Passively bitching is what Britain does best.
There won’t be a second referendum. This is because:
Referendum -> outcry -> referendum -> outcry -> referendum… can you see the pattern here?
It’s the same reason why Scotland won’t get a 2nd indyref in my lifetime. They had their say for a generation.
I honestly think the outcome would be a lot different. Like stay would win by 5-12%. By now the lies of Brexit have become much more clear with the big two terms of Brexit that stand out… fishing rights and immigration. With the NHS money lies gone amoungst a bunch of other items Brexit promised (that were deception), the outcome would be flipped. Equally, those who saw their lack of votes were actually quite critical being a mobilizer. It’s like Democrats who don’t get out to vote in this country. It basically elects the opposition.
Back in 2016 I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations that showed that, holding turnout constant, the result would shift from Leave to Remain in 5 years based purely on demographic change (i.e. Leave voters dying off.)
It hasn’t been 5 years, but then turnout probably wouldn’t be constant either. I suspect a lot more “young” (under 60) voters would show up if somehow there was a second referendum.
I think this all hinges on Gove. He is quite influential and has thus far been silent. Coming out in favour of May will give her some breathing room. A resignation might be the first domino.
Guardian is reporting that May offered Gove the Brexit Secretary position, but that he said he would only take it if he could toss out her deal and negotiate a new one.
I am hopeful. For the first time in two years we are seeing Brexit can be stopped and we have a chance to remain in the EU. It needs a new vote, which we will probably get by default if May loses a confidence vote and a general election happens.
First good news about the disaster of Brexit for a while. Fingers crossed this thing will get stopped.
That would be great, but honestly I don’t see how it happens. Who is the Tory leader who replaces May and hammers through the House a bill to rescind the Article 50 letter? Where do the votes come from? Absent that, the UK is out.
We will see. When you are headed off a cliff and the EU has repeatedly said they will happily accept the UK remaining then I think peoples minds will get focused quickly.
Besides in a general election Labour would likely win a majority and all bets are off.
A general election would come to late to stop Brexit. And the problem is that it isn’t up to people. It’s a question of whether there is a Tory member with the courage to light his/her career on fire, and enough votes to help pile on the wood.
Well this is UK politics, things can change, dramatically and quickly as we have an unwritten constitution.
Also, this guy I like.
I found this mildly helpful in decoding this mess.
It’s missing the “no deal” option, because the Guardian has increasingly become not only partisan (which it has always been in the fine tradition of UK print news), but dishonestly so.
In the absence of any legislation being passed we get no deal exit on schedule. The government can’t even extend the negotiation period without primary legislation. Legislation cannot be passed without the will of the government and a majority of the house.
Of course that would be no deal without even preparatory legislation which would be even more of a disaster, but that’s the current law of the land.
No deal isn’t a separate option, it’s implicit in most of the options listed.
Yeah. The Guardian is totally biased. No doubt. As you say most UK papers wear that on their sleeve.
I do think (I am remote so not there) the country does seem unified in not thinking much of this deal. Its like the worst of both worlds pleasing neither camp.
I have sympathy for May though. It has emerged that delivering the putative Brexit of the referendum is impossible. That nobodys fault, not hers or the negotiators or the Brexit campaigners or Remain campaigners. We just have more information now.
It’s a deal designed to appeal to remainers who have spent the last two years convincing themselves that they actually really want to leave.
This is, very possibly, a minority of one (Theresa May) :)
It’s actually a clever way of achieving a certain set of goals (relatively frictionless trade, no free movement, soft Irish border) at the expense of a bunch of other aspects of the deal that favour the EU tremendously.
But given the leave campaign went with the tagline “take back control” it’s pretty clearly not what Leave voters thought they were voting for - better to compromise on the economics than on the sovereignty.
Well put.
Bullshit. Almost all of that information was available before the referendum, and in many cases was brought up by Remain voices. It was either ignored, shouted down as Project Fear, or just lied about. And most of the post-referendum information consists of May’s red lines, which are of course her fault.