Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal by 149 votes
bbc.com
bbc.com
For a variety of reasons (legal, procedural, and political) MPs can't simply resolve to reject Brexit, and didn't do so today. What they can do is reject the exit deal that May has negotiated.
Some of them have voted to do this because they want a 'softer' Brexit with a closer ongoing relationship with the EU, or no Brexit at all. Others because they think the deal is insufficiently 'hard', as it envisages some kind of ongoing relationship and they'd rather see a clean break and then deal with the consequences.
The upshot is that we leave at the end of the month with no deal unless something happens, there's currently no majority in Parliament for any of the options, and we look like international idiots.
What happens at the end of that period is entirely unclear at this point. Leaving without a deal is still a distinct possibility, but probably not the most likely one. I'd give about even odds to some kind of deal being wrangled, and there being another referendum.
Of course, even another referendum doesn't necessarily resolve things. The vote is likely to be close again.
That's pretty low!
That depends very much what the question is. The vast majority of those pushing for a 2nd ref want it to be a choice between May's WA and Remain. In which case the majority of Leave voters boycott (because there'd be no Leave option as most people understand it) and Remain wins by a landslide. National support for the WA is down in the noise.
Personally, I think that if you're going to do that you may as well just skip the referendum entirely, declare that the whole thing's cancelled and save everyone a lot of bother.
I think it's significantly more democratic to have another vote. Most people thought remain would win the first one, but they didn't. If leave won again, we'd definitely definitely have to leave.
> there'd be no Leave option as most people understand it
I question that there is such a shared understanding of what leave means. Leavers seem pretty split between hard and soft options.
That obviously doesn't mean that all leavers agree, but enough of them do that a WA-vs-Remain re-ref would be a foregone conclusion.
It would only be undemocratic if there was coercion to vote a certain way in the second referendum. But I don't see that happening.
Leave already won twice. In the first referendum, and then in the general election called by May in which the Lib Dems ran on a "cancel Brexit" platform and lost most of their votes as a consequence.
What we now see is that many of the politicians who claimed they supported leaving the EU and would work towards implementing Brexit have turned around after winning re-election and announced they had lied, they would work to stop the UK leaving. MPs who said "a second vote would be undemocratic" are now saying "we must have a second vote".
The brutal reality is that there is no difference at this point between Remain as a position, and supporting the formal end of democracy in the UK. If a certain argument wins a referendum and then a general election in which both main parties claimed to support it and then Parliament simply tears up all the manifestos, public statements, conventions and speeches, people will conclude there is no democratic way to ever exit the EU and thus the country has been conquered by a political class that is apparently impossible to remove - because if they are willing to lie about their intentions to win election, how can you be sure you're voting for a "real" Brexit supporter?
If even 1% of the people who are watching their winning votes get torn up stop believing democracy works, and turn to extremism or violence, there could be massive problems for the UK. But the EU as an ideology has a sufficiently powerful grip on most MPs that they are apparently willing to take any risks, do anything at all to ensure its victory.
Polls that I've seen show a narrow remain majority. I don't think any specific leave option would win against it. The last vote unified all Brexit voters, so it's hard to see how a specific Brexit would command more support.
On a topic this controversial, MPs love being allowed to vote "no" to everything, but hate being forced to commit to anything constructive - anything they say will be unpopular with some of their constituency, and likely lose them votes. It will be very interesting to see what happens as their ability to criticise without offering alternatives gets closer to being taken away.
This is particularly true of Brexit, as significant numbers of both major parties voted for and against it, so neither party can avoid angering lots of people who would normally vote for them no matter what they do.
My guess is an overwhelming (but utterly non-binding) rejection of 'no deal' by Parliament tomorrow, followed by a large majority on Thursday asking for a short-term extension of Article 50 to try to sort something out, followed by the EU saying "a year or nothing", followed by public disagreements, followed by an agreement for an extension of between two months and a year. Nobody actually wants a chaotic exit except a few financiers, and we're doing enough damage to ourselves that I doubt the EU wants to enforce a punishment beating at a cost to their own member states' economies.
As for the final outcome, I'd guess:
* No deal (10%)
* May's deal (10%)
* New (softer) deal (40%)
* Second referendum (40%), with any option possible after that from no Brexit at all to the public saying 'sod you all' and demanding a no deal exit.
But anything's possible at this point; we're off the map and predictions on the process I was much more confident on have already been wrong.
Any leave option has the Irish border question to sort (unless we remain in the customs union I suppose), which is pretty intractable, and already causing low-level violence to start up again in Ireland from what I hear.
And surely we won't choose to stay without a referendum.
And not leaving after all won't happen either, British pride and dreams of Empire can't handle that humiliation.
My money is on the no deal exit, even though that implies the hard border to Ireland.
It does solve one problem: that otherwise we crash out with no deal by default.
> And not leaving after all won't happen either, British pride and dreams of Empire can't handle that humiliation.
That's not the only force in Britain though. Plenty of people, especially young people, see themselves as European as much as British. And plenty of people are ashamed of the empire too.
> My money is on the no deal exit, even though that implies the hard border to Ireland.
It could happen, but I don't think anybody is keen to see a resurgence in Irish terrorism, which is not unlikely in a No Deal scenario. And this is even ignoring the significant downsides this would have for the British economy.
I think if there were a 2nd referendum, it would be remain, if only because all the old people that voted leave have died off. I don't think it would be by a satisfying large margin though.
That's if we get a referendum though. The Overton window has shifted so for over, MPs might just unite on a soft Brexit.
I also wonder how the EU's legislative arrangements compare to other post-war vassal states. Did Germany and Japan have a legislative mess they needed to clean up when the Allied occupation ended?
There is no legal reason why ministers cannot reject Brexit; given the role of Parliament in the UK system of government, there is very little that ministers could be legally prevented from deciding, since the current (at whatever time it is you are asking the question) Parliament itself is generally the ultimate authority on what is allowed, so much so that it cannot be bound even by past Parliaments.
There are, as you note, political constraints, particularly the problem of there being no majority for any option.
There is, for a revocation of article 50 notice to be legal, Parliament has to pass a motion directing the Government to do so[1].
[1] https://ukandeu.ac.uk/revoking-article-50-after-the-ecjs-rul...
We're talking here about what MPs can reject or not, and the fact that Parliament must direct the government before the government doing it is legal is not a legal barrier to MPs taking action on it (the form of which action would be an Act of Parliament directing the government.)
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Yv24cM2os 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement
What the North and the South want to do is fundamentally at odds with how the EU works and unless the EU gives the UK a free trade deal which is something the UK would be happy to have it's going to cause lots of problems for the EU. It's kind of weird that the video ignores that the border is a problem for the EU the same way it is a problem for the UK. There is a fundamental symmetry. From the UK perspective I think a lot of people don't care if the porous border undermines trade policy (also, considering how the EU is talking about treating us post-brexit a porous border is going to be seen as a feature rather than a bug) because the Irish issue is more important. However, EU doesn't care as much about the Irish issue and cares more about stuff undermining its perfect union.
At the start pro-Brexit politicians were saying the border issues can be resolved to a large or at least good enough extent with technology. Number plate recognition cameras, better IT systems, pre-registration, trusted trader schemes. A bunch of stuff together that'd mean no need for a hard border of the sort of that would set off the IRA blowing people up again.
The EU dumped all over these ideas very publicly, laughed at them, described them as "unicorns", told the UK to get real etc.
Two problems with that attitude:
1. It was a lie and they knew it was a lie. Barnier admitted it would work just a few months ago, after holding the position for years that it wouldn't. France just announced a very similar set of measures to handle the France/UK border. Borders experts had testified that the schemes were workable. The UK doesn't care if there's some leakage anyway so it doesn't even need perfection.
2. It has reinforced the idea in the UK and amongst the population that the EU is willing to go to any lengths to get what it wants. It has literally said to the UK: we insist that the price of leaving us is either terrorism and deaths, or annexation of large chunks of your territory. Entirely reasonable attempts at finding compromise were all rejected with insults and arrogance. This behaviour has not surprisingly infuriated many people, including many members of Parliament.
"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence."
I can see this going to another referendum soon. May even trigger a general election. Fun times!
Edit: there is an overwhelming belief amongst Brexiteers that a second referendum would be undemocratic. But how can it be? It represents the most up to date public opinion. If they're so confident that it's what the people want, why will it make a difference? If anything, it'll just help quell any uncertainty. What is truly undemocratic is manipulation of the electorate. Manipulation happened on a large scale during the referendum, and there is a fair bit of proof to back up this claim, including blatant lies, social media and other advertising campaigns.
May has two contradictory goals. She doesn't want to really leave the EU - I think absolutely everything about her staff picks, negotiating non-strategy and Cabinet management supports that - but she's a genuine Tory loyalist who needs to maintain enough of a fig-leaf of Leaving that her party doesn't get utterly obliterated by irate voters at the next election. That's a tough needle to thread, and she's completely failed to thread it. She's achieved her first goal by abandoning her second.
> as if they want to leave without weighing up the pros and cons of both sides - their staunchness confuses me
I don't think "staunchness" is quite the word. They want to leave, and they don't see the WA as leaving. (Nor does the general population; I think the last poll showed only 12% thought the WA respected the referendum result.) The talking point being pushed hard by No 10 has been "don't make the perfect the enemy of the good", implying that the ERG etc are blocking the WA because they think, unrealistically, that they can get a harder exit by holding out. That may be true for some. But I think many genuinely do believe that the WA (effectively non-voting membership with no safeguards and no way out) is worse than staying in the EU (as a voting member with the option of going Article 50 again). Many have said so. Some observers may dismiss that as rhetorical, but I don't think it is.
Edit: worked it out - Withdrawal agreement
I love Bukowski, but this quote should be attributed to Yeats or Russell ...
> The PM said MPs will now get a vote on whether the UK should leave without a deal on 29 March and, if that fails, on whether Brexit should be delayed.
What happens if they vote "No" three times in a row (no deal, no no-deal, no postponement)?
If this wasn't politics I'd say: See if you can simplify this function, bonus points if you can avoid error conditions too:
func brexit(){
if(deal){
exit(deal);
} else {
if(!deal) {
exit(null);
} else {
if(postpone){
wait(TIME);
brexit();
} else {
throw new handsInTheAir();
}
}
}
}But, by design, exceptions don't automatically propagate from Parliament to its parent (the citizens) so the process is currently wedged in some kind of undefined behaviour. And no-one has the privileges to HUP the job.
func brexit(){
if(deal){
exit(deal);
} else {
if(!deal) {
exit(null);
} else {
if(postpone){
wait(TIME);
brexit();
} else {
exit(null);
}
}
}
}
void choices()
{
if(uk_MPs_yes_vote(12_march))
{
brexit(29_march[current_deal]);
}
else if(uk_MPs_yes_vote(13_march))
{
brexit(29_march[no_deal]);
}
else if(uk_MPs_yes_vote(14_march))
{
if(EU_yes_vote(21_march))
{
brexit(extension_date);
}
}
else if(uk_MPs_yes_vote(22_to_29_march))
{
brexit(29_march[current_deal]);
}
else
{
brexit(1/0);
}
}Did it in one line.
So the smart-arse new junior programmer, Clegg, refactored something he did not understand. The code review by Cameron signed it off to be pushed live.
We now pay the consequences. Repeatedly.
I do not understand why not call the entire Brexit thing off; why is that political suicide?
A delay plus a new vote (now that people are more educated on things) seems like the most democratic way to handle this.
But I don't think it quite fits here. The people of the UK voted for an abstract Brexit - one in which everyone could pin their dreams for what it would be. When there is a concrete Brexit plan - the best negotiated deal, hard Brexit, or whatever - when it's no longer something amorphous that you can imagine is whatever you want, but is instead something specific that you can't change, the people do in fact know more. They know what the deal actually is. Letting them ratify the actual deal rather than an abstract one seems quite reasonable to me.
2. Why do you expect that the vote will turn out any different? One third of the country wants a hard brexit, one third wants a soft brexit, and one third wants no brexit. There is no way to make even a majority happy. Having another vote will put you right back where you were two years ago.
Here's some more realistic numbers-
> The survey by polling firm YouGov showed that if a referendum were held immediately, 46 percent would vote to remain, 39 percent would vote to leave, and the rest either did not know, would not vote, or refused to answer the question.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/britons-would-now-vote-to-st...
Here's an aggregate of polls that show much stronger support for "stay" than "leave":
https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-a-second-eu-referen...
What do you do when nothing gets a majority? You could go with whatever gets the most votes, but as you said, that leaves the majority unhappy. Instead, on the same ballot, ask everyone what their second choice is. If nothing gets a majority of first place votes, then go with whatever got the most first and second place votes.
What do you mean by this?
Most of the articles I've read and people I've talked with from England have said that immigration and keeping England English was the main concern behind Brexit...have views on non-English immigrants changed?
If you want a good laugh you should take a look at some of the claims made by Johnson, Farage, and Gove during the campaign.
Pretty bad.
Second of all, bringing something up for a vote more that once is not like ignoring the vote. Rejected proposals are very often brought back up, maybe with some retooling, maybe just in hopes that the passage of time has made them more palatable. For example, Quebec voted on its equivalent of Brexit twice, and though it was a bit of a joke, it wasn't generally viewed as shady.
It is possible to use additional referendums as a stalling tactic, and if you kept doing it forever, you would effectively be ignoring the vote. But again, nobody is suggesting that. Putting it up for another vote now that the public has more information would literally just be democracy.
Of course not, just until people vote remain!
That’s the whole issue (apart from putting Brexit up to a 50% referendum in the first place).
People voted based on russian-funded lies funnelled through corrupt millionaires like Arron Banks, illegally funded and illegally targetting voters with murky data from the likes of cambridge analytica, using extensive and highly targetted ad campaigns on FB (still going on btw - over £500k spent this week). Among other lies politicians told them that we'd stay in the custons union and havd more money for the nhs, but mostly they played on a fear of immigrants.
Brexit won by a tiny margin on the largest constitutional change since the act of union, but somehow 'the will of the people' at that moment in time is inviolate and can never be questioned.
That's facism, not democracy.
You think the EU funded illegal propaganda like that funded via the russian embassy? Got any proof of that? Arron banks is being investigated currently:
https://www.politico.eu/article/arron-banks-investigated-ove...
I believe rhetoric like 'the will of the people' is facist.
Well I voted Leave because this is likely to be the last chance for the UK to get out of ever-tighter European political integration. About which we were never consulted before engaging.
In the 1980s I backpacked around Europe and met many wonderful people. But not once did I think that "what we need is an additional layer of federal government to bind us all into one destiny". They were countries of Europe, but beyond trade every country got on with its own affairs. And things seemed to be OK.
The Common Market was a good idea, but things took a more sinister turn in 1992 with the Maastricht Treaty. Who was driving that? Not the common people of Europe as far as I could tell.
To me, Brexit was an opportunity for asking myself: why does the EU exist, why did it supercede the EEC and what is the end-goal? I didn't like any of the answers.
Personally I think the EU is a force for good in the world. It has failings - the parliament does not yet have enough power, and the treatment of Greece was a travesty, but in spite of that it has lead Europe from war, dictatorship and acrimony to peace and prosperity. The end goal is of course a federal state and for the states within that to be subsidiary, and a large free market of work and goods within that area. Sounds good to me compared to the sclerotic British state still fondly grasping at dreams of lost Empire.
If the EU fails, the UK fails with it, regardless of whether we are in or out. If war comes to Europe we will not be able to avoid it. So the independence given by Brexit is an illusion. I find it highly unlikely that the UK will have more influence, more independence ore more power outside the EU, simply because of its size and proximity. So in my view Brexit is a false choice between a dream of independence which cannot truly exist in our global world, and the spectre of an evil federal state dictating our every move. Why not help to build the federal state we'd like to see in the world? If I had to start somewhere building a new state, I certainly wouldn't start with the current UK political system and UK state.
It is legitimately damaging to democracy to have the results of a referendum ignored. That referendum shouldn't have been executed in the manner it was, but we can't ignore the outcome.
The problem is, the practical reality of that vote (as it has worked out) is pretty sketchy, and pleases very few people. So now we have the three immediate options of "no deal" (obviously catastrophic), "negotiated deal" (no political support) and "cancel" (directly opposed to the referendum outcome).
Honestly the only way I see out of it with even a shred of democracy left is to hold a second referendum to ratify the deal.
The problem with a second referendum, though, is that the vote is to stay it won't be "the country" changing its mind. The country doesn't have one. If 5 percentage points of the previous 52% change their minds, the 47% that voted (Brexit, Brexit) will feel betrayed, as they will (actually) have been sold out. They were told that their first decision would count, then people-who-were-not-them demanded another vote, then people-who-were-not-them took their victory away.
Of course, those of us who voted (Remain, Remain) will be happy, but this isn't exactly analogous to a general election, where this kind of change-of-result is expected. The referendum was supposed to be a one-off, and 'those people' will have stolen Brexit.
I have a bit of sympathy for this position, but I have a lot more concern for the long-term consequences of reducing trust in the political process even further.
Also, doesn't brexit basically guarantee Scottish independence? The Scotts were way more opposed to brexit than the English in the brexit referendum and their most recent independence referendum stated as a condition of the delay until the next independence referendum that the UK's relationship with the EU did not change? Is that right?
It's unclear whether or not it will be possible to construct majority support in parliament for that at present. There's also the issue of legitimacy; while I don't agree with the view myself, there is concern that a second referendum smacks of an attitude of "you did it wrong the first time, try again". This is the outcome of a badly-designed referendum, which should probably have included a ratification vote.
Also, doesn't brexit basically guarantee Scottish independence?
While I'm a huge Scottish independence fan and would love this to be the case, the reality on the ground is more complex. The case for the previous independence vote in 2014 was based heavily on continued EU membership for both Scotland and the rest of the UK. An unstable, hard-Brexit neighbour will be difficult for Scotland, which is heavily intertwined economically, culturally and politically with the rest of the UK. Brexit probably enhances the emotional case, but doesn't help the practical one. Additionally, due to the constitutional structure of the UK, Scotland cannot hold a legitimate referendum on independence without the consent of the UK parliament – something which is unlikely to be granted any time soon.
It seems like a second referendum would optimally be framed differently than the first, but it seems like the best option as an outsider. The current scenario doesn't seem to be working.
Strange times we all live in.
Or let's say that I'm President. You are the challenger in the election. If I win, I go on being President. But you win, and I and my friends at powerful agencies and media outlets all agree that, since we are entitled to rule, the election is not valid and has to be overturned by some means. But I'm willing to compromise. Surely even you could have no complaint about just repeating the election. Either that, or we just void the election entirely, which would probably be best for all, I'm sure you'd agree.
It's the same for me as a non-American looking at the whole Trump situation. The people chose him as their president, yet I get the impression (again, I'm an outsider) that very few people like him as a president.
Yes, Trump's approval rating is dead average for President’s taking office after the end of Obama’s second term at the same point in their term of office.
But unless you reduce the domain so much that you compare Trump only to himself, it's not perfectly normal.
This is true, but maybe not for the reasons you think. The number of people who self-identify as "Republican" has shrunk considerably over the past few years. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/06/14/trump-owns-...
That's not really true if you talk to people. He is also being helped by the fact that the democrats have not much to offer either. I bet almost anybody except Clinton would have won the election.
Regardless of the validity of this argument as to Constitutional legitimacy, it's inapplicable to th claim made upthread which is that “the people chose him as their President”. They did not.
If the popular vote won the presidency, Trump and Hillary would have campaigned for the popular vote, and there's no way of knowing what that outcome would have been.
The losing side is always more emotional and vocal in politics. The winning side has nothing to prove, except during a re-election. It was that way for Bush, Obama, Trump, and it will be true of the next President.
Well, he did get almost as many votes as the top vote getter, so that's almost true.
Brexit and Trump are just these people saying they want a big change in direction. I dont think they're sure Brexit and Trump will improve things but at least the city dwelling elite doesn't like it so there must be something good about it.
One trouble with the media is they never leave their echo chambers in these cities and find out what people across the country think. I don't know of anybody in my town who voted Brexit and has changed their mind since. In fact, many who voted to remain have said they would vote to leave in a second referendum, because the contempt that the political elite in Westminster and Brussels have for the result of a democratic vote has been laid bare for all to see.
There is only a majority in favour of renaming in parliament, but as you note, it would be political suicide for them to cut off Brexit, which is why we have this shitshow where they try to stop it by pretending to try and make it happen. ("Brexit in name only")
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/United_K...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan...
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/britons-would-now-vote-to-st...
The government voted itself to have more power without any validation with other countries, this caused a massive push back against the EU is ALL of Europe. Don't forget that France has been revolting for almost three months now.
Apart from the 17.4 million majority that voted for it?
The problem there is that there are now several groupings of representatives – some of them would like to push forward with a "cliff-edge" style exit, some would like a negotiated but "hard" deal, some would like a very soft "technical Brexit", and others would prefer to remain entirely. The parliament is politically bound by the outcome of the referendum—it would be a damaging move to hold a referendum then not implement the result—but at the same time, there is no consensus on what "Brexit" actually means, so it's not currently possible to construct a majority for any individual plan.
It's not a good situation.
My opinion is that a deal cannot be negotiated among uneven parties. Right now, the UK can either leave with no deal, or leave on the terms demanded by the EU, with no concessions whatsoever. There is no table for negotiation. It is leave or surrender. Once we leave, we are no longer the begging party asking for concessions, but the roles will be reversed. The EU does not want to lose one of their largest export markets, and will quickly change their mind about a trade deal.
The UK exports ~50% of its goods and services to the EU. The EU exports 8% of it's good and services to the UK. The latter is in absolute terms the larger amount of goods and services, but the former is just a massive portion of total trade to have to suddenly replace or re-negotiate.
Think about it this way: SMB company A has to suddenly replace 50% of its customer base. Enterprise company B has to suddenly replace 8% of it's customers. I know which one I'd rather be!
Pointing out the reality of the weak and pathetic position the UK finds itself in is not 'scaremongering', it is simply the first of many wake-up calls the UK will be facing in the near future.
They thought they could simply quickly negotiate trade deals using the existing EU ones as a blueprint. I think they now reached a single digit number of agreements but nothing with a huge trade volume (includes economic superpowers like the Faroe Islands or Liechtenstein and as the list goes on it does only get slightly better).
Agrees in Russian
. [ ] Remain a member of the European Union
. [ ] Leave the European Union
Do you see the huge honking flashing design flaw here?
No? Let's rephrase this with a little substitution:
. [ ] Continue the known reality
. [ ] Do something else (to be determined later)
There's the problem. The second was a catch-all that cast a huge net encompassing all imagined alternatives. Everything that isn't what is currently now, that's option 2.
That's what won, because it's every imagined alternative tossed in a huge pile. Your Own Personal Favorite Idea is option 2! Hooray!
The problem is that when that has to become concrete it turns out that staying in the EU outweighs any one particular instance of the "leave the EU" reality ... and one of them has to be executed on.
WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED
The plebiscite should have had detailed, specific scenarios and been structured as follows:
. [ ] Remain in the EU
. [ ] Option 1 (addendum 1)
. [ ] Option 2 (addendum 2)
. [ ] ...
. [ ] Option N (addendum n)
Why? Because that's what would actually be happening, the actual reality that has to be contended with, not just some undefined fantasy.
BUT THIS FAVORS STAYING, ALWAYS
No. Not necessarily. If the Brexiters could offer a real-world, concrete, provable, air-tight demonstrably better alternative instead of amorphous good-feelings then they can persuade the public with this imagined reality instead of relying on a reality imagined.
What shouldn't have been allowed, and why this is a total mess, is an option of amorphous make-believe. Make-believe will always win.
(1) Accept deal and exit,
(2) Exit with no deal,
(3) Rescind Article 50
As the options.
Or, the government should just not have used a non-binding referendum on such a complex policy matter as an electoral ploy in the first place and actually governed as elected to do rather than passing the buck.
There's basically two big stumbling blocks:
The first is that there has to be a customs check between either: (1) The EU/Republic of Ireland , (2) ROI and Northern Ireland, or (3) Northern Ireland and Britain (the island).
(1) is unacceptable to the EU. (2) breaks the Good Friday agreement and could reignite violence in Ireland. (3) is unacceptable to the Northern Ireland political party propping up the government.
The second is that from the perspective of the EU, Britain has to get a worse deal by leaving the EU than what they had when they were in it. Otherwise, every other country sees that it's better to be out than in and the EU risks collapse.
These are more or less intractable problems. I'm sure we've all had the experience where an IT project is obviously doomed but nobody wants the responsibility and blame for pulling the plug. That's where Brexit is today.
i.e. each party says "you do it, I won't", and it ends up that no one did?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Yv24cM2os
If you are unaware of the issues with ROI and NI, I'll say that a bit of education is really needed. The history there is very complicated and can't really be boiled down here on HN.
That said, the threat of renewed violence on Ireland is absolutely real and very possible. During The Troubles (lasting ~35 years) there were ~50k casualties in total. The peace is fragile and renewed violence could very possibly result in much higher casualty numbers.
Lives are quite literally on the line.
EDIT: Sometimes pictures are better than words. We can talk about 50k casualties, but seeing some of them is a lot more 'real', at least to me. If you have the inclination, this image gallery does an alright job showing the long and very bloody history of ROI-UK relations during The Troubles: https://allthatsinteresting.com/the-troubles#31
The problem is that by using a trade deal the status quo the UK is effectively losing its voice in the EU parliament without gainign anything in exchange. This is unsatisfactory to both the leave and remain camps of the UK parliament.
So this prime minister named David Cameron thought he would squash the whole "let's leave the EU" dissent by revealing it to be a minority position by some clever politicking: he would call a referendum and they would get only 15% of the vote and he could dust his hands and say "well we had this vote and you were wrong and let's stop holding untenable positions here." The problem was that rather than 15% of the vote, Leave carried 52% of the vote. Legally it was not a binding vote, the Parliament is still allowed to do whatever they want. But the Conservative Party that Cameron had led was sincere about "we're going to do whatever the public decides." Due to the complete reversal of his expectations, Cameron resigned as PM and was replaced by May.
May is in a tricky situation because if she holds a second referendum, "really, truly, are we going to leave the EU?" then it looks like her party is just going to keep asking the question until they get the answer they want -- and that is not really democracy. If they just say "eff it we give up, we're not doing this Brexit thing" then they are reneging their earlier promise.
With that said there is now a widespread belief that if they did re-ask the question the majority would say "hell no, remain in the EU, we didn't mobilize with enough urgency because we didn't understand what the country was signing up for in that last vote." If a different party were in power, probably they would have done so by now. But because there is this direct line from Cameron to May, May has been very firm on her belief that they need to go through with Brexit one way or the other.
Because May was so obstinate on this point, there have most recently (Dec 2018, Jan 2019) been some votes of no confidence trying to upset the government and have a new government that might be able to do the actually-popular thing. Those have failed.
You missed the part where May called a general election right after sending the official withdrawal notice where she only barely gained a majority giving the Brexit hardliners a lot of additional power. Again based on way too favorable predictions about voters preferences.
There are lots of MPs who would want nothing more than to scrap Brexit or at least hold a second referendum. However, the situation is similar to what's happening with Trump and the Republican Party in the US: Politicians vote on party lines against their personal beliefs (or the desires of their constituents) simply so the party can hold on to power.
May and the Tories can't backpedal on Brexit because it would, at this point, be political suicide. It would significantly weaken the Conservative Party (the Tories) politically, and pave the way for a Labour government. May and her colleagues would prefer Brexit to losing their power. Of course, May says she sees it as her duty to fulfill the "will of the people" despite the fact that, according to insiders, she doesn't actually believe in Brexit.
What's remarkable is that the Conservative leadership has never been able swing the rhetoric around in their favour. A more cunning politican should have been able to turn David Cameron (who was responsible for setting Brexit in motion in the first place) into a scapegoat as well as point the finger at the Brexit faction for poisoning the well. There's a whole group of politicians, including Boris Johnson, that are now hated by the general public following the revelations about the Leave campaign.
What's also remarkable is how badly Labour has miscalculated the opportunity to gain a huge political momentum by becoming the anti-Brexit party. But its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is an EU skeptic, and hasn't stepped up.
That I think is the fundamental problem. It's not unique to May, or even to the UK, either. You see this all the time. Politicians want to win the next election more than they want to do the right thing (or even the right thing according to their own views). But if you can't do what you think should be done, what's the point of having power?
There is no reason to believe MPs can "do the right thing". Their analysis skills are weak, they routinely say things that are factually false, they manipulate, they lie and their numeracy skills are nearly non-existent.
Some examples. Most of them can't even tell you what the probability of flipping two heads in a row is:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19801666
The Shadow Home Secretary, i.e. the woman who is one election victory away from running the police, went on public radio and simply made numbers up off the top of her head for how much money would be spent on the police. Even worse the numbers were absurd, like costing only £300,000 pounds to hire 10,000 police officers:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/diane-abbot-l...
It's clear that Theresa May and most MPs don't even understand the basics of negotiation, like "you must be willing to walk away".
Politicians should absolutely not be doing what they think the right thing is, they are wildly unqualified to decide that. Their job is to do what their voters ask them to do, as faithfully as possible, and nothing else. It's when politicians start to think they know better than their voters that power has corrupted them and the problems really start. That's the root of all dictatorships and the sorts of miseries that have throughout history killed millions of people.
I guess nowadays you cannot convince people with facts anymore. You can only convince them with covert, subliminal ads on their social media feeds.
As much as I agree that the Brexit leave campaign was fraudulent and the whole referendum tainted, I don't think it's as clear-cut as you want. At what point do decide a vote that was made through a legal process should be rejected? You can't run the "will of the people" through some kind of legitimacy filter to weed out the ones that have been unduly influenced by political forces.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan...
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/britons-would-now-vote-to-st...
When it's fundamental premises are shown to be fraudulent. As you said.
Also, don't ignore the fact that the wording of the vote had a big impact. It was `remain` vs. `literally everything else with the only constraint being "not in the EU"`.
Both sides of an argument always argue as if they believe the other side is stupid and they know for sure they are right.
That is the biggest stupidity in itself.
Why are there no politicians that spend their time on trying to understand the other side, rather then shouting out their own message? Those would be the ones I would vote. But they simply do not exist.
You get someone who "fights for what is right", "takes a stand" and "doesn't back down" you'll get well known and people will vote for you.
Sad state of affairs, I dont know what to do to change it.
Because they went silent? How would you know one party understands the other side, and continues to talk about their own politics anyway? That would again seem like they are just talking and not understanding each other.
If you're really right, you shouldn't have to strawman your opponent's position in order to show that you're right.
If one side does that, by the public they will be perceived to be talking the points of the other side, again losing out.
The whole point of politics, religion and marketing is to keep talking until the other side gives up. The biggest loudest mouth wins. Not the most understanding one.
There are quite a lot of such politicians, but they don't have the personality you're criticizing, so they're not visible generally, but in particular not the media which is selling politics as entertainment just like anything else.
Shirley Chisholm? Bet you've never heard of her, which is fine, I don't expect that. You do also have the imagination that she should exist, which is good. But where you fail is your assumption that you are right to conclude they do not exist just because you've never heard of them. So you're stupid and yet you know for sure you're right. You're doing the exact same damn thing you accuse others of. It's blatant hypocrisy, which happens to be very common and you seem to think it's an exception! Of course you have to call that out in order to hold people accountable to a higher standard. It is in fact the thing you call uncivil that causes a chance at civility!
How about Ander Crenshaw? You won't see him on TV and you won't see him shouting. Michael Bennet, is another one you won't see on TV, and the one time in his political career he went on a rant was eviscerating the pure stupidity of a colleague to his face, calling him out with factual evidence of his hypocrisy based on indisputable past action.
I guess you lack the imagination of truly uncivilized behavior that exists today and through most of human history. Dead bodies littering fields, bloating, leaking, bursting. Firing squads. Mass graves. Really, you think politicians are uncivilized? It's a ridiculous comment.
Calling a stupid person stupid is not uncivilized. It's called making an observation. Politics is when you don't do that every time stupidity is displayed.
I think it has to do with the polarisation (radicalisation?) that has come about because people have been grouping into their own echo-chambers. "The other guy" has moved from being a compatriot who they disagreed with to being an adversary to be conquered. See any political or news sub in /r/ as a principle example of this.
Still, better than Cameron.
Leading a country through brexit is a hell of a sword to fall on though. :/
Makes sense I guess :-)
As an EU citizen I sincerely hope the outcome will be the UK ultimately staying in -- if only because of the outright lies during the referendum and the suspicion of Russian influence in the Leave vote.
On a positive note, May mentioned a People's Vote was an option tonight. Insofar as I'm aware that's a first.
What if i told you that crying "b-but the other side lied!" and talking about "russian hackers" do not outweigh a fair, free, democratically held vote? Imagine the vote was vice versa and the right-wing would be crying about unfair campaign ads and Brussel influence, not one person would take them seriously.
In case it needs reminding, those elections did occur, and May ended up needing to go in bed with the DUP to stay in power.
Edit: ok, I see what you've done with your edit...
> Imagine the vote was vice versa and the right-wing would be crying about unfair campaign ads and Brussel influence, not one person would take them seriously.
Everyone would have correctly raised that it's horse shit, because the EC is fairly transparent in what it does if you bother to take a look.
The real wtf in recent decades has been that Brussels is a perfect scapegoat: as a national politician you can go to the European Council and promote what have you; EC and EP pick it up and deliver; and then you can turn around and tell voters "see it's Brussel's fault" because national newspapers aren't reporting enough on what's going on in the EU.
And just to be clear, this is nothing new. It already was a problem 20 years ago. And insofar as I've been made aware by the law teachers I had back then, 40 years ago as well.
As soon as it starts biting people's pockets, which might happen pretty soon according to Central banks/IMF economic forecasts, I believe a new referendum will be called and the decision will be reversed.
There might not be time for that to happen though.
May's deal is not what the people voted for, and so, the house of commons is full of lying politicians who will have exhausted their careers on the gamble that they could stop Brexit from happening.
If their constituents viewpoints have moved since 2016/2017, they won't view it as a betrayal; more precisely the concern is that each major party is concerned that their own Leave faction will be more likely to abandon them than Remain-leaning voters outside will be to come over if their party is the one that flips.
Jon Snow (British journalist): "A Lawyer contact tells me that the legal world is aware that the Attorney General said NO last night to the validity of Mrs May's 'new EU deal'...he been told to go away and find a way to say YES: A cohort of lawyers has been summoned"
Attorney General: "Bollocks"
Does it look like that feeling is going to turn to be right, or we just don't know..?
That's where my crystal ball goes cloudy.
There's no guarantee it is correct. But it is worth considering as a data point, keeping in mind its (anthropomorphized) perspective, as well as the other perspectives and where they are coming from as well.
(This includes the predictions of apocalypse. There are many actors who are well motivated to predict that regardless of their own personal beliefs. This doesn't make their predictions false, either. I'm just an advocate of applying "follow the money/motivation" everywhere, even and at times especially to people who agree with your current perspective.)
"We'll hold another referendum, and cross our fingers that this time, it will vote remain" isn't exactly satisfying to the EU.