Memories are short and emotions are high. I suspect that many of them simply cannot (or don't want to) remember what was said and promised before the vote.
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EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...
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Plus 'face' by the truckload is preventing some of them from admitting that they were duped.
All while the same people are putting forward an even more extreme version of their plan, telling everyone that they were right, and now it's only those darstardly remainers, in collision with the courts and parliament blocking them from their sunlit uplands.
The only way the hardcore brexiteers will ever admit they might have got it wrong is for them to win, conclusively, and then things go drastically wrong, and quickly. It would have to be worse than the worst of the "project fear" predictions, affecting them personally, before they'd reconsider the "we never said there would be no disruption" line.
All this, I put at Theresa May's feet. She, as a new (unelected no less!) Prime Minister, could have paused the whole process, gathered a consensus with how to proceed, and then gone forward with a clear plan. Instead, she played both sides off each other, then went her own route and annoyed both of them. Boris, for all his faults, at least has a clear idea of what he's trying to do, if only reality stopped getting in the way.
It will be said to be the fault of some external party, eg the EU punishing the UK for leaving.
I don't think that was ever possible.
Puffing Devil
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Here's an idea - BJ turns up in next week and says - we'd liked to join the European Free Trade Area and remain in the Customs Union.
It's a deal - the EU would no doubt accept it. Who's being difficult or obstructive now?
It's a deal - the EU would no doubt accept it. Who's being difficult or obstructive now?
It would probably also get through Parliament as well...
Not within her party, no. But in the whole House of Commons? Yes. Absolutely. She could have built majority support for a deal there. She just chose not to in order to keep her party together, which then failed anyway and she lost her leadership as a result.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Unfortunately as soon as he does that half his voters would defect to Farage, due to the process described in previous posts where a soft Brexit that would have been acceptable to many is now deemed to be an unacceptable surrender. With so much other baggage he's unlikely to attract many less hardline supporters, and I doubt many people on any side trust him to do what he says.
So what can he do? By running on a soft Brexit he's likely to split the leaver vote without attracting many remainers, and Corbyn takes over. By running on a hard Brexit or no deal he's got more chance of gathering enough votes to get back in, but if that happens the new Parliament will be even more hardline and less likely to agree a deal that the EU will accept so he is pretty much forced into a hard Brexit. And to say it again a hard Brexit solves nothing - all the issues that would have been resolved by a deal still have to be resolved.
Whatever else he is Boris isn't stupid, but he does crave power and seems to want to be liked. If he wants to avoid going down in history as the PM with the shortest ever tenure, and/or the one who led the country into an entirely avoidable disaster, then he has to swallow hard and pivot to a referendum.
But permanently fracture the Tory party, after he kicked out the MPs who were calling for that sort of relationship and promoted all those who want out at any cost.
Of course which is the main reason why he (and May before him) will never do such a thing despite it probably being something which could command a majority in the House of Commons, would respect the Referendum result and even be something which I suspect a large number of those who voted remain would be able to live with (I certainly would be happy if we were EEA/Customs Union).
But it would very likely push the ERG group of Tory MPs over the edge and probably tear the party apart. It would also probably cause the Tory membership to loose their collective minds as well. It would also probably push the crazies that Johnson is trying to court into the arms of the Brexit Party fracturing the Tory vote as well as the party itself.
So despite it probably being a very good course of action for the country as a whole (short of revoking A50 and forgetting about the whole thing) it unacceptable as long as the Tories continue to put party before country.
You say that but some say staying in the single market & customs union is leaving in name only and therefore doesn't.
Yes and they're the same shysters that sold us this utter nightmare we find ourselves in so I'm less than convinced by the argument that they advance in that regard. Is Norway, for example in the EU? No, it is not. Therefore the UK with the same relationship would also not be in the EU. The question that was asked was "Should the UK remain a member of the EU or leave the EU" if the UK is not a member of the EU it has by definition left the EU!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
This is why the referendum needed to also define, ranked in order of preference in case one became impossible e.g. by the EU refusing it, the method of leaving. An AV or STV vote of Remain against plausible options (WTO, EEA/EFTA, negotiated trade deal but not EEA/EFTA etc) would have been the right way to do it if we were bothering at all. Then we wouldn't have this mess to start with. Ideally the referendum would have been legally binding, too.
So let's say the order of vote was:
- Negotiated trade deal
- EEA/EFTA
- Remain
- No Deal
...as I suspect it would have been, now it has become clear that a negotiated trade deal would be impossible, EEA/EFTA could be pursued. Failing that, A50 would be withdrawn. As withdrawing A50 is legally always an option up to the precise second the clock ticks over to midnight on the date of leaving (much as the EU might not like it), that means No Deal would never be considered.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
The referendum question was, should Britain leave the EU. There were no qualifiers attached to it about, that we must also leave the customs Union and single market. It was plain, should we leave the EU. Further, I'm pretty sure I remember that the possibility of us staying in the customs union and/or the single market were openly presented as possible models for leaving during the referendum campaign by people campaigning for Leave.
You might personally not like the options of staying in the single market or customs union, but you have no basis for claiming that doing so doesn't respect the result of the referendum.
Indeed. Sadly however David Cameron presumably thought that his third roll of the referendum dice would go his way again so didn't see any need to actually do it properly. You could have added a minimum threshold for any change to the status quo as well considering the scale of change proposed requiring a super-majority would not have been unreasonable....
But we are where we are and somehow have to find a way out of it. Which I'm not sure is actually possible with the current leadership and their priorities.
I'm hard remain (Euro, Schengen etc). But I don't edit a tabloid and it's those that will be printing the front page headlines unhappy with staying in the SM/CU. The referendum was vague for all several reasons but it allows people to interpret the result however they like.
Geezertronic
Established Member
I would suggest that whilst the Leave option was vague, so was the Remain option given by your own admission you are a hard remainer (and a vote to Remain was not necessarily to retain the status quo). So would any future vote also have to have multiple Remain options as well as multiple Leave options?
Probably. If there were some sort of STV referendum then I would like it to include hard remain so I can put it at the top of my list but I don't think there should be more than about 5 choices and it is perhaps one that could be more easily dropped.
So had remain won by a similar margin, Farage & co would’ve gracefully embraced losers consent & not opposed discussions on us joining Schengen or the Euro.etc .
There was no suggestion at all that remaining would lead to us to adopting the Euro or joining the Schengen area. Remain just mean keep things as they were.
If the government proposed doing those things I'm sure there would have been a separate referendum. Just like there should be a new referendum to decide what kind of brexit (if any) we have.
EM2
Established Member
Everyone should have known what the Remain option was, because it would mean that Cameron's negotiated reforms would come into force.
And yes, I know that Leavers don't think those reforms didn't go far enough but we would still be in a much more favourable position than any other EU member state.
Geezertronic
Established Member
So had remain won by a similar margin, Farage & co would’ve gracefully embraced losers consent & not opposed discussions on us joining Schengen or the Euro.etc .
The post I replied to was from someone who said they were a hard remainer so the point was made on that basis
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Has anyone actually asked the EFTA whether they would accept the UK as a member? They might not be keen on a new member with an economy bigger than all of the existing ones put together, which based on recent history is quite happy to upset the applecart in an attempt to get its own way rather than building a consensus.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
They might not, but that wouldn't exclude the EU from doing a similar deal with us alone, such as a permanent customs union, which seems is very much on the table if we want it.
Pretty much everything from "Pretend this whole Brexit thing never happened" to "crash out on WTO terms" is in the table, but BoJo seems intent on only the latter.
They don't seem too keen on admitting the UK as a new member. https://www.theguardian.com/politic...oliticians-reject-uks-norway-plus-brexit-plan
After the way the UK government has behaved of late can you blame them?
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
That article is dated 7 Dec 2018, so you can't really use the poor behaviour of the UK Government since then as a reason
One thing that really worries me is what will happen to the local economy of Kent, arguably the county which will have the biggest impact from Brexit. An obvious contribution to Kent's economy is tourism from continental Europe.
Go to Canterbury, and the coach park is often very busy, with foreign coaches outnumbering British coaches, largely from France, Netherlands, Belgium and even Austria. They are largely for groups of school children visiting the city centre for the Cathedral (and spending money in tat shops, Starbucks and McDonalds, but i'm sure independent places benefit too), but also groups of retirees and just general tourists. There are also a large amount of European students studying at the University of Kent.
The coastal towns of Kent have come a long way in the last decade, recovering from the post-1960s decline. Its amazing how places like Margate have improved in recent years. Foreign tourists are often seen in these places. In Broadstairs, there are often large groups of foreign language students, as there are many language schools there, as well as peoeple who have driven over on a day trip. I went to Broadstairs today, and it was rather quiet, except for the tourists - the majority of people I saw were clearly continental Europeans, and large groups of language students. Other places such as Margate, Folkestone and even Dover also see large amounts of tourists who have clearly come on school trips/day trips/cruise ships, and i'm sure there are other places which see visitors too.
If no-deal Brexit, or even a Brexit with a deal makes it more difficult for foreign tourists to visit, what will happen to the economies of these towns? If it takes longer to get through security at Calais/Dover, why would people bother coming on day trips? Will parents of language students and school children have to pay more for their kids to come to the UK?
Having these visitors to Kent clearly needs to continue, especially when you see foreign tourists outnumbering locals such as my visit to Broadstairs today. I doubt the economy would be as good if there were less foreign tourists.
Being part of the EU makes it easier for Europeans to visit the UK, but Brexit seems to involve adding more bureaucracy, paperwork and cost.
Or will all this be worth it to have less foreigners on "our" soil?
Go to Canterbury, and the coach park is often very busy, with foreign coaches outnumbering British coaches, largely from France, Netherlands, Belgium and even Austria. They are largely for groups of school children visiting the city centre for the Cathedral (and spending money in tat shops, Starbucks and McDonalds, but i'm sure independent places benefit too), but also groups of retirees and just general tourists. There are also a large amount of European students studying at the University of Kent.
The coastal towns of Kent have come a long way in the last decade, recovering from the post-1960s decline. Its amazing how places like Margate have improved in recent years. Foreign tourists are often seen in these places. In Broadstairs, there are often large groups of foreign language students, as there are many language schools there, as well as peoeple who have driven over on a day trip. I went to Broadstairs today, and it was rather quiet, except for the tourists - the majority of people I saw were clearly continental Europeans, and large groups of language students. Other places such as Margate, Folkestone and even Dover also see large amounts of tourists who have clearly come on school trips/day trips/cruise ships, and i'm sure there are other places which see visitors too.
If no-deal Brexit, or even a Brexit with a deal makes it more difficult for foreign tourists to visit, what will happen to the economies of these towns? If it takes longer to get through security at Calais/Dover, why would people bother coming on day trips? Will parents of language students and school children have to pay more for their kids to come to the UK?
Having these visitors to Kent clearly needs to continue, especially when you see foreign tourists outnumbering locals such as my visit to Broadstairs today. I doubt the economy would be as good if there were less foreign tourists.
Being part of the EU makes it easier for Europeans to visit the UK, but Brexit seems to involve adding more bureaucracy, paperwork and cost.
Or will all this be worth it to have less foreigners on "our" soil?
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