A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen
qz.com
qz.com
While on paper it still looks like Boris Johnson is in a great position to the vast majority of the public, the next Prime Minister is going to have to follow through with what they know is a terrible idea, negotiate with the EU with remarkably less leverage than the 'Leave' campaign thought they had, try to deal with Scotland wanting to leave, restless regional pressure groups in Wales, Cornwall and other parts of the country, as well as try not to have Northern Ireland fall back into a state of ongoing political violence.
So Johnson either has put his hand up to deal with all these issues until the next general election in (or sooner) 2020 and go to an election with a struggling economy (I doubt and the Union slowly falling apart (remember, Scotland's independence would topple the sitting PM almost certainly) or he can wait it out, let another Conservative Prime Minister lose in 2020, and become party leader upon the election loss and hope to win in 2025.
I doubt he thought this through very well. On the plus side UKIP's work is mostly done so they mightn't poll as well any more.
It's quite clear that Boris did not want the referendum to win. While (like all tories) he would occasionally grumble about Brussels nobody considered him anti-EU during his time as mayor.
He was, however, obviously after the top job. He would upstage Cameron every chance he got.
When he decided to switch back to being an MP, Cameron brought him into his cabinet (without a formal position) He knew he had this referendum campaign to fight and having the popular internationalist by his side would help him command as much party loyalty as possible.
Boris then immediately pirouetted (bad mental image, that) and decided to lead the "Leave" campaign instead. The grassroots (largely Euroskeptic) tories who will pick the next party leader would appreciate his help. Cameron already announced that he would leave before the 2020 election, so this would mean PM Boris probably in late 2018/early 2019.
So the best result for Boris would be a narrow referendum loss while looking like a great anti-EU warrior. A lot of the rhetoric he employed was to this end -- when he would compare the EU to the Nazis, it would make him look fierce to the hardcore Euroskeptics who controlled his future, while whispering to the electorate-at-large that the whole Leave campaign was nutty.
It didn't work. He got what he nominally wanted, and now he has the chance to be PM faster than expected... but he has to deal with the fallout from this disaster.
If Cameron had invoked Article 50 immediately then the rest of the party would blame a sloppy exit on him... "we had a great plan to pre-negotiate everything, but Dave messed it up!" He's not giving them that option: if the country is to be destroyed, he wants them to pull the trigger.
It's startling watching the "moderate" Leave wing falling over themselves to dial back all of their promises during the campaign.... turns out there isn't more money for the NHS... of course there would still be free movement of workers from EU countries... maybe if Scotland doesn't want to do it we should call it off to preserve the union.... etc etc.. In victory, they're terrified of what they've done.
Of course, to the far-right any wavering will be seen as treachery. A fight is brewing there.
Meanwhile, Labour is also in full self-destruct mode. Corbyn just sacked the most credible member of his shadow cabinet and many of the rest will probably leave in protest. There have been many times in British political history when the out-of-power party goes through this sort of process, but never when the governing party is also in such disarray. Interesting times, unfortunately.
I don't know if UKIP will disappear, though. They could now be the party of northern grievance, locking Labour out of power entirely.
If the parliamentary party picked the leader, he never would be within sight of the job. Unfortunately Labour is in the all-to-familiar trap of only wanting purity, feeling that the entire country will surely swing to the far-left any second now. You would think being out of power for 18 years last time would have taught them, but apparently not.
Had they picked David Milliband to be their leader, he would be PM right now. Instead they decided Ed was more left-wing, and went for him instead. When that didn't work they decided "oh, the country won't elect someone that left... lets see if we can find someone WAY farther out there"
Deposing Corbyn would be a start, but unless there is a sudden bust of rationality among the party members it won't mean anything. They'll probably choose Marx's corpse next or something (continuing the recent run of North London leadership, naturally) On a serious note, they'd probably just re-elect Corbyn as leader giving him a fresh mandate within the party.
In the last leadership election Liz Kendall was the only candidate that looked to me like she had a chance to win a general election. She didn't even get 5% of the vote. Right now, Labour considers general-election appeal to be toxic.
A large proportion of which probably just voted for Brexit - I think Corbyn wasn't that keen on the EU in the first place and knew that a lot of core Labour voters weren't keen on it either.
I suspect he thought what was bad for his enemy was good for him, how wrong he was.
It's not clear to me. I think you are taking it as self-evident that Leave is a bad idea. In the mainstream narrative, the EU is associated with everything nice and international and the only reason to be against it is if you're a crazy old-fashioned nationalist.
There's a classical liberal case for Brexit, though, which Gove articulated reasonably well. I think Johnson kinda believes the same things, though without Gove's conviction (I voted Leave but I don't like Johnson, I think he's an opportunist). Like all conspiracy theories yours assumes that the conspirators concoct these elaborate schemes which have multiple failure modes. Leave had roughly 1/3 odds of winning all through the campaign, so it's not that much of a surprise. Nor is it clear that a Remain vote would have helped Johnson's career, given that almost the entire establishment backed Remain.
> It's startling watching the "moderate" Leave wing falling over themselves to dial back all of their promises during the campaign.... turns out there isn't more money for the NHS...
The media is really playing up this angle. Vote Leave isn't the government and the referendum wasn't a general election where the campaigners campaign on a particular manifesto. There is now more money in the UK budget, where it gets spent is up to the next PM.
I don't know that much about Gove's position, but from what I can tell it has little to do with classical liberalism and a lot more to do with nationalism. The classical liberal case was that the EU is a fundamentally broken organisation and it is beyond reform.
> The media is really playing up this angle. Vote Leave isn't the government and the referendum wasn't a general election where the campaigners campaign on a particular manifesto. There is now more money in the UK budget, where it gets spent is up to the next PM.
But voters treated it as such. It's pretty clear that a sizeable number of voters - probably not enough to change result vote but still perhaps 5% - were registering an anti-government vote. While the next PM might have more money, there will be a major backlash if it doesn't get used to replace EU funding, and the decisions about funding will now be debated in London, not Brussels.
That money is worth significantly less since the GBP dropped in value. And if multinational companies start moving their European/EMEA headquarters to Frankfurt, Brussels, Berlin, Dublin etc then there will be significantly lower tax receipts. Of course with the UK rumoured to lose its last AAA credit rating government borrowing costs will be higher as well.
This idea that Brexit somehow meant more money for the UK budget is simply ridiculous. Any disruptive change of this nature always translates to lower growth whilst people adjust.
I have no idea why you claim that I have a "conspiracy theory" when I am commenting on the motivations of one man (which, by definition, isn't a conspiracy)... yet you yourself call his motivations into question by calling him an "opportunist". As far as I can tell your argument boils down to: 1. Boris is an opportunist 2. Anyone who claims that Boris acts opportunistically is a conspiracy-spouting nutter.
> Nor is it clear that a Remain vote would have helped Johnson's career, given that almost the entire establishment backed Remain.
His next career advancement isn't under the control of some vague "establishment" (mind your own conspiracy language there!) but the party membership at large. (He would have to finish in the top-two selected by the parliamentary party, but that probably wouldn't be hard) The membership is more Euroskeptic than the "establishment" as you put it. He would run as the candidate that would bridge the euroskeptic-grassroots with those more "establishment" types (old Etonian, former mayor of London, knows all the right people...) He'd certainly be the hero of the right-wing press as well.
Again, I think the only reason that Cameron brought him close was that he never thought Boris would make such a brazen move... a disastrous misestimation.
> There is now more money in the UK budget, where it gets spent is up to the next PM.
Part of the economic logic of the EU is that instead of every member employing their own bureaucrats producing basically-similar regulations, they would all just pool resources and do it once. It's more complicated and messy, but still cheaper than doing something 28 times. Plus then there's no complicated trade questions.
The brexit campaign of course ignore this all: they made the brazen claim that the UK sends all this money and gets nothing in return.... not even the money that's directly returned. (Hell, not even the "rebate" which literally never leaves the exchequer) That's not reality at all though.
So no, there is not more money.
Yes, but is it false?
Correct. It really is hysterical watching the quibbling about currency exchange rates and the stock market.
To put it politely, they have no idea what they are talking about. These students have never bought an option or held a single share but it's very generous of them to worry about the fortunes of currency speculators and bankers. That thought did not have its origin in their heads. Ron Swanson and I are very relaxed right now, watching Yes Minister and drinking Earl Grey tea.
> I think you are taking it as
> self-evident that Leave is a
> bad idea
It's funny to watch Leavers complain that people think they're racist, with all their great arguments about common fisheries, not being able to depot Abu-bin-whoever, and whatever other weird non-issue is flavour of the day, not to mention the supreme irony of a people with an unelected upper chamber claiming they're booting out a directly elected upstream parliament for "democracy".
Most but not all. Economics is currently split into multiple schools which disagree on philosophical fundamentals, and is hardly an exact science. How many economists predicted the financial crisis? Those that did tend to be small government advocates. (I don't endorse everything he says, but Nassim Taleb is one example, who is also pro-Brexit).
I wish someone had made this point during the campaign, to answer the snipes that Leave was anti-intellectual, anti-expert, and so on.
He just wants all these puts he's been buying to be worth something [0].
[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/nassim-talebs-universa-invest...
France is trying to prevent Americans from publishing true facts in the states, because misguided Frenchmen might accidentally seek such facts out and read them.[0]
Also, it's not altogether clear that any good long term compromise has been found to balance the needs of the strong economies alongside the more fragile ones.
You staved off Grexit, but retained the powderkeg of local fiscal policy with central responsibility for solvency of members.
Now, if I were in the UK, I probably would have seen these as secondary issues to the value of the common market. But worrying about concentrated power doesn't seem alien to me. And given the UK and EU are both in the WTO and so culturally related, it's not like I'd fear both sides will instantly revert to quotas, 1000% tariffs, and random visa denials.
Ok, ok, academic leavery aside, the mainstream leave does seem related to immigration, and that's troubling even if leave could be justified on other grounds. Nate Silver had a comment on the 538 podcast, something like, "We hold up liberal democracy as the pinnacle of governance, but it seems to have a systemic problem with immigration." That seems troubling, and I'm not sure entirely what to make of it yet.
[0] http://www.voanews.com/content/google-appeals-french-order-f...
That's all any of these analyses have to go on. A look on BoJo's face. Keep that in mind when you waste your time with all this.
But, that is somehow making him do a sad face?
Edit: And it certainly doesn't translate into 52% of people wanting him to win in 2020. If he negotiates a poor deal with the EU and/or 'forgets' about a few central 'Leave' arguments, he'll be in all sorts of trouble.
You have to understand how those people operate. They don't give two bits about reason and making sense. All they care about is to stay in power. They optimise for that and that alone. And 52% is power, beyond BoJo's (or Gove's or Farage's) wildest dreams.
If Brexit was a big mistake, thinking that Boris will get cold feet now that he has a clear line of sight to his goal (to be PM, duh) is an even bigger one.
That's not how it works - that 52% is not some uniform body with similar goals and vision beyond Brexit. This is the same challenge facing many popular revolutions - there is little uniting them beyond ousting Gaddafi, or "the 1%" (add Brexit to this list). Once they have "won", suddenly they realize they can't cater to everyone's wants and the whole thing splinters into factions.
And yes I imagine it can't be fun to have to be the one to implement all of this.
Pretty much - even Farage seemed to be positioning himself for a narrow Remain win (in particular his 52%-48% comments about a second referendum).
All those plausible theories are just that: plausible and theories. Who knows what's going through Johnson's head right now? Who knows what will happen in the future? What good is this sort of analysis, that's based on some vague attempt to form a theory of mind of a particular person (rather than a class of person, say) by people who have never even met the person in question in, er, well, person?
In any case BoJo and all the Tories on the side of Leave are typical populists: their tactic is to agitate and profit. They shake the tree until office falls out, then make a grab for it. In chaotic times, the populist leads, so the populist actively tries to create chaos, in exactly the opposite manner than reasonable politicians do (regardless of whether they are also intelligent, capable or not).
This is BoJo's time. It's futile to hope otherwise. The whole country abandoned reason. The prime idiot is not going to back down now. Those people are not in this game to leave a good name for themselves in history: they're in it to do well in the here and now, and damn the rest of the world to hell.
If the reasonable people in the UK wish to retain control, they have to get their noses out of their consolation drinks and squeeze their brains hard to come up with actual ideas, rather than pipe dreams and wishful thinking.
I can agree with your final sentence. On Brexit, control will return from unelected, Brussels civil servants (the commissioners) who conduct their deliberations in secret, to elected (is this populist?) members of the British Government.
http://www.robertthomson.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/tho... illustrates the complexity of the power links in Brussels.
As shown in Cameron's [white paper on Brexit from last February](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...), the critical part of the exit process is to buy more than 2 years to define the new relationship (article 50 has basically only this period as a hard fact).
The paper does bold that a realistic timeline would be ~10 years. Meaning the UK needs to find bullet points to negotiate additional time... with all the free goodies of being still a "passive" member of the EU.
So they're buying 4 months now. They need this to understand their leverages, friends and foes. Many in Europe will be receptive on avoiding a clash. Merkel right now shows signs of resilience.
Make no mistake: part of the City and tech industry sees a strong potential in Brexit - as long as there is no "free fall" period after 2 years.
Everything will be about buying time.
There is no way this situation can extend for 10 years. The EU will not allow it, especially if recession hits. If really UK elites get cold feet, we'll have a general election with an europhile party winning and abandoning the whole thing, with a second referendum forced.
The original comment.
And probably somewhat close to reality, but we can't say for sure, only time will tell.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_bailout_referendum,_20...
Whether the next British government is prepared to discard the result of this referendum is another question. The answer is almost certainly no, absolutely not (considering that it'll presumably be a Conservative government led by pro-Leave politicians), but that's not the same thing as saying they'd be prepared to invoke Article 50 either. It's not impossible that they'll get so busy preparing to invoke Article 50 that they'll never actually get around to it before a new Remain government is formed.
(My bet is that Article 50 will be invoked, FWIW. A true Leave believer won't be worried about it, because they think the outcome will be strongly positive. Of course, I wouldn't be the first person to wonder if Johnson is a true Leave believer, or simply an opportunist who saw a lever.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Consti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
Often decisions are better left to experts, something that representative democracy usually achieves. I also think that we should explain representative democracy as the population being able to hold the people in power accountable instead of the people deciding things. So democracy might even be a misnomer. This result is exactly what opponents of democracy meant when they identified it with tyranny of the masses.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_power_refere...
The logic behind ignoring this one is pretty good too. Leaving the EU feels about the same scale as a constitutional ammendment in the US, and that requires 2/3rds gov't vote + 3/4ths state agreement.
Though this line of argument reeks both of moving the goalpost after the fact and "yeah the elite want to get what they want and ignore the voice of the people".
The president of the European Community has said so, the president of the European parliament has said so, the foreign ministers of the EU's six founding members have said so.
Their primary motivator btw is that the current state of uncertainty is bad for business and if it drags on it will mess up with everyone's still ongoing recovery from the last crisis. The UK may well go through a recession and everyone in the EU will be trying their damnedest to avoid following suit.
Of course there is negotiating benefit for the UK to delay invoking Article 50; and it's no surprise the UK will delay the process given the difficulty the UK will face once the 2 year count down starts. The EU has the right to refuse negotiation prior to Article 50 - and that's the game of chicken we now find ourselves in.
The negotiators won't be trying too hard to get a better deal from the EU, because they'll be the ones in power, and if they fail to negotiate a deal they'll be forced to give up that power. Trust politicians to prefer power over principles any time.
No it won't, as the EU has become a legislative body governing aspects of people's lives in the UK and it will no longer be the case.
If you don't want the EU controlling any aspect of the UK, you can't have a trade agreement.
At last a free market where the curvature of the banana is subject to consumer choice.
I myself prefer the straight banana for optimizing my fruit salad.
Many of the EU regulations are designed to help consumers e.g. data protection.
So the EU bans toasters and kettles that work: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/10/eu-to-launch-kett...
Vacuum cleaners that work: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11047127...
Some of the other bizarre rules...
It's illegal for bottled water makers to claim it's effective against dehydration: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/...
They tried to ban jugs of olive oil at restaurants: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10064787...
A salmon smoker had to re-do all package to notify people that it contained fish: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/05/03/476064362/b...
There's just a lot of bs. Also the common agriculture policy and common fishing policy haven't been great for the UK.
At this point severe trade restrictions with the UK would likely mean even more severe imbalances inside the EU and the eventual exit of Italy, Spain and Portugal.
First, one of the prime exports to the EU is financial services. Major financial flows -- even ones in Euros -- are largely done through London. I can't imagine the remaining countries consenting to allowing that to happen in a non-EU country. Financial services would be excluded from a new agreement. The thing that makes the UK rich is that it was the de facto business and financial capital of the continent, and I don't see how that survives.
Second, the new agreement will need to be approved by every remaining EU country. Some might come on board quickly either because their governments are Euroskeptic (Hungary, Poland) or because they'd rather not upset the current trade balance (Germany) Others have less reason to agree easily. Spain, for instance, wants Gibraltar back and wants money for all of the British retirees its health service is looking after. Ireland will want to be in the driver's seat for any decisions about its land border with the UK. The list goes on. I have a hard time seeing how any of this gets figured out in 2 years.
The foreign ministers of the EU’s six founding members, however, demanded Britain start proceedings “as soon as possible” to avoid a long and potentially damaging period of uncertainty.
The Dutch foreign minister, Bert Koenders, told the Volkskrant: “We can’t have the kind of dithering Boris Johnson is suggesting. Everyone wants clarity: people, businesses, financial markets.”
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, urged Cameron to step down soon, saying: “A new prime minister must be designated – that will take a few days. But there is a certain urgency.” He added: “We have to give a new sense to Europe, otherwise populism will fill the gap.”
The rest of the EU is not going to take this shit lightly when it is bad for business and it's also threatening to overturn the status quo and give a run for power to the Farages of the continent. If Boris, or whoever becomes the next PM, decides to procrastinate, the result will only be even more pain in the disengagement talks.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/eu-founding-...
The best chance the UK has to reverse the result of the referendum is Nicola Sturgeon being able to do what she suggested today, blocking the process of the triggering of article 50. If she really has the power to do that, then there's hope still. Otherwise, the UK is screwed.
Tbh I feel awful for Lizzie and Charles, who might end up being constitutional arbiters in the process of disgregation of a kingdom their family kept together for hundreds of years. They probably didn't expect to have to deal with this shit at their age.
But doesn't UKIP have a rising popularity right now?
If neither of the two traditional parties want to lead Brexit, would not this just result in UKIP volunteering and asking the population to back them in the next parliament elections?
If the UK does actually go through with Brexit, whomever takes on this leadership role will have to court other countries in the EU to form a larger bloc before the UK's negotiations with the EU finalize. It's either that or accept a punitive deal from the EU.
Boris Johnson is an excellent future leader of the conservatives and will do very well as a prime minister. That he was able to become mayor of London shows his broad appeal to what is traditionally a left-winged and very EU-positive place.
What will happen now is much more about the future of the EU and how to create a well-functioning alternative for the many EU-countries who are not willing to go towards a federation.
I don't think there would be any desire to replace the Queen as head of state in an independent Scotland. The same royal family was head of state before the Union and could easily be afterward a split in the same way that she is Head of State for Canada, Australia and quite a few other countries.
Edit: I personally would prefer a non-political President as Head of State, but I suspect few other people think that and I don't have hugely strong views on it. I also wouldn't want any change to happen in the lifetime of the Queen.
The expression I heard a couple of times from my Londoner friends was that he canvassed "The Doughnut" which is the term for the wealthier classes living around the peripheries. His predecessor Livingston had shaped policy to suit the more urban residents.
Johnson is great at campaigning, and speaking and though he comes across as a buffoon he's a very shrewd guy. But I believe he's the dancing monkey rather than the organ grinder. He is untested in policy formation. I don't believe he has the stones to do the heavy political lifting that will be needed to lead the UK post-brexit.
http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/politics/ex...
The push for a better and bigger airport on the estuary was a good idea IMO, even if it failed, otherwise it struggle to think of any concrete achievements.
I doubt he'll make it to prime minister though, for one he's too intelligent and self-centred to want to preside over the dissolution of the United Kingdom and the difficult compromises that will be required if the uk wants access to European markets. I can't imagine a less persuasive figure than the affable but clownish boris to lead the uk in these difficult brexit negotiations.
On the future of the EU, that won't be decided by the UK who will have very little influence after they leave.
UK's decision and how it will be handled will have very big influence over the rest of Europe and will set the agenda for the growing EU opposition here.
The media frames this as an (almost isolated) UK problem but it really is not.
It is about the EU.
And for at least the next few years it will all be about the UK. In particular all the internal work of redefining its relationship with the EU e.g. diplomatic, trade as well as figuring out what to do about EU regulations.
I would be surprised if any EU country has the appetite to hold another referendum when they see what it is in store.
I've been a reader since his blog/Torygraph op-ed days, and I expect to get a lot more from him. Heck, I've even bought a book he wrote, and read half of it so far.
He mostly knows his stuff, and may even be right about some of it. Bikes and all.
It'll be interesting.
To be in charge when the United Kingdom comes to an end and Britain fades into irrelevance is something nobody could possibly want.
This sort of crazy hyperbole is why many people are scared. The UK will be fine. We are members of the top international groups, NATO, G7 etc.
See the trade-deficit of +3 billion bounds every month? Britain is bleeding dry. And now the money won't "stay in the family".
And of course UK will still remain within international groups. But it will no longer be the key entry point for political, commercial and cultural engagement with Europe.
To manage that shift is not going to be easy nor rewarding.
Not a certainty at all, especially if new EU membership involves taking the Euro. There is a reason Sturgeon has not yet called the vote, they know that EU joining terms are likely to be very ugly for Scotland at this time. She first has to convince the EU to give them extremely exceptional rules (or legal challenge so Scotland isn't necessarily leaving then joining).
Your statements are hyperbolic. No one has any clue what is going to happen next. Making these assertions is unhelpful to everyone.
But. If you truly believe in what you are saying, now is the time for you to make yourself millions of pounds in the next few months easily. Plough your savings into the market, take large, leveraged positions against the UK.
Is this true in UK's legislation?
Parliament cannot be overruled by the courts (unlike the US or Australia, where the Supreme/High Court can declare laws invalid), nor is there any requirement for decisions to be taken to a referendum (unlike Australia or Switzerland, where the constitution can't be changed without a vote).
The UK parliament can, in theory, ignore the referendum entirely - although that'd be hugely unpopular if they did.