the start that there would be a second referendum, once a deal had been reached, to see if the people approved that deal.
That’s the approach taken in many countries and US states for constitutional amendments: that you have two votes, separated by time, because it can be such a momentous decision.
That’s not undemocratic, but simply acknowledging that major decisions should be made only after all possible information is available to the voters.
That was Rees-Mogg’s opinion once.
I don’t think it is too late and it’s pretty much the position of the People’s Vote campaign. I think the EU would grant an extension to Article 50 for a referendum on the final deal.
Yes, when he was campaigning for " Leave."
Now that " Leave" has won, his line is: “No backsies! That would be undemocratic!”
We saw the same sort of intellectual dishonesty from Premier Parizeau in the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty. The PQ made suggestions during the campaign that there would be a second referendum to ratify any deal, but then a news article came out where a reporter caught him admitting to his supporters that it was a one-time deal. If the “yes” side won, he planned on a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, saying that it was lobsters going into a lobster pot: once in, that was it.
It should be noted that this campaigning was being done during a 2011 parliamentary debate. I’m not familiar with the motion that was being discussed, but the prospect of a multiple-choice referendum was raised by David Cameron at the start of the debate.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm111024/debtext/111024-0001.htm
Jacob Rees-Mogg was arguing for a clear referendum or pair of referendums.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm111024/debtext/111024-0003.htm
As an aside, I chuckled at this bit of English humour, but then realised I didn’t get the basis of the joke. Is this a cricket joke?
In Moggworld, possibly.