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Comments
It's abundantly clear that the rules for leaving the EU as laid out don't work.
Anyone with any sense would change them.
No-deal is such a catastrophic outcome that no responsible government could put it on the ballot paper.
I also think that 'go back and renegotiate' is a problematic, though not impossible option - that's where you're better off having a general election first or parliament would still be an impossible barrier to a deal. All the irreconcilable problems would remain irreconcilable (https://bit.ly/2CCsxqn), and then you really would end up in a 'neverendum' as you would have established the precedent of coming back to the people again with whatever new deal you had.
If there is no-deal, or parliament votes against the deal, then it's hard to see a general election being avoided - unless the PM is replaced by a hard-liner who chooses to coast through until we have no-deal. I don't see her being replaced by a moderate who aims for an EEA transition instead.
The big question is what happens if the government does fall and is replaced by Labour or a coalition. With the current Labour leader it's hard to see an Article 50 extension or second referendum being likely. I can see EEA+customs union being proposed though. If the current government hard presented that in the first place as a compromise, noting the narrow referendum vote, things would be far less difficult than they are now.
As it is, we're in a real mess.
I think that Article 50 could work as is, but we would have had to have forged a national consensus on what we wanted *before* activating it. Instead the government activated it before doing any real preparation, and then chose to advocate a form of Brexit that was miles away from the traditional 'we want to be in the Single Market but not in the institutions' position that most Eurosceptics had usually argued for, while at the same time saying that we wouldn't lose access to that market. That impossible promise and shift away from the centre has prevented any national consensus, and given remainers a second wind. A colossal strategic failure however you look at it. I could have sucked up a move to the EEA, but this Singapore-with-nuclear-weapons stuff that's being advocated now is chilling, and it's turned into a culture war. It's hard to see half the country every being reconciled to it.
We had the referendum, Leave won.
Both sides were equally guilty of misinformation - and the remain side had the huge added benefit of the Prime Minister, Chancellor, most of the Government and opposition, the Bank of England, other authorities and big business backing it.
If Remain had done it's job properly and pointed out why leaving with a decent deal would be nigh on impossible in practice (and perhaps flagging the small issue of Northern Ireland), instead of banging on about house prices etc, then it might have won.
But still there are an awful lot of people who see the EU as a terrible organisation, mainly concerned with furthering its own ends rather than the benefit of the people of Europe (see Greece, Italy etc), so maybe not.
The Government and authorities also had ample opportunity to work out that a blunt Leave / Remain vote without working out what people wanted was a dumb move.
We stuffed the referendum up, but Leave won.
Overturning a democratic vote like that is not a good move in my mind.
So, I don't think Remain should be on a second vote.
Article 50 could maybe work if a government did what you suggest, but that isn't how the system is set up. The EU wanted us to push the button almost immediately, we waited quite a long time.
It would be nice if the government asked people what they wanted us to negotiate, rather than leaving it to the MPs who got us into this mess in the first place.
But to me it seems that Labour's decision to put the party and reviving socialism before the country and frustrate any attempt at a mutual plan for the UK's benefit, didn't really leave the Tories much choice.
And if they don't, how is that undemocratic?
Because we would have had a vote on something, then never enacted it and rerun the vote, due to some people not liking the original answer.
However, I'll never understand the argument that it is undemocratic for the people to change their minds. A referendum can't betray a referendum. The people can't betray the people. Either a majority of people support the final outcome or they don't. There is no other area of human action where changing ones mind in the face of new evidence is regarded as somehow foolish or unethical - why would this one be different?
Further, I think it's now entirely indisputable that neither a deal or a no-deal scenario will be substantially different to the main scenarios outlined by the leave campaign. We now understand the situation much better, and in short order will know very clearly what we are going to get. If leavers are confident that the majority of the country will still support the final scenario then why wouldn't they be willing to put it to a vote? If they refuse such a vote then it's not the remain side that is being undemocratic.
As a point of fact, though, the EU couldn't make us activate Article 50. It was entirely up to us when we did it.
This is true: 'I think it's now entirely indisputable that neither a deal or a no-deal scenario will be substantially different to the main scenarios outlined by the leave campaign'
But then so is the fact that the scenario that has followed the UK voting to leave has been entirely different to the one outlined by the remain camp. Economy doing fine, unemployment low, house prices not crashing etc.
And how far would you push that argument anyway? What if, say, the polls were clearer than they are now and consistently 70/30 in favour of remain? Would you still say that the public have to go through with something they don't want, because they did want it when they didn't know all the facts? Surely taking that power away from the people is the opposite of democracy? If the government said "OK, now we know what Brexit will look like when we didn't clearly before. Do you still want it, yes or no? If you do then this is what you'll get it on 29 March. if you don't we'll withdraw article 50." - how could anyone call that anti-democratic?
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"'I think it's now entirely indisputable that neither a deal or a no-deal scenario will be substantially different to the main scenarios outlined by the leave campaign'"
I totally fucked up this sentence and ended up writing the exact opposite of what I meant. What I meant to infer was - no-one said there'd be no-deal. They denied that if there was a deal there'd be either trade barriers or we'd have to stay in a customs union to avoid them. They said it would be the easiest deal in history - etc. etc.
Some predictions made by the remain campaign may have been exaggerated, but by and large the longer-term forecasts have been borne out pretty well:
...and we haven't even left yet. But like you I'm disinclined to go over the campaigns - both were intellectually bankrupt.
Going from no plan to a plan seems like a good reason.
TBF - there should never should have been a referendum based on no plan at all. Its ridiculous.
For example, the car industry's current woes are more to do with diesel and the massive boom in new car sales running up to last year than Brexit.
However, you're right, car firms aren't investing, nor are many businesses, they don't like uncertainty and they won't like any barriers in the way of goods moving around, financial or physical.
Don't get me wrong, I don't for one minute buy that we have more to gain from free trade outside of the world's best free trade area than staying within it, but the Brexit = bad for business case is not quite so simple as is made out.
The Comrade can also see it is much better to sit on the fence, have a disastrous exit and then slide into power, maybe he does not realise that he would be slid (slode?) back out again by New Labour but maybe he does and hey it's power for a few months.
What would be really great would be some truth from someone, anyone, as to the actual situation right now.
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/1346
NAO tends to be quite independent
https://www.nao.org.uk/search/pi_area/exiting-the-eu/type/report
For those unable to access Twitter: it’s a anti-Leave billboard from the @LedByDonkeys team.
I wonder if the terms Continent and Continentals will come back into the parlance.
It is now really important to get onto the march and make your views heard if you're on the side of. People's Vote