Brexit intensifies

[andrewducker]

So, today the only government ever to be found in contempt of parliament lost a vote by the largest margin ever suffered by a British government, losing by 230 votes (previous "winner" was Ramsay Macdonald's minority Labour government, losing by 166 votes).

Immediately afterwards, Corbyn lodged a vote of no confidence in the government. The DUP have said they will back the Conservatives, which almost certainly means that the vote will fail*.

The EU wants us to make our mind up, and has now repeatedly said that the withdrawal deal is not open for renegotiation. Which greatly reduces the options we have remaining. So once we the no confidence fails I can't see what else Labour can do but move towards a second referendum.

Which is, according to all recent polls, what the people want. (46% to 28% last I checked).

*It's _possible_ that a few Conservatives will rebel. But incredibly unlikely.

Comments

[alithea]

Hah, yeah, I'd be more keen on another vote (ref OR election) if I thought either would actually put us in a significantly different position!

[danieldwilliam]

I think a second referendum probably brings lots of clarity about what we do over the next five years with regard to the EU.

The question or questions are going to have to be pretty narrow. With a one question referendum then the questions can be

Leave / Remain

May's Deal / No Deal

May's Deal / Remain.

I don't think a referendum question "Should the UK still leave the EU?" would be accepted but if it were it would be de facto May's Deal or Remain.

There are lots of ways of doing a multi-question referendum, two questions or using ranked voting but I think they mostly boil down to

May's Deal

Remain

No Deal

and possibly EEA membership and some sort of process that exhausts the options until there is only one.

At that point we have a winner. It might be a winner by a narrow amount but we would have been through a process of an intial referendum, a two year negotiation, a second referendum once all the facts were in - even if the result is a narrow win for one position we all probably have to accept that and move on with it.

What we do with a country where we have had a very contentious set of referendums that have resulted in a narrow win for one position which has finally been delivered and almost no one is happy is a difficult position to be in. It's certainly not clear that second referendum will bring harmony or acceptance if the result is a narrow win and it's not clear how politics would fall out following Brexit happening or not happening.

I think you are right about a general election not resolving anything.

Likely outcomes

Tories win 20 seats - small majority

Labour win 20 seats - small majorty

SNP / Lib Dems / Plaid win 20 seats - minority government with a Pro-EU tint

??? Sein Fein lose 7 seats to the SDLP

or thing stay pretty much exactly how they are.

But we have a chance that the Tory Party and perhaps the Labour Party might run on split manifestoes.

[alithea]

I agree that another ref is more likely to be helpful than an election. But I fear that a) remain won't be in the options or b) remain will lose again because a lot of people have apparently decided that changing their minds is antidemocratic :(

[danieldwilliam]

That may be the case but we would at least have certainty.

If Remain lose again then, it's pretty clear that the majority of electors in Britain want us to leave the EU even if the withdrawal deal and future arrangements are sub-optimal.

We'd then spend the next 20 years quietly blaming Brexiteers for every ill in the country. Or rather, we (you and I and Andy) would spend 20 years paying not attention to the English whilst they did that whilst enjoying life in the People's European Socialist Democratic Republic of South Scandinavia.)

[alithea]

The only fly in that ointment is that I think a substantial minority of indy supporters don't want to be in the EU either. Mind you, if we crash out with no deal I expect the resulting chaos will soon make more or less everyone in Scotland decide they're done with being ruled from Westminster!