An interesting example of the European approach to democracy here from Jonathan Freedland. Have a new vote on Brexit but don’t allow anyone to vote upon inconvenient things like actually leaving. Give only the two options, either the leave in name only Brexit of May’s deal, the one she can’t get through Parliament, or remain anyway.
As with all the other referenda that have been had on the subject of the European Union in other countries, keep voting, keep changing the propaganda about the vote, until the Project is approved. Then full steam ahead. Such a delightful vision of democracy, isn’t it?
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Winning a second Brexit referendum is possible – with Europe’s helpJonathan Freedland Instead of rerunning 2016 we should choose between May’s deal and staying in a reformed EU [/perfectpullquote]
Note how the “Bugger’em, let’s go” option is carefully excised from the ballot paper there. That being the one answer the Federasts don’t actually want so that being the one question most carefully not to be asked.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] But it will also help if the two competing propositions on the ballot – and let’s make the hopeful assumption that no parliament would present a no-deal crash-out as if it were a viable option, since that would be criminally irresponsible – are both significantly different from the leave v remain choices of 2016. It’s easy to see how leave would differ this time around. In place of the abstract, wishful idea of leave – which Brexiteers cast as a pain-free cash bonanza and panacea for all Britain’s ills – would be a concrete, detailed plan for leaving: May’s plan, more or less. What, though, of the other side of the ballot paper? Remain will be weakened if it looks like an appeal to wind the clock back to 22 June 2016, as if the status quo ante were some unimprovable nirvana. It would be accused of not having listened to a word leavers have said about why they wanted out. That’s why some are talking of a “reformed remain” option, an alternative to leave that does not smack of a complacent desire to pretend Brexit never happened. For those Labour MPs in leave seats, their chief hope is that they can signal to their voters that both they and the EU itself have heard their concerns on one issue especially: immigration. [/perfectpullquote]Yes, that’s the choice, a mush, a mish mash, of tepid hopes that the EU will be something other than it is, something other than it has declared itself to be. And we should all sign up to that because?
That bugger’em let’s go option is looking rosier by the day.
The only outcome enshrined in legislation is to leave the EU on 29 March 2018. Although I understand that this could in principle be cancelled by a Ministerial order (perhaps someone can elucidate) the blunt truth in this December 2018 is that no alternative is a viable alternative in the sense of getting the ‘arrangement’ through Parliament. However, since the original Referendum resolved the Leave/Remain question any second referendum should be a choice of either ‘just leave’ or some other method of leaving, yet to be worked out. I can’t see the second Referendum being any easier to design than… Read more »
I thought the last vote was already about remaining in a ‘reformed’ EU negotiated by David Cameron.
If we had a vote I would hope it was with all three options and the ability to select a first and second choice (transferable vote). That at least would give some chance of a clearer decision and hopefully minimize the chance of ending up in the middle with the worst of both worlds..