Brexit: A bluffer’s guide to saving the nation

Amid all the Brexit claim and counter-claim, here’s a single, scary, incontrovertible fact.  That on the day after Britain leaves the EU in 2019 (let’s call it B-Day+1), not a single British firm can tell you the terms on which it will be trading with any other country, anywhere in the world.

No wonder the pound is flinging itself around in a desperate cry for help.  Why would anyone invest in a country that simply doesn’t know its own future?

This B-Day+1 argument runs through issue after issue.  Not a single EU migrant in the UK knows what their status or rights will be on that day.  British migrants abroad, whether working or retired, face the same uncertainty.  Banks and businesses, scientists and students. No-one knows.

Paradoxically,  a parliamentary vote on the Brexit deal would only add to this uncertainty.  If whatever deal Theresa May strikes is rejected by parliament, Britain would leave the EU anyway with no deal.  B-Day+1 in these circumstances would be jolly interesting indeed.

The critical, under-stated fact is that we still have a choice.   We do not have to go down this perilous road.  There is no legal obligation on Theresa May or anyone else, not even parliament, to trigger Article 50.   And certainly not on the basis of a non-binding referendum result fuelled by lies and misinformation.

The referendum was a snapshot of national opinion at a particular moment in history after one of the most mendacious campaigns in British political history, as a friend pointed out the other day.  It should therefore not be enough, on its own, to change the course of British and European history and blight millions of lives.

The government and parliament must act in what they believe are the best interests of the nation – and overwhelmingly they believe our interests lie within the EU.  A free parliamentary vote on whether triggering Article 50 is in the national interest would produce a resounding “no”, based on the known genuine beliefs of MPs.

I once saw an emotional foster parent stand up at a training event to describe how she had finally given into a girl’s repeated desperate pleading to open her Christmas presents early.  She finally relented, believing that doing what the child wanted was appropriate. The child never forgave her.

How much more is it the job of governments, parliaments, even the civil service, to act in the national interest, to hold the line for what is right in the face of pleading and even abuse?

If Brexit was a purchase, we’d legally be allowed a cooling-off period.  How much more do we need a national cooling-off period to avert economic mayhem and the death of the British values most of us grew up with.  Purchasing “freedom” from Brussels will come at a tremendous cost, to be disproportionately borne by the very people who were the most likely to vote for it: the poor, elderly and disadvantaged.  There’s never been a better example of the need to be careful what you wish for.

But more to the point, the threat to Britain is not Brussels, and never was.  It’s the poisonous far-right message of UKIP, which has seeped into everyday thinking and the political mainstream, its toxic spores carried by newspapers which ought to know better.

So what can we do to try to bring our politicians to their senses?

1. Make your point – Write to your MP and simply tell him/her that you do not believe Article 50 should be triggered, and certainly not without a free parliamentary vote.  Ideally, briefly state your reasons: for example that the vote was merely an indicator of national mood on the day; that people had been lied to, manipulated and misled; that some would now vote differently; that the issue was never really suitable for a referendum question; that the overwhelming vote of young people to stay has been swept aside; that the choice of hard or soft Brexit was not offered; that Brexit will further harm British economic and cultural interests; that the surge in hate crimes will only worsen.  Whatever your reasons, state them.
2. Make a noise – Use Twitter, Facebook and other social media to state your position, to help build up a head of steam. In years to come, if your grandchildren ask if you tried to stop it, at least be able to say you tried. Make clear that you haven’t yet given up on stopping Brexit.
3. Make the case – Recognise that your responsibility didn’t end at the ballot box. Whether we voted in, out or neither, we’re all impacted by the outcome.  So be prepared to make the case against Brexit and triggering Article 50 with friends, family, neighbours and colleagues.
4. Make a stand – Work against the upsurge in hate and hate crimes. Stop buying newspapers that spread hate. Call out racism and hate crimes and recognise that a national mood of hatred towards Eastern Europeans will not stop there: racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia are all in the same stable of hate-filled beliefs.

Meanwhile the image of a fully-laden coach headed for disaster is crystallising.

It’s the annual parish outing, with everyone on board the charabanc.  The passengers have been told they’re going to a 1940s theme park, sort of Grantchester meets Warmington-on-Sea, where everyone is white and English and the women wear pinafores.  Some of them are singing on board the bus.  But the demented Sunday school teacher has taken the wheel and is driving straight towards the bridge she knows is broken.

The EU may not be a caravan of love.  It’s badly in need of reform, and we all need to make a noise about that too.  But it sure beats a charabanc heading for s*** creek.  Let’s work together to try to stop it.

 

 

Sticks and stones: Trying to stop the Brexit crash

The worst insult that can now be hurled at anyone in Brexit Britain is the shocking assertion that they are a member of the “liberal elite”.  

Well let me raise my “liberal elitist” hand to try to explain why we are not the enemy within, but the people politely, entirely Britishly, trying to head off a catastrophe.

OK before you reach for your Bremoaner and Bremaniac hashtags, your obsessive/anti-democratic/bad losers slurs and your troll hats, let me explain. Here’s the simple analogy.

A coachload of people is driving headlong towards a broken bridge whose entire centre section has fallen away in the dark, into a deep ravine.

We are the people trying to flag the coach down, ‘tis all.

The people on board may have opted to go on the journey, but the tour operators lied about the weather and more to the point, no one told them the bridge was down.  They are hurtling towards the void, unaware, unafraid but basically stuffed.

So as the #Brewarners, we find ourselves sneered at, despised, “damned”*, feared. “Look at those crazy, dangerous, treacherous, arrogant people waving handkerchiefs at us.  Put your foot on the pedal, driver.”

But the biggest untold tragedy of all is that if hard Brexit happens, the impact will not be on the Goves and the Johnsons, the Farages and the Mays, or probably anyone else in the political classes.

The upper classes – Britain’s true elite – will have ways to avoid the harshest impacts of Brexit and will have resources to see them through.  The middle classes will also be cushioned to a certain extent, with their professional skills giving them options for emigrating, self-employment and adjusting lifestyle choices.

Even us “liberal elitists” will probably conjure up creative solutions over our organic muesli and fairtrade coffee.

No, the supreme irony of all this is that the worst impact will be on the socio-economic groups who were most likely to vote to leave – the old, the least qualified and the lowest earners.

No one told them they were the crash dummies on the coach.   They will be the first to be hit by increasing food prices (coming soon to a supermarket near you), by cuts in the tax take which will feed through into increased pressure on social care and welfare budgets – already under attack by this government – and I would suspect by a likely higher rate of early job losses among unskilled workers.

Oh, and the old people needing care who may find a shortage of migrant workers cheerfully filling low-paid, onerous shifts.

So for now the coach speeds on with Theresa May gripping the wheel and various factions on board shouting at her to speed up or slow down.

I and an increasing number of others are shouting at her to stop.  (And here are 10 reasons why I don’t believe this is undemocratic).

If the pound could talk, it would be screaming its own warning.  In its own way, it’s certainly issuing a loud cry for help on the world currency markets.  Mark Carney, the closest we have to a voice of reason, is talking sense from the helm of the Bank of England but even his position is being attacked. Twitter suggests he may even quit in the face of political sniping at his independent decision-making, removing a key stabilising influence.

The impending coach crash is why I’m not ashamed to believe that the results of the referendum – which was, after all, only advisory – should never be enacted.

It’s why I believe Article 50 should not be triggered, and certainly not by a Lone Ranger of a Prime Minister who seems to have interpreted a single-question referendum as a mandate for all sorts of things.  In other countries we’d characterise it as a power grab.  In the UK it’s portrayed as strong leadership.

It’s why I – with millions of others who voted Remain and Leave – will continue trying to flag that coach down until it tips into the precipice.  We owe it to them, to ourselves and to the nation we love to try to stop it happening.

And rest assured that on that day we won’t peer over and gloat.  We’ll be down there trying to pull the poor sodding victims from the wreckage.

Damned we may be, but we owe it to our nation not to go quietly.

*Being damned by the Daily Mail is a badge of honour I shall wear with pride.

Ten reasons why it’s OK to fight Brexit

Article 50 will be triggered by March 2017, says PM Theresa May, setting the UK onto an irreversible journey out of the European Union and into the unknown. Is it undemocratic to want the Brexit vote reversed and the triggering halted? Here are 10 reasons why it’s right to fight.
1. The referendum was non-binding. In a parliamentary democracy, major decisions rest with parliament – where a majority of MPs support Remain. It is not undemocratic to argue for parliamentary democracy to be applied in, well, a parliamentary democracy.
2. The referendum result was based in part on lies, misinformation and misunderstanding. Alongside the voters with a genuine desire to leave at all costs were those who believed in the bus (£350m a week for the NHS); believed you could biff the migrants and keep the single market; believed a dodgy Christian video “proving” from Biblical prophecies that Brussels was evil; believed that Boris Johnson really wanted to leave. And so on.
3. The question was never suitable for a referendum. Given the complexities of the issue and the impossible task of grasping the consequences of an Out vote, this was simply never an appropriate question. If David Cameron had thought for a moment he would lose, he would never have called the referendum. Internal Tory party politics – a proxy war between two old Etonians – have in effect brought down a nation. Talk about Whoops Apocalyse.
4. The Remain campaign was conducted with complacency. The nation sleepwalked into the vote with the Remain camp expecting it would be alright on the night. The debate, for all its moments of passion, was largely played out in a context where the Remain camp was expected to win by all sides – including Johnson and Farage. A galvanised, high-energy debate among friends, neighbours and colleagues, not to mention with a lot more oomph from our political leaders, could have ended differently.
5. The silent Remainers have not been heard. The millions of eligible voters who didn’t turn can largely be assumed to be Remainers, as those with strong Leave desire would have been more motivated to go to the polls. Of course democracy normally only counts those who bother to vote, but sleepwalking into a historic, irreversible change of direction is a different scenario from electing MPs and a government for four or five years. With the polls predicting a Remain win, and the aforementioned complacency, the Silent Remainers had not grasped the critical need to turn out.
6. The Nigel Farage factor. A man of the calibre of Nigel Farage should not be allowed to determine the whole future of the UK. Nuff said.
7. We owe it to our young people, who voted overwhelmingly to remain. Young people do not see the world in the same way as older generations, and the years to come are their years. The younger generations get the whole idea that, like it or not, we exist in a globalised world.  Work, study, travel, family and friends and now span the globe.  The fundamental interconnected of all things has never been more apparent.  Many older folks just don’t get that.  Some still have a post-colonial mindset, that global power somehow radiates from the UK.  Britannia no longer rules the waves. Sorry but there it is. It’s not all about us.
8. The voter-consequence inverse relationship. The more likely people were to vote to leave, the shorter the time they will have to live with the consequences. The generations who voted to leave will not have to live with the long-term impact of their decision. It is fundamentally undemocratic to allow one generation – which happens to be larger numerically – to wipe out the future of another generation.
9. You gotta serve somebody. Our future outside the EU would almost certainly entail being subservient to Beijing (or whoever) instead of Brussels. Millions of Leave voters will simply not have understood that in a world of seven billion people, a small nation of 64 million people can’t kick global ass. The prospect of Britain – or heaven forbid, the actual royal yacht Britannia –  sailing alone on the high seas seeking trade deals, does not fill many of us with confidence, especially when Fox, Davis and Johnson are on the bridge. Other countries will have us over a barrel, with only a two-year window to come up with solutions:  Small isle (sceptred), GSOH, currently unattached, going through messy divorce, desperately seeks trading partners for meaningful long-term relationship.  All offers considered.
10. The brain drain, the economy and the law of unintended consequences. No one knows the full impact of Brexit, hard, soft of medium-rare. But virtually every credible source – economists, scientists, academics, lawyers, civil servants – do not believe it will be in the best interests of the country. (Neither do most MPs and journalists, but they may not count as credible sources). It is not elitist or undemocratic to listen to those with the most understanding. The high likelihood is of a brain-drain of younger, talented people, a loss of at least some of our valuable migrant workforce, a moderate-to-severe impact on the economy and a consequent sharp reduction in tax intake as a result of all three. Democracy seeks to serve the interests of the people by giving them an informed say on a question whose consequences they could reasonably be expected to foresee. That was simply not the case here.
So should we 48ers should do what the British do best: get over it, accept that we lost, internalise our grief, Keep Calm and Carry On, and pretend we’re fine? Well I am not fine with Brexit. I am not fine with accepting that this was a legitimate democratic mandate to change the course of a nation and possibly a continent. I am not fine with an outcome which plays into a far-right agenda and has already triggered xenophobic attacks and verbal assaults across the country.
Call me undemocratic, deluded, dim, but I believe the biggest service any of us could do for the people of the UK right now is to fight this all the way. And rage, rage against the dying of the EU.