Richard Tice, who is a co-founder of Leave means leave, has been talking
about another referendum and claims they're already raising money and
planning for one (HERE). He says it will be 'brutal' and 'divisive' as
if the last one was a kind of unifying vicarage tea party. I note he is
suggesting it should be a straight leave or remain option:
"Mr Tice told BBC Politics Live: 'It would be brutal, it would be ugly, it would be the most divisive thing this country has ever seen but I regret to say we are preparing for it'.
"But he said his campaign was ready to fight a referendum because politicians at Westminster were 'not carrying out the will of the people'.
"As for the question on the ballot paper - likely to be the focus of intense debate - he said it 'cannot be Remain or the prime minister's current deal'. He said it had to be either 'Remain or leave properly,' by which he meant trading on World Trade Organisation terms".
This is significant although I don't know if he has really thought it through.
The Article 50 period would have to be extended and the actual vote would come quite near the end. It would be a question of remain or leave-with-no-deal-in-a-week's time. There would be no transition period. Let's think about this. Government, business and industry would be forced to begin immediate, large scale and highly public emergency planning for the absolute worst case scenario. I don't believe for one second they would be in silent fence-sitting mode as in 2016. Ministers and CEOs would line to sell the remain option. Nissan, Airbus and others for example might go as far as saying vote to leave and we begin to close down the UK operation in weeks.
Banks would have to crank up preparations and move large numbers of staff into EU countries. All this would be done against a background of feverish and 'brutal' campaigning. It might be exciting for outsiders but there would be extreme volatility and markets would take up positions on the potential outcome which would either be the status quo or exploding a huge bomb under the British economy.
Tice is another one of those who seems to have no industrial experience, he was born into money and is a property developer and CEO of an asset management group (HERE). I really fail to see what Brexit will achieve for him or his firm unless it is somehow to cut regulations and employment or environmental standards. Managing property assets doesn't involve any cross border trade so I assume it would have zero impact on him and his company Quidnet Capital.
On the other hand, Brexit, especially a hard one, fatally damages companies that rely on trade with the EU.
To look at it from the opposite point of view, it's as if Nissan, Toyota and BMW were campaigning to tighten regulations that made property ownership and management unprofitable. Why would they do it?
No, I suspect Tice has not thought it through, but I think that's to our advantage.
Also, I want to come to Charles Moore, a former editor of The Telegraph, biographer
of Margaret Thatcher and now a columnist. His contribution yesterday is
almost exactly the same as his Brexit contributions (quite a lot) over
the past year or so. Full of words like betrayal, frustrate, elites, bureaucrats, etc and he even fits in a reference to the
Nazis. The title is: If Parliament manages to thwart Brexit, why would voters ever trust it again? See it HERE. (It's one of the two free articles you get to read in full each week)
He ends his article with this
"She [Mrs May] will also gently insert a new doctrine that true delivery involves a 52:48 balance to reflect how people voted. Thus does Leave become half-in, half-out – a way of splitting the difference when the whole point of the referendum was to decide one way".
This is central to the whole Brexit debacle. Like Tice (and me) he thinks there is no half-in, half-out option. The 2016 referendum was to decide 'one way' - IN or OUT. Unfortunately, nobody (and I use the word carefully) recognised the full import of what OUT actually meant at the time. When the government or any reputable body tried to explain the dire potential consequences they were accused of 'project fear' or 'scaremongering' but now as we see the problems beginning to materialise and mount up we are in a better position to make an informed black and white choice (although Moore doesn't want us to have the chance of doing so).
His attitude is that the 52% should get all the spoils even though many of them didn't know what leave actually meant and what the spoils actually were. Now we do.
He says in his piece that:
"[I] sat still and reflected on the issue more – I hope – like an ordinary citizen. Clearly something big is at stake in next Tuesday’s “meaningful vote”. Clearly it is not a calculation about “just in time” car manufacturing or how checks can be made on goods crossing between Northern Ireland and the Republic or what the size of the divorce bill should be, although all these are important questions. Obviously, it is deeper. But what, exactly, is it?"
For Moore, who rails at the 'elites' but is far from a humble ordinary citizen, Brexit isn't about a 'calculation' or the practical trade issues it's about 'something deeper' but for most people (in my opinion, I don't want to assume I know what most people think) this something deeper is not the same as it is for him. If you are a millionaire or very wealthy you can afford to dream or ponder on these deeper things and even perhaps to gamble or experiment to see if you can delve into them. For many Brexit is or will be a totally real, practical and potentially livelihood changing issue - whatever people thought it was about when they voted.
For Moore, it's about 'who governs us and by what right'. He seems to think we do not govern ourselves as if we've sub contracted it all out to Brussels. I don't see it like that. In becoming an EU member our government has simply decided to coordinate the making of some of the laws which govern us with 27 other European nations. There would probably still be laws made (I don't think even Charles Moore is suggesting otherwise) and it makes perfect sense, for the benefit of all Europeans, that the laws are the same. To want to be different for the sake of it is to me just perverse.
In any case I would take issue that all people want is to govern themselves - as if this was an end in itself and sufficient no matter how awful the government was. I think people want good secure work in safety, to have infrastructure that works and is reliable, to have safe streets free of crime, a clean environment for themselves and their children and so on. If you lose your livelihood and can't provide for your family I am not sure who governs us will be uppermost in your mind. Who makes the laws is not important, only that the laws are well made and good ones.
He ends his article with this
"She [Mrs May] will also gently insert a new doctrine that true delivery involves a 52:48 balance to reflect how people voted. Thus does Leave become half-in, half-out – a way of splitting the difference when the whole point of the referendum was to decide one way".
This is central to the whole Brexit debacle. Like Tice (and me) he thinks there is no half-in, half-out option. The 2016 referendum was to decide 'one way' - IN or OUT. Unfortunately, nobody (and I use the word carefully) recognised the full import of what OUT actually meant at the time. When the government or any reputable body tried to explain the dire potential consequences they were accused of 'project fear' or 'scaremongering' but now as we see the problems beginning to materialise and mount up we are in a better position to make an informed black and white choice (although Moore doesn't want us to have the chance of doing so).
His attitude is that the 52% should get all the spoils even though many of them didn't know what leave actually meant and what the spoils actually were. Now we do.
He says in his piece that:
"[I] sat still and reflected on the issue more – I hope – like an ordinary citizen. Clearly something big is at stake in next Tuesday’s “meaningful vote”. Clearly it is not a calculation about “just in time” car manufacturing or how checks can be made on goods crossing between Northern Ireland and the Republic or what the size of the divorce bill should be, although all these are important questions. Obviously, it is deeper. But what, exactly, is it?"
For Moore, who rails at the 'elites' but is far from a humble ordinary citizen, Brexit isn't about a 'calculation' or the practical trade issues it's about 'something deeper' but for most people (in my opinion, I don't want to assume I know what most people think) this something deeper is not the same as it is for him. If you are a millionaire or very wealthy you can afford to dream or ponder on these deeper things and even perhaps to gamble or experiment to see if you can delve into them. For many Brexit is or will be a totally real, practical and potentially livelihood changing issue - whatever people thought it was about when they voted.
For Moore, it's about 'who governs us and by what right'. He seems to think we do not govern ourselves as if we've sub contracted it all out to Brussels. I don't see it like that. In becoming an EU member our government has simply decided to coordinate the making of some of the laws which govern us with 27 other European nations. There would probably still be laws made (I don't think even Charles Moore is suggesting otherwise) and it makes perfect sense, for the benefit of all Europeans, that the laws are the same. To want to be different for the sake of it is to me just perverse.
In any case I would take issue that all people want is to govern themselves - as if this was an end in itself and sufficient no matter how awful the government was. I think people want good secure work in safety, to have infrastructure that works and is reliable, to have safe streets free of crime, a clean environment for themselves and their children and so on. If you lose your livelihood and can't provide for your family I am not sure who governs us will be uppermost in your mind. Who makes the laws is not important, only that the laws are well made and good ones.
He
draws the usual Brexiteer conclusion that given this choice people would still
think about the 'something deeper' and vote to leave regardless of what
happens, albeit with the certainty of being governed by the incompetent
charlatans who are in charge at the moment. I draw the opposite conclusion.
Given a second vote, with the consequences far clearer that they were in
2016, a majority would vote to remain.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves if the country is even governable when almost half the population resent the other half for believing Brexit is about something nebulous but 'deeper' when their own job is at risk, when health and other public services are starved of funds, when taxes have to rise as growth stutters and government revenues fall? I am not sure it is.
If we ever needed a leader we need one now.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves if the country is even governable when almost half the population resent the other half for believing Brexit is about something nebulous but 'deeper' when their own job is at risk, when health and other public services are starved of funds, when taxes have to rise as growth stutters and government revenues fall? I am not sure it is.
If we ever needed a leader we need one now.
