17 Comments

• Katharine Pindar 13th Jan '19 - 12:29am

  At the Workington, Cumbria, all-party People’s Vote event this morning, I noticed some people were marking the Brexitometer both for May’s deal AND a People’s Vote. Let’s hope that Mrs May realises in time that many people admire her firmness but still want a rethink, and concedes the new vote after the expected defeat of her deal this coming week.

• expats 13th Jan '19 - 9:13am

  Theresa May called an election because she thought it would give her a 100+ majority.
  Norfolk was, excepting Norwich, entirely ‘Leave’ territory (North Norfolk voted about 60/40 to leave). If your ‘poll’ is accurate it would rank alongside the Saul/Paul conversion.
  My daughter in law, who was a strong ‘Remainer’, now just wants it all to ‘just end’ so that the country “can get on with real life”. She would take May’s deal and I’m sure there are many like her.

  Sadly, my personal experience, (just down the road from Norfolk) is that few have changed their minds so I’ll file this poll under “90% can’t tell Stork from butter”.

• Nom de Plume 13th Jan '19 - 9:31am

  @expats

  It will not ‘just end’. One of the ironies of Brexit (if it happens) is that the EU will become more of a news topic. Negotiations on everything from trade to travel arrangements. As happens in Switzerland.

  (Leaving aside the debate about the merits of May’s agreement and renegotiating against Remaining.)

• Duncan greenland 13th Jan '19 - 9:55am

  Looking at then sample Brexitometers from such very different places as Camden and North Norfolk,let us please,please find a way = if we can get to a People’s Vote = to allow the public to state clearly their preference across all three of these three options.

  Reassuringly strong momentum now is that it is the People,not just Parliament and most certainly not just the Government that should decide .

• John Marriott 13th Jan '19 - 10:03am

  Here we go again. For some Lib Dems (quite a few it would appear) what’s really important is to have a ‘good’ campaign and not necessarily a ‘good’ result. Forgive me my cynicism, because I’ve done a fair amount of ‘campaigning’ over the past forty years or so, which is now confined to writing platitudes on forms like LDV.

  What you have to remember in this particular campaign is that your ‘opponents’ are equally determined and, whilst their numbers may have shrunk, if you believe some polls, they can often shout the loudest – witness any TV programme on current affairs with a live, unelected audience. Even if you get what is really EU/EEC Referendum #3 and achieve a narrow win it is unlikely that the opposition will just melt away. In fact I’m sure that many more EU myths will be spawned to haunt us in the years to come.

  So, what should we do? Well, let’s first get the vote on May’s deal out of the way. Who knows what it will be like by Tuesday if further amendments get through? If it is defeated then, if she fails to come up with anything better by the end of the week, can we PLEASE have Labour’s No Confidence Motion and get that out of the way so that opposition MPs can be unshackled from the party whip? Next, unless you believe the ‘Coup’ story in today’s Sunday Times, it’s up to Parliament to TAKE BACK CONTROL and to petition the EU for a postponement of Article 50 while it explores other options, on the assurance that these will ultimately be placed before the people in EU Referendum #3. These options would currently appear to be: Leave / Remain / New Deal (Norway Plus, Canada Plus, Something else). Yes, I realise that would be a three way choice, possibly with a chance to number them in order of preference, if people wanted to. After all, to paraphrase what John Cleese said in that 1987 PPB, if you can’t beyond one you have got a problem.

• Jayne Mansfield 13th Jan '19 - 10:23am

  @ Nom de plume,
  Expats is merely saying what many of us know, that some remainers are tempted to vote for the May deal in the belief that it will bring this utterly draining process to an end.

  Of course it won’t. There will be years of negotiation, with the UK in an even worse negotiating position.

  One has to be hard-headed about this. The woman in the yellow Jacket on Question Time was correct to put to bed any idea of Mrs May being worthy of sympathy, right to say that she has manifestly failed to negotiate a good deal or indeed a good compromise. The ‘deal’ simply kicks concerns that people had, and have, into the long grass.

  The May deal will not end the ‘Brexit fatigue’, but I am afraid that expats is correct, and some former remain voters do believe that it is a necessary compromise and that it will. Given the choice, some would vote accordingly. Any remain vote would be split.

  More time is needed to argue the issues.

• Jayne Mansfield 13th Jan '19 - 10:34am

  @ John Marriott,
  You missed out the word count, but I fully agree with you.

  What is that saying about doing ( or saying) the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

• John Marriott 13th Jan '19 - 11:02am

  Thanks, Jayne. As a former teacher my New Year’s resolution has GOT to be the reread my contributions more carefully before pressing the ‘send’ key! I could add that what I am proposing is basically an Alternative Vote. To number options from 1 up to 3 gives people a chance either just to vote for one option (a cross will do, if they prefer) if that’s all they want, or could nuance a view which might give us a better idea of what would constitute a majority view.

  Let’s not forget, as I have written elsewhere on several occasions, that around 38% of the voting population supported Leave, around 35% Remain and around 27% didn’t vote at all. So clearly, there’s all to play for.

• Peter Martin 13th Jan '19 - 11:14am

  The choices are: The May/EU Deal, No Deal or No Brexit

  So who decides? Govt, Parliament or the People?

  Does it matter as long as the decision is for No Brexit?

• John Marriott 13th Jan '19 - 11:34am

  @Peter Martin
  Your response sums up perfectly the problem we face. We know, from your previous contributions, that you want OUT with a passion As for me, I want IN, with no great enthusiasm, but based on the world as I see it. However, the difference between us is that I would be prepared to accept a compromise. So, given a choice of three, I would accept whichever gained a majority. Would you?

• Peter Martin 13th Jan '19 - 11:59am

  @ John Marriott,

  I would say that the decision can’t just be left with the Government. It has to go to Parliament. But there’s no majority for any option in Parliament so my guess is that there will be another referendum.

  I’ve already said I’d go along with that, but logically the question should now be decided by Parliament. It’s just that it looks like they are incapable of making a decision.

• Joseph Bourke 13th Jan '19 - 12:02pm

  John Marriott,
  the coup story in the Sunday Times is a bit lame. When I was a teenager working for a company at Heathrow Airport, as I got to work one morning in 1974 there were tanks stationed at the entrances to the airport.The Army had occupied Heathrow Airport on the grounds of training for possible IRA terrorist action there.
  However Baroness Falkender (a senior aide and intimate friend of Harold Wilson) asserted that it was ordered as a practice-run for a military takeover of the government or as a show of strength as the government itself was not informed of the exercise in advance.
  That version of the story was something that woud stir the passions of a youg radical political activist at the time.
  A ‘coup’ by the speaker, John Bercow to give Parliament the whip hand over the executive on the Brexit vote is not quite as revolutionary as MI5 and the army high command deposing the government. Just another example of how teenagers today are being short-changed.
  We will see where we get to in Parliament next week. But it is going to be important to realise that while preventing the expected disruption and economic damage of a no-deal brexit is crucial, that of itself is not a panacea for the underlying problems that have brought us to this point.

• expats 13th Jan '19 - 12:25pm

  Jayne Mansfield 13th Jan ’19 – 10:23am…..Expats is merely saying what many of us know, that some remainers are tempted to vote for the May deal in the belief that it will bring this utterly draining process to an end…………….

  Jayne, Exactly!
  As Katharine Pindar (13th Jan ’19 – 12:29am) noted…”some people were marking the Brexitometer both for May’s deal AND a People’s Vote”

  If it does come to another vote (how I hate that ‘people’s vote’ nonsense) there would be three options ‘Leave’, ‘Remain’ and May’s deal’ . Were I Theresa May, I’d go for a ‘ranked-choice voting’ style of ballot and hope to win on a second preference count.

  Articles like this seem to assume that a new vote would be a formality for ‘Remain. Therein lies this party’s problem; if things were as simple as that we’d be polling 60%

• David Raw 13th Jan '19 - 3:42pm

  @ John Marriott ” For some Lib Dems (a fair few it would appear) what’s really important is to have a ‘good’ campaign and not necessarily a ‘good’ result.”

  Exactly right. I don’t know how many campaigns we’ve won between us, John (double figures I guess – six with me, three as a Liberal, three as a Lib Dem) – but (no names – no offence) – I sometimes think some of the flag flyers on here couldn’t win a Beetle Drive in a Village Hall with a loaded dice.

  Getting elected and winning matters… and flags flying at half mast usually indicate a bereavement…….

  What you do when you get elected matters. Having clear policy ideas on what you are going to do matters. Rose Garden press conferences sprinkled with knighthoods and gongs doesn’t add up to a row of beans. And…. scrutinising what your partners propose (i.e. Universal Credit and Pip) most certainly does matter.

  As for Joe Bourke’s story, it has credibility. I remember the coup activities of the Mirror’s owner and editor Cecil King and Hugh Cudlipp in 1968. It included the Bank of England chairman Lord Cromer, coal board chairman Lord Robens, the wonderfully named Cunard chairman Sir Basil Smallpeice, Lord Mountbatten….., and the government’s chief scientific adviser Solly Zuckerman who stopped it … and Tony Benn, (who leaked the details of their nonsensical plot to The Guardian).

  As with Cudlipp/King, the press in Britain today is well at it. Don’t forget the Leveson Inquiry.

• Sue Sutherland 13th Jan '19 - 3:46pm

  Please can we be clear that we are asking for a referendum on the terms of the deal. This is an extension of democracy so we can’t be accused of being undemocratic or wanting a re-run of the 2016 referendum.
  It will not be a walkover by any means. People have been assuming that young people will vote Remain but Channel 4 went to talk to teenagers who were too young to vote in 2016 but who could vote now. Their opinions were very varied and there was no clear majority for Remain.
  I think we need to show how most people’s lives can be better if Brexit is defeated. Would the party be up for taking a leaf from the SDP’s initial statement of intent and declare banishing poverty our goal? Banish Brexit and banish poverty would be a good rallying cry to show we want to leave austerity behind us

• John Marriott 13th Jan '19 - 5:32pm

  @David Raw
  One (for two councils) as an ‘Alliance’ candidate (1987 was an awkward year), ten as a Lib Dem, together with three as an Agent, for various councils. Trumpet well and truly blown?

  But back to the topic of this thread. I still would urge all those salivating at the prospect of another campaign to hold their horses. As far as getting another EU Referendum is concerned, surely it’s up to the present parliament to get that, unless, of course, a Labour No Confidence Motion is successful and we do end up with yet another General Election first. Unless I’m mistaken, the control’ of events would appear to reside within the Palace of Westminster and not at ‘People’s Vote’ Roadshows.

• Edward Long 13th Jan '19 - 7:06pm

  We held a street stall in Shadwell, Tower Hamlets with our local councillor Rabina Khan, where we’re also currently fighting one of two by-elections in the borough. We were happy to be joined by Siobhan Benita and several of the GLA candidates. Anyone who can make it down to Tower Hamlets before February 7th to help us elect another Liberal Democrat councillor would be very welcome!

  https://twitter.com/THLDs/status/1084132406381215749