Another week and another failure of the Conservative Government to deliver Brexit. This sentence could have been written any time since 2018. On this occasion, it is the Letwin amendment, which simply stated that Parliament should see the Johnson deal set down and passed in legislation, before giving it a meaningful vote of support. The fear was not that Johnson deal would pass, but if it did not, then we would be leaving the Eu with no deal on the 31st of October.
Predictably enough, there are again howls of complains from the rightwing press. Letwin, Corbyn (who has finally agreed to a second referendum) and Speaker John Bercow are the three main villains of the day. One irony of course is that Oliver Letwin said he will support Boris Johnson’s deal. His amendment is to ensure that if the legislation failed to pass through parliament before the end of October, that the United Kingdom would not leave with no deal in place. This is one of the reasons why the Letwin amendment passed: parliamentarians from all sides of the Brexit debate backed it in order to avoid the disaster that a no-deal exit would be, both for the UK and the EU. If the atmosphere had been more calm and rational in the Commons, perhaps the Johnson government would have accepted the point without demur. They did not.
Grass root Leavers are understandably frustrated with this. “Why can’t we just leave?” they ask. They talk of their anger, and I am certain they are sincere. But I ask Leavers to stay for a moment, pull up a sandbag while I’ll try and explain how it looks from the other side.
There are some Remainers who will never accept the outcome of the 2016 referendum. Honestly, I’m almost in that camp, but not quite. My own reason is that the public debate was not long enough: the Scottish referendum of 2014 ran for two years verses the three months for the EU referendum. Unlike the Scottish experience, three months was simply not enough to look in depth for either Leave or Remain cases. That level of examination has occurred since we had the vote in 2016.
That is my own view, others with have their own reasons, whether to accept or reject the outcome. Let’s get to the basic fact: Leave won.
So, what was the question again? Ah yes: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?
Right, so Leave won. I wasn’t happy about this but there was a level of leaving I would have accepted. Was I, or any other Remainer asked what this would be? No. Not in the slightest. The debate that followed, both in parliament and in the country, was “Your side lost: shut up.”
So, what was the question again? Ah yes: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?
Right, so Leave won. I wasn’t happy about this but there was a level of leaving I would have accepted. Was I, or any other Remainer asked what this would be? No. Not in the slightest. The debate that followed, both in parliament and in the country, was “Your side lost: shut up.”
Well, no. What did not appear on the ballot paper was how we were going to leave. The Leave side promised many things, none of which they have been able to deliver. Without consulting the rest of us, they continued to argue and bicker as to the nature of their victory. Theresa May’s negotiations with the EU was purely in reference to her own party in parliament. It was only after its failure to pass through the Commons were other parties consulted. By then, it was too little, too late.
The fundamental issue is that Leave won but then thought it was a winner-take-all game. Not once has there been any serious offer to engage the whole nation as to the nature of our leaving the EU. I would have settled for a Norwegian-style deal. I can see some Leavers being unhappy with that. So am I. But at least I was willing to compromise. Like Norway, it would have addressed the fisheries issue, which to me was the only real gripe the Leave campaign is justified over. What a Norwegian-style deal wouldn’t satisfy would be the issue of immigration from European countries. As I said through, we would all had to have compromise. The UK would have been free to have a flexible and changing relationship with the EU while avoiding most of the hard economic outcomes that leaving entails.
Such consultations should have began soon after the 2016 referendum. They did not, so we find ourselves in the en passe yet again. I can see why Leavers would be deeply unhappy with the prospect of a second referendum. If you lost, and the polls suggest that you would this time, it is not as if you would shut up and go away either. So where do we go from here?
As far as Remainers are concerned, what is at stake is the very nature of our nation. Leaving would most probably ultimately split the Union, both with Northern Ireland and Scotland. Leaving would also enable an economic and cultural revolution, with the Conservative Party (and Brexit auxiliaries) leading the change to a US-style Britain and an unregulated corporate society. Neither of these were on the 2016 ballot paper either. That is why Remainers are calling this a coup, a revolution.
If Leavers really wanted to heal the country, the first thing you should do is stop telling Remainers to shut up and get over it. We will do neither. Hundreds of thousands of people marching through Westminster on Saturday, and 6.5million signatories to the petition to rescind Article 50 are testaments to this. Ah, but what about the 17.2 million you cry? You won the referendum to Leave: you did not win any majority, not even in Parliament, as to how the UK is going to leave.
It is little wonder then that Remainers continue to campaign to stay in the EU. We have been offered no other alternative.
At this time, I cannot see anything else but to go for another referendum. A lot of damage has been done and this is not going to heal easily. An election under the current first-past-the-post system will not be democratic enough because all it takes is about thirty five percent to get an effective majority. I am a bit surprised but a blog I wrote in 2018 on the nature of a second referendum, in its basic format of a two-stage question, has aged pretty well. The only difference now is that the Johnson Deal is closer to the Canada-style free trade deal than May’s deal. https://martinveart.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-second-eu-referendum-whats-on-ballot.html
If Leave won again, I would stop campaigning on the issue of EU membership and instead campaign on the future of our relationship of the EU. If Leavers lost, I would welcome their input on the nature of the Britain’s continuing membership of the European Union. What is totally clear is that whatever happens, none of us can return to business as usual. As a country we have changed. We really do have to start listening to each other.
If Leave won again, I would stop campaigning on the issue of EU membership and instead campaign on the future of our relationship of the EU. If Leavers lost, I would welcome their input on the nature of the Britain’s continuing membership of the European Union. What is totally clear is that whatever happens, none of us can return to business as usual. As a country we have changed. We really do have to start listening to each other.
Very good article Martin.
ReplyDeleteAnd PS. Just now I tried to click back to your main page and I got a pop-up saying "Are you sure you want to leave this page?" I think your blogsite perhaps has more wisdom than some of its readers!
TH
I wasn’t happy about this but there was a level of leaving I would have accepted. Was I, or any other Remainer asked what this would be? No. Not in the slightest. The debate that followed, both in parliament and in the country, was “Your side lost: shut up.”
ReplyDeleteThis is; if Remain had won, would your side have bee interested in reaching an accommodation with those who voted the other way about the 'level of remaining they were happy with?
Clearly not. A 'Remain' win would have been taken as (a) a vote of acceptance of level of the sovereignty which had been so far transferred to the EU; and (b) an authorisation to go ahead with further such transfers as and when the EU treaties come up for renegotiation.
So given that the Remain side, had it won, would have treated the referendum as a winner-take-all exercise; seeing as the Remain side, had it won, would have responded to any future expressions of Euroscepticism with 'You got your referendum, your side lost: shut up'; surely you can see it's a double-standard to insist that, having won, Leave should have compromised when you, had you won, would not have compromised one single inch?
But we are not there, we are here. Did I not criticise how the referendum was run? Has the past three years not changed a thing? Did democracy die in 2016? Your response moves nothing on.
ReplyDeleteDid I not criticise how the referendum was run?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea. There was certainly much to criticise; such as the Remain campaign getting a massive £9 million boost from government funding, for example.
Has the past three years not changed a thing?
No, obviously not. Pretty much everything now is exactly as it was in 2016; our national politics has been held in stasis by the refusal to implement the referendum result. Nothing (to coin a phrase) has changed.
Did democracy die in 2016?
No, but it has been being gradually strangled by the Remainers who refuse to accept the result of democracy. However I am sure that when they allow the next election it will come roaring back to life.
Your response moves nothing on.
This is exactly it. Nothing can move on until people stop trying to re-fight 2016, and accept that we are leaving the European Union. Until that happens we are stuck in this time-loop, unable to progress.
You have an interesting definition of Remainers. In May's final attempt to get her deal though parliament, the majority of the ERG and also the DUP voted against the deal on offer. Should they also get out of the way of democracy?
ReplyDeleteThe truth is though is that May's deal was not pure enough for the no-deal Brexiters. The entire meaningful debate has been centred upon the political right - mainly with the Conservative Party being pulled from within and without. But even people like Ken Clarke and Letwin support a deal-based exit from the EU - and this is shown by their voting record since the Referendum. They are not Remainers but people who understand that in order to minimalise the immediate cliff edge of leaving with no-deal, they want an orderly departure. That was not enough to save their places within today's Conservative Party though. Tainted with practicality, they had to be purged.
This is why the Brexit process has been so forcefully resisted. Even those in parliament who support the outcome of the referendum are appalled by the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. Nor do they trust this current government to stick by the tenants of the current deal. As for the rest, for three years they have been completely frozen out of any meaningful debate on what kind of Brexit should be delivered, and this is intentional. The right of Britsh politics want sole control of the process.
In May's final attempt to get her deal though parliament, the majority of the ERG and also the DUP voted against the deal on offer. Should they also get out of the way of democracy?
ReplyDeleteNo; that was a resonable response to May's deal, and the result of that should have been us leaving without a deal (as May's deal was a bad deal, and 'no deal is better than a bad deal') on the 29th of March.
The people standing in the way of democracy back then were the MPs who voted to require May to request an extension.
We now have a slightly different — worse in some ways, but on balance marginally better — deal on the table.
As for the rest, for three years they have been completely frozen out of any meaningful debate on what kind of Brexit should be delivered, and this is intentional
'They' — such as the Liberal Democrats — have frozen themselves of the debate by making it clear that there is no from of Leaving that they would accept. How can they be meaninfully part of any debate when they refuse to accept the very premise of the debate but instead continue to try to re-fight a question that was settled more than three years ago?