9th October 2021
Currently on Disney+ is a series of animated programmes exploring what would happen if some point or other was changed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Of course: when the source material is itself fantasy, the point of speculating about the effects of any changes can only be of limited import – just one fiction instead of another fiction.
With the real world, on the other hand, such counterfactuals at least start with what are understood to be facts.
And so: what if there had not been a referendum in 2016?
Presumably the Conservative government elected in 2015 would have stayed in office until 2020.
And presumably the Greek debt crisis and the migration crisis would have been unaffected.
Politically, however, there is no reason to believe that the rise in Ukip support would have abated.
And so all may have happened is that there would have been substantial Ukip gains in the 2020 general election – especially if the Conservatives were seen to have reneged on their manifesto commitment of holding a referendum.
If so, there might have just been a referendum in 2021 instead.
An alternative counterfactual is if the Conservatives had not promised a referendum in 2015 – but similarly that would have meant Ukip gains at that general election instead, with a referendum to follow.
The hard political truth may be that, by 2015 and the Ukip gains, a referendum on European Union membership was likely to take place.
Less obvious, however, is how events would have unfolded had Remain won the referendum – or if, in 2019, the parliamentary stalemate had been broken by a government of national unity proposing a further referendum that Remain could have won.
These – 2016 and 2019 – were the two political moments that Remain could have ‘won’ – not be refusing a referendum, but by winning that (or a further) referendum instead.
It was not so much that Leave won the referendum but that Remain lost (and then, in 2019, lost again).
And that did not need to happen.
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The counter-factual scenario of a remain win might include:
1. replicating the post-independence referendum behaviour observed with regard to Scotland. Back-patting all around, promises to listen and unify;8
2. implementation of the four changes negotiated by David Cameron (‘ever closer Union’ opt out, brake on immigration, delay to work and child benefit entitlement);
3. a continuation of austerity economics under George Osborne, in the process of transition from chancellor to Prime Minister in time to contest the May 2020 GE;
4. in response to any issue of substantive change or crisis, a more voluble campaign by the ‘leavers’ against collective decisions in Brussels, with further pressure for an in/out referendum.
We can imagine Mr Osborne returning from a last-minute, cliff-edge, all-night EU session having offered the most minimal support possible to a €750Bn Eurozone Covid bailout, to describe to the British press how he ‘asserted British rights’.
I think the better question remains one of what would have happened if parliament had treated the result with democracy instead of hubris.
The only democratic conclusion that can be had from that result is that parliament was (and is) fundamentally out of touch with the electorate and entirely unfit for purpose.
The only reasonable thing that a democracy can do with a conclusion such as that it to address that problem before doing anything else.
All parliament actually did was to try to kill off the concept of a “no-deal” Brexit. Regarding that as an affront to democracy can only be achieved by adding personal interpretations to the marginal victory of one answer to a simple binary question.
And 2019 did not prove that attitude correct, as the Johnson steamroller only got 46% of the vote at most. 54% wanted something less hurried, more considered less confrontational. Democracy was not diluted by parliament. The UK electoral system managed that unaided.
It strikes me that we try and reduce things to a binary choice before we’ve tried to work out the issue.
We asked “should we stay or should we go?” rather than “what should our relationship with EU be?”
Basically we picked sides and stuck with them.
Brexit was never going to work with only 52% support, and many of the 48% still seem to define themselves in terms of the vote (with an apparent desire to make Brexit fail).
As many commentators seem to suggest, Brexit isn’t the cause of division, it’s the response to a country already divided.
Very good points here. Successive Governments have failed to work to heal the divide between Leave and Remain. It is very important for the future of the UK that this divide is bridged.
When we were members of the EU our relationship with the EU was defined by our treaty obligations with whatever latitude those obligations allowed.
I’m not sure who can be said to have a desire to ‘make Brexit fail’ as if that were something we might individually or collectively do. My own view (as a remainer) is that it is in any case already failing, and any Schadenfreude I might be tempted to feel about that is swamped by the thought of the real misery inflicted on my fellow citizens and anger at those who inflicted it.
It was a binary question, but since it was an advisory referendum, it was far from being a binary answer…
Although I do hold that the result does paint an answer in black and white.
“what should our relationship with EU be?”
Indeed, there should have been a series of questions Swiss style. Asking just yes or no is a paltry, and often aggressive, form of questioning. Think of the potential break-up of a relationship. What about all the myriad subtleties of being human?
I suspect that if a Referendum had been held at any time after 2016 Remain would have won. The Syrian refugee crisis would no longer have been in the news, and immigration would likely have gone back to being a less important issue for most voters. If Cameron had not promised a referendum when he did then FPTP would likely also have ensured that UKIP did not make much of a breakthrough – as the Liberal Democrats and Greens know all too well it’s one thing to garner a third party protest vote between elections, quite another to win 50+ seats in a General Election.
This seems to overlook the role of FPTP. The UKIP gains predicted seem plausible, but the most likely consequence of that seems to be Ed Miliband as Prime Minister in 2020, rather than a delayed referendum.
If Cameron had won in 2015 without the promise of a referendum and UKIP had made significant gains, then maybe somebody would have stepped up and addressed the actual problems.
Perhaps somebody could have taken action against Nigel Farage’s inaction on the Fisheries Committee: surely he had a legal duty that he was neglecting?
The trouble with counterfactuals is that there is no end to the possible permutations. If they are to have any value beyond entertainment then we should look for what actually went wrong: if there is a failing in our constitution, then we should identify it properly, in order to rectify it properly.
My opinion on this: it was when the conventions clashed, and historic tradition steamrollered over democracy with barely a blip.
Maybe a more likely counterfactual would have been a referendum which required a, say, 55% majority one way or the other to settle the matter with either a legal or political promise of a second referendum sometime later for any in-between vote. We could then wonder how campaigning for the second vote would have gone.
The trouble I fear is that the phalanx of organisations in Tufton Street, Sark, Docklands and Northcliffe house would have been bashing on with their propaganda under all scenarios. And this cabal is well funded and well organised. Contrariwise, the Remain organisation was incoherent, complacent (Cameron not asking for help from the EU for example) and incompetent. Those of us who were really remainers didn’t take to the streets until after the referendum. Too late. And the leader of the Labour Party was a leaver in disguise, totally uncommitted to the position that his party and colleagues took. Then into the popular consciousness crept £350m a week for the NHS and, killingly, Take Back Control – a slogan onto which any grievance and powerlessness from whatever cause could be mapped in a single hopeful cross in a box. If the referendum had gone the other way, by a similar margin, Farage would have kept up his pressure and Cameron would still have been incompetent. Alas, the reality is that we have almost the worst case scenario now with a combination of Leave, an incompetent Government and a weak opposition in a period of geopolitical shifts that are more important than the UK and Brexit but which the UK can only watch from the back rather than the Directors’ Box.
Incidentally, there were moments in the parliamentary battle leading up to Art 50 and the approval of the Withdrawal Agreement where a hard nosed and coherent Remain alliance could have caused another referendum and Revoke. 6m people petitioned for that. Again, not organised, not led, undermined by Corbyn and too late.
The only reason that such an alliance could not come together was the fact that Mr Corbyn was the leader of the opposition, and Mr Corbyn’s position as leader of the opposition was a breach of Article 3 of the first protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights, given that the elected representatives of the people had indicated unambiguously that their opinion was that he was not fit for the post.
Agreeing with others, as more Conservative voters were likely to vote UKIP than Labour ones a 10% rise in votes for them would likely cause an 8% drop in Conservative ones and a 2% drop in Labour ones, causing numerous marginals to switch.
It was fear of this, as far as I can tell, which caused Cameron to promise a referendum in the first place. Without FPTP a few percentage points of difference is much much less likely to change things so severely.
Interestingly, our current PM could be argued to have all of the vices of the Guardians of the Multiverse, with none of the virtues.
Party Thor’s lack of concerns about consequences
Demon!Strange’s desire for power at any cost
Killmonger’s willingness to betray anybody and everybody in pursuit of a higher goal
And so on.
The comments on FPTP remind me that some of the money behind Leave was also behind the NO campaign on PR. Its a long game this.
I think perhaps you underestimate how many people were thoroughly fed up with the status quo – for a wide variety of reasons.
For a large swath of the population, a Referendum was an exceedingly rare opportunity to tell those in charge what they thought of them.
The failure of a Remain campaign fronted by Cameron & Osborne, Blair & Campbell, Richard Branson & similar plus assorted luvvies etc should have been foreseen.
A government of national unity would have represented Westminster, not the nation. And what Brexit revealed first and foremost was a state of utter disunity that Westminster could not even understand, much less heal.
Except the referendum wasn’t a suitable way for voters to tell those in charge what they thought of them. It was a way for voters to express a view on the specific proposal on the ballot paper, which was a choice between a known status quo and a vague alternative.
The opportunity to express how you think about your representatives is in the elections for those representatives. Otherwise you risk your symbolic gesture having disastrous consequences.
Britain’s social and economic problems predate Brexit and the existence of the Eu and its predecessor the Common Market.
Brexit resolves nothing and has not led to economic progress and reduced net taxation.
Whether Britain is the fifth largest economy and France the sixth or vice versa is a sterile argument which is still being debated.
Post War both countries had coal reserves, Britain had North Sea Oil but was unable to pull ahead of France who developed independent nuclear and hydroelectric capabilities.
No one can say whether Britain would still be in the EU had it not been for Cameron’s Referendum.
One scenario would be for you to be out and paying tariffs on everything with displacement of millions of people.
Another scenario would be you still in the Eu often isolated to a minority of one but clutching a Veto vote.
All generations have their issues to address. It will need intergenerational change in the UK to get anywhere as close to Europe again. In the meantime Europe will also change and have to deal with its Eastern front, relations with USA and China and African and Asian political and economic migration.
The Eu will evolve in different ways as time passes too.
By all means enjoy you short stay holidays on the Costa Brava but remember to respect the local laws and international order.
Isn’t the more significant consideration that, had the referendum been drawn up with even the most modest care, the result of the vote would have irrefutably been to remain in the EU. I voted, but I’ve never read the text of the referendum or any qualifications on the votes cast, my understanding, stupefying if true, is that there were none. How could anyone in their right mind, I’m referring to Mr. Cameron, have proposed a referendum where ‘Yea’ & ‘Nay’ were considered equal, in terms of votes cast? 45 years within the EU were ranked equally with zero years outside, no recognition or value was given to the situation we had enjoyed for 45 years. Had the referendum required that the leave vote achieve a minimum of 60% of the votes cast, in fact I believe 53% would have sufficed, we’d still be happily within the EU rather than suffering on the outside. What an utter farce, is there any equal in history of such self-immolation?
Despite the 2015 Conservative manifesto promise of a binding referendum, the Government asked Parliament to legislate for an advisory referendum, so features such as a supermajority and greater inclusivity were rejected. For a 72% turnout, a threshold of 67% would have been appropriate for a binding referendum on such a momentous and irreversible issue (to be sure that a vote for change would have the support of at least 50% of adults).
The insane contradiction that the Referendum was both advisory and binding is one of the many contradictions in Brexit methodology. How can one reason about what would have happened in the absence of a referendum if one cannot assume that the actors would have acted reasonably?
Thanks very much for explaining that, I’m grateful. Without in any way taking issue with you, I’d appreciate a little more of your time to ask a couple of supplementary questions; (a) is it written in stone that requirements for supermajorities etc must be excised from advisory referenda, & if so, why (b) I was going to ask if the Civil Service are there in part to ensure that government buffoons cannot commit such errors, but really your para 2 answers everything, “Why question further when demonstrably the actors were all mad, bad &/or incompetent?” So my last question is, was anything done/enacted to ensure such a cockup can never be repeated?
(a)
If the purpose of the threshold is to determine the percentage of votes beyond which the corresponding action must be taken (as implied in your earlier comment), then the vote is, by definition, binding. I can think of other uses for voting thresholds that could be applied to advisory votes.
(b)
One good that might come from Brexit is that it might be realised how faulty the process was. I fear that, even if Brexit was to be reversed and/or the United Kingdom became disunited, England would muddle on with a flawed legislative system and unfit media.
Thank you.
Re your point (b), our exceptionalism, red in tooth & claw, but tearing our own guts!
«If what…» sounds to me rather a rhetorical question, that’s not how history works.
Brexit is now a fait accompli but some measures could be shaped with some flexibility. The shortage of lorry drivers (EU citizens, in large numbers) could be easied by less rigid British rules on free circulation of people between the UK and the EU. And so the necessary checks on goods could be shaped so to favour the fluidity of exchange. The British industrial sector would greatly welcome such moves and the EU would not have a different interest.
I believe that such attitude does not only regard commerce and circulation of people and goods but rather the future connection of the UK to the rest of Europe. If only (alright, once again that’s not how history works!) Boris Johnson were to switch the stage spotlights off and light up a candle on his desk to study dossiers and proposals…
I think an intriguing counterfactual is a referendum that required more than 50% of the registered voters to support the change, or one which required a confirmatory vote after a reasonable, say six months, interlude. I suspect the latter may have been much better for the political health of the country whatever the end result. Cameron was warned about the dangers of an all or nothing vote, but didn’t listen.
One thing that would have happened is that Frexit would still be being discussed in the coming French presidential election. After the Brexit demonstration the Frexit presidential candidate François Asselineau (who is firmly believes that the french press is making up stories about the Brexit disaster proving his insanity) is completely discredited and the nationalist Le Pen has stopped talking about it. So thanks for that at least!
What if… Boris Johnson had published his other column: the one saying:
“Britain is a great nation, a global force for good. It is surely a boon for the world and for Europe that she should be intimately engaged in the EU. This is a market on our doorstep, ready for further exploitation by British firms: the membership fee seems rather small for all that access.
Why are we so determined to turn our back on it? Shouldn’t our policy be like our policy on cake – pro having it and pro eating it? Pro Europe and pro the rest of the world?
If sovereignty is the problem – and it certainly is – then maybe it is worth looking again at the prime minister’s deal, because there is a case for saying it is not quite as contemptible as all that. He is the first prime minister to get us out of ever closer union, which is potentially very important with the European Court of Justice and how it interprets EU law. He has some good stuff on competition, and repealing legislation, and on protecting Britain from further integration of the euro group.”
If he had been heavily involved in the Remain camp – perhaps even leading it side-by-side with David Cameron – and going toe-to-toe with Nigel Farage, putting forward a populist case for staying in the EU, wouldn’t that have made a huge difference to the feel and effectiveness of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign?