The biggest claim made by Brexiteers right now is that Remainers do not understand them. If only we tried a bit harder it would be obvious what this is all about, they say.
It's about national pride; democracy; taking back control; having our own laws; deciding who lives here.
I think those are their claims. Tell me if there are more. Just don't mention economics: it does not come into it.
And I have genuinely heard all those points. And I comprehend them. I also happen to think they're misplaced with Brexit. That will destroy national pride. It's undermining democracy, very clearly. We're not getting control: we'll be out of control. Who knows who will be making our laws when the Union collapses, but either way the WTO will still be imposed on us. And we do already in very large degree have the ability to decide who lives here and have never exercised it.
So, at a gut level the argument makes no sense. Sorry, but that is the case. None of the objectives of Brexit are going to be achieved by doing it.
It's worse though. We would have expected those with the political leadership of the Brexit cause to have worked out what they were doing. We know they didn't: they only really intended to 'blow the doors off' and then Cummings messed up their plans, and those of all the rest of us.
And as result we are utterly rudderless. And they are utterly clueless. Hence this wholly appropriate comment on the blog from someone who calls himself Benzo but whose real identity I admit I know:
I'm having a real hard time trying to understand what the objectives of the Brexiteers are with respect of Northern Ireland.
The way I see you have the following options:
i) UK stays in a customs union and keeps free movement, including NI
ii) UK except NI leaves customs union and ends free movement, border in the Irish Sea
iii) UK incl. NI leaves customs union and ends movement, north south border in Ireland.But the Brexiteers will not accept any of the three. Their argument seems to be that i) is totally out of the question, that is why we are leaving. ii) It's absolutely unacceptable to them that there should be a difference between NI and the rest of the UK. And that iii) is unacceptable, but also unnecessary, if it happens it will be the fault of the EU.
So the question is posed to the Brexiteers, how do you solve this problem? To which they reply “Malthouse, alternative arrangements, technology”. But of course when pressed on what that would entail, they can't give an answer… because it's not possible.
The rhetoric amongst Brexiteers now seems to be “well, if there's a border with the EU, then that is the fault of the big, bad EU, not us!”.
Which is the most impossible logical situation to be in…
— It's the UK (Brexiteers) that wants to exit the EU and have an independent regulatory regime for our goods and services. This is not compatible with an open border, not on the EU's terms, but also not the UK's. It's not ‘taking back control' to have an uncontrolled flow of smuggled goods into the country through NI.
— It's the UK that wants to end free movement. It's not taking back control to have an open border where people can just come and go as they please. As far as I can tell it is impossible to have immigration controls between Ireland and the UK post free movement, without first coming up some incredibly sophisticated system. I mean come on, we don't even do exit controls at our ports. We have pretty much no idea who is in the UK as it is.
So — the Brexiteers are demanding the impossible. It's contradictory ON THEIR OWN TERMS. Somewhere they have to make a decision about having a border somewhere, and clearly that's not politically acceptable between the Republic and NI.
Disingenuous doesn't even begin to cover it. More like, trying to achieve the logically impossible without even knowing what they want to achieve.
Spot on Benzo: there is no logic here. And the Brexiteers are demanding the impossible. That's because they never did consider that they wanted this: they did, quite literally, just want to keep the pot boiling and give it a good stir. They never intended Brexit to happen. All they wanted was a bit of blue on blue action. If they had they'd have thought these things through they'd have anticipated these problems. But they never did. Because they never thought that they needed to. So they didn't. And so they have no answer to them.
And that's why Brexiteers are impossible to understand.
Just remember: this was never meant to happen.
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The arguments (as I understand them) is this:
1. How a people are governed is paramount over economics. Well governed people are usually prosperous. Self determination movements ranging from the US in 1776, Ireland in 1916-21, India in 1947, ex colonies in Africa and elsewhere, ex USSR states – the economics was always secondary. Was there a ‘pride’ in being self governing among nations? I’d say so.
2. There are largely 3 ways in which people have been governed throughout history. The tribe/clan, the nation state and then the supranational entity. Everywhere the supranational experiment has been tried (since ancient times) it has become self serving and unaccountable. The Romans, British Empire, Austro-Hungarian, Ottomans, Soviets. Every one.
3. The best form is the nation state that is democratic, self-determining, accountable and has liberal values (ie majority rules doesnt mean the majority can bully the minority). It doesn’t interfere in the affairs of other countries other than by invitation. The best run countries follow this.
4. The EU is following the trodden path of supranational entities in becoming undemocratic and unaccountable.
5. Tony Benn took this view of the EU. He was hardly right wing. I’m not on his side in politics but he was a decent, principled man whose views on Europe resonated across party lines. His views certainly resonated with me. I’d regard him as the father of Brexit.
You can disagree with this view, but this is the argument, as I understand it.
Fine
You can give a reason
But you can’t explain how to do it and honour our commitments
Nor can you explain how we are still a nation or why you think we passed our sovereignty to the EU when very clearly we never have, in the slightest
So as an argument that’s so full of holes and so not based on truth or reality it takes us nowehere
Yes, we have been let down because the Treaty was negligently written. The issue of ‘how to do it and honour commitments’ should have been in exit arrangement agreed within the treaty at least at a ‘principles’ level. Any lawyer drafting any kind of collaboration agreement knows this. We’ve been badly let down, but we are where we are.
Whoever drafted A50 (Lord Kerr?) thought any MS could leave in 2 years and that land borders with other MS states weren’t an issue worth the ink.
Also, do you really think the US knew ‘how to leave’? They had tens of thousands dead, having to work it out from scratch. Was that an overriding argument not to leave the British empire? Ditto India, Ireland, ex Soviet states.
Regarding sovereignty: we retain sovereignty if we can leave.
Can you explain: assume there is an EU Law X. The UK originally agreed to that law. But in 10 years time, UK public opinion shifts dramatically. We vote in a government in a landslide committed to that repeal. Also, assume the Finns, Portuguese and the French have different governments that are still quite happy with EU Law X.
Sovereign countries like Japan, Australia or Canada would just go ahead and repeal that law without having to consult the Finns or anyone else.
How do we do it?
As excuses go that has to be just about the worst I have ever read
You’re saying the GFA should have included what might politely be called an ‘If the UK want to fuck this up’ clause? When the whole object of the GFA was closer union within the existing political paradigm I politely suggest you’re a charlatan
Ditto re A50
But I do note you propose warfare and multiple deaths as a solution
How do you live with yourself?
A50 included a right to leave for all MS (not just UK) but didnt tell anyone how to do it – even on a basic ‘principles’ level.
All MS have a land border with at least one other MS other than Malta and Cyprus. Nor did it cover principles for exit payments, which would apply to anyone leaving. This is not about Britain doing anything. Any country was entitled to leave – it could have been anyone.
Negligence in my view. And it has got us where we are today. Nobody knows what they’re doing.
No, I am not advocating warfare, not sure how you construed that. My point was to show that other peoples have faced really rough paths to self determination. They still went ahead, and in all the cases I’ve cited, their step into the unknown has been justified in hindsight.
You still haven’t answered my question on how we change Bad Law X. I suspect you don’t know the answer.
No one else has a GFA
Your logic is not sound (or just bogus) in that case
Tell me what Bad Law you are referring to?
“How do we do it?”
You want to do it; you tell us. Blame is not either a programme or a solution. Oh, and “it” actually has to work.
Precisely
It’s not my job to make a mess up work
Some classic untruths on here. Still it’s good to see both sides of the argument getting expressed, and a few straw men being put up to be knocked down.
It’s a pity some people can’t understand both sides of the argument even if they only agree with some of it.
That has to be one of the blandest, most useless co9mments here for some time
What the heck is it about?
Lisbon was signed about a decade after the Belfast Agreement. It was for UK and RoI to supplement A50 THEN with a bilateral greement on their arrangements if either wanted to leave.
If they couldn’t agree, A50 should have said ‘A50 does not apply to RoI or UK’. Then we all know the deal (but it would have other implications).
That bilateral agreement could have either been a side agreement, or a special clause in the Lisbon Agreement or an amendment to the Belfast Agreement.
But to sign off on A50 without even contemplating it was pretty careless. The fruits of that carelessness are now being seen.
As for ‘which is the Bad Law X’ – there are some lousy EU laws but that is not my point. My point is about binding future generations – we cannot guarantee future generations will see things as we do.
All laws that get repealed or changed were seen as ‘good laws’ at one time, and later cease to be so. It is difficult to believe EU laws are uniquely immune to this.
In sovereign countries, future generations can change the law without consulting other countries. They just do it.
If you’re a member state and want to change the law through democratic means, how do you do it unilaterally without having to consult other countries or a bureaucracy (the EC)?
I don’t know, I haven’t met anyone who knows. Tony Benn didn’t seem to know, which was at the heart of his irritation.
With respect, you really are a charlatan
You’d have foregone peace in Northern Ireland for a discussion on the wholly unforeseeable prospect of A50
You have clearly never
a) Done a negotiation
b) Done politics
c) taken responsibility for anything
You’re also callous in your indifference
And really do not understand how the EU works either – which is absurd
I am happy to report you are banned
A democratic Border Poll solves the legal problem. Options
A. Should NI Unite with Ireland Y/N
If the collective answer to A. Is NO then
B. Should NI stay in the Customs Union and Single Market with a Border in the Irish Sea or
C. NI resiles the GFA, exits the EU and aligns with the UK with a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The answers may not solve the politics but at least the People would get to decide.
But you are ignoring the fact that this is far from the only issue on the Irish border
Other matters cannot be ignored
“Just remember: this was never meant to happen.”
Yep. Remember Farage at the referendum count. It is said that he hadn’t even intended to bother turning-up. Probably wearing his pyjamas under his suit !
Immediate back-pedalling on Brexit promises across the media the very next day….
And absolutely no coherent input from David Davis during his entire tenure as Brexit Secretary; just bombastic waffling.
This is the will of the people? I don’t think so. Not even the will of those of caused all the stir in the first place.
I like ‘only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’ in this context. Wish I’d thought of it. 🙂
Andy, I believe the phrase was addressed to Michael Gove the moment the outcome of the vote became clear by his wife, Sarah Vine (hope I got that right on both counts – person, and name).
That’s my belief too
It’s worth commenting on the aptness of the reference, given that the Brexiteers are in the position of the robbers in the “Italian Job”, perilously balanced over the abyss, as they seek to retain their stolen goods.
Alas, the UK electorate is part of the stolen goods, itself in danger of being drawn into the abyss by the malefactors.
And if that comment marks me out as a Remainiac Remainer – you bet, given that I view the decision to leave the EU as the UK’s greatest blunder since stumbling into the unnecessary Crimean War, in 1854.
Indeed, it could be on a par with the way we sleep-walked into WW1, which could possibly have been avoided with more intelligent and engaged diplomacy, but I fear some conflict in Europe was almost unavoidable.
For a more worrying historical parallel, the genesis of the 17th century Civil War, and its polarisation and witch hunting exhibits many similarities with the course of the BREXIT farrago.
The parallels with 1642 are rather too strong…
So 17.1 Million people, a majority of those who voted, decided they wished to leave the EU, but because they didn’t understand all of the consequences of their decision, but more specifically you can’t understand their motivations, their decision shouldn’t be honoured ?
The government’s job is to implement the will of the people, and if some things are difficult to implement, so what ? It doesn’t make the people’s decision any less valid. I thought as a liberal you would at least respect others right to want things you don’t, even if the consequences are uncomfortable.
Democracy eh ? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
You know this was a non-binding, guidance vote?
And that’s it?
And you know parliamentary sovereignty is key? And referendums are not?
So sure, let democracy rule
Brian, there isn’t a single ‘will of the people’ with regards to Brexit and it’s consequences. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain. NI voted to remain. So to say ‘will of the people’ is to mean a narrow-majority predominantly consisting of English voters. The referendum does not overrule the sovereignty of Scotland and NI.
How Brexit is implemented has serious consequences which need serious consideration. The point of my original comment was to say that Brexit is not going anywhere at present because the people who are arguing for it, are totally unable to propose a form of Brexit that they are able to accept. Brexiteers overwhelmingly want to stop freedom of movement and restrict immigration. How are they going to do what when they are refusing to have a hard border with the EU? It’s a contradiction in terms.
Precisely
Benz0, I realise this risks triggering certain individuals, but the Referendum was a United Kingdom, rather than a constituent country, referendum, and the result was therefore an overall United Kingdom outcome (Given that it was the UK that was a member of the EU, rather than on an individual constituent country basis). If Scotland and NI had voted to leave, and England to remain, would people still be vehemently campaigning for national interests to override the outcome decided by the entire Union ?
As to the Irish border question, I agree the inherent contradiction, but to conflate difficulty in finding a solution as being a reason to overturn the democratic will of the majority of the people of the entire Union, as many seem want to do, is just an ongoing attempt to deride and destabilise the present government because of their political hue.
Answer the question
How do you make your wish work?
Tell me that and you’re credible
Until you can, you’re wasting everyone’s time, including your own
So Brian, stamp your feet! Demand someone else solve your problems!
Are you 2?
‘So Brian, stamp your feet! Demand someone else solve your problems!
Are you 2?’
I wasn’t aware I was stamping my feet like a 2 year old. Lacking your obvious rapier wit, I’ll avoid an ad hominem retort. They’re the government. Finding solutions to societal problems is what I pay them to do. Do I have to like every solution they come up with ? No. Do I have the experience and knowledge of the accumulated arms of government they do to come up with a solution ? No. So I let them get on with it and hope that the outcome isn’t too painful.
But you’re probably right, it’s better that we ignore the will of the people because a few people on a blog with an obvious political bias can come up with problems they themselves don’t know the answer to.
Hang on – the remain government did not want Brexit
Now you have got a Brexit government and it definitely cannot solve the problem
Who is they that you are blaming?
And since you helped get them there, why are you not accepting the blame for their failure?
There is one democratic solution which solves the Brexity problem, but I am biased.
First #DissolveTheUnion and that leaves the Kingdom of England with the “English border in Ireland” problem.
Second have a Border poll in accordance with the GFA. This needs caveats with the outcomes being carefully couched, eg if NI wants to stay in UK then either a) hard border on the island or b) NI stays in Customs Union and Single Market. Else if both Ireland and NI agree then Ireland is reunited.
England and Wales can then swan off together to their “Happy Place”.
Many voted leave out of a mischievous sense and many others because they were targeted via their FB as Cummings proudly crowed
“In the official 10 week campaign we served about one billion targeted digital adverts, mostly via Facebook and strongly weighted to the period around postal voting and the last 10 days of the campaign…”
People don’t like to admit they were tricked – Mark Twain said something about that.
Anecdotally, my good friend was begining to crack (after not being able to give me a SINGLE bad event in his life that could be laid at the door of EU membership, whilst still believing his occasional jobs in the EU would not be in anyway affected!) until yesterdays 4 page public letter from Johnson (Cummings) to the EU! Finally he says this is what it’s about – Sovereignty!
Yup Cummings’ brainwashing has a lot to answer for!
It’s not even clear why they are against the EU in the first place. Simon Wren-Lewis notes that “most supporters of Brexit cannot name an EU based law that has a significant negative impact on their lives, let alone a law that the UK opposed at the time, let alone compare that to the many EU laws that have brought benefits”.
I’ve just finished reading Quinn Slobodian’s book ‘Globalists’ about the birth of neoliberalism and it is clear that the EU fits very neatly into a certain neoliberal model with its four freedoms of capital, goods, services and labour and its use of the European Court of Justice to insulate the market from political disruption and enshrine competition, something one would think would sit well with the Tory party. Bearing in mind that it was Thatcher who was instrumental in the creation of the single market, the longstanding Tory anathema towards it doesn’t make sense, unless you see a no deal exit as an attempt to destroy the EU. There were always two types of neoliberal; one who saw the creation of a federation limited to a specific area as worth pursuing, the other for whom the market was global, or it was nothing. These globalists were steadfastly against the creation of “bloc Europe”.
What were seeing emerge, it seems to me, is an attempt by the UK to align itself with the extreme economic nationalism of the US which, in its Trumpian form, is trying to destroy every other economic model on the planet, whether that’s the regulatory union of the EU or the market socialism of China. The US, through its economic warfare against Iran and Venezuela, is seeking to control energy production; through its action against Huawei it is seeking to control access to cyberspace. Everything the US does seems aimed at ensuring that it is the American way or no way. The UK on its own can do next to nothing but, as an adjunct to the US with its dollar power, the projection of its laws extraterritorially and the use of its military, it can help the US impose a globalised American-controlled economy on the rest of the world.
Whether this was originally intended by the framers of the referendum I do not know. If actions reveal intentions, however, it is clear from Johnson’s actions that he has no intention of agreeing a deal with the EU, he has no intention of delivering a viable border in Ireland and he has no intention of allowing any parliamentary process that could thwart a no deal departure. The cosying up to Trump and Bolton, the decision to join the US military force in the Middle East, tell their own story.
Our current government does not care what happens to the people in this country. Just as Cameron gambled the future of the UK assuming his insouciant arrogance would win the day, so Johnson is gambling that aligning ourselves with the US, and damning our relations with everybody else, is the winning global strategy.
Well said Russell Davies. It is we the ordinary people who will pay the price, and I expect for quite a number that will be directly with their life- either in wars that the USA and its military machine need to keep instigating and the kick back they will generate in terrorist attacks in the UK, or more indirectly through lack of medical care and the destruction of the welfare state.
The majority of those who voted guided the government on their favoured course of action.
The government had promised to implement the result prior to the referendum
The Commons voted by a 498 to 114 majority to approve the 2nd reading of the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 to allow the PM to invoke Article 50 unconditionally.
Your point about parliamentary sovereignty is spot on. It very much looks as if democracy is indeed ruling.
What actually looks desperate is the machine gun etiquette of Remainers attempting to overturn that sovereignty by trying to conflate problems of implementation with a deficiency of democracy.
So far no government has worked out how to deliver on A50
You think over-riding everything else decided over decades is a solution to that?
This one advisory vote trumps all?
Really?
Why?
And how do you solve the Irish question? No fantasies please. Hard,cold facts, recognising the international laws that bind us, come what may?
Please tell
@Brian James. Damned if you do? Machine gun etiquette? Dave Vanian commented recently. Captain Sensible & Rat Scabies are too obvious. Perhaps Ray Burns, Chris Millar or Algy Ward?
Brian James says:
“The majority of those who voted guided the government on their favoured course of action.
The government had promised to implement the result prior to the referendum”
Yes, but….if the people guided the government on their preference that pigs should have wings, or that all UK citizens should henceforth have millionaire incomes what would have been the result ? The government may well have promised to implement the wish of the public, but if it can’t deliver, because it was a fantasy proposition…? What then ? Because that’s kind of where we are….or somewhere similar.
You are right
If a bunch of idiots had persuaded themselves that they could solve their internal party politics by having a referendum on whether everyone should have a free foreign holiday of at least a month a year the majority would have been overwhelming
It does not mean it could have been delivered
To me this is the definitive blog about how BREXIT came about in the way that it has.
There is nothing else to say – it sums matters up perfectly as far as I am concerned. My compliments to the chefs.
I fear however, that we will be writing a lot more about what happens next as well as what it might be like to live in a No Deal world. My hope is that this blog captures it for posterity and hopefully it will contribute to future understanding and insight into these terrible times we live in.
Thanks PSR
Let’s call his cohorts “Brian James and the Brains” and lets hope they don’t stab your back as they look for their new rose and they just smash it up. All very immature and careless in my book. After all politics and the EU is a serious business.
The bad law X argument further up really annoys me. We have a say while we’re in the EU….that’s what MEPs are for. The fact is though, we don’t take them seriously so we we end up electing someone who goes to the EU parliament and basically tells them the EU is shit, they’re all shit and that we want to leave. Imagine doing that at a meeting with execs at the company you work for. That would be a P45 generating event if I did that. Not only that but the argument that we’d be stuck if other countries are in favour of bad law X….wait a sec, this sounds like the Brexit vote! Aren’t we told to suck it up and use our newly created sovereignty to make the UK great again? Really.
We also have a say through the Commission and Council
The claim that we have no say is quite absurd
Steve C says:
“But to sign off on A50 without even contemplating it was pretty careless. The fruits of that carelessness are now being seen.”
I’m reading that as criticism of the EU; not making the separation terms clear.
If we’re considering what was ‘pretty careless’ I’d say Theresa Mat signing up to being bound by an agreement which it was well known had no coherent structure, ranks very highly.
I likened it at the time to agreeing to a divorce (as wife) in a state where there is a divorce law but no precedent or case law and the arbiter of fairness is the husband. There is no higher authority to be referred to. I’d call that reckless.
I think the truth is even uglier.
There is a plan. The Minford Plan, published on the Economists for Free Trade website. https://www.economistsforfreetrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/From-Project-Fear-to-Project-Prosperity-An-Introduction-15-Aug-17-2.pdf
When it was first published in 2017 leading lights in the Brexit movement started talking about the future in terms explicitly laid out in Minford’s report but they realised that the plan, which includes the utter destruction of the UK manufacturing, fishing and farming sectors was political suicide and stopped talking about it.
Stopped talking about it.
Remember that picture where the ERG met to work out the Brexit plan and they were all just sat there with their heads in their hands? They weren’t struggling to work out the plan. They were struggling, imo, to work out what they could say. And came up with nothing.
If we no deal then transition to what Minford calls Unilateral Free Trade by unilaterally removing our tarriffs it will be as transformative as when Thatcher dismantled heavy industry and repurposed the UK towards finance. And I suspect a lot less successful but I can also see why some of them have optimism in this plan.
One Tory junior minister briefly let the cat out of the bag when he mentioned that in the economy of the future workers would be web designers, estate agents and insurance clerks. Selling services to the world. That’s their plan and obviously the Left Behind leave supporters are going to be utterly stranded if they succeed in implementing it.
If that is the plan we are in deep trouble
@Simon
….and our current Prime Minister says ‘Fuck business’. (And by implication at least Fuck the peripheral countries, and the ‘regions’ of the UK.)
And he has at least one minister in his cabinet who has said that if companies go to the wall it’ll be a price worth paying….
This is a government acting in the interests of a vanishingly small constituency of supporters. 🙁
This excerpt from a discussion between former WTO head Pascal Lamy and Andrea Leadsom on Newsnight in June 2016 is rather illuminating. I’ve skipped to the relevant part. He brings up Minford’s proposal of having zero tariffs and then he points out to Leadsom, that if you have zero tariffs then you have nothing to offer other countries in trade negotiations. She then has a really bemused, glazed expression in her eyes that says to me:
– “I have no comprehension of what you are talking about”
– “how dare you question the validity of my argument with facts and logic – the UK press would not dare”
https://youtu.be/Z6LVNpfES8k?t=204
Benz0 says:
“….She [Leadsom] then has a really bemused, glazed expression in her eyes …..”
That is her standard default expression isn’t it. ? It is not necessary to ask her a question to get a blank look….the curtains are open, but the lights are out. And when she opens her mouth it is generally clear that there is no one home.