Saturday morning is a time for reflection. And so I have done just that, on a week when the Brexit Bill passed through the House of Commons without a major revolt arising.
On reflection this is astonishing. A majority in the Commons, from the Prime Minister onwards, knows that the UK will be economically worse off for some time after Brexit. I know, of course, that some on the left argue otherwise, but so far they have offered not a hint of a coherent alternative that overcomes the constraints that trade deals with the EU will impose once we've left. Meanwhile, the Brexit right lives in cloud cuckoo land. And so it's reasonable to assume that, on reflection, we have decided to walk off the edge of a cliff.
I am aware that not all have given up hope. I have friends on the anti-Brexit march today. I hope it is a good day. I admire their optimism. I am on Dad duties and will be elsewhere. But I also see their hope as forlorn. I have reflected on the facts. I am beginning to accept reality.
We are leaving.
We will leave without a deal.
That is because the Tories will never come to a deal between themselves.
Amd nor will Labour.
So we will depart.
Not because we should.
Not because an actual majority in the country wanted us to do so.
Not because a majority now wants us to do so.
And not because it makes any sense.
But because no one in UK politics has anything like the authority or the ability, vision, intellect and charisma to explain that something else is possible and lay out the way to achieve that alternative.
Instead it is presumed that an advisory referendum was binding even though victory for Leave may well have been illegally secured meaning the result should at best be null and void.
There are moments when you can honestly say nothing will be the same again. This is one of them. Accepting that Brexit will happen does not change everything. But it changes a lot.
It means that I accept my children's future is a lot poorer in almost every way imaginable than I considered to be likely. Economically and socially, their world is not the one I imagined they would face, and I can see no upsides.
I do not know the country I will live in. Or even what it will be called. That's because I see little eventual prospect of Scotland and Northern Ireland staying in union with England and Wales.
I fear for the consequences as England and Wales realise how they have diminished themselves.
I wonder how we as a society can adapt to the shock of such massive reappraisal as to who we are.
I fear the political consequences that might give rise to at a number of levels.
I wonder why I would want to stay in such a country. Excepting that it is my home.
And nothing persuades me that there is going to be room for some ‘great alternative new socialist experiment' that some on the left seem to think possible. Nothing persuades me such a vision exists, for a start. Or that it's desirable in the face of the environmental challenges we face that most on the left ignore and which can only be addressed collectively, which Brexit makes harder.
But just as the EU is now seemingly accepting that hard Brexit is likely, so am I. There is no better in this; there is only worse as far as I can see. But in the chaos to come (and chaos there will be) we have to seek to forge something that eventually releases the hope that people living in community can survive the worst blows utterly misguided politicians can inflict on them. This one is a massive blow. And I am reconciled to it happening now. But that requires redoubled effort to imagine a new order in the countries currently called the UK.
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“I am aware that not all have given up hope. I have friends on the anti-Brexit march today. I hope it is a good day. I admire their optimism….. But I also see their hope as forlorn.”
Yeah but they have to do that because an absence of protest would be construed as implicit approval.
Pressure needs to be maintained regardless.
I can only agree with you. What madness is this? I hope you are right in your prediction for Scotland leaving the U.K. We are fortunate to have politicians with all the characteristics missing from the powerful in WM.
I voted to remain and I take all you say as good sense but don’t for one minute think that all the fault lies in the UK attitude. The response on the EU side has been also been misguided and at times utterly childish. We all know that the EU needs reforming in a number of areas but I honestly don’t see that happening until the crisis deepens. One problem is the EURO and I find the punishment dished out to the Greeks as unfettered neoliberalism. How will that end? And why do we have to leave all those clubs of a technological nature? We were in Euratom before we joined the Common Market. Likewise, we collaborated with France over Concorde. I think the Tornado predated our membership too. Now there is petulance over Galileo. The EU attitude seems to be – take the whole package or just go away. That is not grown up thinking. George Monbiot had it right in the Guardian a few weeks ago – all these deals should have sunset clauses. Maybe our leaving of the EU and the impending EURO crisis will spark a rethink. You want an end to neoliberalism but you also want to cling onto it. It’s like that quote about clinging onto nurse. I agree that the Labour Party looks illprepared but I’m afraid it’s all we have. Have a good weekend as a Dad and hope your boy has made a full recovery.
I don’t believe neoliberalism can be ended from an isolated remnant of a country in the north west of Europe
Of course I want EU reform, but this is not the way to deliver it. Only by being inside with a vote can we effect real change and that chance is going
I fear the mess we will create will actually reinforce the status quo
The EU seems to have no wish to reform itself. The reform will only come when the crisis deepens and there has to be a crisis. When the financial system reaches the point when no one can afford to buy German cars eyelids may finally open. The problem was having a referendum in the first place and Miliband never promised one in the 2015 election. But would reform have ever taken place? I don’t think so. I would link all politician’s pay to the median income then they might reflect on other people’s situations and work towards raising that. All domestic and EU politicians have a nice easy comfortable time protected by juicy pensions. Just look at how a once radical Neil Kinnock turned into a pillar of the establishment elite. While they are protected no change will occur. We’ll see the quality of our politicians over the next few years but don’t pretend Europe is going to be some kind of paradise.
Rod White says:
“I would link all politician’s pay to the median income then they might reflect on other people’s situations and work towards raising that. ”
There would be sense in that. In the same way management and board and investor returns should be linked to the overall returns of a company.
Not equal. Linked. Not easy to achieve because short-termism has to be countered, but it’s doable. Longterm investment funds do it all the time.
I like the idea
I’m not quite sure that no deal is a certainty at this point. It seems to me that if May wishes, she can obtain an instant Commons supermajority by going for Labour’s position and seeking to stay in the Customs Union. A Turkey-type deal in other words.
It would no doubt be followed by a leadership challenge, but current Tory leadership rules say this is a straight go/stay vote. I do not believe she could lose such a challenge. What she might lose is a parliamentary confidence vote(probably started by the DUP when NI is required to stay in the single market as part of the deal).
But by then it will be too late. The deal will have been passed and signed.
And you know, anyone can do the sums. Force NI’s MPs out of the UK, watch Scotland’s follow and then the Tories get a pretty solid electoral majority for years. Labour’s ‘clever long game’ is blown up as the Tories continually point out “Hey, we went with your plan for Brexit. All this is your fault, should have voted to leave the customs union!”
Alan says:
“I’m not quite sure that no deal is a certainty at this point….”
I’m inclined to believe that ‘No Deal’ is a logical impossibility. We will leave with all manner of agreements that we are still signed-up to.
‘No Deal’ is a fantasy.
I agree there will be a deal. There is a bigger picture here . That we have a constitutional crisis over Brexit must be blindingly obvious. Cameron’s Tory Govt was toppled, May emerged as the leader of the Tory Govt, but she hangs on by a thread. The Govt does not understand how to reconcile both its duty to act for the common good and implement the result of the referendum. The role of the state must be to protect its citizens’ liberty and ensure their security – the Tories know this responsibility is on their watch not Labour’s. This goes back to 1647, Cromwell, Charles I, and the Civil war. If the Tory Govt. cannot reconcile these matters it will have to stand down — Parliament knows this. On top of that the Citizens are divided and the four nations comprising the United Kingdom are at odds. Following the Supreme Court ruling it was confirmed the Govt, under the Royal Prerogative, did not have the power to trigger Article 50 to leave the EU in the first place. The very credibility and long term survival of the Tory party is at stake here.
They are bluffing about walking away from the EU — it will not happen. Would they risk Civil War 2.00 — I don’t think so. They have to find a solution all sides can live with — or stand down. This is what Labour keeps reminding them of.
I do not think then Tories understand any of this
Nor do they care
They understand power and nothing else
And being reminded of anything by Labour just makes them want to cling to power more
You assume they will act honourably: there is not a chance of that
Roger says:
“I agree there will be a deal. There is a bigger picture here …..”
I can’t say I recognise the picture as you paint it,
“The Govt does not understand how to reconcile both its duty to act for the common good ….”
Since when was the common good an element of Tory thinking. You have a very long memory, Roger.
Or a vivid imagination. 🙂
Unbelievably – and what does that word mean now in the context of the madness of the vast majority of the Westminster political class? – it seems that May and co., plus a squirmingly unconvincing Labour PLP, are going to take the ‘U’K over the cliff-edge. There is almost no limit to the chaos which will follow – from departing companies and further crashing of investment to grounded airlines and statusless peoples. Just what the eventual political fall-out/popular revenge may be in ‘South Britain’ one shudders to think – but at least Scotland will leave to regain its place in Europe and Ireland may, at last, gain unity and its long delayed fulfillment. Those last two are, indeed, the only ‘up-sides’ and I grieve for the peoples of England with whom I lived so much of my life and among whom my children and grandchildren are – at present – set (I almost said ‘doomed’) to live. However, the game is not yet fully played out. The pressure for a People’s Vote may yet bring some politicians to their senses – but whether enough, and enough with just sufficient courage, I have to admit I doubt.
I understand Richard’s saturday am pessimism, but a day is long time Brexit politics at the moment. The reality is that the Govt are obliged to get a deal that MPs & Parliament can actually live with — one that doesn’t wreak the economy and all our futures. It means May & hardliners will have to compromise. The Labour Party and Starmer, in particular, have been saying this for more than a year — eg transition, citizens rights, ECJ, customs union etc etc. Grieve was right to make the case for a proper meaningful vote, but it was beyond him given the state of the Tory party. So the Brexiters continue with the delusion that they will happily crash the UK out of the EU if Brussels does not offer a deal on their terms. But this is just not going to happen. They must and will back down. The latest minor compromise, May has now struck suggests that a no-deal Brexit is impossible. It also seems likely that parliament, where there is no majority for leaving the EU’s customs union, will be able to exercise a veto over a hard Brexit deal. That debate hasn’t even happened yet.
There is no ‘must’
And there is no mechanism to ensure parliament gets the day you think it has
This isn’t a must in the legal sense, but the hard liners will be obliged to back down for reasons of self interest. The Tories have become the party of Brexit, whether they like it or not. The referendum was called by a Tory prime minister, Tory politicians led Vote Leave and it is a Tory government that is taking Britain out of the EU. If Brexit doesn’t deliver, it will be the Tory party that suffers. No one will bother to distinguish between those Tories who backed Remain and those who didn’t. If they fail, their claim to be a competent party of government will be gone. If Brexit breaks, the Conservatives will have taken ownership of it and will pay the price. We know what Cummins Gove’s ex advisor said – “The state has made no preparations to leave and plans to make no preparations to leave even after leaving. It doesn’t matter which version of delusion your gangs finally agree on if none of them has a basis in reality you can dance around the fundamental issues all you want but in the end ‘reality cannot be fooled”.
We will not crash out simply because the Tories as a whole fear their very survival. The worst case outcome is we stay in semi permanent transition (within a Customs Union & Single Market) while the Tories and the press trumpet their success at negotiating a deal that is a not a deal. We will probably end up rejoining EFTA which May hasn’t actually ruled out, enabling the UK to continue negotiations for ever. Not a good outcome of course, but most things will stay as they are, and the Tories survive intact.
You assume others will agree
Why should they?
“The referendum was called by a Tory prime minister, Tory politicians led Vote Leave and it is a Tory government that is taking Britain out of the EU.”
The Conservatives called a referendum and the PM and cabinet led the Remain campaign. Theresa May backed Remain. The Conservatives lost. They also led the Leave Campaign; because they were not taking any chances; heads we win; tails you lose. This is how politics is allowed to play-out – and we are supposed to take Parliament seriously. So they became a Conservative Leave Government (that coudn’t win an election). But they remain in power. How did that happen? Very deliberately. And there they remain, to eliminate Remain.
“If Brexit doesn’t deliver, it will be the Tory Party that suffers”.
1) Do not bank on it. Some alternate version of the Conservative Party will turn up almost immediately as the completely new ‘saviour’ of the day, supported 100% by a hysterical media, and this will be ‘spun’; made easy by an endlessly gullible, and largley inertia-bound public; a programme to be revitalised by a little Elgar, some suitably uplifting TV series, and careful references to Winston Churchill; emphasising his similarities to whichever rebarbative clone the Party has dusted off and implausibly re-animated as the new tough-modern-compassionate PM. That is all it requires.
2) Your appeal to a post-“Brexit doesn’t deliver” solution is, by some distance, excessively hapless: for you may notice it will arrive far, far, far too late for the people of Britain. I can only hope that if your awful scenario comes to pass, Scotland has sufficient foresight to ‘run for its life’ before then: for we will be in the predicament of needing to follow a simple rule: ‘sauve qui peut’.
Roger says:
“…The reality is that the Govt are obliged to get a deal that MPs & Parliament can actually live with — one that doesn’t wreak the economy and all our futures….”
I think you misunderstand the role the present government thinks it is playing in terms of its responsibilities.
This government sees its brief in very narrow terms. I see no indication that those terms include ‘all our futures’, if by that you mean to imply the future wellbeing of all of us.
Political Party (both Conservative and Labour) has “trumped” national interest. Neither has put country before Party; neither is capable of putting country before Party. This is just an obvious fact (Hume was right, and fundamentally he was pessimistic; in Britain politics always reduces the country’s interests to Party factionalism). There is nothing to be done with a country or a politics where this, always, relentlessly is the case.
Save some unforeseeable Damascene conversion at the last, it is now for each constituent part of Britain to make its own arrangements. A no-deal hard Brexit, unplanned, unmanaged and unresourced is now a possibility. Parliament has failed the people.
That’s about it
I believe the biggest problem now is apathy. Apathy within the EU: “We can’t be bothered any more to negotiate a mutually acceptable deal with such a ramshackle & divided UK”. And apathy within the population at large, for all the obvious reasons.
This apathy might just have been ‘manufactured’ by the influential cabal of Brexiteers who have only ever wanted to leave at any price and sod the consequences. “We’ll do better without EU bureaucracy diluting our sovereign rights as an independent nation …”. Rhubarb, Rhubarb.
TM is probably fed up with the whole shebang, weary from acting as her party’s go-between and will be relieved to get past 29 March with a modicum of ‘dignity’, put her feet up, hand over to someone (anyone) else and walk off into the Sonning sunset.
The LP is currently more fractured than at any time in its turbulent past, adding additional layers of confusion not just onto its wider membership but more importantly onto its potential voters, who must be increasingly apathetic.
While there is gross incompetence on both ‘sides’, having had 20+ years to put together a rational plan for leaving the EU, the Brexiteers must take prime responsibility for the resultant clusterfxck. But, of course, they won’t.
If I was Scottish, Welsh or N Irish I’d want to distance myself as far as possible from impending socio-economic upheaval within the English regions. As always, it’s those who can least afford it will suffer the most. And where will the Welfare State be when you most need it?
Barista un caffè molto forte, per favore.
Maybe I’ve lived too long to have many certainties in life, but one of them is that I am certain the Tory party will survive at any price. There is one thing that the right and left of the Tories have in common and that is party loyalty above all else. How else to explain four centuries of ruling this country. The so called Brexit rebels who were not rebels are the most recent manifestation of this. For the Tories – party interest and the interests of the country are indistinguishable. This is way Corbyn and Labour are always depicted as traitors regardless of what they say or do. It doesn’t matter that Johnson says xxxk business, and we will win. He and JRM and their cabal of crackpots will back down, for reasons of party loyalty. I’ll put a wager on it.
Anne Perkins questions whether the Tories will survive in the Guardian today, and thinks not
I do not share her optimism: they will suspend democracy first
That might be a blog ion the morning
“I do not share [Ann Perkins’] optimism: they will suspend democracy first”
I might have to take issue with your use of tense there, Richard.
“I believe the biggest problem now is apathy.”
What possible excuse could anyone in Britain have for being apathetic about this? None. Even the surmise that this may be the case merely underscores the proposition that Brexit has inadvertently brought to the fore; an endemic problem that has lain half-hidden in plain sight, ever since the Empire expired: The British Union’s ‘time’ may now be over.
John S Warren asks:
“What possible excuse could anyone in Britain have for being apathetic about this? ”
None whatsoever. It is inexcusable, but this is where we are. We have a population that doesn’t ‘do’ politics. doesn’t ‘do’ economics.
It’s learned and trained, wilful stupidity on a massive scale.
Even in Scotland, where there is the hope of escape, a referendum majority is not assured for independence from this madness.
I think people (AKA brexiters) won’t get it until somebody like Nissan, Toyota says we’re leaving. Airbus have alluded to it but somebody actually putting their head above the parapet and walks it’ll all be an illusion.
It may be BMW
Jaguar have already begun the process
The symbolism of losing Jaguar would be poignant.
Marco Fante says:
“The symbolism of losing Jaguar would be poignant.”
‘We’ lost Jaguar decades ago didn’t we ? I thought Jaguar was a Ford with a cat on the bonnet.
The nearest thing we have to an automobile industry is Morgan. I think they are still free-standing.
Many of the British electorate have allowed themselves to be scammed by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. This is readily apparent in the rhetoric of the speech Theresa May made last Wednesday evening to a thinktank reception in which she stated:-
“Nothing would hurt our democracy more than to give the people the choice, and then not to trust their judgement when they give it.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/22/is-a-post-brexit-tory-party-an-oxymoron
The key word in that statement was her use of the word “choice” which May and Corbyn have deliberately chosen to misinterpret as not an “indicative” and “conditional” decision made by the Leave voters but to leave come hell or high water! They have refused to acknowledge that an indeterminate number of Leave voters may want to reject any negotiated deal Theresa May comes up or the alternative of a No Deal. This ought to have been obvious to both party leaders given the fact May and Corbyn have failed to come up with a detailed plan after two years of squabbling in her Government Cabinet and his Shadow Cabinet!
Well said
I’ve said it before – maybe BREXIT and its consequences is something that we have to go through in order to learn that we as a nation have been sacrificed on the altar of Tory unity?
My 13 year old son recently came back from a school visit to an engineering exhibition so enthused that now he wants to be a marine engineer. Yet here in the East Midlands, one of our oldest and grandest engineering firms is making 3000+ people redundant and now we’re hearing that Airbus may bail out of the UK because of BREXIT. It’s a good job he is learning German so well as maybe he will end up there? I’d encourage him to go if he develops his talent. But it is sad – look at GKN (or what’s left of it) now the subject of a hostile take over. Our industrial policy is…………well – do we actually have one?
I’ve been watching the PBS documentary on the Vietnam war (it is very good) and it seems that it wasn’t enough that France lost so many men and lost Vietnam altogether by doing the wrong thing: it seems that America came in and did the wrong thing righter (spending even more money and resources) for no good reason. They used exactly the same tactics as the French and made a bigger hash of it. Wasn’t doing the same thing and expecting better results the definition of insanity?
Therefore our capacity to learn from big events like BREXIT must be questioned. I hope that we do learn and change but there is a possibility that we won’t. And the Tories and their Establishment will no doubt find others easily led people can poke the finger of blame at.
One thing the American military are good at is acronyms. And BREXIT is definitely SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fucked Up. And after BREXIT is will be FUBAR – Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
…..”But because no one in UK politics has anything like the authority or the ability, vision, intellect and charisma to explain that something else is possible and lay out the way to achieve that alternative…….”
Bit depressing after a spirit lifting day in London yesterday. Anna Soubury and Caroline Lucas probably gave the best speeches…..but I fear that you are correct. The folk in London yesterday are my kind of Britain – just need something / somebody to mobilise all of them and all of their associated constituency.
We have an abject failure of political leadership……………
Robin Curtis says:
“……..after a spirit lifting day in London yesterday. Anna Soubury and Caroline Lucas probably gave the best speeches…..”
Hang-on to the good vibe, Robin. I went to Bannockburn for the Indy march (I wish there was abetter word than march – ‘march’ has martial overtones).
‘They’ diverted the procession through the housing ‘schemes’ and away from the main city streets. Out of sight out of mind (?) Foot. Bullet hole.
Excellent. We processed amongst the homes of people who will benefit from an independent Scotland. The people out for their afternoon retail therapy don’t give a toss.
I saw one disgruntled man who seemed to be put out by the proceedings. Everybody else enjoyed the event and people came and stood in their gardens and brought out their children to see the sight. Some even waved the flags they had to hand.
It was uplifting. I was glad I was there. It was real.
Both events sound good
We will survive, overall
But there will be casualties on the way
As was said before the abolition of the gold standard and the failure to join the Euro…
I hope some civil servants have thought about contingency plans, but it seems to me that we are running out of time to put anything substantial in place before next March.
Our government may be able to rush something through our Parliament in a few days, but that won’t happen at the European Parliament or in many of the EU27.
Perhaps the best we can hope for is agreeing with the EU that we need another six or nine months to agree definitive agreements, and until then we might formally leave the EU but in the meantime continue as we are. This can’t become a “transitional” or “implementation” phase until we know where were are transitioning towards, or what we are implementing.
Andrew says:
“I hope some civil servants have thought about contingency plans,….”
Like taking early retirement ? 🙂
“……agreeing with the EU that we need another six or nine months to agree definitive agreements, …..”
Make that six or nine YEARS and we’re getting realistic.