2nd November 2021
At the time of the important parliamentary votes on Brexit, and during the endgames of the negotiations on the Brexit withdrawal agreement, there was a sense from Brexiters of ‘Get Brexit over the line’.
Everything else was mere detail, which could be dealt with later.
The important thing for many Brexiters was not to waste this one shot.
The longer the delay, and the more there were extension periods, the more there was a real risk that the Brexit project would get reversed.
“Yes,’ was the attitude, ‘just tell us where to sign’.
And now: we are on the other side of that ‘line’ which Brexit ‘got over’.
It is not a happy place, at least for many Brexiters.
This is not what they wanted, even if this is what they signed up for.
But this was the Brexit which was possible at the speed they wanted Brexit to ‘get done’.
Given this eventuality, there are two possible reactions for those ‘over the line’ Brexiters.
One is to admit that this is all the price that was to be paid for Brexit to happen at all.
The other is to deny that that this was what was agreed and to say that Brexit should be on another basis.
If I were a Brexiter I would be glad that departure actually happened – after the delays and extensions and the loud campaign for a further referendum.
It was not so long ago that the 2019 general election was in the future and a hung parliament had control and, but for the failure of opposition leaders to agree, there would have been a further referendum.
The attempts now by Lord Frost and others are to re-argue positions that failed to get into the withdrawal agreement.
Positions that, had they been adhered to at the time of the Brexit negotiations may have meant no departure at all – as parliament had decided against a no-deal departure.
Trade-offs had to be made to get Brexit across that line.
And now that line is behind us.
This was the price they paid to get Brexit.
And it was not inevitable, given the politics of the 2017-19 parliament, that they would have got Brexit done at all.
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Marry in haste; repent at leisure.
I have zero sympathy for the Brexiters. They tore away the birthright me and of my children to live, work, love and play freely in 27 other countries for the chimera of “sovereignty”, which they now find is not the kind of sovereignty they wanted. Instead, it is the sovereignty to be a Third country, laughed at by the world and the weaker party in every negotiation and the buccaneering “global Britain” turns out to be a xenophobic “Little England”.
I could not agree with you more, Patric+Judge.
That is precisely the idea we Europeans in the EU have of the Brexit folly. Which was the fruit of ignorance of history, arrogance, isolationism, imperial hubris, nostalgia, amnesia, demagoguery and lack of preparedness – all seasoned with a good dose of ontologically unexplainable sense of superiority.
Pity voters didn’t ask themselves the only reasonable question: “Cui prodest?”
It would appear that having had their Brexit that there is now no cake for anyone. I am not surprised.
Raphael Baer has nailed it yet again today.
‘….rolling negotiations …….before breaking down and restarting…leaving with no hope of satisfaction, because we have already left.’
It is the best piece of evidence of the un-democratic, or even anti-democratic nature of the project that apparently it could only be delivered in such a fraudulent way.
There is an intresting or amuseing or even shoking article in the ft at the moment, that HMG is looking for new legal advisers .It reads a bit like the gov is looking for someone who can make a gun out of Art 16, as it has a trigger already. What can one say for almost 5 years the UK was negotiating with itself and most of them still dont seem to have understood the basic facts. Brexit is done, the UK has become a third country and Irland wont leave the EU just to make the non existing plans work and the UK Gov involved not look like total Idiots. Sorry but i cant belive how and what HMG is doing. While the World is watching.
There wasnt going to be a further referendum as many Labour & ‘rebel’ tory MPs werent backing it.
What may have led to a better outcome could have been an early consensus around the SNP Brexit plan ( to date the only credible plan for UK out of EU which is ironic) and a unified opposition strategy to move the debate onto the reality of trade offs & outcomes.
This is all hindsight though. Todays pressing question is whether a country which has opted to refound itself on a delusion can survive as a western democracy or whether its headed into the club of sullen ex empires ( Russia, Turkey) who stalk Europe’s periphary
Brexiters got exactly what they wanted, we left the EU.
None of them voted for any particular consequence of leaving, they just wanted to leave.
Handing the decision making back to ”the people” is always a bad idea.
As far as I could ascertain, many if not most Brexiters had no prior thoughts at all on either being in the EU or not being in the EU – not even knowing what it was – until the powers that be served them the exit idea on a ridiculous platter.
The parliament in 2019 was illegitimate: it did not meet the standards for democracy set out in international convention and our own Human Right Act.
What ought to have happened in that parliament was a vote of no confidence, after which the Leader of the Opposition should have become Prime Minister.
This was prevented from happening because the Leader of the Opposition was sombody that the opposition had already passed a motion of no confidence in.
The opinion of the people was clearly and freely expressed in that vote, and that opinion was ignored in all legislature passed by that parliament subsequent to that vote, perhaps most notably the Bill which enabled the election that shouldn’t have happened.
There is not a shred of democratic legitimacy in any of it.
Patterson knew or ought to have known the rules of the game when he accepted the money.
Anyone close to Government can now see that they can break the law and seek rule changes after the event if found out.
Churchill reputedly once said something along the lines that the best argument against democracy was a five minute conversation with an average voter.
Even the dimmest of voters should be able to see through this.