Mr "Call me Dave" Cameron seems to be escaping the opprobrium that Mrs May is collecting. Admittedly Mrs May has played a poor hand very badly, but it was Mr Cameron who started the whole farrago off by calling for the referendum in the first place. The irony is of course that it was called to try and unify the Tory Party which at the time was haemorrhaging members to UKIP. The theory was that he would have a referendum that would vote in favour of remaining in the EU and thus the arguments would cease.
In fact he never thought that there would be referendum as his coalition partners, the LibDems would not allow it. He made the grave mistake of winning the general election with an overall majority and so Nick Clegg was unable to prevent it.
We are now in the current sorry mess and there appears to be no way out. Jeremy Corbyn doesn't really know what to do as he is and always has been a Eurosceptic and his own inclination is to vote to leave. Most of the senior Tory politicians are giving the appearance of not giving a tuppeny damn about the country but simply want to position themselves to be the next prime minister when Mrs May goes.
The Referendum Bill as passed by Parliament was a purely advisory vote, but was given more substantive power as all the major parties said in their Election Manifesto that they would abide by the result. Although I struggle to recall when political parties were that concerned about manifesto promises except when it suited them.
So we are in a complete buggers muddle. My preferred solution of consigning all 650 MPs to a small boat in a major storm in the middle of the Atlantic is perhaps a tad too extreme; but something drastic needs to be done. the current House of Commons does not appear to have a majority to do anything. If we had another general election would anything really change as both of the two major parties are split on this issue.
Should we have a second referendum? This time with one choice being leave on a defined set of terms the other being to stay. If we had three choices:
1. Leave on a defined set of terms
2. Leave with no deal
3. Stay
we would probably find that each garners thirty-three per cent of the vote and we would be no better off than we are today.
1. Leave on a defined set of terms
2. Leave with no deal
3. Stay
we would probably find that each garners thirty-three per cent of the vote and we would be no better off than we are today.
My personal preference is to go for a second, two choice, referendum. Is there any other viable solution given where we are today?
Why would a 2nd referendum have stay as as an option - we have already made the decision to leave - so the questions should be to vote on which method to leave - deal, WTO, Norway, Canada style whatever, - don't suppose for one moment that the 2nd ref fanatics would be quite so keen.
ReplyDeleteThose who want to have remain include it only to overturn the 2016 decision by devious means, unless of course there are an equal number of options for remain - remain & join Euro, Remain & join EU army, Remain and let EU take control of our Nuclear deterrent, Remain & accept EU federal expansion, Remain & accept all North African countries as EU members ... Remain and Accept Jean Claud Drunker as our Head of State.