Reflection

Time For Reflection

David Cameron's refusal to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of Rome has allowed time for reflection. Some EU leaders are calling for immediate negotiations but they are powerless to impose them. Yes, the UK does still have a good measure of independence. So, let's reflect.

It is becoming clearer by the day that the UK is now in some form of cloud cuckoo land. Nobody has any clear idea about what may happen in the near future; anyone can make claims and predictions and no one can refute them because there is little or no hard information to back any of them. We really are in uncharted waters; so let's have a look at how we got there and what little we do know from the sketchy outline charts that we have.

The EU referendum was promised by David Cameron before the last general election as a sop to the right-wing of his party and to appeal to the populist vote. How ironic then that populism is exactly what has caused his resignation. What happened in the run up to the referendum can be summed up by paraphrasing Winston Churchill: never before was so much done by so few to misinform so many. The touted savings on leaving the EU, the trumpeted £350 million per week paid to the EU (it's actually £163 million nett, but never mind the odd £100 million) is now conveniently being disowned by Nigel Farage and never was going to be a total saving anyway. The absolute conflict between control of borders and a trade agreement with the EU, which now splits the MPs in favour of leaving the EU completely in two (half want border control, half want a trade agreement), was never explained to the electorate. Allow free movement of labour or 40% of your exports face tariff barriers. It's as simple as that; the rules of the common market (unique market, actually, is its official name) state that. If a Labour party leader such as Corbyn had blythly stated he would spend an extra £350 million on the NHS with no hard evidence to back it, who would have believed him, who would not have asked where the money would come from? What happened to people's brains? How did all this go unexplained?

Well, few ever took the possibility of a vote for exit seriously. Most of Europe certainly didn't; they thought it was a peculiarly British side-show for peculiarly British reasons. It turns out that many voters in the UK who voted Leave took the same view; their cries of anguish in letters to newspapers and TV interviews that”we never thought we would actually leave” are everywhere. This was all just a fun exercise to play around with; so why bother with hard information? So the political powers in favour of Remain did little, certainly nowhere near enough. The Leave campaigners were free to proclaim emotive ambitions such as more democracy, control and independence (and more money), always populist vote-getters, to their hearts' content.

There is a known problem with referenda, which is why we almost never have them. Given single issues to vote on, a majority of any populace will be inclined to vote for the impossible. Asked to vote for lower or higher taxes, who wouldn't vote for the former? Asked then to vote for better or worse public services, who wouldn't vote for the former too. So you can easily win referenda, the problem is all about how you deliver, the fact that so often you can't.

And then the result came in……...A problem with such grand ambitions as greater democracy etc, that have so much appeal and trip so easily off the tongue, is that they need a known solid agenda behind them, strategies, actions to be taken that will achieve them, actions that can be seen to be possible and to deliver. Everyone knows this, as these kinds of questions are always posed about pre-general election promises made by politicians: how are you going to do it? The answers are known as a political manifesto, which parties publish before a general election. So where are the answers, the political manifesto for Brexit? It turns out they don't exist, at least as far as anyone knows. For the first time in living memory the UK voted en masse for a pig in a poke. Farage and Johnson are thus far remarkably quiet on the subject. In fact both are doing a good impression of having got themselves into a situation that they have no idea what to do with. They have dangled the vision of a promised land in front of voters and the voters have gone for it. But where exactly is it in our uncharted waters? Er, well, it's uncharted actually. But Columbus, looking for a northern sea route to India and China did find America (more or less); you never know your luck. Anyway, it's all just a fun game.

Except that it isn't. It happens to be just the most important decision the UK has had to take about its future in decades, based on about as much good information as Columbus had when he set off for India and China (yes, India and China, not America).

It now looks as though the UK may, just may, have made an awful mistake, conceivably the greatest mistake in its recent history for not just ourselves but also our progeny. Rather than just stick with a situation we all grumble about, but might reasonably hope to improve gradually, we've chosen to sail into uncharted waters, with progeny on board. If, in our short period of reflection, we decide this is indeed a huge mistake, what can we do?

By a supreme irony of ironies, the answer could just have been supplied by the Leave campaign. Nigel Farage, anticipating rejection in this fun exercise, had already stated that he would demand a second referendum if the result was within about 4%. It was. An eager Leave follower accordingly put up a website displaying a petition to Parliament for a second referendum. He said it attracted no interest before the referendum result. It has now though. Some two million people and counting have signed it within 48 hours, asking Parliament for a second referendum; all of them Remainers. If you realise that, for whatever reason, you've voted for the impossible or even a shot in the dark, what else would you do? Parliament of course decides but……….if you are in a situation that you've no idea what to do about and you are offered a possible way out, why not take it?

Friends' Reaction

My French and other European friends here reacted much as I did: with stupefaction. Britons have a reputation abroad for eccentrcity but not for outright stupidity. They simply could not believe that the UK could be so stupid. There is xenophobia here, of course, but never on such a gigantic scale. All the people I know here, rather than jeer or give me the cold shoulder, have expressed deep sympathy and continued support: they want me in France even if the UK doesn't want to be in Europe.