In 2016 we had a referendum that resulted in what was pretty much a dead-heat. The country was divided down the middle between leaving the EU on unspecified terms (though presumably mostly on a promised trade deal given the terms of the referendum debate) and sticking with the status quo however flawed that was felt to be. The mistake that Theresa May made was to turn that dead-heat into winner takes all for a hard Brexit - leaving the Customs Union, Single Market and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. She soon realised this was a mistake once confronted by the reality of EU negotiations and called a fateful General Election to try to bolster her position in the Commons to ram through a settlement that she knew would be wildly unpopular with half of the UK. She used a supposed fear of a Corbyn government as the Trojan horse with which to install a new cohort of hard-Brexit-backing Tory MPs. This backfired spectacularly - the public didn't fall for it and ultimately it just re-affirmed the fact that the country was evenly split on Brexit.
The Tories' manifesto had contained the pledge to "exit the European Single Market and Customs Union"; the Labour manifesto promised to negotiate a deal that emphasised "retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union". These are clearly incompatible positions and Parliament was inevitably deadlocked.
Insofar as the Will Of The People was discernible at all from this it showed itself to be evenly divided. In those circumstances what was Parliament supposed to do? What did those who protest that MPs are traitors and are ignoring the will of the people expect them to do? Each MP was elected on a manifesto and what they were doing was addressing each vote that came before them according to their manifesto pledges and their own judgement. Last time I checked we still had a system of representative democracy in the UK ie we elect MPs to think and act on our behalf - they debate and analyse each issue and use their own judgement to vote accordingly with, we hope, the aim of doing their best by their constituents. They are not delegates - the local soviet does not meet to decide how they will vote in Parliament - they are not there to rubber stamp decisions, they are there to act on behalf of their constituents - not just those that voted for them but all of them.
Far from acting traitorously Parliament did exactly what Leave voters wanted - it took back control and reasserted parliamentary sovereignty. Parliament took a look at where we were heading and concluded it was not in the best interests of the country and so put the brakes on. It is interesting to note though that the failure to leave the EU lies entirely in the court of the ERG and the DUP - if it had not been for them we would have left the EU by now. Perhaps they had just grown too accustomed to their moment in the spotlight and didn't want it to be over. So we Remainers have them to thank for that at least.
This brings me to last night's EU election results. Farage and his proxies in the Tory Party will crow about how the Brexit Party 'won' the election and this confirms that the will of the people is to leave the EU on WTO terms. It does nothing of the sort - parties that declared themselves unequivocally pro-Remain (Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru) out-polled the Brexit Party and UKIP. The Brexit Party essentially absorbed the existing UKIP support and added to it but there is still no majority for leaving the EU.
The Tories were decimated due to their total failure to deliver Brexit as described above. Strangely Labour got a kicking for doing what it's MPs had been elected to do - to push for Customs Union and Single Market membership - probably due to the fact that most Labour Party MPs, members and supporters are pro-Remain yet the leadership's painful fence-sitting continues.
So, what is the will of the people? It is hard to judge but it seems that there is a significant chunk of the population who would be happy to leave the EU on WTO terms, a smaller block of Labour and Tory voters who want to leave with some kind of deal, and the largest block of all is people who do not want to leave under any circumstances. It seems that as the debate crystallises into WTO terms vs Remain after the rejection of the Withdrawal Agreement more and more people are plumping for Remain.
Should Parliament blindly implement the will of the people if they are even able to judge what it is currently based on the above? No plainly not, that's not their job and it was a mistake for Cameron to ever imply that in the 2016 referendum. But the parliament of 2016 is long dead and one parliament cannot bind the hands of a future parliament - in the current parliament there is no majority or mandate for any specific Brexit outcome, hence the stalemate.
So whoever becomes Tory leader now will be faced with this reality - they will have been elected on a hard-Brexit platform by the entryists on the right of the party, while the country has changed it's mind on Brexit. They will have to choose between implementing a Brexit on WTO terms that the majority of the country do no want, holding a General Election on a manifesto committed to WTO terms that most of the country will reject, or holding a Peoples' Vote which they will lose and which will result in the Brexit Party's continued existence along with its existential threat to the Tory Party.
For someone who has always had an intense dislike for the Tory Party it makes for great viewing but as far as the country goes it is terrible news - the damage that Brexit is doing look set to continue for months and years to come.
Excellent article Bruce - very well written and pretty much even handed and with which I concur. Just a couple of points (well, you wouldn't expect me to stay completely silent now would you!!). Although you are right to say in votes cast the indication is that Remain shaded it, equally, and under the rules of PR, Brexit have sufficient members to outvote The Greens/ Lib Dems/SNP/Plaid Cymru. (29 against 27). Sure, not that that necessarily matters in Euro politics, but psychologically that is a huge boost for Brexit knowing that it holds the balance of power, unless either Tory or Labour come out in block support of the Remain camp in due course. The irony is that had the Lib/Dems and Greens thought sensibly rather than on party grounds, they should have elected to seat swap with the likely benefit that in so doing they could probably have taken a far bigger share of the vote region by region instead of handing victory (and significant victory) to Brexit in every seat in England and Wales and only narrowly missing out on London too (1.5% swing). Fundamentally though you are right - this does nothing to unmuddy the waters, certainly not here in The UK other than perhaps by giving the incumbent Tory PM the impetus to deliver - deal or no deal. What I actually see in the wider EU results is that the die is cast and The EU is now starting to show it's weakness and the end is nigh.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andy (I assume it's you though you have come up as Unknown) - I agree, an electoral pact would have made sense. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out in any GE especially here in St Albans. Seems like Change-UK are over before they even began - hopefully they'll have the sense to join the Lib Dems.
DeleteYou are also right re delivery - a large number of Tory MPs know that going into the 2020 GE if they have not delivered on Brexit they face almost certainly losing their seat to the Brexit Party. Something has to give.
My personal view has always been that Boris will hold a WTO vs Remain referendum. The only fly in the ointment of that theory now is that the more that Remain looks like winning, which would mean the Brexit Party continuing to have a raison d'etre and destroying the Tories subsequently, the more unlikely it becomes that he would call that referendum.
2022 GE, not 2020 obvs!
Delete*Typo* 4.5% swing.
ReplyDeleteYep, it was me! I really wouldn't want to second guess where we go from here. Interestingly (but perhaps not unsurprisingly) every Tory PM candidate is a Brexiteer, but of varying degrees. On balance, I guess BJ as favourite is more of a moderate, whereas Dominic Rabb I think could simply go down the default no deal route, simply by not seeking to get anything over the line in time - a bit like TM in reverse - same sort of tactic, but in TM's case she underestimated the strength of feeling against her withdrawal agreement, but still hung on to the bitter end in the hope that ultimately members would have come around to accepting it as the best of a bad set of choices, which neither Brexiteer nor Remainer agreed with and it cost her her job.
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