From the BBC:
If MPs don't back Theresa May's Brexit deal there could be another EU referendum, Michael Gove has said.
The leading cabinet Brexiteer said Mrs May's deal was not perfect - but if MPs did not vote it through on 11 December there was a risk of "no Brexit at all". He told the BBC's Andrew Marr show there may now be a Commons majority for another referendum.
Which is what I expected to happen all along.
Heck knows what Gove's motivation is here - on the one hand, he wants to appear loyal to May by backing her deal, his wording implies that he thinks that having another Referendum is A Bad Idea.
We know of course that a majority of MPs are Remainers who would be delighted at having the result of the previous Referendum declared null and void and having another go at Project Fear (which backfired on them so spectacularly last time).
So this is a motivation for MPs to vote against May's deal, which from May's point of view looks like a fail, but actually from her point of view it's a win (she campaigned for Remain). Assuming that Gove is still a Leaver some twisted opposite logic applies.
Sunday, 2 December 2018
With grim inevitability...
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15 comments:
You couldn't make this up
SM, we know that "they" have spent the last two and a half years gradually fouling things up so badly that a second referendum looks like a relatively sensible option. It's the traditional EU way of dealing with unfavourable referendum outcomes.
Gove has spun and changed direction so many times, if he were connected to a generator, his perpetual motion could light up a small town.
PS, yes, his position is woefully unclear, isn't it?
Yep.
Looks like TPTB will get their way.... for the moment. A referendum will be a choice between the May clusterf**k or stay in - which will mean we stay in as no-one in their right mind will vote for the May 'plan' and all right-minded leavers will just abstain.
Even Jezza and McDo will be forced to fall in line by the civil service and their own majority of Remain MPs.
We can't turn the clock back - the Eurocrats, being devoid of any self-awareness, will really try to stick it us.
I predict our rebate/opt-outs will go toute-de-suite, we'll be in the Euro by 2022 and sucked into bailing out Club Med. Plus the USA will just shrug and NATO will have disbanded in favour of an EU army headed up by an Italian, with a Bulgarian Admiral as his deputy and a French command structure. The 'Baltics' must be shitting themselves.
Our only hope is that the Italians give the ECB 'the finger' and the Euro collapses under the weight of its own contradictions, which brings the whole stinking edifice down around their ears.
Oh and the Tories are toast.... all the remainiac Tory wets will find out just how angry their grass roots are. I went to a meeting Thursday with my local MP - typical Tory loyalist who didn't seem to get it.
Maybe now is the time for a TRULY libertarian-leaver party rather than the racist nonsense of UKIP - YPP anyone?
"Looks like TPTB will get their way...."
Has there ever been a period in history when they haven't?
"Oh and the Tories are toast..."
If true, it will all have been worth it, but I expect the Establishment Party (for that's what the Tories, Red and Blue, are) will survive, just in a different form.
Perhaps all of the 17.4 million who voted leave should don yellow hi-viz jackets and stand in silence for two minutes in their local town centre/supermarket/shopping mall - just to make the point as to what 'might' happen should promises made be rescinded upon.
The Tories really never got over the repeal of the Corn Laws and have been trying to recover their rent seeking privileges ever since. Brexit is a version of Corn Law repeal in that it takes away rent seeking opportunity and power (and hence the gravy train) from an extractive elite. Above all it is 'the people' telling TPTB what to do, and that's not going to go down well with those who presume (assume?) that 'they' rule 'us' is it?
Of course Corbyn and Co are conflicted. On one hand they hate the EU because they think it stops them doing stuff like mass re-nationalisation. On the other hand they love the EU (and its effects on our government) because it is a giant central planning bureaucracy (giant because it works through local agents). And of course Blairites love the EU as it is a crony corporatist racket.
So 'of course' they are all going to game the Referendum result.
And Gove is a twat. (I have heard him speak at a Tory party event - nasty little tribal evader IMHO).
Even if as the above comments may suggest that May's Hodge podge of a deal renders a 2nd referendum preferable to 'that' deal. Such a referendum with the 3 options on the ballot; the 'deal', no deal, or remain, would be at least 'as democratic' as the first one when few really knew what the f*k the outcome of 'leave' might actually entail.
And the fact that the average polls are showing a swing toward remain does the case no harm. More especially so as the majority of those who've died since the referendum would have been leavers and the majority of those formerly too young to vote are remainers. So the Young People get to decide. Can't be too bad can it!
paul156. You are falling into the 'everybody else is ignorant except you' trap. To everyone else you are that other (ignorant) person and you view is therefore invalid. That is no reason or justification for a second referendum. And my experience of talking to people is that Leave voters knew exactly what they were voting for and had no interest in any 'deal' with the EU as they knew the EU was not trustworthy and not at all interested in any Deal. Why would they be? What's in it for them?
If you do move to Ref2 it means that every other plebiscite is henceforward provisional. If Corbyn was voted in would I be justified in saying that all those that voted for him did not know what they were doing and therefore the vote was invalid?
Your last assertion about young an old is assumed but not proven as far as I know.
@L -
"And my experience of talking to people is that Leave voters knew exactly what they were voting for and had no interest in any 'deal' with the EU as they knew the EU was not trustworthy and not at all interested in any Deal"
My experience as well.
But of course, Remainers like pc156 'know' that Leavers are all old, ill-informed, thick, racists because they are bright and young and university educated.
Leave voters voted for a variety of reasons but regardless of that few would have given much thought to the process or how it might present. Now is as good a time as any to present voters with the three choices. Why be afraid or anti if you think everyone sees things the same way?
L & S. I never bought up the issue of generally less educated folk more likely to vote Brexit. Not of overt racism among brexiters. But it is a fact that the areas that poll most concern about immigration tend to have the least of it. Just an interesting aside.
"Now is as good a time as any to present voters with the three choices."
Because that is deliberately designed to split the leave vote and you know it.
P156
"...but regardless of that few would have given much thought to the process or how it might present." What hard evidence do you have for that assertion?
I have found the exact opposite. One of the Brexit campaign groups published a full manual on how to leave the EU well before the Referendum was even granted. Furthermore Brexit voters that I know that did not read that manual knew very well it would be awkward as the Establishment and the EU were agin it (which was a strong motive to Vote Leave - rule of thumb; anything Blair etc. is for you know is great for them and very bad for everyone else) and hence there would be a need to hold Parliament and government's feet to the fire, but they (we?) did trust in the basic honesty of the UK democracy and our native institutions. That has proved to be wildly misplaced trust as most of them have been massively corrupted by the EU (and New Labour).
"You are falling into the 'everybody else is ignorant except you' trap. To everyone else you are that other (ignorant) person and you view is therefore invalid. That is no reason or justification for a second referendum."
Thinking the electorate is thick is a typically middle-class left-wing trait which was and is amply demonstrated by the supporters of Remain: not only do they think that those who voted to leave were thick enough to believe the lies put out by the Leave promoters, but they also think that the rest are thick enough to believe all the lies churned out as part of Project Fear.
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