What happens now?
Initial reactions in London and Brussels have been stark, along the lines of ‘Out means Out’. Will they change with more considered reflection? As the foreign ministers gather in Berlin today and the leaders of Germany, France and Italy meet on Monday to prepare Tuesday’s European Council (‘summit’) meeting, economic interests may have started to impinge on political considerations. It seems most likely, however, that when David Cameron arrives in Brussels on Tuesday he will find his 27 counterparts almost all singing from the same (German-language) hymn sheet.
In a statement Friday by the Presidents of the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission it is made clear that there can be no further renegotiation and that the concessions made to Cameron in February are now null and void. The summit can be expected to rubber-stamp this.
The most Cameron can hope for is a period of 12 weeks for the UK to sort out the shitstorm which will now be unleashed by the most calamitous case of self harm in Britain’s democratic history. The EU Treaties leave it up to the country which seeks to leave to decide when and if to invoke Article 50, to start the formal process of withdrawal. But the continental clamour for it will be deafening. Britain’s footdragging, wheel-spoking and taking home of wicket in recent years has drained any patience or sympathy our partners might once have felt.
And what does it mean?
I use the expression ‘shitstorm’ because for a modern European economy of any size the EU is like Hotel California (of The Eagles fame): ‘you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave’. Britain without the single market would be a poorer country indeed.
Unless Cameron and leaders of all sides in the UK together plead ‘hold your horses’, Germany will press for a rapid and polite divorce on terms designed to discourage any other member state from even considering following in Britain’s footsteps. Britain will be out of the European Investment Bank and will have no general or automatic right of access to the single market. It will have strictly two years to negotiate (for which in most areas read ‘accept’) the terms of its departure, and will not find them to its liking.
Is there any way back?
The UK’s dilemma is that the vote was only technically 51.9% to 48.1%. It was far more 70-30 for Out in some parts of the UK and 70-30 to Remain in other parts. The outcome can hardly be said to represent the settled will of the UK’s electorate. I do not believe that people voted for a break-up of the UK, however likely that now seems.
When France voted in 2007 by 51% to 49% to reject the EU’s flagship constitutional treaty (because craftspeople feared the arrival of ‘the Polish plumber’), the EU took a deep breath and decided to put the draft Treaty on ice. It was approved in 2011 in the form of the Lisbon Treaty. Here there is no Treaty involved, but nor has the process to leave the EU been triggered. Legally, this referendum was advisory, not binding.
Could the UK reconsider? If the people wants OUT yet two-thirds of MPs want IN, logic suggests an early general election with a new government subsequently seeking a new way forward. The Conservative Party may in any case prove incapable of governing in its current state. Should a no confidence vote bring the Tories down, could their disorder and Labour’s woes combine and lead to a new centrist party forming, to stand against the anti-EU brigade? And if the centrists win, could they hold a second referendum? (The question on the ballot paper might perhaps read “Is your indecision final?’)
Back to earth with a bump
Like Major Tim Peake, the UK may well come down to earth with sparks flying around its ears. The impact of the vote on sterling and on the stock markets has already toppled us from our vaingloriously proclaimed perch as ‘the world’s fifth largest economy’. And long awited investment decisions could see production capacity rapidly moved elsewhere.
So fasten your seat belts, I fear we’re in for a rough ride.
* Sir Graham Watson was a MEP from 1994 to 2014. He led the EP's Liberal Democratic Group from 2002 to 2009 and presided the ALDE Party from 2011 to 2015. He is now a Member of the European Economic and Social Committee.
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48 Comments
As tiny a parliamentary party as we are, we URGENTLY need to be helping put together enough MPs to have vote in no confidence as suggested in the article. This is the ONLY hope of allowing the country a chance to re-consider. Please, Tim Farron and other MPs start this happening.
Stockmarkets on Friday following the referendum result.
Spanish down 12.4%
Italian market down 12.5%
French market down 8.0%
German market down 6.8%
UK market down 3.2%
So which countries suffer most from UK exit and not offering more concessions in the re-negotiation?
LDV? Can we please have fewer of these ridiculous, denial op-eds?
June 23rd wasn’t a pre-season friendly. It was the final and our side lost. The Remian campaign was a disaster with an endless series of experts and celebrities lecturing the public on how to vote.
This piece is more of the same and just as doomed to fail.
We should offer to be the core of a new third party and call on the angry MPs on both sides to join and form a new entity with new branding (the LibDem brand doesn’t carry much weight anyway and we wouldn’t lose much).
The word ‘Liberal’ is not a Holy word and we do have lots of people who could make common cause with centrist voters from both other camps and even some Scots centrists.
This bloc would present the Brexit camp as clueless, headless chickens (easy as they are) and we would oppose them, show the nation what numpties they are and offer a centrist alternative based on our principles.
There will be no re run.of the referendum, no stewards enquiry. The next game is to fill the vacuum after the Brexiteers implode through their own incompetence and jealousies .
I have noticed a rush of IN support for the Govt petition to invoke the 75% precedent which I believe the Irish used. Is there stomach for this at Westminster I ask ? Or do we just take this lying down as we seem always to do?
HW
@David Evershed. If you quote the values in the same currency, London fell by more than either France or Germany. London far more than other European countries is a medium for international capital investing in international businesses and that part of its business was less affected. Look at specific sectors like building for the effect on the local economy.
That said, all those losses are bad for the economies of all countries.
Yes will our leader lead in pressing for a 2nd referendum when the issue is discussed in the House, probably next week, the petition is now already approaching 1.5m, growing about 100,000 an hour. It is a chance to seize the oppostion role on this issue. It will get media coverage.
No. There is no practical way back. The task of the leaders of the UK, for however long it continues to exist, will be to manage its decline and eventual dissolution, and to ensure that this is carried out with as little destruction as possible.
It now turns out that the Leave campaign didnt mean most of the things everyone thought they were saying.
“£350million a week for The NHS ?” apparently that was a “mistake”.
“Cut Immigration?” apparently they never actually said that.
A lot of people who voted Leave now feel they were conned.
We can make a principled case for reversing/blocking Brexit. The 1975 Referendum was supposed to be a one-off; once you accept that we can have two Referendums, why not three or four ?
Referendums & Parliamentary Government dont mix, Thursdays vote Leave majority was actually asking for a whole bunch of different things, depending on who you ask but the details can only be supplied by a Parliament that has a clear Remain majority.
We are Fedaralists & Leave failed to get a Federal majority, two of our Nations voted Leave & two Remain.
Both our major Parties are split down the middle, one is leaderless & the other possibly involved in another messy “Coup”, even as we speak. Nothing is settled.
I back delaying article 50. If there was a big vote for out then we couldn’t have done it, but considering the mayhem that has been unleashed on the economy, security threats popping up and the unity of the United Kingdom at stake I think public support for a quick withdrawal has gone.
I’ve read something about the “German model” for brext, which is an associate membership, which could just be a re-negotiated membership by another number name. We would still lose our MEPs though.
The German model is probably the best path forward, but I still support delaying article 50 until we have got our negotiating position sorted and know who will be leading it.
The French model is worse and they need to be told: punishing the UK for brexit will encourage, not discourage, contagion. We need a fair deal, not retribution for having a democratic exercise and not getting the result they want.
We probably shouldn’t delay article 50 too long. The EU is also right that we need to be respectful and they need to get rid of the uncertainty.
I’d love Graham Watson to be right and given Boris’ tenuous opportunistic conversion from scepticism to opposition (and non-triumphal demeanour yesterday) he just might be. Especially as the gathering leaders may feel that it would be better to lance the boil of anger from AfD etc by changing how the EU acts, rather than toughing it out and risking explosion; reform is the enemy of revolution and all that ?
But the personal enmities in the Tory party are deep (I was a “wet”, I know, I left) and it may be that no-one can command a majority in the HoC, in which case there will be a GE. If that happens then I agree with Barry Snelson, and that the “European Reform Alliance ” (all 3 words are key – it doesn’t have to be a new party, more like a national government in waiting ) could do well under fptp. If the soft right/centre/soft left fight each other we risk letting in the hard right.
Then we delay and negotiate outside, educate inside and listen/ explain to those who felt unheeded and frustrated.
And I’m saying much the same to contacts in other parties.
Of course the EU did give Ireland the opportunity to reconsider in a second referendum. We should certainly be given the same courtesy. In fact, it would be quite reasonable, once the government has eventually worked out what its negotiating position will be, to put that to a referendum in advance of the negotiations. After all, we know that there is no decisive line yet on whether we would be negotiating to be in or out of the single market, to take the biggest example of the confusions. Presumably a no vote to such a referendum question would mean that we couldn’t even invoke article 50 at all. Other states with anti-EU populists on the rampage ought to welcome such a vote since it would certainly show that the UK had thought twice about leaving when the economic realities struck. And of course, even a yes vote (highly unlikely I would have thought, given the widespread differences in the Leave camps), would still ony allow the process to start, which is no worse than the current position. Perhaps the Brexiters wouldn’t agree to such a referendum but that would reveal how hollow is their claim to be the gang who are in touch with the people.
Graham Watson.
Hello Graham, many years later I am the only one that visits my grandchild. That’s what drove my family to vote out. You will remember the times we talked, and do you remember the pro bono produced by ECAS with the help of Freshfields?
Do you honestly feel with legal failures like this and I’m not the only one, I would have faith in the EU, and I’m part French.
That’s what clouded our views. I make no other comment, you will remember I’m sure.
What utter nonsense these constant pleas and articles are for trying to reverse the decision. Especially from Libdems who scream about democracy.
The Turn out was the largest in an election for over 20 years.
The leave campaign won by 52 to 48. A clear majority.
You always complain that we have governments that are in place without winning the majority of the vote, i.e the current Tory government being won on just 37% of the vote.
Well that is not the case in this referendum which was a simple question put to the electorate, IN or OUT. The majority went for out.
Just because a Majority of under 40’s went for out
or
only 2 out of the 4 countries in the UK voted out
does not mean the result is undemocratic.
The question was asked and the country responded. Deal with it
We now need to negotiate the best possible terms of our exit.
Liberal Democrats will do well to stop being so obsessed over Europe and start focusing on thinking of progressive policies where Britain can cooperate and trade with the rest of the world on an international basis.
The world does not start at Ireland and end in Cyprus.
The EU made up only 14% of the worlds countries, but restricted us when it came to the rest of 86%.
This is a huge opportunity for the UK and for this party even.
British politics has had a big seismic shift.
It is down to the political parties to recognise that shift in opinion and adapt accordingly.
The Liberal Democrats want to expand, you are not going to do that by looking backwards, The British Public rejected your position in 2015 and they rejected that in this referendum. Listen, Learn, and evolve.
Lots of voters were unhappy with certain aspects of the EU, the court systems was our great unhappiness.
Not even the pro bono was acted on, we were powerless.
This is not freedom, or justice, or human rights.
Another vote and I will vote the same, so will my family. There were chances to remedy but they ignored.
Sorry Graham, I’ve every respect for you as a former MEP, I know you tried, but it was not going to work. You knew that.
Yes, The People have spoken. They want Article 50. Give it to them!
but Matt, you write we have to negotiate the best possible terms, what would those be, please enlighten us. In or out of the singe market ? Net immigration of zero, as used to be UKIP policy in the days when they had policy ? Sign up to the draft EU/USA Trade deal or not? Apparently we don’t have a trade deal with New Zealand, what is it your going for ? Does your firm export to New Zealand ? Bolivia, what trade opportunities are we missing out on ? What will all this cost ? Who is equipped to negotiate ? Unelected UK Bureaucrats ? What fishing policy do you want ? What environmental protection laws shall we keep ? The 48 hour working week, is that to go?
@Caracatus
My Preferred choice is
Out of the single Market .
Strike a new trade agreement with the EU
Introduce an Australian points based immigration system where we can control the numbers. Where there is an industry where we lack the people and skills, Visa allocations can be made for each industry. They would be issued with a work Visa to come to live and work in the UK and after a period of “x” amount of years they could then apply for residence, the point being though that whilst they are on a working visa, they would have no access to social housing or welfare and free up vital resources.
If factories and Farms where struggling to get UK workers {which I doubt} we would also be able to make use of a temporary 12 month working holiday Visa for people 18-25 where people from all over the world incl the EU would be able to come and work temporarily, no different to the hundreds of thousands of Brits who go on back packing holidays down under. It is a wonderful way to travel and be able to earn and learn about new cultures at the same time. Point being again, these visas would be temporary, they would not have access to welfare or social housing.
I want Britain to make it’s own trade agreements with all of the world, not limit ourselves to an inward looking block of 28.
Britain who will cooperate on an international level over intelligence and security, environmental.
I do not buy into the arguments that we are going to see a rapid destruction in workers rights.
What we have just seen is a seismic shift in UK politics, The people standing up to the Establishment and saying NO.
Any Government that attempts to drift in a direction that is out of kilt with the electorate as a whole, is quickly going to see itself booted out of office.
What we have seen over the last few months has been a lot of people becoming more engaged with politics, Millions of people rushing to register to be able to vote and people who never normally bother to vote, turning out to vote in large numbers. People had enough and they wanted change
These people where not natural Tory Voters and there are lessons to learn here for all parties,
how do you appeal to these new voters who have become in engaged in politics again? The answer is certainly not to dismiss the way they just voted in this referendum.
I believe in democracy and I believe that our laws and our policies should be made and enforced in the UK. If a Government of the day starts heading in a direction that is out of step with its people, the people have the power to remove that Government.
What we are going to see happen, and what none of us have any control over is.
The Prime Minister has resigned and rightly so, he also said it is for the new Prime Minister to start article 50, which is the right thing to do.
The Tory party is about to start there leadership campaign, once they have settled on their 2 candidates, it will be for the Tory Party membership to elect their leader who by default becomes the next Prime Minister.
What I would like to see in the mean time, is the Labour party and the Liberal Democrat party start to come up with policy positions which they believe should form part of the EU exit negotiations. What they should also be doing in the mean time is calling for is an end to the fixed term parliament act.
I am pretty sure that whoever ends up being the Prime Minister, they are not going to want to risk them themselves being a one term pony, they are going to probably want to seek an early election and a mandate for their EU negotiations. What Prime Minister is going to want to spend 2 years negotiating our exit only to find themselves booted out of government 12 months later. They won’t risk that
That is why the Labour and Liberal Democrats should quickly start setting out their case for how they would handle the exit and what negotiations they would like to see. But I repeat, that should not be to try and reverse the electorates decision by keeping us in.
I certainly do not want us to be a part of the CFP.
Where Fisherman are now forced to bring all of their catch in to port and for their discards to end up in land fill.
I want us to take back control of our waters, set our own fishing quotas.
I want to see our fishing Fleets, ports and communities revived and thrive again. Which I am sure they will
I still want sensible quota’s to protect our fish stocks and species.
I still want to have rules where trawlers have to bring back ALL their catch but I don’t want to see dead fish end up in land fill which is a total waste of life and resource. I would prefer these discards to be used commercially in pet food.
Take back control they said. Why is it I feel like we’ve never been less in control of the future of country than I do today?
The major players are going hell for leather towards ever greater union.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/brexit/nach-brexit-entscheidung-berlin-und-paris-wollen-politische-union-vorantreiben-14307968.html
The answer for those British citizens that want the single market’s four freedoms but not to be part of ever greater political union is to use the EEA option. This is also the best option for the remaining members of the EU; those that will want to join the UK in this bventure and those that will want to stay on the EMU and EU train.
“people who never normally bother to vote, turning out to vote in large numbers.”
yep, the ones who don’t vote for their MEPs, local Councillors or MPs are certainty the best one to lecture us on how democracy works.
@ Matt – thanks for taking it seriously, but you missed the point, there is no leave position on these issues. I expect all the Conservatives who said Gordon Brown was an unelected PM will not say the same about whoever succeeds Cameron. We have no written constitution, there is no reason why we can’t have another referendum, this time on the terms negotiated.
@Caractacus
Yes, you may be right about these voters, but a new interest in politics may mean they will keep registered and use their vote at every future opportunity.
Whose fault is it that the general public had lost interest/or never had an interest in voting for their MEP’s, never mind their own councillors and MP’s?
Now watching Adele at Glastonbury. What a fabulous sunset!
The EU is now muttering about making exit as awkward as possible “pour encourage les autres”. The history of European nations imposing punitive conditions on a country to stop others doing the same is not altogether a good one.
@Caracatus
Of course I take it seriously. You asked me a perfectly fair question and you deserved a full and proper answer from, i try and offer my opinion honestly and respectfully, that’s what makes a great debate.
With regards to your comments about there being no Leave position on these issues, to be fair, leave did have a position, it was out of the EU and that is what the electorate voted for.
The leave campaign was not in a position to say this is what will defiantly happen and will be Government policy if you vote leave, after all the leave campaign was and is not in Government, they were not in a position to do that.
And to be fair on the flip side, what was the remains position? They flip flopped all over the place in the last week of the campaign, especially on Immigration. Remain was arguing that they got real reforms on welfare that they believed would bring down net migration. All parties panicked in the last week and said that we needed to stay in the EU but then said they needed to get reforms on freedom of movement.
Remain also came out with ludicrous lies and threats, pensioners benefits triple lock, Brexit Budget. Implying that Families would lose £4’300 by 2020 which was untrue.
We had all the Economists and the Government at first saying that In or or Out the economy would still grow, it was just by a matter of how much. But when the polls shifted, they panicked and ratcheted up project fear by implying a recession……
In the event of an early election It would be a good idea for either Labour (maybe under a new leader, although Corbyn at least voted for Remain) or the LibDems to offer us a commitment to reviewing the case for another referendum on the EU. However, there is a danger under current party rules that there may not be enough time for Labour to have a new leader in place.
I think the potential for a LibDem alliance with Labour on this issue might appeal to some who are already feeling misled by Nigel Farage’s backtracking on diverting savings to the NHS and Daniel Hannan’s denial that the Leave campaign promised to reduce immigration, saying now that Brexit Tories would only be aiming to control it.
At the end of the day, the question on the ballot paper was, should we remain a member of the EU.
After months of intense debate, the public decided.
It is now down to parliament to deliver what its people have told them to do, that is democracy.
You can not disregard the will of the people and keep calling for referendum after referendum until you get the answer you want.
And lets remember something else that is being forgotten here.
The Registration Website, crashed in the last couple of hours for people to register to vote. Parliament then allowed people a further 48 hours in order to register, which favoured remain greatly, How many hundreds of thousands of extra people registered in those extended hours? And yet, over a million people more people voted for leave than remain.
@Hywel – two months ago I suggested that this might happen using this exact same form of words:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/paddy-has-brexit-campaigners-floundering-on-question-time-50243.html#comment-401071
I trust that nobody on this forum – regardless of any enthusiasm for the EU – is under any illusion that the EU leadership will not do “whatever it takes” to keep the project on track.
@Caracatus
“yep, the ones who don’t vote for their MEPs, local Councillors or MPs are certainty the best one to lecture us on how democracy works.”
I don’t think that is fair. These people are not lecturing anyone, they are excising their democratic right to vote. Just because they may never have been engaged in politics before, does not make them any less entitled to say how they are governed now.
Liberal Democrats of all people should be enthused by these new voters and should be thinking of new ways / policies which will engage and reach out to these people. The Liberal Democrats need to rebuild after all.
The thing that all political parties need to come to terms with and soon. There has been a huge seismic shift in British politics, millions of people rushed to register to vote and millions of people who do not normally bother to vote became engaged in politics again. They had enough of the establishment and they wanted change. They realise now that they can do that and the lesson that they have learnt is that there is power to the people.
I don’t think these people where natural Tory Voters or even necessarily Labour voters
But one thing is for certain, I think all parties are going to have to adopt a more inclusive kind of politics. I think that any party that tries to appeal and appease to just their core voters is going to find themselves pretty much booted out or kept out of office.
I do understand that this referendum result is painful for many Lib Dems , but you do have to come to terms with the fact that this is democracy and 30% of Liberal Democrats votes actually went to supporting the leave the EU vote.
I disagree, obviously, people who haven’t voted have no right to lecture others on how their voice hasn’t been heard.
@ Matt – yes the ‘remain campaign’ came up with absurd exaggerations and lies – but, actually that was one part of the remain campaigns, the Osborne/Cameron part, who always fight elections on the basis of lies and smears. It is a simple illustration of the absurdity of referendums for complex issue. The leave side told plenty of lies and had several impossible to implement or contradictory pledges. As you accept, they are no a government or even a political party – so they have no accountability for their pledges or their implementation.
Paul Murray points above to his very wise comment made on the 23rd of April.
May I also point out that this was the day and place in which I first pointed out the attractions of the EEA route for the UK. Of course it was greeted by silence from many and derision from a few. Yet today it is becoming the next move of choice of more and more considerate democrats from all sides, ranging from Johnson, Parris, S Kinnock, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – oh and me 😉
The Leave vote was essentially a scream of anger by the have nots against the establishment. We are often told by experts that employment levels are high, inflation low, and the economy stable. That is not how it has felt for many people in the country, and no political group, including the Lib Dems, has come up with a convincing answer to resolve this imbalance in society, or even to convince the public that they recognise that there is a problem. The EU vote has happened, and rather than waste time on a Quixotic battle in favour of a re-run (it won’t happen, and will only paint us as bad losers), we should concentrate our efforts on listening to, understanding, and coming up with good answers, to the concerns and divisions exposed by the referendum campaign.
@Caracatus
“I disagree, obviously, people who haven’t voted have no right to lecture others on how their voice hasn’t been heard.”
Have we changed the terms of our debate? I thought we were previously talking about the rush of new voters who registered to vote and rushed out to vote. They might not have voted in previous elections General Elections, Eu elections etc, but that doesn’t mean that they’re vote now should be worth less than others. That’s not how democracy works
“so they have no accountability for their pledges or their implementation.”
Come on now, you know the difference between saying what is a possible alternative and making an outright pledge. Nobody in the leave campaign made any pledges.
Our Government called this referendum, they should have been the ones that had a set of plans for both scenarios….
I did not see any Liberal Democrats, rubbishing some of the claims being made by the remain camp, in fact, some were even repeating them. They relied on project fear in order to get people to vote for the status quo and it backfired spectacularly.
Remain camp led by the Government, where in the position to set out an honest campaign on what would happen if we remain in the EU.
Indeed the campaign started out like this by the government and so called independent economists, they said in or out, Britain’s economy would still grow, it was just a question by how much.
When the polls started to shift and showed that their was a chance of leaving, they panicked, they ratcheted up project fear and instead started to talk about our economy tanking, recession, Emergency Brexit Budget etc..
It was implausible and the electorate did not fall for it…
There will be no negotiation. Article 50 makes it clear that the remaining 27 members of the EU will meet and decide their ‘take it or leave it’ offer on future relationships with the UK. So it now doesn’t matter who leads the government, because the decision to leave has been made by an electorate who believed that the facts were lies and the lies were facts.
Of course we Lib Dems must offer the opportunity to rejoin, but don’t expect that to be a quick process. The only way to achieve that is a Lib Dem majority at an election and even the most optimistic of us don’t seriously believe that’s on the cards.
We must realise now that referenda are destructive of representative democracy and that complicated decisions are not amenable to yes/no questions. We need to get back to proper representative democracy and that means federal government, a different electoral system and an elected second chamber .
The only way back is the time before the UK government invokes Article 50, hence why Remain needs to keep the pressure up on the Leave campaigners and the government – just as Leave would have if they had lost the referendum by a similar margin. As George Osborne has effectively said this morning, it would be daft to invoke Article 50 and embark on the one way exit conveyor without a place to go to. So everything is still to play for, particularly with respect to just what our relationship will be with the EU and Europe.
Matt > You can not disregard the will of the people and keep calling for referendum after referendum until you get the answer you want.
Well no, except on that basis, why do we hold elections every five years? The people spoke in 2015 for Westminster, 2016 for Wales and Scotland. Why ask them ever again?
If it’s true 7% of Leave voters have changed their minds since Thursday (and a similar percentage of Remain voters, too), it’s clear hundreds of thousands of people already think they made a mistake. Even if those numbers balance out, it’s a crazy way to determine the country’s future once and for all.
Any new trade deals with the EU will be on their terms, any new markets we manage to find will also be able to call the tune, knowing we’re desperate.
And given our electoral system, I have no more say in who rules the UK than my dog.
Any new referendum needs to have moved on, of course. Would have to be on: ‘this is what is ACTUALLY being offered as an alternative; this is what leaving REALLY means’.
@CassieB
“Well no, except on that basis, why do we hold elections every five years?”
You can not compare a referendum in the same light as a general election. The 2 are not the same.
With regards to that poll by the daily mail which showed some people had regretted their choice, it was a poll of 1000 people. hardly representative. Considering just how wrong the polls got this referendum anyway, why on earth would anyone be pointing to them now for evidence.
You say “it’s clear hundreds of thousands of people already think they made a mistake” Well in 2010, I voted Liberal Democrat and almost instantly regretted it when I saw what my vote then represented, when we ended up with a rose garden love in. Abandoning of pledges, Top down reorganisation of the NHS, Welfare Cap, Bedroom Tax, the list goes on and on.
I couldn’t demand a couple of days that I didn’t get the election resulted I wanted a rerun and to change my vote. It’s nonsense.
You say any trade deals will be on EU terms, but that is nonsense, you have no evidence of that, even the German BDI, the equivalent of our CBI has said so.
As for the rest of the world, why on earth would the 5th largest economy be looked at as weak and desperate for a trade deal. That is just silly desperation talking.
You all want the referendum to be rerun. But do you seriously think the campaign would be run any differently? We would still get Project fear and lies from the Remain campaign. You would still get the same old threats from the Government.
That’s not to say that some leavers did not exaggerate either, but they certainly did not make the kind of threats that the government machine made, threatening pensioners, revenge budgets, etc.,
The same thing would happen again, and the Public rejected that.
The markets will level out. The main cause of instability at the moment is of George Osborne’s own making.. rather than Brexit. And the only thing spooking the markets now, is all this call for rerunning the referendum or ignoring the results entirely.
Matt >You all want the referendum to be rerun.
I didn’t say it should be rerun.
I said: ‘Any new referendum needs to have moved on, of course.’
>Well in 2010, I voted Liberal Democrat and almost instantly regretted it when I saw what my vote then represented
And you got another go in 2015 to change your mind.
I never said any new referendum should be held next week. Of course we can’t keep asking the same question till we get the answer we like. That doesn’t mean we should have to wait another 41 years to have a direct say on the subject again.
And a General Election wouldn’t be a direct say, as it would be on so many other issues.
I said it could be when there is something concrete to vote on. Facts, not emotion/ifs/maybes, which is all the Leave campaign could be last week.
Give those who voted Leave a chance to vote on something that can for sure be delivered. It wouldn’t be Project Fear either, it would be status quo v new deal.
>That is just silly desperation talking.
Hardly, because I hope I am wrong. It’s more the sort of logic that makes me ask things such as: if these birds-in-the-bush unnamed new markets are so keen to buy our stuff, why haven’t we been supplying them before now?
CassieB
“…if these birds-in-the-bush unnamed new markets are so keen to buy our stuff, why haven’t we been supplying them before now?”
Errr,.. because the EU put such draconian restrictions on those markets as to make it impractical and uneconomic.
Example : Potentially cheaper solar panels stifled by AD2111, which is an EU directive. Without these mad EU blockages British customers could potentially put a solar installation on their roof at about 2/3rds the present cost? Seriously,..What’s not to like..?
How much other potential trade is being EU blocked.? Is Africa ready to step up its trade of fruit and vegetables? Is New Zealand ready to supply the British with lamb in much larger quantities again?
Why do myopic liberals want to block and stifle trade with the world, preferring to worship at the altar of this useless EU edifice?
Re: “pour encourage les autres”
(Hywel, Paul Murray & Bill le Breton)
I agree with what you are alluding to, however, I suspect many have missed the full meaning, namely: the result on Friday in favour of Leave, has changed what Remain means to something different to what it would have meant if the result had been in favour of Remain.
So whilst there is still an argument to be made for remaining in the EU, our relationship with the other EU members will be different; until such time as other members such as France put their continued membership to the vote…
So the way forward, after reading all this, seems to be as Graham Watson wrote. The referendum was advisory not legally binding, and with two-thirds of MPs wanting to stay in the EU, it makes sense to have an early General Election so that a new government can consider the position. It could be a new centrist government, including us. Then the consequences of Brexit can be properly considered, and all the untruths of either side discarded. There should be debate at a much deeper and more honest level. As Article 50 has not been invoked, a second referendum can then be called, and a different result may be achieved. I also want to see Liberal Democrats seriously putting forward exactly what reforms are needed to make the EU more democratic and with greater subsidiarity. And our Party needs to consider more the neglected needs of the poor and disadvantaged of our own society, whose frustrations have helped to stoke this outcry against the uncaring elites.
“The referendum was advisory not legally binding, and with two-thirds of MPs wanting to stay in the EU, it makes sense to have an early General Election so that a new government can consider the position.”
Yes. We’re going to have to petition for it, campaign for it and march for it, though. Boris would much rather just do what he pleases without bothering about tiresome plebs who might want a vote. Yet he has absolutely no mandate to govern.
When a government loses a crucial referendum, they have lost the confidence of the people and should resign en masse – Not just go for a Plan B leader and a Plan B policy and try to carry on regardless. What’s worse, the referendum voters were given no clue as to what Plan B might be – the EEA, or splendid isolation? What’s worse, the referendum was won by lying on a scale last seen with the forged Zinoviev letter in the 1920s (yes, that was also the Tories…)
But we’re going to have to fight for it!
Let me just remind everyone that, thanks to the Liberal Democrats, at least 434 MPs are required to vote to dissolve Parliament before the country can go to a new election prior to 2020; neither Cameron nor his successor can simply ‘call an election’.
And that means that both the Conservatives and Labour will have to concur in the advisability of dissolving Parliament, which in turns means that they will both have to have their leaders in place and both must believe that it is politically advantageous to their parties to do so. The first of these things will not be true for several months; the second might never be true in the life of this Parliament.
I do agree that, given the very substantial disconnect between (a) the views of the people, (b) the views of the Commons, and (c) the views of the government (whatever they are) a new election only makes sense. However, making sense is not something either governments or parliaments do particularly well, and the fact that a thing makes sense not only does not guarantee that it will happen, it rather favours it not happening.