Referendum woes

As the clock ticks ever closer to Brexit day, the chances for a change of direction gets ever less.

One of those changes is coming from remainers and those who have found out they were lied to in the run up the referendum, that there should be a second referendum on either the deal that May might achieve, or on whether the country still wants Brexit.

The problems with this are legion, but the first point is that a legally non-binding advisory referendum got UK where it is today, and that doubling down on that is not guaranteed to deliver the result that might be seen as also the “people’s will” to change the previously people’s will. UK is a representative democracy, and in such, an election is held, generally every 5 years, and the party with the largest share of the vote is in power and decides whether to implement, or not, the policies it was elected upon.

If after 5 years, the electorate does not think the party that was in Government did it’s job, it can vote them out for someone else. The point being that after the referendum, Parliament should have looked at the impact assessments from Government, and advise from commerce and industry, and decided it was a good idea or not.

The problem was that the referendum might not have been legally enforceable, it was politically. Which is why, probably, that Cameron’s Government decided that the legislation for the referendum did not include the requirement for a super-majority of something like 60% needed to change UK policy on Europe.

Instead seismic change was begun on a tiny majority, based on lies, fake news and deliberate overspending by the official and unofficial leave campaigns.

But we are where we are.

Secondly, a second referendum needs both primary and secondary legislation to be passed into law for it to be carried out, and certainly there is no time for that to happen in the eight months before Brexit, not if the details of what the majority needed, the question is and so on. If there were to be a second referendum is to take place, an extension is needed to the A50 process, and that would require EU elections in May and so on, as detailed in the last post. As stated some 16 months or so ago, when to submit the A50 letter was the last part of Brexit the UK would have control over, and so that turned out.

In order for the electorate to make an informed decision ion the referendum, the actual consequences of each choice would have to be set out, but if as happened last time it was just general statements of taking back control and anything else was project fear, then it will be a sham of a democratic process as the first referendum was. This would require honesty from the Government and Brexiteers, and that is something we see no sign of now, even as the UK economy is heading towards the fall over the cliff into economic chaos, some like IDS insist on pressing ever harder on the accelerator. That many of the Brexiteers either have personal reasons for wanting Brexit, or are financially backed by others who have, how can we the people, trust them to tell the truth, or even own up when faced with assessments by the Government, civil servants, the Governor of the Bank of England, or leaders of industry, other than label those as enemies of the people.

Finally, the Government of the day gets to decide what the question is and the terms of the legislation, which is another reason the UK is where it is today.

The EU probably would grant an extension to A50 to allow a second referendum, but only if all sides agreed to abide by the result, but it is increasingly clear that the U and its member states are preparing more seriously for all kinds of Brexit that UK, and might decide it better now to just let UK leave.