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

[nojay]

That idea of an 'idealised Brexit' implies perfectly spherical frictionless Brexit voters of unit mass and radius who all voted for exactly the same outcome for the same reasons. Instead we have Leavers who say they didn't vote to chuck foreigners out and Leavers who say they did. Ditto for bendy bananas, unelected bureaucrats, the extra money for the Health Service etc. etc.

Brexit was always a nebulous vision of the world to come with the True Believers projecting their own disparate wishes on the outcome. The only view of reality, bad things will happen if we vote Leave was derided as Project Fear and studiously disparaged and ignored.

[dewline]

And none of that disparaging and ignoring made the fact go away.

[calimac]

No, that's far more complex an analysis than necessary. And I don't think there was anybody on the Leave side who supported "unelected bureaucrats" or the EU's banana rules. The issue at hand is the trade agreement. It was clear at the time of the referendum that the Leave campaign was advocating 1) complete frictionless trade agreements between the UK and EU, while 2) removing the UK from mandatory subjugation to EU regulations. That's the combination that quickly became clear wasn't going to happen, most immediately because of the government's initially lazy approach to negotiating 1), the equivalent to what would have developed over 45 years if the UK had never joined the EU in the first place. You can't write that overnight.