It is said of Obama that his every promise had an expiration date. That way of phrasing it seems almost too kind – as if each promise once had value and then lost it after it expired. Some promises are only ever meant to be believed – they are never meant to be kept.
MPs of all UK-wide parties voted to hold the Brexit referendum – but for many, the promise to leave the EU if Leave won was only ever meant to justify remaining in ever closer union when Remain won. The believe that we would have left had Leave won was expected to have great value – to remainers after Remain won, justifying their putting an end to the carping criticism of a minority of MPs and those stupid voters. “We’d have left if you’d won, so shut up” was to be the essence of politics thereafter.
Now, after both major parties campaigned in 2017 on a promise to honour the result, blood has finally been squeezed from a stone – and promises they do mean to keep from Remoaners. Their bill is astonishingly frank (for them) in its determination to give power over Brexit to the EU. Their refusal of an election makes equally explicit their intense desire not to give that power to UK voters. The difficulty of defeating the deep state is that they will not openly stand to fight and so risk being beaten. It’s a sign of how much has been achieved that people so given to deceit are being so open.
I hope Boris, Dominic and others have foreseen, and are masters of, the procedural and constitutional technicalities needed in the next few days between now and prorogation. But, however that turns out, I think their enemies too caught up in this fight to see beyond it. They imagine that, if they can only delay leaving forever, they can get us back to the grudging attitude of a few years ago, when most people did not like the EU but most thought it was as inevitable as bad weather, and was merely an add-on to Britain, not a replacement. I think their own antics are ensuring that that particular Humpty-Dumpty cannot be put back together again.
“I think their enemies [those UK citizens who voted for Remain] too caught up in this fight to see beyond it.”
Probably a fair point, Niall. But to an outsider, that comment seems equally applicable to those who are pushing for Leave. Rationally, those who wish to separate from the EU would be expected to have a big laundry list of all the good ideas which have not been implemented in the UK because of interference by Brussels. But if anyone has that list, he is keeping it very close to his chest. Are Brexiteers also too caught up in the fight to see beyond it?
Yup. Got to agree with Gavin. This point has been said before by others that regardless of who wins they are all focused on the immediate battle in front of them and have no real idea how to win the war.
If (God forbid) the Remoaners actually had the balls to do what they really want to do and repudiate BRExit, repeal Article 50 and remain. That’s all well and evil, but what happens next?
Those same idiots still have to knocking on their constituents doors at some point between now and June 2022, not withstanding any public and private violence in between.
Sure, the electorate always forgets, but not that quickly.
I keep asking myself when / if Independence or Remain wins, how the hell are we putting the country back together again.
I don’t see any kind of connived victory for either side satisfying the losers. I can see the richer finance orientated Remainers having to concentrate on protecting their wealth and thus the movement can loose steam. But the Brexit mob, a lot of the power is they are Labour heartlands voters who lost their local industry….
Could Bojo be planning to give in and offer no evidence on Robin Tilbrook’s case, thereby flipping the whole applecart over?
ityn
“Could Bojo be planning to give in and offer no evidence on Robin Tilbrook’s case, thereby flipping the whole applecart over?”
This is a complete red herring, it assumes that a Claimant seeking a declaration can, if the other side agrees, get what they what from the court by default. The court retains a discretion over the making of a declaration and can, of its own motion, hold that the application is unfounded.
And from what I know of the case, it is hopeless.
The only routes from here that I can see are long shots of:
A.
1. Advise HM the Queen to decline Royal Assent to the Benn Bill, and let it wither. The Queen, if so advised, is acting on the advice of her ministers, and Parliament can always impeach them or pass another Bill.
2. After 1, call a vote of confidence in the government, and if it is won by the government, that extinguishes any issue over impropriety in 1. If it is lost, there are 14 days to get a renewed vote, or a new government commanding the confidence of the House, and if not, then a General Election is held. This carries the risk of Ken Clarke or Corbyn becoming PM in a Frankenstein coalition.
OR, B a longer shot.
The Benn Bill imposes duties on the Prime Minister to write to the Commission etc. over Art. 50. The office of Prime Minister is not a statutory post, and using the Royal Prerogative, the powers of the PM (not being statutory powers) could be designated as exercised by the First Lord of the Treasury (who happens to be the same person with a different hat). So move all the PM’s useful powers to the First Lord by Order-in-Council, leave the statutory obligations on the PM and resign as Prime Minister, leaving the UK without a Prime Minister but with a functioning shadow government, whilst Her Majesty scratches around for a new PM, holding only the powers that remain after a piece of Constitutional innovation. It is only a Convention that the PM does not resign until a successor is ready, and what are Conventions worth these days?
Here’s an election hymn for Mr Johnson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U21b6h8g7PM
“Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.
Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.”
My devotion to strict honesty leads me to say that the part of the bill that Guido quoted and you linked to is not as shocking as it first seemed if you take it together with the next paragraph which says:
Put together they seem to say that if the date is not 31 October then Parliament has two days to say if it accepts the new date, and unless it passes a motion saying it does approve then the extension does not apply.
I disagree. My point was that those fighting to remain do not realise how their very struggle is changing the ground under their feet. By contrast, those fighting to leave not only see it – they welcome it.
Boris et al. won the Brexit referendum precisely by talking about things we could do if unrestrained by Brussels. I’ve published a farming-related suggestion in a post below this one. The Queen’s speech will presumably be of things the government will do if and only if unhindered by the EU and/or the kind of UK politicians who support it.
That said, you may be (in a sense) right that some ideas are being kept close to some chests. When a democratic vote is being voided by people whose main tactic is to portray you as an extremist, you may not necessarily talk about all the things you might do when you have (a) used Brexit to purge your party of MPs who belonged in the party to its left, and (b) gained enough of a reputation for competence to be trusted with big changes.
The words “moved by a minister of the crown” might be a significant limitation to the remoaners. But we are all learning that the technicalities of commons procedure are great. I think we must just hope that Boris, Jacob and Dominic know the ins and outs well enough – and can assume they know them better than us.
Nial K: “Boris et al. won the Brexit referendum precisely by talking about things we could do if unrestrained by Brussels.”
That may be, but they have not talked much about all those good things since. When I have asked Brits about what good things they are going to do once the UK is unleashed, generally they have not had much to say.
Seems strange. The newest salesman knows to talk incessantly about all the benefits his customer is going to get from completing the deal. Even your perfectly reasonable agricultural example is pitched in the mode of something that those proven solons in the Palace of Westminster might think about doing — not in terms of a bill that is already on the table, just waiting to be voted through as soon as the UK separates from the EU.
Just as a lot of the UK’s problems always were home-grown rather than due to Brussels, it seems that a lot of the challenges faced by Brexiteers in closing the deal have been due to their own rather inept handling of the situation in which they gained a rather narrow plurality of UK citizens in the Referendum. Adopting the Barrack Obama “I won” approach may not have been the smartest move.
But those lost opportunities to broaden support for Brexit over the last 3 years are just that — water under the bridge. Moving forward, surely now is the time that Brexiteers should be sending a positive message, talking 24/7 about all the great things the UK can do as soon as it is freed from EU oversight?
Gavin Longmuir (5th September 2019 at 11:14 pm), if you read Dominic Cummings long article in the Spectator on “how the Brexit referendum Was Won” you will, amid much other stuff, see that Dominic (1) thinks Brexit can (indirectly) enable (partly by requiring it) reform of UK education, and (2) that prior educational reforms, accompanied by major arguments in the chattering classes, were largely ignored by the public. He also comments with scorn on remoaners asking (in a manner not wholly unlike you, dare I hint?)
Especially now, when the struggle to achieve Brexit takes up so much of the news cycle, there is immense need for the ‘What is Brexit good for?’ argument not to spread itself but stick to resonant basics.
Natalie Solent (5th September 2019 at 7:37 pm), having read the act, my understanding is that the PM is required to ask the EU on the 19th unless parliament votes to accept a deal (or no deal). If the EU grants a 3-month extension, the PM is ordered to accept. If the EU grants any other extension, the PM is ordered to accept but a minister of the crown must move a motion and the house can decide not to accept it. The phrasing somewhat implies to me that the other-time-limit extension is accepted unless a minister of the crown moves the motion and the house then decides not to pass it – so in effect the only discretion is whether the house then decides to pass it or not and if no minister of the crown offers a motion that guarantees acceptance, as in the three month case – but I am not a lawyer!
Niall K: “… there is immense need for the ‘What is Brexit good for?’ argument not to spread itself but stick to resonant basics.”
Agreed! But not a single Brit I have talked to (excluding yourself) has ever mentioned the NHS or education as reasons for leaving the EU. I am a foreigner, and I can think of better reasons for leaving the EU than those! After all, NHS and education have already been fairly much within the domain of the Mother of Parliaments all along.
Yes, it would be very smart to keep focusing on the main benefits which the people of the UK can expect to accrue from separation. But there appears to be relatively little of that going on. Lots of name calling, but very little constructive discussion on what to do on the rapidly approaching Day After Brexit.
As I see it the values of BRExit are twofold, there is the current value of removing the fiscal, regulatory and trade burden that the EU places on the UK at the present time and the second is the future burden that the EU will place on us in the future in terms of the economic, political and regulatory cost of ever greater union.
Those costs are a dampener on GDP growth and a liability on the taxpayer. If they can be removed then there is additional headroom for NHS funding (if that is what is actually needed, personally I prefer structural reform and internal competition), the same applies to education.
There is also the problem of education where children do not speak English at the same level of their peers. We used to have separate language units, but with the volume of immigration we’ve seen in recent years this has been strained to breaking point, especially in the areas that have seen the largest influx of immigrants. By delivering on BRExit, there is the possibility of placing some amount of control on this, but whether the government will achieve this is unclear.
There is also the problem of welfare spending on immigrants essentially drawing from a welfare budget to which they haven’t contributed (one of Dave Cameron’s original problems in the EU negotiations) and the impact on social housing stock.
At least some of these issues may be red herrings (language impact on schools and social housing stock), because the numbers may be largely about non-EU migrants. However, it is perceived to be a problem by at least some of those voting Leave in impacted areas.
Gavin, here is an example of the kind of thing that (unlike talk about education reform in a crowded news cycle) the voters will notice. 🙂
Once the all-important British Beer Drinker vote is tied down, Brexit is as good as a done deal!
But on the Day After Brexit, when the price of beer goes back up — there may be hell to pay. 🙂