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Brexit

Started by vandermolen, May 01, 2017, 10:14:35 PM

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Que


Mr. Minnow

Quote from: Que on December 01, 2018, 10:35:03 AM
The coming crisis   (The Brexit Blog)

At this point I think we're all just waiting to see which particular flavour of clusterfuck we get hit by. The only thing we can say with any certainty is that whatever happens, it will definitely not be the Brexiters' fault.

Que

Quote from: Mr. Minnow on December 01, 2018, 11:48:27 AM
At this point I think we're all just waiting to see which particular flavour of clusterfuck we get hit by. The only thing we can say with any certainty is that whatever happens, it will definitely not be the Brexiters' fault.

I think it's quite startling to see how completely uncertain and unpredictable the way is in which the UK will handle this major decision on its future.

In any normal situation a lack of consensus on a major decision, or at least a stable political majority on a course of action, would lead to continuation of the status quo.

But instead the UK notified its withdrawal from the EU without any such domestic political agreement. Two factors played into this IMO: 1) the use of a referendum and 2) a political system that hands power to a government that doesn't actually have the support of a popular majority.

Q


Mr. Minnow

Quote from: Que on December 01, 2018, 12:43:57 PM
Two factors played into this IMO: 1) the use of a referendum and 2) a political system that hands power to a government that doesn't actually have the support of a popular majority.

Q

Those are certainly two of the biggest problems. We' re not used to referendums in the UK, so the result is being treated as if it were sacred and immutable, and must therefore not be challenged. No-one would even think of treating general elections this way: when we've had one election we don't say that the result is the "will of the people" and therefore no opposition to the government can be tolerated. We then have another election after a while and if the public has had a change of view and wants someone else in power, they can vote for that.

The voting system is definitely a factor. Only about 20% of seats are marginals, which means that in the other 80% it's pretty much a foregone conclusion which party will win the seat. That effectively disenfranchises millions upon millions of people. Many people voted for the first time in their lives in the referendum because their vote carried as much weight as everyone else's: there was no safe seat/marginal factor at work. You might think this would mean we should adopt PR for general elections, but we're still told that we need FPTP to provide "strong government". Though that argument is wearing a bit thin given the events of the last few years in general and the current farce in particular.

The other factor to add to the two you mention is a media landscape which has been heavily dominated by the right for decades, and consequently a population which has been systematically misled and misinformed, not least on the subject of Europe. The relentless drip-drip effect has done its work.

steve ridgway

Yes, my vote doesn't count in general elections. The government won't want another referendum though because then Scotland will want another independence referendum on the grounds that they voted against Brexit and want to remain in the EU.

vandermolen

Quote from: 2dogs on December 01, 2018, 09:48:10 PM
Yes, my vote doesn't count in general elections. The government won't want another referendum though because then Scotland will want another independence referendum on the grounds that they voted against Brexit and want to remain in the EU.

Yes, quite true.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Mr. Minnow

#746
Quote from: 2dogs on December 01, 2018, 09:48:10 PM
The government won't want another referendum though because then Scotland will want another independence referendum on the grounds that they voted against Brexit and want to remain in the EU.

The SNP has been calling for a second independence referendum on precisely those grounds since the 2016 referendum. A second EU referendum producing the same result as the first - Scotland voting by a big margin for remain but an overall vote to leave - would certainly cement the case for another independence referendum, especially if it looked as though we were heading for an even harder Brexit than May's deal. That would strengthen the economic as well as the political case for independence, since staying in the UK would be at least as risky as independence and arguably more so. However, a second EU referendum resulting in a vote to remain would weaken the economic case for a second independence referendum, since staying in the UK would mean staying in the EU, a much safer option.

So, a second EU vote resulting in a vote to remain weakens the case for indyref2, while a second leave win just reinforces what is already SNP policy. I therefore don't think the government is especially bothered about a second EU referendum because of the Scottish question - in fact they don't seem to give a shit about Scotland anyway. If anything, they've already strengthened both the political and economic case for Scottish independence by signing up to a deal with the EU which may well put Scotland at a disadvantage with respect to Northern Ireland. The SNP is already saying that if specific arrangements can be made for NI to keep an open border, why can't something similar be done for Scotland, especially given Scotland's substantial pro-remain vote? They have a point, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell of the Tories agreeing to anything like that.   

Iota

Thanks for that interesting analysis, Mr. Minnow. 

The possibility of a second referendum seems to hove more realistically into view with recent manoeuvres, but these are nervy times, as I imagine if it does ever happen, a more decisive vote the 'wrong' way will be not only economically, but also pyschologically self-destructive, taking us spiralling down a reactionary, proto-nationalist rabbit hole from which we are unlikely to extricate ourselves in my lifetime. Perhaps I over imagine, I hope I do.

Of course the relief of the result going the 'right' way would be considerable, though not without problems of course, there would be lots of justifiably angry people, but I have no confidence that that's a likely outcome.

steve ridgway

If any government ever dared to have a referendum on anything ever again they'd need more choices e.g.
- Stay in the EU as before
- Leave with no deal
- Various options for leaving only partially or in name only.

Que

#749
Quote from: 2dogs on December 03, 2018, 05:47:21 AM
If any government ever dared to have a referendum on anything ever again they'd need more choices e.g.
- Stay in the EU as before
- Leave with no deal
- Various options for leaving only partially or in name only.

Rationally, these are the options:

1. Remaing in the EU
2. "Norway-plus": remaining in the internal market & the customs union.
3. "Norway": remaining in the internal market and closing trade deals with the rest of the world, but with Northern Ireland remaining in the customs union.
4. "Canada": a free trade deal with the EU (and the rest of the world),  but with NI remaining in the customs union and in partial alignment with the internal market.
5. No deal.

A system of a "transferable vote", consisting of the possibility of chosing two options in order of preference, would be best.

Q


Mr. Minnow

#750
Quote from: Iota on December 03, 2018, 04:22:03 AM
Thanks for that interesting analysis, Mr. Minnow. 

The possibility of a second referendum seems to hove more realistically into view with recent manoeuvres, but these are nervy times, as I imagine if it does ever happen, a more decisive vote the 'wrong' way will be not only economically, but also pyschologically self-destructive, taking us spiralling down a reactionary, proto-nationalist rabbit hole from which we are unlikely to extricate ourselves in my lifetime. Perhaps I over imagine, I hope I do.

Of course the relief of the result going the 'right' way would be considerable, though not without problems of course, there would be lots of justifiably angry people, but I have no confidence that that's a likely outcome.

Sadly, we appear to be hurtling down that rabbit hole at an alarming rate. I just cannot see a scenario in which this crisis ends well. If Brexit is averted by a vote to remain in another referendum, the likes of Farage will scream betrayal and tell us how great Brexit would have been if the country hadn't been stabbed in the back by "saboteur remoaners" (the "stab in the back" myth being a classic trope of right wing nationalism, especially that little Austrian fella with the funny tash). It won't matter how strong the evidence to the contrary is, we'll be told that the "liberal metropolitan elite" has conspired to rob the people of their beloved Brexit (even if that "elite" consists of more than half the country voting in a referendum), and of course if the blessed Nigel and his ilk had been in charge they would have "got tough with Brussels" to show them that "Britain means Business", etc.. There is probably no shortage of people willing to believe this cobblers, given that even now, with the abundant evidence of just what a shambles Brexit is shaping up to be - even on the government's own forecasts - the polls show another referendum would be too close to call.

So, perhaps the only way out is to let Brexit happen so that the inevitable shitshow unfolds and leave voters realise they've been had? Except that when Brexit proves not to be the ticket to the sunlit uplands that it was sold as, and exacerbates rather than solves the problems that led to the leave vote in the first place, the reaction of the Brexiteers will still be to blame everyone but themselves. Admittedly it would be easier to do that if no agreement had been reached with the EU, but if we get a no deal Brexit because the Commons votes the deal down, or we get some other deal that the Brexiters don't like, they'll still try to claim that the ensuing crisis is down to EU intransigence, remainers, the civil service, experts and the countless other scapegoats they use to deflect attention away from their own failings. Don't hold your breath for them to put out a detailed and properly thought through plan of their own - if they did that they might have to take some responsibility and the fact they have no clue how to turn their "vision" into reality would be much more obvious to those who voted for them. Much easier, and safer,  to cry betrayal from the safety of the backbenches.

Either way, it's hard to see how we can flush the nationalist turd out of UK politics in the foreseeable future.   



Que

A gloomy picture....  ::)

And the wave of discontent of the middle class, that fed into Trump and Brexit is unfortunately to be seen all over the Western world.

Paris yesterday:



Q

Mandryka

#752
Quote from: Que on December 03, 2018, 09:48:34 PM
A gloomy picture....  ::)

And the wave of discontent of the middle class, that fed into Trump and Brexit is unfortunately to be seen all over the Western world.

Paris yesterday:



Q

As far as I know the Gilets Jaunes haven't expressed any ideas usually linked with the right. On the contrary, they seem to be demanding greater equality, fairer redistribution.

I'm going to buy a fluorescent yellow sleeveless jacket I think, I'm with them!

The difference between Thatcher and Macron is this. When Thatcher robbed the working class of their hard won social benefits, she sweetened the pill by letting them buy cheaply their state owned house, and letting them buy cheaply some shares in privatisations, so they felt rich. What a swiz! Macron thinks he can just remove the rights the workers have acquired since the war, and that they'll doff their caps and tug their forelocks. 
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mr. Minnow

Quote from: Que on December 01, 2018, 12:43:57 PM
But instead the UK notified its withdrawal from the EU without any such domestic political agreement. Two factors played into this IMO: 1) the use of a referendum and 2) a political system that hands power to a government that doesn't actually have the support of a popular majority.

Q

There is another factor in this, concerning the use of a referendum, which I think is probably unprecedented in British politics. Whoever wins a general election is expected to implement the promises they make during the campaign, or risk paying a political price for not doing so. But the referendum has created a situation in which the people on the winning side who made promises during the campaign are, for the most part, not the ones who will have to implement them. The likes of Farage, Daniel Hannan and Gisela Stuart aren't even in the Commons let alone in government, Davis and Johnson both resigned (as indeed did Raab), and even people like Rees-Mogg and Owen Paterson are only backbenchers. So the referendum created a situation in which many of the leading Brexit campaigners could - and most certainly did - make whatever absurd promises they liked, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't have to take the slightest bit of responsibility for implementing them. That would be left to others, who could then be denounced as betrayers of Brexit for not living up to the required standards of ideological purity. 

steve ridgway

Johnson stood for Conservative leader though (did Davis too?) so would presumably have seen the process through as PM leading a government of other Leave ministers. Ministers have to resign when they can't accept the policies of the PM and want to speak out or vote against them.

Mr. Minnow

#755
Quote from: 2dogs on December 05, 2018, 10:00:41 PM
Johnson stood for Conservative leader though (did Davis too?) so would presumably have seen the process through as PM leading a government of other Leave ministers. Ministers have to resign when they can't accept the policies of the PM and want to speak out or vote against them.

They had a choice of taking responsibility for seeing it through or resigning to cry betrayal from the sidelines. They chose the latter rather than admit to the electorate what they'd been warned of all along, that the promises they'd made were an undeliverable fantasy. Much easier to sit on the backbenches and blame others for failing to keep promises that the Brexiters themselves had made but which they knew could never be kept. 

And of course there was never much danger of Farage (the most important of all the Brexiters), Hannan, Duncan Smith, Rees-Mogg, Stuart etc. having to take any responsibility for what they'd promised.


steve ridgway

It does seem a bit odd though that the Conservative MPs, while saying they respected the result of the referendum, in electing a new leader to implement the Leave decision should have chosen a Remain supporter.

Mr. Minnow

Quote from: 2dogs on December 06, 2018, 04:04:16 AM
It does seem a bit odd though that the Conservative MPs, while saying they respected the result of the referendum, in electing a new leader to implement the Leave decision should have chosen a Remain supporter.

May won the leadership by default. Gove stabbed Johnson in the back but in doing so bolstered his reputation as an untrustworthy snake. The likes of Fox were seen as too far to the right. That just left Leadsom, who is not the sharpest tool in the box to put it mildly - even a lot of Brexit-supporting Tory MPs thought she'd be a disaster. By contrast, May seemed a much safer pair of hands at the time, having survived six years at the Home Office, which is far longer than most Home Secretaries last. And although she did support remain, she was almost invisible during the referendum campaign, so the Brexiters viewed her as a reluctant rather than ardent remainer (probably rightly). Of course, her shortcomings as a leader are now painfully clear for all to see, but back then she was being hyped by the Tory press and some MPs as Thatcher Mk.II.

zamyrabyrd

I am out of the loop of the discussion but thought this was hilarious:

https://www.youtube.com/v/Y3LmacgHDKQ/
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Pat B

Quote from: Mr. Minnow on December 06, 2018, 05:32:09 AM
Gove stabbed Johnson in the back

That's assuming Johnson actually wanted to be the PM who would have to implement Brexit (as opposed to the PM after that).