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Jan 2020
10:46am, 12 Jan 2020
25,279 posts
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Wriggling Snake
1975_United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum
the in vote 1970s, England was most pro European
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Jan 2020
11:47am, 12 Jan 2020
1,993 posts
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Canute
As I understand the opinion polls, on balance the UK is still pro-European, and even England is not over-whelmingly anti-European. However dishonesty and party-political short-sightedness have landed us in the current mess. We must acknowledge that the Leave side ‘won’ the battle, and that we are definitely leaving the EU.
However in a democracy, winning a battle does not mean crushing alternative views. At the moment BJ has the power to impose his will without restraint. But whether or not MacMillan ever did say ‘events dear boy, events..’ the reality is that the shape of Brexit is still very unclear and ‘events’ might yet constrain BJ. We must therefore do all that is reasonable to keep debate about the nature of our relationship with Europe alive, and even more crucially, all that is possible to re-establish the credibility of honesty in debate.
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Jan 2020
2:05pm, 12 Jan 2020
2,517 posts
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J2R
Canute raises a very important point when he says that "in a democracy, winning a battle does not mean crushing alternative views", a point the Leave side, and the Government, have completely ignored, by treating the views of the 48% who voted Remain (a figure which would be rather higher now) as being completely irrelevant. Or worse, as being seditious - we have been called 'traitors' who should be hanged at Tyburn.
So, as an interesting thought experiment, what would the Remainers on here (hereinafter referred to as 'we', as I am one, although I know not everyone on here is) want to have done had the result gone the other way, 52% Remain? What would have been done to accommodate the views of the 48% who wanted out? My first instinct is to say better education, better explanation of the benefits of EU membership, but that doesn't really cut the mustard - attempting to change people's views isn't any kind of concession to the people who hold those views. We would have to give them something concrete to let them know that their views - representing nearly half of the vote - were being listened to. Even if we regarded those views as based on ignorance (or deception), we would nonetheless have to respect them.
I find it difficult to think of something, to be honest, which is actually Brexit-related. Because immigration WAS an issue, whether or not it should have been, one might suggest tightening up the immigration controls, at least enforcing the restrictions which the EU allows but which were not implemented here. But that offends me as it plays into the erroneous notion that immigration is a Bad Thing, not a potential positive for a country.
Another option would be to do something to address the problems caused in poorer areas by austerity. But that's effectively telling the people there that they got it wrong, it wasn't EU membership which was the problem. And besides, contrary to the myth, a very large part of the Brexit vote did not in fact come from those economically neglected, predominantly Northern, areas but was from more affluent areas in the South, mainly from an older demographic, and was ideological in nature. What concessions do you make to these people?
It's a difficult area!
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Jan 2020
2:08pm, 12 Jan 2020
8,343 posts
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simbil
The tories went for a ‘pure’ Brexit in order to suck the life out of the Brexit Party and it worked very well for them at the general election. They made no concessions to remainers and I don’t expect any - they are shaping up to be more like a trump government that leads for its supporters.
Debates and truthfulness are always worth having but I don’t think they will make any practical difference over the next year or two.
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Jan 2020
2:12pm, 12 Jan 2020
15,732 posts
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Bazoaxe
J2R, I think you can see in Scotland what happened. 55% breathed a sigh of relief that we didnt inflict unneccesary pain on ourselves but that was it. Nothing done to try and build bridges or explain why the outcome was in all our interests.
As a result the independence demand continue and brexit is being used as another level to try and have another go.
I think we would have just seen more of the same demands for a new vote by the brexiteers until they get their way.
Part of me would like another independence referendum and within that the benefits of remaining in the union are made clear rather than the consequences of independence and hopefully we put the independence debate to bed for a long time.
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Jan 2020
2:32pm, 12 Jan 2020
8,344 posts
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simbil
x-post J2R - a narrow remain vote would have indicated that huge swathes of the population are unhappy and so that should have been followed up with politicians figuring out why that is and making changes - even changes with our relationship with the EU.
For Scotland, they should see more developed powers as a result of their referendum.
I'm not sure my opinion is a popular one though - there seems to be plenty of appetite for keeping it simple and having winners and losers.
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Jan 2020
2:47pm, 12 Jan 2020
6,102 posts
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jda
Hard to find a compromise on such a binary issue. People who say "sovereignty" aren't going to be appeased by anything much other than withdrawing from supranational power-sharing agreements and people who say "the nasty germans are out to get us" aren't going to be appeased by anything much short of war.
Since that pretty much covers my direct acquaintance with brexit voters, I don't think there was ever much chance of a compromise 
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Jan 2020
2:47pm, 12 Jan 2020
1,994 posts
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Canute
J2R, there was probably no single reason why leavers voted leave and therefore no single remedy that could have been offered to allevariate their concern if they had lost the battle.
Nonetheless if it had been 49% leave and 51% remain I wold have advocated two things:
1) That the financial benefits of EU membership be distributed more equitably in the country, especially more investment in the north of England
2) Reinstatement of the special funding awarded by Brown and taken away by Cameron/Osborne to supplement educational and health resources in the east of England where an influx of eastern European labour was keenly felt.
However that is largely irrelevant now.
Simbil, I agree there is no easily perceived way that ‘we’ can directly influence the course of Brexit in the near future.
But I suspect that any rational analysis of the situation in 2014 would have concluded that there was no way that UKIP and a minority of anti-EU Tories would manage to achieve a win for Brexit in 2016 and a BJ land-slide in 2019. ‘Events’ occurred, including bad decisions by Cameron and many others including Corbyn, and finally by Swinson. Many reasonably sensible people appear to have concluded that an irresponsible rogue was the best of the options available in December 2019.
I do not have a crystal ball, but with Trump at the helm in the US, BJ in control in the UK and the potential for instability in China despite Xi’s iron grip, the shape of UK-EU relationships could be moulded in unpredictable ways.
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Jan 2020
9:15pm, 12 Jan 2020
8,345 posts
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simbil
Canute, I’ve yet to see detailed large scale analysis of the vote in the general election but some early analysis seems to indicate that there was very little labour to Tory switch but a large BP to Tory switch.
And there was a decent switch of remainer Tories to Lib Dem’s.
The absolute numbers tell a very different story from the first past the post result.
So I’m not sure what exactly happened in the GE and am awaiting the broader data and moreover the analysis by Curtis and others.
That aside, labour surely could have done better and that was an event that helped the tories and a softer line from the Lib Dem’s would probably have been more widely welcomed.
As you say it is a very uncertain world with trump leading the US and an increasingly fragmented international community, so BoJo might find that a close relationship with the EU is the most pragmatic way forward for the short to medium term.
Very hard for him to square that with his GE campaign though, and given his style, I am not at all optimistic that we will see any kind of pragmatic and rational pivotal.
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Jan 2020
9:30pm, 12 Jan 2020
8,346 posts
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simbil
Jda, my dad is broadly speaking a sovereignty type Brexiter and would not easily be appeased. But he’s not stupid and has acknowledged both that the vote was close and that younger voters don’t tend to share his view but have a bigger stake in the future consequences.
So rationally he could come around to a more compromised Brexit if the heat was taken out of the debate and it became less about winning and more of a discussion on the future.
Alas, this ship has sailed.
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