David Cameron had hoped that an EU referendum would result in a thumping win for Remain, close the Europe question down for a generation and thus bring unity to his party. All three of those goals now look out of reach. The polls are staying doggedly close into the final stretch, already Brexiteers are setting up for a second referendum (it is now hard to see how it won’t appear on the agenda of the next Tory leadership contest), and the Blue on Blue attacks have gone way beyond what anyone would have predicted before this all got started.
This has me scared about what happens from June 24th onwards – regardless of the result. If we vote to Leave, the possibilities are nightmarish, particularly in the short term. Cameron could quit right away, leaving everything in chaos. No prime minister at a time when huge portions of the British economy will want very quick answers on what happens next, with threats of massive job losses being bandied about, is not a pleasant thought.
Boris almost certainly becomes prime minister in short order, and then Mr Details will be in charge of negotiating a new path for the UK. At the same time, Labour will be in meltdown (I mean even more than it already is), with the right of the party blaming Corbyn for the Leavers winning. The House of Commons would be facing its largest ever challenge at a time when it would be least able to handle it.
However, even if we vote to stay in, I’m still worried about the near future. After the poll bounce for Leave over the bank holiday weekend, we’ve heard people like Jon Gaunt announce to his listeners that the referendum is now “in the bag” for Leave. Some tabloids have repeated the same message. Given the audience in question is bound to take this as gospel, what happens when Remain wins? Particularly if it is close (and that looks increasingly likely), the cries of “establishment stitch up” are bound to be deafening. If you think people are cynical now about politics in the country, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
We’re still a lot better off Remaining In, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it is not going make all of the problems go away. What happens with Cameron and his party is particularly interesting. I’m sure the prime minister will push ahead with his attempt to heal rifts via offering top cabinet jobs to Leavers. I don’t see how this gets him out of the hole he’s created – he has always appeased the right of the Tories whenever he’s in a bind and the appeasement always just makes everything worse. After what’s gone on the past few weeks, this seems more relevant than ever.
So the relief that many of us were looking for post-June 23rd may not come. Everything might be about to get more mental than ever – whatever the result of the referendum. But at least if we vote to Remain, it won’t matter nearly as much to the future of Britain. In other words, we can’t afford the meltdown that is inevitable if we vote to Leave.
My group of friends concluded that we have no scientific basis for voting out, since there is insufficient data on what the consequences would be. The reasonable conclusion is that out is riskier than in; plenty of data exists for in, and the data is not all bad, in fact Britain’s Gdp is pretty good right now.
Like the Scotland referendum, I feel this referendum will not settle matters if the vote is for in. If, however, the vote is for out, the results, politically, are extremely unpredictable. Who becomes the person to lead us into the wilderness in search of the Brexit promised land?
‘Scientific basis’? What the hell has science to do with #EURef? Your premise is a cowardly one – a flock mentality to huddle in a corner while the wolves pick you off one by one. The opportunity to run, or even charge the wolves, is beyond your scope of thinking. Questions: How did this small island ever develop a massive Empire without EU? How did we unify dissenters in Europe to defeat the Nazis?
As for a Leader to lead us from the wilderness – Nigel Farage. Unlike present incumbents of Number 10 & 11 Downing St, he has valid experience of City Finance, the EU & the desires of the people of Gt Britain for self-governance & the preservation of democracy.
How did this small island ever develop a massive Empire without EU? …errr slavery? Killing lots of black people!!!!
When will people cease in this weird belief that city experience is in anyway a good thing?
In this case, from a 2015 article in the FT, in 8 years Farage Futures made net profits of £874,000. That would be about £110,000 per year. That is hardly a scintillating sign of business success – not really worthy of crowning him as PM!
As soon as the Scottish referendum resulted in the SNP landslide it was obvious that the EU referendum would not resolve anything – just aggravate it.
I share your concern, Nick.
The debate has been narrowly focused, increasingly toxic and, among those whose minds are made up either way, positions have become entrenched. We are talking across each other as the two comments on this thread illustrate. Whichever way the vote goes there will be a sizeable, unhappy minority waiting to say “told you so” at every verse end.
Furthermore, the positions folk are taking are based all kinds of “steady state” assumptions about the future (e.g. the economy will be roughly the same size and so we’ll be better off out). I reckon the context is much more fluid and dynamic than that.
FWIW, my view is mostly aligned with Nicholas Barr of the LSE: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/…/dear-friends-this-is-why-i-will-v…/ and Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform: http://www.cer.org.uk/…/if-we-leave-eu-other-countries-will…
From my vantage point the other side of the Atlantic (I have been working in the US for five years), I increasingly see “in” or “out” as a deeply strategic question. I suppose my position comes down to this.
I believe fundamentally in the law of unintended consequences.
I believe also that the EU in its present form will not survive.
But strategically I do not believe that a hasty retreat into nation states very likely controlled by right wing governments with Putin on one flank and a weakened Atlantic alliance on the other flank is the right way to manage the growing consensus that the EU of Delors and Maastricht and Lisbon has had its day.
If there is political fragmentation we will feel the spillover effects. The Channel is still only 21 miles wide. If (when) the Eurozone collapses we can’t escape the spillover effects whether we are “in” or “out”. Some of our buyers will have gone bust.
So, leaving aside concerns about the length and depth of the “economic shock” and my own deeply felt fears about the internal ramifications for the UK itself (I self-identify as an old fashioned “one nation” Brit, not as an “Englishman”), as well as the knock-on effects in Ireland, the strategic question comes down to whether you want a seat at the crisis management table or not.
I’d rather have a seat and “manage out” the process of change from within in the UK’s strategic interests. The Nordic bloc and the Dutch see things a lot of the time as we do. We already have plenty of allies. Contrary to popular belief, we are past masters at managing the EU in the UK’s interest (see Tilford).
Dealing with spillover effects in circumstances where we’ve helped hasten the EU’s collapse, in circumstances where our relations with France and Germany will be inevitably strained, and moreover in circumstances where we are trying to figure out exactly who and what we are for five years, ten years (?) in the post-Brexit political climate you describe… well, as they say over here in the US, good luck with that.
I was talking to Stephen McPartland MP today, and he said that although he supports Leave, he hopes whoever wins does so by a large margin, to prevent a situation like the Scottish ‘Neverendum’.
In Scotland we are told it’s a UK vote and nothing to do with triggering another indyref. At the same time I don’t see Brexiters keeping quiet if they lose. Either way the UK won’t be the same.
If UK votes to leave, I’m going for independence. Just don’t trust Westminster without the EU.
Just to make it plain from the outset – I’m for “Remain”. Not just because the “Great” in Great Britain doesn’t have the connotations it used to in days of empire, but because I think those who are inclined towards “Bexit” are being misled by various “single issue” arguments, eg the immigration debate and trade agreements, and are failing to realise the likely impact on the financial and money markets (which underpin everything else).
But I have got to thinking about the consequences of 4 possible outcomes that we might wake up to on 24 June….
1. Huge Majority for Remain – life continues and my preferred result (unsurprisingly!)
2. Huge Majority for Leave – political chaos internally – there’s no-one who could provide effective leadership to draw together what will then become a party political furore – and “billy no mates” in the international arena
3. Small Majority for Remain – this might have some benefit in that, with the weight of a sizable portion of the population who wanted to leave as evidence that all is not well in the EU, we may be able to negotiate better terms than the Prime Minister did earlier in the year. And other EU countries that are watching the outcome of our referendum with interest, may support us in those negotiations.
4. Small Majority for Leave – the 2nd worst possible outcome (for me) but arguably it’s actually the worst as it’s No2 with knobs on – particularly for the internal political landscape, and externally everyone would just watch us tear ourselves apart and we’d be side-lined until we’d sorted ourselves out.
So I’m approaching 24 June with extreme trepidation – can I volunteer to take Tim Peake’s place on the ISS until it’s all over??!!!??