Referendum 2 - The Aftermath

Who is Slumkey? whispered Mr. Tupman.

I don't know, replied Mr. Pickwick in the same tone, Hush. Don't ask any questions. Its always best on these occasions to do what the mob do.

But suppose there are two mobs? suggested Mr. Snodgrass.

Shout with the largest, replied Mr. Pickwick.

The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens

Two weeks since the shambles of the the EU referendum, and I've been wondering if it's worth posting my options. I made it clear what I thought about the referendum in my previous post. I also made a few comments on various blogs, especially HotWhopper here, and here.

But a few things I need to get off chest. This post isn't going to be about why I think leaving the EU will be a bad decision, but on who's responsible for this mess.

The Story So Far

Here's a brief and partial summary of where we stand as of today - Thursday 7th July.

• The referendum took place on the 23rd June - and was a narrow defeat for the UK, with 52% of voters voting to leave the EU, 48% to remain.
• Nigel Farage gave a victory speech, even though he wasn't part of the official Leave team, somewhat extending the brief to announce his desire to destroy the EU entirely and return to a Europe of independent nation states. (Because that worked so well in the past.)
• Early in the morning David Cameron announced his resignation and that he would leave it to his successor to trigger Article 50. Everyone who had been campaigning for Leave suddenly started talking about the need not to be hasty, and how important it was to think through our options.
• Monday 27th June, Boris Johnson the main Leave campaigner, and widely seen as the inevitable next PM, spells out his vision the post EU UK. He does this in his weekly Daily Telegraph article, in which he stresses nothing much will change as a result of our leaving the EU, that we'll be more integrated with them, we'll still be able to work in the EU, but somehow we'll be controlling out borders. Quite how he can guarantee any of this when negotiations haven't even started is another question.
• The next day it is suggested in some quarters that Johnson didn't really mean what he said, and was tired when he wrote the article.
• Thursday 30th June - with the deadline for Conservative ministers to put their names forward at midday. First thing in the morning Gove, having previously saying he'd support Johnson's bid, stabs Boris in the back, and announces he'll be standing. Minutes before the deadline Johnson announces he will not be standing.
• Monday 4th July, Farage resigned from UKIP. Johnson wrote another manifesto in his weekly Telegraph column suddenly realizing it would be a good idea to have some sort of plan for Brexit.
• Today, Gove fails to make the final shortlist for Tory leadership, so the members will be choosing between Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom.

So we will have to wait till September to find out who will be leading the UK into this brave new future. But whoever it is, it won't be anyone who was leading the leave campaign. It won't be anyone who can be held to account for failing on the promises, and if May is elected it will be someone who was claiming to believe that it was not in the national interest to leave the EU (albeit someone who wants to abandon the European Court of Human Rights).

It seems no one had a plan for leaving the EU, not even those who campaigned for it. The whole thing has really been about internal conservative party politics, and the people will not get a say in what happens next. Yet for some reason everyone keeps insisting that whatever the cost to the UK, to Europe to the world, we must go through with the breakup. I really don't get why, and hope a more considered approach will be taken after the contest is over.

Does Brexit Mean Brexit?

The argument that the will of the people must be respected is flimsy and goes against the idea of parliamentary democracy. I can see three reasons to argue that the result of the referendum must be respected, without even a follow referendum: legal, pragmatic and moral. But none of them make sense to me.

The question of a legal obligations is just wrong. This was never a legally binding referendum; and if it had been the details would have needed to be much more rigorous. There should have been a requirement for a significant majority, there should have been a concrete proposal for what leaving would mean, and there should have been scrutiny of the claims maid during the campaign.

The pragmatic argument would be that the electorate would punish the party that failed to deliver on leaving. This would require making a lot of assumptions about why people voted to leave, especially given the narrowness of the vote. How many who voted leave felt strongly enough about it to affect their decision at a general election? How many will have changed their mind by the next election? How many would never vote Conservative? How many would vote Conservative even if they reneged on leaving? And then reverse the question with the 48% who voted to remain.

I expect a shrewd PM who believed remaining would be in the national interest, would be able to frame the decision to go against the referendum, would be able to frame the action in a way that would not damage their chances in 2020. In any event the alternative would be taken the flack for all the damage caused by leaving, and being blamed for putting short term electoral interest above the country's good.

The moral argument could be that a promise was made and it would be immoral to break it. But politicians break promises all the time, and it could easily be argued that breaking a promise was the morally correct action, if keeping a promise was going to lead to worse consequences. In any event, the promises were made by people who are no longer in charge, and other promises, such as the 350 million a week to be spent on the NHS have already been broken.