This hits the nail on the head.
The way to correct a mistake is to correct it.
3
It was born of lies. Good idea. BesidesBritain is not a world power any longer. It is part of Europe.Vote again.
1
It seems to me, even if the U.K. voted to Remain again, that they could always hold a third referendum at some point in the future. The Leave can’t be easily undone.
1
Mr. Cohen's excellent article on foreign affairs makes an unfortunate error regarding an important domestic issue: the border wall. Mr. Cohen equates the $50 billion estimated Brexit divorce bill to "about eight of Donald Trump's walls." There is no agreed figure for the entire cost of Trump's border wall. The $5.7 billion Trump is now requesting (presumably the figure on which Mr. Cohen's math relies) is only a down payment on a part of his proposed wall. In January 2018 Trump asked for $25 billion for the wall, and others put the final cost of the yet unspecified design far higher.
4
How alike the E.U. and the U.K. are in our divisions, wishful thinking, lack of common sense and apathy. They fell for Boris Johnson’s lies and snake oil, just as a sizable minority of Americans did for Trump’s. The two men even have an eerie physical resemblance. Many would-be remain voters, especially younger ones, stayed home in the end because, to them, Remain’s win was a foregone conclusion and secondarily because a vote to remain in the E.U. represented a lesser evil, rather than a strongly felt conviction,. Another parallel could be drawn between Corbyn’s unenthusiastic support for Remain, which sent mixed messages to some of his supporters and Bernie Sanders, though Sanders fares considerably better in my opinion. Finally, Tony Blair has been sensibly asking for a Brexit redo for a year, but no one has listened because he “was so wrong on Iraq”, revealing how traumatized both nations are by the ill conceived invasion and how it has caused them to look backwards in making current decisions. Hopefully, the rebote will go with through and the US nightmare will end either by impeachment or the 2020 election.
4
Totally agree that a 2nd Brexit vote is needed, but I would ask the people first. Ask them if a second referendum is desired. Have them vote to have it. Then have them vote to leave or stay in the European Union, Do both. It will work. "Build it, they will come."
2
"A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy." Is a politically correct way of saying that election results do not matter. Lots of people did not 'like' that Hillary Clinton lost but it is the fact of Democracy that insists that we do not negate the will of the people as demonstrated by the vote. The first and ONLY vote. You cannot discriminate and frustrate the will of the majority by calling a 'do-over' and still maintain that you live in a democracy.
1
Hear, hear!
'No Man is an Island'
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne
3
To those who say a second referendum would destroy democracy: the British voted first for Brexit and then for a parliament which has proved unable to carry out this instruction. Which democratic vote needs to be repeated?
The referendum result did not, and perhaps could not at that stage, make clear what negative consequences the British people were prepared to tolerate. The parliament, elected to exercise its judgement on behalf of the people, has not been able to resolve that threshold question.
So, do you keep on electing parliaments until the instruction is carried out, or do you clarify the instruction?
3
It was a grave error to hold a referendum on the subject of Brexit. But the referendum was held, and the voters voted as they did. Who are you, Mr. Cohen, to call for invalidation of the expressed will of the people, belittling it as "post-truth phantasmagoria?" I refuse to abandon democracy so lightly.
3
The Brexit vote was akin to the election of Trump in the US. Fueled by zealous and short sighted [alt] right wingers and egged on by Russian interference it was divisive by design and, in the end, a bad vote. The stoked divisiveness remains misinformed as it is but the UK can reverse the nonsense and vote again before they make a terrible mistake. We have to wait until 2020 to reverse our mistake.
3
I don't like the idea of Brexit either. But I know no better way to reinforce to "non-elites" they are disenfranchised than to hold a "do-over" so you can get the outcome you desire.
An election was held; people voted. You lost.
You don't hold the Super Bowl over because your team didn't win.
3
Canada passed the Clarity Act after the second Quebec referendum. The act mandated that a clear majority would be required in any subsequent referendum to break up the country. Clear wasn't defined but it sure wasn't 50% +1. Similarly, a change as large as pulling Britain out of the EU shouldn't be actioned on a small majority as it's just not enough of a consensus to make such a radical change.
4
@Bob Boettcher - Good point. But somehow a "clear" majority has to be quantified.
Clinton won the popular vote over Trump with a 4.5% margin. Brexit was at 3.8%.
Where's the line?
Maybe it's a bigger line for bigger questions. But it still has to be defined at the OUTSET, not after the fact.
I would be fine to see more of our elections have some pre-determined margin, such as 5%, and then a requirement that the vote be repeated ad infinitum, every week, until one side or the other surpasses it.
But none of this is very relevant to the past.
As in many endeavors, the starting off gets modified as time goes on. The first iPhone has had ten or so upgrades and cars are moving to self driving. Not your father’s Oldsmobile
But the Brussels hierarchy seem to be fossilized and oblivious to changes in the EU world and refuse to acknowledge member concerns.
Time for the Brits to leave or Brussels to do an about face. The Brits will do just fine as did the US in 1783 and after
1
@Jim - I've been hoping Brexit would serve as a wake up call to Brussels about changes in governance and accountability that the EU needs to make.
But no sign of it so far.
I want to see the EU last and become stronger, in the interests of its citizens. But it is being taken over by global corporate interests and the economic elite. I abhor everything about Putin, but the refusal of the the political "leaders" to stop serving the elites and start serving the interests of the citizens is pushing people into the arms of the the Far Right, much to Putin's pleasure.
Yes, yes, yes: hold a second referendum. It boggles the mind that a decision of this magnitude could be trusted to a single vote, in which the public was massively ill-informed about the consequences of a leave decision. So much more is now known about what a Brexit would entail, and its threats to the British economy and way of life. Let the people speak again.
3
Makes sense.
1
Brexit will damage the U.K.'s economy but that isn't necessarily the same thing as damaging its national interest. The upside is a restoration of full sovereignty over the nation's own laws and affairs. A majority of referendum voters considered that to be more important.
4
Boy if only we could have a do-over of the 2016 election. I bet we'd have a different outcome as well.
1
And in the furure every referendum can be repeated until the political elites (read hacks) get the result they want. What a great concept!
5
January 16, 2019
It surely is a new reality for the state of affairs in governing democratically - as difficult the work the object learning exercise is a great achievement and even with the enormous costs of flying by the seat of your skirt / pants.
There are great reasons for the electorate to channel efforts through their own party leaders, and their command position papers for clarity for all big questions in managing socio-economics policies - thus this is the great lessons for for UK and the world systems of operations.
1
So good to read Roger Cohen again. I have sorely missed his international wisdom! To the subject at hand, it seems that Putin, Bannon and other scoundrels have sold a bill of goods to the people of Great Britain and the USA. Surely we can correct this and save our democracies!
3
All the debate has come up against several stubborn facts: asking for a second referendum because you don't like how the first one turned out is illiberal, antidemocratic, and NO WAY would Mr. Cohen be up for another vote if the first had turned out in favor of "Remain". YOU LOST A FAIR, DEMOCRATIC VOTE, MR. COHEN. Deal with it.
4
I've been reading British "talking heads," some of them even more intelligent than RC - and surely better situated, intellectually - to propose the "least bad" way to proceed, ... and there's nothing remotely resembling a "consensus" yet. It's like everything else about Brexit - 20% (maybe) would "favor" X, Y ... and J - if they had the brainpower to say Yes or No to 26 things. ALMOST FOR SURE, *NO* "formula" would rise to 50%. ("Leave" or "remain" resembles Coke vs. Pepsi with the country at stake. BAD IDEA!)
I'm afraid I plunk down with those who say - sadly, echoing Trump the tiniest bit - PARLIAMENT SHOULD DO ITS JOB!
UK and US both are "representative democracies." Town Halls (MAYBE) still work in some small towns ... pretty well, but Facebook and similar are like plague bacilli supposedly kept under lock and key ... only Facebook certainly isn't.
Whether OUR democracy can survive in the absence of serious regulation is an open question. For the Brits to hold a 2nd referendum... ... that only looks good if you THINK you know how it's gonna turn out ... and Mr. Cohen makes it clear what he THINKS that will be. (and should be, of course, in his estimation)
We had to wait 2 years in the US for a meaningful way to poll "How am I [Trump] doing?" ... The Brits will get their chance via what they call a GE - whether it's 1 month away or 12 or whatever. Beware "magic bullets" like Mr. Cohen's!!
The EU is one of mankind's greatest achievements.
How can we have government bureaucracy (which is good compared to no government) and still have evolutionary improvement including increasing efficiencies that do not rid humanity of our most precious thing - time?
Republicans have been screaming about regulations for ever. Their complaints mostly have to do with restrictions on making money (not intentionally - but the effect).
But all of these regulations are well intentioned. And it's worse without them - for instance regarding the health of the environment or consumer protection - both of which Trump is trashing here in the States.
Greed, self-interest, irresponsibility, and ignorance are all human characteristics that must be dealt with before the world can have an enlightened government. I hope that day comes. It must, if humanity is going to amount to anything more than the dinosaurs.
1
@Tracy Rupp Government suffers from the same humanistic qualities as any other organization. That’s why having a limited government is important. No one is arguing for anarchy.
There is a substantive karmic return currently underway in the two English speaking democracies that for 50 years have basked in their own self congratulation re the defeat of Hitler and now find that there own national souls are awash with similar tendencies.Hitler was appeased by the Conservative Party for much of the 1930's and openly admired by whol;e tranches of the UK aristocracy, a disgraced King that betrayed our armed forces and a key opinion maker the Beaverbrook Daily Mail.....the UK right is again on the march but its far too nice to be openly fascist despiter sharing broadly racist tendencies and the Trump, Rees Mogg, Le Pen axis is as toxic in UK as anywhere I suspect. A 2nd Referendum is possible but a General Election would probably be a better fudge....and if politics or life is anything its the art of the fudge. Corbyn is a bit past his sell by date and simply seems unable to lift himself above the melee... or think swiftly on his feet and catch it in a crisp phrase so essential in the media age.........
I agrée with a second referendum because the British people were fed a magic story by the likes of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage perhaps orchestrated by Vladmir Putin. Britain is needed to shore up the EU against Russia and balance the French/German axis. And if the British want to avoid 10 years of economic poverty they need to VOTE STAY. An added bonus would be a new PM, maybe a Johnson by the name of JO.
1
Referendums by definition refer the decision to the people who vote their opinion on the matter. We have to assume the people are capable to decide for themselves. If they need more information before forming an opinion they can ask for it.
The British voted by a small margin to get out of the E.U.
It is true that all sorts of clowns made all sorts of false statements. Both ways.
Would Cohen ask for a second referendum if the Remain people won by the same margin?
If not, this OpEd is trash. If yes, it should have stated it explicitly.
3
I don't know much about it, but perhaps you could get a second referendum if the Brits knew how much influence a colonist allegedly had in the pre-Brexit campaign:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/new-evidence-emerges-of-steve-bannon-and-cambridge-analyticas-role-in-brexit
2
What about Russian interference in Brexit? That alone calls for a second referendum just as it should have triggered a new election in the US.
Putin thought the boundaries porous enough to send his agents in with their deadly chemicals. But just as in the US he has exacerbated political, social, and economic divides, so has he done so with Brexit.
And Trump as his willing idiot seeks to destroy NATO
If the free world is to remain and sustain, we must have free elections untampered by Russian influence.
2
What really needs to happen is for somebody to invent a time machine so that the British people could vote on a concrete Brexit proposal, not the fantasies foisted upon it by the Brexiteers. But that is water under the proverbial bridge now, and all options look really bad. Some are bad for the country (no-deal Brexit), others are bad for the Conservatives in power (a new referendum pitting no-deal vs remain). Some are simply unlikely (the Queen appointing a new prime minister).
@Roy They did when they voted for Parliament.
There's a slight problem with the English in the sentence that reads, "Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party leader, has tabled a vote of no confidence in May's government." To most Americans, "table" means to put aside or take off the table. The British use it to mean to put something on the table--the precise reverse of the common U.S. meaning. Best not use it at all; it is as confusing as the word "bimonthly."
3
Something else that ties the upheaval in Britain with the upheaval in the U.S. is the influence of an Australian, Rupert Murdoch, whose 20th Century Fox News owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones in this country, and three British newspapers, including the Sunday Times.
Is it coincidence that insanely bad decisions by voters in both countries came in places where Murdoch's media influence is significant?
2
Congratulations to the New York Times for including Roger Cohen among your regular columnists. He's brilliant. I'll read anything he writes.
4
@Carson Drew - Even though I don't always agree with all his views, I agree with your assessment 100%.
2
What's eating white xenophobic conservatives in the US and the UK? At heart, it's an economic system that distributes far too much of the wealth we generate through our work to the few executives and owners. It's capitalism distorted through political manipulation. Conservative politicians on both sides of the pond are highly dependent on wealthy patrons, and thus refuse to acknowledge this truth. Instead they induce their constituents to fear and blame non-white foreigners, and demand border walls (US) and Brexit (UK). Such policies based on irrational fear will not solve the underlying social problems of our countries. Let's hope that a majority of citizens in both countries are capable of discerning the falsehoods that the demagogues are pushing in their desperate attempts to maintain power. Let's hope they vote for their own interests.
2
@SAF93 - Yes!
Let's hope that citizens see past the falsehoods you described ... AND ... let's hope that we start electing representatives (I've had enough with "leaders") who stand up against the economic elite and start working for us, the people who voted them into office.
To make that happen there is more we can do than just vote every 2 years, for the pre-determined choices.
OUR representatives are button-holed every day by highly paid corporate lobbyists who are professionals, knowledgeable, persuasive and skilled at expressing the interests of their employers.
OUR representatives rarely hear from us, their constituents, in comparison. So is it any big surprise who they respond to?
Every weekend I devote 15 minutes (that's all it takes) to write a letter, on paper, either to the White House, or one of my representatives. I keep it to 1 page, 1 topic, polite but forceful. I state my opinion. Why I hold that opinion. And what I want the addressee of the letter to do. I mail it to their office by USPS. All it takes is 15 minutes once a week. I mail it at the grocery store when I do my shopping.
Letters receive much more attention than emails or online petitions.
Imagine the panic in the halls of Congress and at the White House if all 235 million American voters were to write weekly!
How I would love to see that!
1
I don’t see how a second referendum is needed. The people voted for a parliament that has just voted in confidence of the May government. A vote for this government is a vote to continue with Brexit.
The first Brexit referendum was a sham as NO one in the British electorate had ANY inkling of what they were voting about. It was nothing but a gonadal sensation with no intellectual basis. Sublime ignorance is NOT a democratic ideal. Now, put out a detailed white paper on the pro’s & con’s for the public to READ & then hold an INFORMED plebiscite.
1
@Raskolnikov The people also subsequently voted in a parliament and government that is moving forward with Brexit. That is more telling than the referendum.
Not our country, dude. We've got our own self-inflicted wounds to consider.
2
A second referendum would end the chaos, but not the bitterness. This would be like the armistice at the end of WW1, the war would be over, but the cause for the war turns into hateful conspiracy. The populists must crash in all their glory, they must fail to the very last troll. Britain shouldn't get a second chance, britain should get a whole new start.
That's why we need this brexit.
14
@Mathias Weitz - I think there is fear among some EU leaders that if the UK succeeds, other countries may follow.
What do you think? What is the mood in Germany? I'm living in rural France now and here there is definitely a growing sense of that possibility.
Personally I would rather EU leadership reformed and stayed together. But reform is essential. The status quo is not stable.
4
@Jay
(a) Berlin fell to the Russians first.
(b) Russia was a part of the Allies
(c) Germany was divided into four parts and yes Britain had one part
1
@J Jencks. Wha? But just above I read about you sending letters every weekend to the White House or one of your representatives via USPS, mailed at the grocery store when you do your shopping. It's kind of hard to do that from rural France.
Mathias Weitz is a much smarter and more experienced commenter than I am. Hopefully he will not fall for your imposture as I did elsewhere in this thread.
2
"Dixon told me that a “Remain” campaign in a second referendum would need to focus on the real issues that caused the Brexit vote: immigration, the areas of Britain starved of investment and left behind, a deficient National Health Service. None of these problematic issues were caused by the European Union."
All of the problems mentioned are the result of neo-liberalism on steroids. Something the corporate and financial elites in Britain (and the U.S.) support wholeheartedly and for obvious reasons-the money and power it receives as a result. Unless and until neo-liberalism in all its machinations is exposed and, yes, countered with life affirming alternatives that affects the 99% left without, nothing will change.
Dear Rodger,
No, "about $50 billion, or about eight of Donald Trump’s walls" is not correct. The real cost of Trump's wall would be about $50 billion (likely as a minimum, in my opinion). The 5.6 billion is just an installment for one budget year.
That said, Britain is far smaller than the US, so the impact of a $50 billion expense is proportionately larger.
Of course, a hard Brexit also requires building a full customs infrastructure for goods and people arriving from the EU, most notably, the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Getting that to work given zero planning and the risk of inciting a rebirth of "The Troubles" is also not part of the cost calculation. (The Irish-Irish border was the one thing May's "soft Brexit" negotiation did obtain, at the cost of giving up all say in EU fees and regulations but still being obligated to follow them.)
Putin must be dancing at the damage his buddy Boris and company are causing to the EU generally, and Britain specifically.
1
How about a simple analogy for those who think a second referendum would be some kind of betrayal of democracy?
Imagine a class at school, whose teacher says, "Hey kids, how about we take a trip to London to see the sights? We can stay at a swanky hotel, take in Toussaud's wax museum, visit the House of Commons, then Buckingham Palace. Let's take a vote on it." The majority votes yes, so it's decided.
Before the trip, it emerges that there won't be a swanky hotel, and the exciting sight-seeing won't be quite as cool as promised. They were lied to.
Would there be a case for taking a second vote, or do they have to go through with it because otherwise there'd be lasting damage to school democracy?
1
@Colin What if after finding out all of the details, the student’s still voted to maintain the school administration knowing that they would still push forward with the trip?
@Colin - what if quite a number of the kids actually knew there was no swanky hotel but voted for the trip anyway? Now they can't go?
A few weeks before the vote the UK government, which was officially backing Remain, spent 9 million pounds to send 27 million fliers to EVERY household in the UK, detailing the benefits of Remain and the problems with Leave.
EVERY household in the UK received one of these fliers, at taxpayer expense, although as it turned out 51.8% of taxpayers whose money was spent on Remain promotional materials actually wanted Leave.
Plenty of information was available to voters. But it's up to them to do their own research. If we nullified every election in which politicians made false promises we'd never have another election again.
It's anecdotal but my Brexit voting friends (I have friends in both camps) knew full well it would be difficult and they support it now more than ever.
The gov't website version of the flier:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk
@J Jencks If you go back to the information available to voters, it didn't tell them what an absolute impossibility it would be to get Parliament to agree to all of the details. It didn't tell people what is now admitted by the Bank of England - that it will be decades before we recover the attendant losses. It didn't warn of the difficulties if one part (Scotland ) voted to remain. We knew nothing about the Irish border issue. No-one made any distinction between a bad deal and no deal, because everyone said, like Mr Trump with his "Trade wars are easy to win", that it would all be a breeze. There will be few former Remainers who would now vote in favour of this mess, but I doubt that all the leave-voters would readily choose again the Brexit option now they can see the truth.
If there has been any betrayal of democratic principles it has been by the Boris Johnsons, Michael Goves, Nigel Farages, who shamelessly misled a credulous electorate for their various personal agendas.
2
I get that ‘globalism’ has been painted as something of a bogeyman, but it’s probably worth keeping in mind that our global economic systems are inexorably linked, for better or worse.
It took less than a month after the 1929 London Stock Exchange’s crash before Black Thursday happened. And then there were stock brokers jumping out their office windows to their death.
Although I have a scientific background that relies on the development of evidence, facts, data, and proof, I look at the current political situation in the US and the UK. and ask, "What do facts have to do with anything?" The US government, supported by its unofficial state propaganda organ, has an inveterate liar as its elected leader. This Wannabe Supreme Leader can rarely get through a spoken paragraph without saying something dishonest.
So it's easy for me to understand how UK politicians used similar tactics to win the Brexit vote in 2016, and to have every expectation that they would use them again in the event that there is a "redo" of the earlier vote. After all, the Brexit Leave forces have had another two and a half years to study the tactics of Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway, and Sean Hannity, as well as the Liar-in-Chief, and can put them to good use.
1
@Bluevoter - I wonder how many Americans are aware that the "uninformed" UK voters all received, each and every one of them, a detailed pamphlet prepared by the UK government, which spelled out the arguments for Remain and against Leave. The Government was officially supporting Remain, and spent 9 million pounds to prepare and mail 27 million pamphlets, to EVERY household in the UK. This was done just a few weeks before the vote.
My friends who voted Leave received their pamphlet, just like the other 51.8% of voters who chose Leave.
Were they all duped despite having the information sent to them in their homes? Are they all stupid and gullible? Shall we start requiring an intelligence test before allowing people to vote? Maybe a literacy test too while we're at it?
As for the debacle of Brexit, it would appear to be in the best interests of the British to hold another referendum. The last one was very close and as the article states, was influenced by lies, and Putin.
But the $50 billion divorce bill cited in the article is actually considerably less than the cost of Trump's wall which is expected to be well over that if you include the cost of labor, the cost of the materials -whether a concrete wall or a steel barrier, and the cost of appropriating private land to build the wall / barrier. Never mind the cost of the endless court battles surrounding the expropriations. There is litigation on the same issue from the Bush era still be resolved!
The majority of voters supported BREXIT in a legitimate referendum whose purpose was to end talk of a BREXIT. Cameron's plan backfired and voters (however 'misguided') voted for BREXIT 52% to 48% with a plurality of about 1.3 million votes. To have another referendum to cancel out the binding vote for BREXIT is not only undemocratic but it's nuts. Just because the anti-BREXIT forces didn't get the result they wanted does not give them the right to demand a re-vote.
2
Holding the referendum in the first place violated a representative democracy whose job is to make decisions. It is the only required aspect of governing. It was an uninformed superficial vote much like a vote of no confidence. The solution is not a new referendum. It is to overrule it. It takes guts but that is what is required. The parliament or PM or Queen should call for new elections and if the new Parliament with the obvious vote on the table decides to pursue it let them make that decision votes being counted. Then let them negotiate and vote again. Takes guts, more than just saying no when there is no yes. The latter is just childish.
1
@Wayne - No British court has found that a referendum is by definition illegal. Until one does, it was a legal vote.
The referendum was not binding and Parliament could have over-ruled it. But they chose not too.
We can only speculate as to what would have happened if they had over-ruled it and I don't see the point in speculation.
Yeah...you listen to some 'sweet-talk' and enter into a car lease, a time share, a cell phone contract, an economist cartel...and now you wanna 're-do'. Good luck with that--THEY OWN Y0U!
People can change their mind, but when whole countries do this, the results are catastrophic. The conditions to getting back to the EU should be strict as well otherwise nasty Brits will be doing it year-in and year-out to the detriment of those who have chosen to stay and hold the EU together. For a change, no more Pound, everything moves to the Euro. That would teach the brats a lesson in humility, which is deserved in this case.
Putin must be enjoying the fruits of his support of Bashar el-Assad which resulted in millions of refugees trying to get into Europe. British citizens worried about losing their 'identity' to a huge influx of immigrants wanted out of a political arrangement that curtailed the control of their own borders.
That plus other British-centric reasons led to Brexit.
Result: Great Britain may become Little England and Putin will continue to smile.
Mr. Trump, beware of small balding Russians who smile at you.
Both Ms. May and her Conservatives and Corbyn’s Labour Party are reluctant to proceed with a second referendum because—aside from the cost—both probably recognize by now that cooler heads will prevail and EU advocates will carry the day.
1
It is in the national interests of the United States, the European Union, Britain and even Canada for there to be a new Brexit referendum vote, authorizing negotiations for resuming membership.
It is in the interests of the same parties for the E.U. to resist seeking punitive penalties for the cost of responding to Britain’s earlier folly.
It is also in the interests of the same parties for Britain to have a new Prime Minister – the currently hesitant Jeremy Corbyn or someone else from the Labour Party.
Renewed E.U. membership may be embarrassing to the Conservative Party and its lame duck Prime Minister, the bewildered Theresa May. More importantly, having the U.K. in the E.U. is definitely not in the interests of Donald Trump and his consigliere, Vladimir Putin.
The go-to claim from the Leave corner right now is that people's faith in democracy will be undermined if a second referendum is allowed to take place. What is conveniently ignored by the same crowd is that democracy was undermined when people were fed - not simply inaccurate information - but outright misinformation.
And as if the Leave campaign weren't quite disingenuous enough, it engaged the services of the now infamous Cambridge Analytica in order to target those most likely to be impressed by scare-stories. Oh, _and_ it broke campaign financing rules.
Now _that's_ what I call undermining democracy.
2
@Mike - I'm guessing you are a UK voter. A few weeks before the referendum did you receive one of the 27 million pamphlets mailed to every UK household by the government, in support of Remain, spelling out the arguments in favor of Remain and against Leave?
Regarding how the first Brexit vote something seemed off to this humble American observer, one might have even said that something smelled in the Kingdom of Britain. A schematic question whose meaning and consequences were easily manipulated, was narrowly passed and given binding status by political fiat instead of advisory status. Parliament had not either voted to give this vote binding status or voted to endorse the vote after the results. If Parliament was supreme in Britain where was Parliament? While unlike the US Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom cannot overturn Parliamentary legislation, since there was not Parliamentary action so why did it not get involved and if there is a legal reason maybe it should be able to get involved in such matters going forward,. It might have declared that for politicians to declare the passage of an ill defined referendum- really asking the British voters to choose a pig in a poke - would go against the primacy of Parliament in such matters and violate the British Constitution.
1
Seems reasonable, except for the likelihood that the vote will turn out the same way. What then?
For those who call essentially for a return to local control, that horse has already left the barn. The EU is the only game in town, with 28 countries agreeing to a host of regulations on trade, movement of people and capital, and more. Taking one of the largest players out of the game leaves a tremendous gap. What happens to the thousands of Europeans - at all levels of the economy - already in the UK? What about trade? 28 separate trade pacts? What about border controls in Ireland/Northern Ireland? What happens to Scotland and Wales?
What's shocking (not!) is they had no plan. Cameron didn't think it would pass (hmm, sounds familiar - no one thought Trump would win). And no one had a plan to deal with the consequences (again, sounds familiar). With tinfoil hat securely in place, I have to ask, who benefits from the current and ensuing chaos?
1
48-52 or 52-48 - either/or - there is a problem with the way the EU is run for a huge portion of the population. There votes have not been heard by Conservative or Labour parties.
Part of the problem is that a classical Liberal economy like England is not compatible with a state run economy like France and Germany.
There are more Poles working in the UK than in Germany. The reason is that England is an open society , while Germany has many obstructive state rules that block free movement. The French curtail benefits to non-citizens.
1
Mr. Cohen (and anyone else caring to answer)
If Remain had won by 3.8% and today Brexit supporters were calling for another referendum, would you support their call?
If No, please explain why not.
If Yes, please explain why.
Thank you.
4
@J Jencks. The answer is "no." The proponent of a change to the status quo always bears the burden of proof or persuasion. The reason for this rule is that change--any change--is a disruption, a species of friction. The proponent of disruption must carry the burden of demonstrating that the disruption, or friction, is justified by the change to the status quo.
I am sure other commenters can explain the reason better than I can.
@Flaminia - Thank you for your answer.
So do you feel that the current call for another referendum on the question of Leave or Stay should also be "no"?
@J Jencks. Brexit has not yet occurred. Proceeding with Brexit is still the change to the status quo. Another vote to verify that this change is what is desired is perfectly fine. AFTER Brexit actually occurs, THEN the burden flips to the "re-join" side of the argument.
I have lived in Scotland since before the referendum and the thing I found most striking about PM May after her resounding defeat last night was she maintained that Britain voted to leave. No, Britain did not vote to leave. England beyond London and Wales voted to leave. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to remain, as did London.
Parliament has finally taken control of this nonsense and overwhelmingly said this will not work.
Brexit is dead. Long live the EU.
@ERS - If we're going to break it down, then it makes sesne not to talk about it in Black & White, in as if voters in any location voted 100% one way or the other.
Scotland voted Remain 62 : 38
NI voted Remain 55.8 : 44.2
In short, substantial numbers in all parts of the UK voted both ways. In fact, it was almost a 50 : 50 split. You can couch it in terms of regions, as if they voted 100% one way or the other. But it's really about individuals and their personal choices.
1
My county voted to Leave by 51:49, so can us 49%-ers break off and join the EU?
I really appreciate the substance and precedent mentioned in this argument. I thought throughout this process that a second referendum, despite its being the best hope of a good outcome, was a bad idea because it would go against the will of those that fought so hard for Brexit. Watching this unfold, however, I have constantly asked the same question: Where is the plan from the pro-Brexit side? Johnson had nothing. I have not heard anything of substance from Corbyn. All they have given us is "no". It rings quite similarly to the anti-Affordable Care Act crowd that then found themselves in power with no plan and egg on their faces. A new referendum would be based much more on facts. I think a lot more young people would vote (and hopefully no storm keeping them home this time).
@Quentin M - Just curious, did it only storm over the young people? Or did it also storm over the farmers and other people living in the countryside, who faced muddy country roads and lanes?
I don’t remember a storm? I know we look small to you guys, but we don’t all have the same weather.
The British legislators have themselves completely incompetent and unable to put the mechanisms in place to leave the EU in an orderly manner, from both the British and the European perspective.
It is time to ask the people again. They should know better now what the consequences are of staying and of leaving and the British politicians and tabloids should be required to shut up in the period leading up to a referendum.
A decision by the people to stay in the EU can be implemented without much further ado by the politicians who have shown that they are clearly unqualified to make a decision. And was the membership has been restored the Tories should stop whining about the EU - the buck clearly stops with them.
"Recent polls suggest that British citizens now favor a second vote and that, if held, the decision to leave would likely be overturned." Recent polls (in 2016) also suggested that Ms. Hillary Clinton would be President of the United States.
The British People Have Spoken, therefore the proof (of the pudding) is in the eating. The British political class and its vested interests seem to be scrambling in confusion primarily to cover their ineptness or to protect their privileged game. The EU has its own politicians, bureaucrats and supporters but many in Britain are concerned about its failure to secure and safeguard the EU's borders and significant cherished ideals (public safety, national culture, among others). Not everyone buys into the so-called benefits of globalism especially when they see that at the national level the dreams of idealism have difficulty in being fulfilled in health care, education and earning power. You may fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. A second referendum should be held since it is, in its own right, the "voice of the people."
1
The lack of a coherent plan by the pro-Brexit people leads me to ask a question: did they intend to actually win at all, or did they just want to goad Parliament, if possible, into passing more restrictive immigration measures? It's dismaying to see yet another country fall into governmental stalemate and/or dysfunction.
1
The issue is not whether Britain should leave the EU. Rather, the question that should be asked is why is there an EU in the first place?
Economics 101 dictates that you cannot have economic unity without political unity and the EU is the worst of both worlds. A vast bureaucracy has been created which destroys wealth and the ability of nations to manage their own currencies has been taken away. Ask the Greeks how they feel about that. And those nations have ceded self determination and immigration policy to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.
The EU is the worst of all worlds.
3
Fascinating to watch Democracy in the West implode under the tyranny of the elites. We live in interesting times as the Chinese curse goes.
If the first vote was build on lies, then a redo built on truths seems reasonable. However, in this post truth world full of domestic and foreign internet meddling and media bias, the truth may be hard to discern. Britain has got itself into a pickle that I daresay is perhaps worse than the pickle Americans find themselves in with their wall loving authoritarian toddler-in-chief Trump.
@Liz McDougall
Britain contributes more to the EU than it receives in benefits. It is one of the healthier economies and is supporting the weaker economies.
There is an efficiency benefit to the standardization of processes, standards and regulations of the EU, which benefits everyone in the EU.
There is, however a problem politically and with respect to democracy for the centralized bureaucracy, which is semi selected by the governments of the member states which has been overruling national sovereignty. The constituent citizens of the countries have no recourse when Brussels tells them, for example, that they have to provide social benefits to migrants from other EU states and have to take their fair share of refugees, determined by Brussels and a vote of the member states.
In many ways, Germany is calling the shots for the other countries.
It is comparable to California in the US making demands that the rest of the country conform to their environmental standards, which in their case involves the rest of the country subsidizing their need to improve air quality.
When the Brexit vote was taken, there were forces within the country that wanted to reclaim national sovereignty because of Brussels autocracy. Brussels did not expect to lose. Subsequently, Brussels has expended great resources to undermine the decision of the electorate, along with the allegation of lies.
1
@ebmem
Interesting analysis on your part - with a fair (as in PARTIAL) amount of truth.
AS IT IS in the US, when Katrina hit N.O., I think it's safe to say that Louisiana got a great deal more than it "kicked in" that year. Of course, that even more true case in point sounds "moral" and reasonable to everyone, while yours has the Trumpian/Nixonian flavor of "You want (California) egghead liberals telling you how to live?!"
27 nations did not "band together" and stay together (to whatever extent) THIS LONG because Germany hypnotized all the others.
But yes, everybody is entitled to ask - and heaven knows they do, esp. when provoked - "what's in it for me?" I think we can agree that by a smallish majority, 2.5 years back, Publius Br. said "Not enough. Let's call the whole thing off!"
THE TROUBLE IS - and I admit that this is just one way to put an awfully complex situation into a single sentence -
Britain had "signed a contract" with some oh so nasty "small print," and while the other nations could have "cut them some slack," they basically DIDN'T - "would you?" - and now Brits have the oh-so-lovely choice of THE DEVIL ... or the DEEP BLUE SEA.
If - and we in the US can relate to this ... now more than ever - the "2 sides" don't heed a real or imaginary Solomon/Churchill, almost every Brit will feel a world of pain - the poor for obvious reasons, the middle class because their home-based wealth will take a big hit - 20% on average?, 50%, maybe, for the unluckiest.
To destroy the entire European project, for which so much blood was spilled to create, over a silly opinion poll that could've been taken by Seventeen Magazine is absurd and dangerous. Why do supposed civilized Western nations shoot themselves in the foot by following con men like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Trump? Why are the lies so lucrative? The way things are going in this chaotic world I'd say a third world war might be imminent.
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@Keely
In Brexit deal , explaining new generation one historical perspective is though.
We grew up in 1970's 80's and 90's in this period We witness only one direction in EU , things getting better in every decade past. However like all other things this getting better reach its peak in 2000.s following Middle east collapse , and un precedented scale of Immigration , many of my generation and also new generation people become hostile EU idea. This hostility is not based on reality, it is based on xenophobia , nationalism, and Russia effect.
So I urge my generation people , wake up , don't be a tool of Russia.
EU is best thing we created , own it and nurture it.
Look, Fascists and Communists didn't give us anything other than death and misery. Poland and Hungary is in absolutely loss their common sense, they are playing in the hands of fascists Like Putin.
Who can be better fascist than an old Communists.
@Keely
The objection of leftists is that the polls indicating that the electorate would reject Brexit are more representative than the actual election.
This is similar to Democrats in America believing they are in the majority and that the polls projecting Hillary winning are correct and the vote is somehow silly.
Hear, Hear, Mr. Cohen.
My guess is that leaving the EU would fail miserably if new voting is held. The same International Mafia behind The Con Don is behind brexit - and all the other "populist" candidates running for and/or getting power.
OUR world is in great peril and WE THE PEOPLE - average people around the world in concert with democracy-loving lawmakers - are the only ones who can/will stop them.
NOW is the time.
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@njglea - "My guess is that leaving the EU would fail miserably if new voting is held."
No need to guess. YouGov has been conducting continuous polling since the 2016 vote.
The result is that they detect virtually NO change in voter attitudes. It drifts a bit month by month, but remains within the margin of error of the poll and the 2016 results.
Brexit supporters I know are more committed than ever and reconciled to a Hard exit if that's what it takes.
YouGov results graphed through 3/18. December results were similar:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/29/where-britain-stands-brexit-one-year-out
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I do not believe "polls" J Jencks.
I don't participate in them. Do you? I believe the only ones who do are hard right and left who have nothing better to do.
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@njglea
The commenters here believe that elections don't count, only polls. If the people objecting to the will of the people tell them often enough that the vote was wrong, they will be able to overcome the will of the people.
1
It is not in the national interest to stay in the EU because the poverty level is now too high, resulting in social and political instability.
Freedom of movement of people only resulted in the bosses devaluing the wages.
Some people are now so poor they are camping out for jobs near workplaces as they cannot afford rent and they are seeking jobs that pay less than the minimum wages in terrible conditions.
If the economy was in great shape why do we read these stories so frequently?
The increase in foreign nationals looking for work in the last ten years after the 2008 crash has increased competition for scarce jobs and led to downward pressure on wages.
2
It seems to me, that A. There are too many folks that do not live in the UK having too much advice for the people that actually live there and voted to leave the behemoth, that Europe has become. It is obvious that the people's vote counts, and what about them? Oh you can pontificate and rationalise any excuse for a second referendum, but what will that mean, so that you, can get the answer you want? B. Do shut up and worry about the manboy in the WH. C. The peoples rights, once again are being trampled upon. It matters not a jot, the will of the people must be taken note of, otherwise at the next election, if the mandarins don't like that result, they will hold another vote until they get the result that suits them? D. I was astonished to see the Dutch police tearing a mother away from her child, in a stroller, and arresting her for wearing a yellow hi viz jacket. Maybe the two officers should arrest themselves, as they also were wearing them! My estimation of the Netherlands has changed. Right wing anyone?
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It's a global world, Twiddlybilly.
Everything in existence is connected to everything else - and everyone.
1
@njglea
In a global world, each sovereign state needs to periodically rebalance their place in the world. Allowing Brussels to call the shots for Great Britain cost the people more than they were willing to pay in loss of sovereignty.
1
"The British, and particularly British youth, deserve the right to determine their long-term future on the basis of reality."
No truer words were said.
How can Britain avoid terrible economic and social pain?
Have a "Never mind" vote and educate the populace on foreign social media influence campaigns?
https://www.newsweek.com/brexit-russia-presidential-election-donald-trump-hacker-legitimate-527260
Sorry Mr. Cohen, but Prime Minister May seems to me stuck at the wheel, and like the Captain of the Titanic when other ships called in to warn him of icebergs in his area of the North Sea, he became so mesmerized by all the power under his command he simply sailed on,full steam ahead. Rule Britannica!
I guess I'm completely confused by the idea that a second referendum is an "affront" to Democracy? If they did have a second referendum and people voted again to Leave, and the government decided to ignore it and stay, THAT would be an affront to Democracy.
I think the real reason that there is resistance is because the Brexiteers realize that they have an excellent chance of losing this one.
@MarkKA - "they have an excellent chance of losing"
Care to back that up with some support?
YouGov has been conducting continuous polling since the 2016 vote. They have registered no significant change in Leave vs Remain support. Month by month it drifts a bit but the results are always within the margin of error of the poll.
Brits are split down the middle. Were there to be another referendum either side might win. It would depend primarily on voter turnout because voter views haven't changed enough to register on the polls.
No, I think Leave supporters object to another vote is because they won and want the results of that vote to be respected. In a Democracy we are supposed to respect the results of a vote.
Prove with SUBSTANTIAL evidence that the vote was in some way invalid, corrupted, ... and we have something to talk about. Otherwise, respect the results.
@MarkKA - "they have an excellent chance of losing"
Care to back that up with some support?
YouGov has been conducting continuous polling since the 2016 vote. They have registered no significant change in Leave vs Remain support. Month by month it drifts a bit but the results are always within the margin of error of the poll.
Brits are split down the middle. Were there to be another referendum either side might win. It would depend primarily on voter turnout because voter views haven't changed enough to register on the polls.
No, I think Leave supporters object to another vote is because they won and want the results of that vote to be respected. In a Democracy we are supposed to respect the results of a vote.
Prove with SUBSTANTIAL evidence that the vote was in some way invalid, corrupted, ... and we have something to talk about. Otherwise, respect the results.
YouGov poll results graphed as of 3/18. December results are in line with this:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/29/where-britain-stands-brexit-one-year-out
@J Jencks -
Here is a link to the YouGov poll mentioned in my comment above.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/29/where-britain-stands-brexit-one-year-out
Brexit was sold on a pack of lies. It was poorly worded and would never have made the ballot in the US. A second referendum is warranted and wanted by a substantial number of Brits.
Theresa May has just had the gall to urge Parliment not to delay Brexit further by supporting her proposal. This, after she delayed the vote to try to salvage her proposal?! She may very well hang onto her job. Let's hope she recognises that the Brexit vote was not black and white and reconsiders the idea of a second referendum.
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@Ex-Pat Pam
"A second referendum is warranted and wanted by a substantial number of Brits."
It is wanted by Brits who voted Remain in 2016. Every Brexit supporter I know would vote the same way they did in 2016 and would be offended if their past vote was thrown out. In a democracy, the results of elections are respected.
Prove with SUBSTANTIAL evidence that the 2016 vote was in some way illegal, corrupted, hacked, ... and there is something to talk about. Until that time, the vote must be respected.
Had the results been reversed and Remain had won by 3.8%, would you support another referendum today? How would you justify that support?
Incidentally, the 3.8% victory margin was close to the same (4.5%) as Clinton's popular vote victory margin over Trump. Shall we invalidate the results of the 2016 presidential election? On what legal basis? Heaven knows I'd like to see HRC in the White House, but that's not how it worked out and respect for the Constitution is the over-riding priority. So until we have definitive proof that the 2016 presidential election was corrupted significantly by outside forces, we have to accept the results or destroy our Constitution.
It is the country, Parliament, and political parties that are divided. Choosing the least worst option is proving to be very difficult and complicated by the depressing fact that Theresa May's government has made practically no effort to prepare for a "No Deal" Brexit. Unconscionable in my view.
Many people hold out the hope that a 2nd referendum would overturn the 1st, but that is most definitely not a foregone conclusion. The wrangling over the past two years and some unnecessarily vindictive EU acts have left many people feeling, "let's just go and be done with it". No-one knows what the result would be.
A second Brexit vote would tear apart the Tories and destroy their political power for many years. That is why it will not happen. The British have the same problem we have here in the U.S. The drive to hang on to political power is a stronger force than dedication to what is best for the country.
Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying “When new information comes to light, I change my mind. What do you do?” The cold truth is very different than the fantasies peddled in the first Brexit referendum. The British people deserve a chance to revisit their initial decision.
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Welcome to the Eurosoviet Union where we pretend to vote and they pretend it matters.
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So the EU it turns it is like Hotel California, you can check out but you can never leave. Or it could be that the “remainers” just wouldn’t accept the decision, and foiled the whole process along the way. Or maybe May was unfit for the challenge. Saying that the decision to leave was won by using deceitful tactics implies the other side was forthright, honest and offered realistic solutions to the problems you point to that led to the referendum to start with. Perhaps that’s it—the “remainers” failures should be blamed for the mess and not the “brexiteers”, and Britain may be better in charge of its own destiny, separate from the other burdens brought on by EU membership. Then they can only blame themselves for the woes you point to. Perhaps the British people aren’t are so foolish after all.
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@Paul
There are wealthy cronies who are much better off if Britain remains in the EU and they are prepared to spend as much money as possible to void the election. The cronies are both within Britain and more importantly foreign interests.
1
Can we have a referendum on Trump? Maybe there’s a pun there, on dumb.
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@proffexpert
His support among registered voters has been higher than Obama's support during his second year in office.
I would love to see the UK being part of the EU but not under the current government. The Brits need to the take their financial sector on a short leash so they don‘t keep sabotaging more stringent banking regulation and capital gains taxes that other European countries would like to see enacted, Therefore, Brits get your act together or leave and then you can keep your neoliberal capitalism until the day your people will finally get fed up with it.
1
Brexit was, is, and will remain Putin's plan, objective, and goal.
4
As a non-British pro-EU person I can't agree with this opinion. The referendum was a mistake in the first place. A second referendum would be an even bigger mistake. I would not count on the electorate "changing its mind." Not only have a large segment of remainers accepted the outcome and moved to a "get on with it" attitude, I highly doubt that Brexiters feel they have been proven wrong. I am more and more convinced that the Brexiters have become even more extreme and that if there is any chance of them being proven wrong, it would take the realities of a hard Brexit. Even then, denial runs strong amongst people of all political strains.
But when you get down to it. As president Obama said, "Elections have consequences." We either believe in Democracy or we don't. We can't abandon the principals of democracy simply because it has resulted in a bad outcome.
Unfortunately, the UK will have to learn a hard lesson. It may also be a wake-up lesson to democracies everywhere of what can happen when you are not vigilant against ignorance and lies. Perhaps after suffering the consequences of its foolish decision, there will be a rejuvenation in democratic engagement which will result in a wiser and more engaged electorate. Perhaps it may result in freedom for Scotland and Northern Ireland. At that point, if what is left of the UK feels that it would be wise to rejoin the EU, they may apply to do so. If not, a more withdrawn and passive England can be a good thing too.
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@Simon
The European common market was a good idea. The EU unnecessarily expanded too far into national sovereignty issues and morphed into a centralized government unaccountable to the citizens of the various sovereign states.
There is nothing wrong with Britain withdrawing from the yolk of a totalitarian government and then re-negotiating positive aspects of their arrangement.
1
Referenda are and always will be a bad idea. From Athens' vote for the Sicilian Expedition in the Peloponnesian War, through Prop 13 in California, to Brexit, and many, many in between, in referenda demagogues always appeal to the worst instincts of an ill-informed public with, for the most part, disastrous results. Representative democracies exist - and in some cases last - for a reason.
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@XXX. I agree with this comment. I forever carry the shame of having voted FOR Proposition 13 in 1978. I was 21 years old at the time, with no actual vested interest in the issues involved and certainly no clue about them. I thought my vote was "sending a message." I will never be able to live down that youthful blunder.
@XXX
Democrats don't trust the people to do what is in their best interests, despite the evidence of the ages that centrally planned governments of the technocrats always result in poorer outcomes than democracy.
Thus we wind up with Obamacare, which even its proponents recognize as defective law. They live on thinking the if only the people hadn't rebelled by taking away the Democrat majority in the House, that they'd have been able to tinker its structural defects into a functioning law.
A representative democracy requires that opposing parties negotiate to achieve compromises to benefit the differing preferences of their constituents. Democrats in 2009 and 2010 voided that presumption because as the autocratic leader of the Democrats declared, "Elections have consequences, and I won."
We are currently in another stalemate, with Democrats flexing their muscles to demonstrate that they will resist Trump's desire, commitment and promise to provide for the national defense by denying him 0.1% of the national spending. As in 2010, not only will their autocratic ways cost them control of the House, but it will result in the presidency remaining in Republican hands.
@XXX - I'm a California native. A great many other propositions have been approved since Prop 13. They certainly haven't all, or even most, been bad.
If we can't rely on the people to rule themselves wisely, then we don't have a problem of democracy. We have a problem of education.
The problem with representative democracy is that OUR representatives are being button-holed constantly by highly paid corporate lobbyists. It's no surprise those are who they then respond to.
How often do average Americans communicate directly with their representatives? Not often!
Every weekend I set aside 15 minutes (that's all it takes), to write a letter, on paper, with one topic, polite, to the point, one page, to one of my representatives or the White House. Imagine the panic in Congress and at the White House if all 235 million American voters did the same every week!
Americans need to get educated (vote yes for that next proposition on school bonds) and get involved. Until we do that it doesn't matter what form of government we have.
Once upon a time Britain went all over the globe and set up colonial outposts whose laws, finance, language, customs and military were all loyal to the Queen of England. India, Hong Kong, Canada, Colonial America, Kenya, Palestine, Gibraltar, etc.
That system worked fine for the UK until Hitler came and called. Then the UK melted down and was only kept afloat by American efforts during and after WWII.
The common market in the EU along with NATO and other multi-national alliances are meant to bring peace and prosperity to every member state. So WWIII will never happen!
Joining the EU allowed England to peacefully paper over the divisions in occupied Ireland, in occupied Scotland, and trade freely and travel freely throughout continental Europe.
Now the lunatics have taken over, both on the right and the left of Great Britain. They want to make sure that Russian backed idea of dividing the EU into pieces is instituted under the name "Brexit." They will fight to make sure that business, travel, and economic freedoms are tied up in even more laws and negotiations for the next 100 years rather than submit to the bureaucrats in Brussels.
The forgotten troubles of the Irish and the concerns of the Scots matter little it seems.
The only sane ones seem to be the colorless suits in Brussels who are not hysterical, nationalistic, populist, or whatever you want to call those who unwittingly want to dismember the unity of the free and prosperous nations of Western Europe.
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That such a momentous change could be decided on a simple majority is quite astounding.
One might expect such a great change to require a super-majority for a referendum to pass.
Perhaps a simple majority vote of representatives would suffice after thorough parliamentary discussion.
1
What? Keep voting until you get it right?
Let this be a lesson to all of us. Voting is a responsibility and is not to be trifled with or done without clear knowledge of the consequences. I flew from Vienna to London the morning after the plebiscite. Anecdotally, I heard of many Brits who voted for Brexit "just to make a point", assuming it would fail. And how many people staged protest votes in November 2016, assuming that Mrs. Clinton was all but assured victory?
2
Many aspects were wrong with the referendum. Significantly, the British do not typically have referendums, particularly one of this magnitude. The other is there could have been a 2/3rds vote required.
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How perverse. The loser can not keep having elections because the first was lost. The Brits voted to get out, and it is a challenge, but you do not get a Mulligan, because it is.
1
Own goal.
It's truly awful to watch the UK flounder. Ignorance and fearmongering led us here.
2
This is (and has long been) the obvious answer to the misery of English politics and life. Brexit was a totally wrongheaded direction. Why can't the Conservatives and Labor see it?
2
The more voting the better. Vote twice and average the two votes perhaps, but in any case, let the people decide. An exit poll could ask if vote was influenced by social media posts, as well as confirming the vote.
2
Brits found out that they couldn't have their cake and eat it too with Brexit. I agree with Roger, there will not be any agreed upon Brexit plan that's saleable to Parliament or Brussels. A second general vote is inevitable.
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@Steve - What seems inevitable to me is a hard Brexit. People will still be squabbling come 3/29 and the alarm will sound ... "game over"
Unless she is an outright fascist, May must want a way out of this. Why not get the entire government on board and launch a far more significant investigation into the Russian participation in Brexit? Put this insanely destructive deal on hold, and throw all your time and energy into explaining its dubious origins to your citizens. Haul Farrange and company into the Parliament. Go before the nation and explain that the UK was manipulated much as the US was, and that the results of the referendum are potentially void. Call out, and/or investigate the Daily Mail and other dubious rags for spreading disinformation. Educate the pubic about fascist infiltration into British society and Putin's desire to undermine the West.
She should hold a televised press conference and apologize to the nation for having been mislead herself, and vow to hold a clean referendum, without manipulative, leading questions. In fact, she could go further, and present the details of the last referendum to the highest court in the land, to discover whether or not it was legal in the first place, having been instigated by a foreign power, and brought forth by British traitors. She has become a megalomaniac, making a catastrophic mess of Great Britain to prove some unprovable point, and she either needs to resign - before she humiliates herself any further - or turn the country around in an honest, healing way.
5
Geography is everything. The UK are islands off the continent. Language of course is the next thing. It is nothing like America which needs to be remembered. Resentment of Europe has existed for ages. When Europeans realized that they could ease things economically by adopting one currency and reducing travel hassles well of course they were going do it. It made sense. It is UK politics that turned this EU thing sour when societal change was introduced in the Thatcher era. They started privatizing and they switched to austerity financial policies. They put themselves against what was happening in Europe. Suddenly many important things like infrastructure, energy were no longer owned by them but by foreigners on the continent. And, in general, the EU was not liked by the people. There were too many rules that made people believe they didn't control their country. The immigration requirement was a huge issue too. So they thought it would be much better to withdraw and run their country again. Great idea right? Wrong. They have been on an economic downturn ever since the leave side won. This is the worst self-inflicted harm. They can't even get an exit deal to cushion some of the terrible hurt. The government might collapse. It will make life terrible for years to come.
1
If the Democrats in 2020 take a similar view that Trump was due to lies, Putin, and misinformation and run a negative campaign ignoring the fears, economic distress, and disaffection of many Americans, then Trump wins a second term.
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Alas there is no reliable consistent evidence that people would vote any differently with a second brexit referendum.
Having said that, if we're going to head over the cliff, let it be because of a deliberate, more informed decision rather than a parliamentary accident - bring it on.
2
A 2nd referendum would be very divisive with both sides angry and emotional. Assuming the Remain side won and we stayed in the EU, do you really think that would be the end of it? If we can have 2 referendums, then why not 3, 4 or more? The argument would fester on both in the U.K. and within the EU. A new anti EU party would almost certainly be created which would draw the support of those (40% +) feeling cheated. I’d suggest the EU would be better off now if we left rather than having us remaking only to be obstructive and awkward within the EU. A second referendum would also give the Scottish a precedent for rerunning their independence referendum which could lead to the U.K. actually breaking up. So NO to rerunning the referendum because you don’t like the result
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What then if Leave/Brexit wins the second referendum? A third referendum?
2
The EU or Common Market started off as trading agreement. Overtime it got high-jacked by politicians attempting to take on the USA with the United States of Europe. With ever increasing bureaucracy, additional cost, ludicrous regulations, the GBP (Great British Public) became disillusioned and were happy to accept the out and out lies peddled by Farage and his side kick Boris. Now the Country is in total chaos with no way out. A compromise is need. The EU needs to back off on ever increasing bureaucracy and costs and the UK needs to forget Brexit.
Why does it always seem that any political result the Left opposes is judged to be stupid, the result of political chicanery or the product of Russian meddling? There should be no election “do-overs” whatsoever. Why give people the hope - or fear - that their choices can be undone if the “right people” choose to.
1
Sure would be helpful if UK and US had a Lemon Law provision/statute/amendment to deal with our misinformation-fueled referendums and elections.
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'Exit Brexit' is the only sane solution.
Holding the first referendum was a stupid idea in the first place. Cameron's error. Didn't have to have it, there is no tradition of referendum democracy in Britain.
Now they must hold a second and be done with it.
3
Do we need any further proof that the best of Britain left over the past 300 years, leaving only upper class twits and lower class morons? As a whole, like Trump supporters, they voted magically to go back in time to a past that wasn’t as great as they think it was, or simply didn’t exist at all.
Perhaps next they’ll have a “people’s vote” to re-annex Canada or India.
Experience is the only antidote to ignorance; the education of the British people will now start in earnest.
1
What is it with NY Times editors, reporters, and opinion writers? They relentlessly tell the people of foreign democracies how they should run their governments. They tell Israelis, now they tell the British. Meanwhile, right outside the front door of their office building is New York City with one of the most inefficient governments in the US and where police with impunity abuse and sometimes kill unarmed citizens.
Get your own house in order and quit your arrogant lecturing of people in other democracies!
1
Nigel Farage and company and the tabloids should really have to answer for this bloody mess.
Lies,lies,lies, propaganda and crass manipulation ...they have caused immense damage to their country and should face charges for it. Is it still called sedition or treason when you work to destroy your own country through sheer stupidity?
And let's get all the info about the Russian interference here. And Robert Mercer's.
1
The only way to change the current state of anything is 1) to guide it gently towards the direction you want, or 2) by drastic and/or violet means. Brexit is an example of a drastic change that was bound to fail, having also having secured barely 50% of the vote. Something like that which changes the fate of a nation should have had a 67% majority for passing in the first place.
Perhaps they should just have as many referendums as it takes to arrive at Roger's preferred outcome, at which point they can consider the matter permanently settled.
I am a liberal who is appalled at all of the knee-jerk support on the left for the EU. There is nothing democratic about a massive supra-national bureaucracy that prioritizes the interests of the Davos plutocrats. All governments should be accountable to voters.
43
Great point
3
@Greg
Kind of like the Gorsuch appointment: “We cheated you out of it fair and square!”
Having a second, informed vote IS democracy.
27
@Greg ... well said.
A new referendum may be the only hope, but it is unlikely. There are four factions in Parliament and no two can unite to form a majority for a new referendum. It's all over for Britain. All that's left is economic self-destruction.
And if the people vote to leave again, will Roger Cohen accept a second vote to leave? If so, why? If the vote can be re-run until the electorate gives the “right” result, then why have referendums at all? Just ignore the people’s vote and have the decency to be honest about it.
There *are* processes for the people to change their mind. Their representatives can bring down the present government (today, if they want!) and trigger a general election, in which the public can vote for a pro-EU party. But for the *present* government to simply decide that the last referendum doesn’t count because they dislike the result would be an abuse of the democratic process.
The key test is: what process would be sufficient for you to accept a verdict you dislike? If your answer (like Roger Cohen’s) is “None, and the public need to keep voting until they endorse my position,” then you are anti-democratic.
1
We the press feel we have propagandized enough over the past year to have the majority of citizens see things the right way (our way). We respectfully ask for a new vote.
1
Myths:
1. The people were uninformed or misled.
Has there ever been an election when people weren't lied to? It is the duty of voters to do their homework. In the case of the 2016 referendum, the government, in support for Remain, mailed a pamphlet detailing out the facts and reasons for their Remain support to 27 MILLION households across the UK. That is EVERY household. This was done at taxpayer expense, though as it turns out, a majority of those taxpayers voted for Leave.
2. British views on Leave have changed and a new referendum would reflect that.
YouGov has been doing continuous polling since 2016 and has shown NO significant change in Leave/Remain views. Month by month the results drift a bit up or down but remain well within the margin of error.
3. Putin tampered with the election.
PROVE it definitively, or every future election on any issue will be subject to the same complaint by whoever loses.
3
@J Jencks - Clarification on point 3.
Putin is no doubt TRYING to influence elections and will tamper with every European and American election for the foreseeable future. What matters is whether he succeeds in changing results.
To order that an election is invalid because Putin tampered would invalidate every future election and we might as well start paying our taxes to Russia.
What we have to do is make sure the impact of his efforts is minimized.
Here are some references to the original comment.
The web version of the UK gov't pamphlet mailed to EVERY British household:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk
YouGov poll results with a graph up to 3/18. December 2018 results are the same:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/29/where-britain-stands-brexit-one-year-out
Clarification: 50 billion would cover about 1-2 Trump walls since the $5.7 billion he is asking for is just a "first installment". Experts have estimated that a wall the scope of which was (ridiculously) conceived by DJT would easily be $25-50 billion dollars all-in (BTW, that Mexico, not the US taxpayer, was going to pay for).
It seems to me that the British Parliament and leadership need to admit that there was no viable plan for Brexit and that they are not smart enough to figure it out. Admit that Brexit was above their intellectual prowess and they jumped the gun in trying to implement it. No one could argue with that. So until there are more intelligent adults in the room all bets should be off and they should remain. Just admit that they don't know what they are doing and until a group of people come up with a workable alternative to Brexit, they should forget about it. However, since they've dug a huge hole for their people, a vote would have to be taken or a civil war will erupt. It is devastating that two of the smartest most successful countries on earth, Britain and the USA are being run by marketeers and con artists who have no clue on how to run their countries.
1
Brexit is simple. Theresa May has not made a bad deal, but the Labor Party is being crazy.
The people voted to leave the EU. The is fine. The question remaining is what will be the future trade relation between non-EU Britain and the EU. The US has trade agreements with the EU. China has trade agreements with the EU. (I would guess) Nigeria has no special trade agreements with the EU.
In 70 days Britain leaves the EU. They can arrange things that future trade and travel is similar to the US, or similar to Nigeria. Theresa May negotiated a tighter agreement than the Labor Party would, but she IS Prime Minister.
Currently, there are a limited set of choices: 1. accept Theresa May's trade deal with the EU. 2. Exit the EU with no deals. 3. Call a general election and choose another Prime Minister, who then has a short time to negotiate a different trade agreement.
Brexit is not a crisis. It will make trade and travel more cumbersome for Britain and will re-assert self-determination over immigration and other issues. The benefits of being in the EU come with costs, and the British people said to withdraw.
1
Yes, Mr. Cohen, democracy (vox populi) is fine - as long as the people vote the way the establishment desires. When they don't, then democracy's representatives can decide what is really good for them.
If you don't like the results of a referendum, the clearest statement of popular will, just have another - and another, and another - until the elites get the result they want, Then they will claim that the "people have spoken," and there is no need for another referendum.
Of course, we can have a "Referenda World Series," with a best of seven winner. In that case why bother with elected representatives? Each Sunday, with new Blue Laws, the people can vote for legislation directly and then go to the political equivalent of a Sports Bar to celebrate or drown their sorrows.
2
Disagree. Referendums must be employed with great care and caution. In this case, the capital has been spent. Britain's is a representative democracy. To turn to the people for these direct votes on matter of import, especially when the opportunity has already been taken, is to undermine Parliament and the concept of indirect government. The people have their representatives; let the members debate and be held accountable.
1
May's loss seems to be the worst in all the 1000 years of parliamentary history.
Her problem and that of the British people extends to the near future. May says she's ready to speak with all parliamentarians about what comes next, But she sets forth as conditions the very same strictures that dictated the outcome on Tuesday. Expecting a different outcome: insanity!
1
My question is, what if the referendum yields the same result? Most commenters here seem to think it is a foregone conclusion that remainers would win. That is exactly what the thinking was before the referendum in 2016.
2
Thank you Roger, the misinformation before the referendum was pushed by the Brexiteers, & although the English fell for it the Scots did not & Brexit is permanent, it is not as if two years from now we can vote in a new government that will reverse it. There is no doubt in my mind, as a Scot, if we had known we were going out of Europe we would have voted for Independence. Brexit is a fiasco, most of the Brexiteers are old fogies & or Nationalists who look back to the wonderful 1950s & 60s (when they were young), but the 50s & 60s were horrible in Britain. Ration cards, terrible pollution, low wages, you were allowed to take only 50 pounds abroad, there is no doubt being a member of the EU has been good for the whole of Europe, & we have to look at who wants to see the EU break up? The right wing, Trump, Putin, Marie Le Pen, Trumps pal Nigel Farage, we need a second referendum, particularly for the young people.
1
"Other union countries, including Denmark and Ireland, have voted twice on European Union treaties and reversed the initial outcome. They are still thriving democracies, as far as anyone can tell. People change their minds and survive."
-Democracies and people change their minds all the time and survive!
3
Roger Cohen confuses "Brexit" with "No Trade." Trade will always exist because and to the extent that it is in the interest of the parties. It is for that reason that Germany signaled the other day that Claude Juncker's "deal" could perhaps be renegotiated after all.
What Brexiteers do not want is the European Commission's autocratic interference in other aspects of national policy.
Democracy lovers might remember that the European Commission is an unelected body only nominally responsible to the EU Assembly. It represents rule by banker. It was in order to preserve his oligarchical control that Juncker decided to negotiate punitively with Britain as an object lesson to other member states.
Mr. Cohen might also consider that "do it again until you get it right" makes a mockery of democracy. May is right. The People spoke and Parliament needs to comply. Remainers lost. They should not subvert democracy in the name of democracy just to get their way.
1
"A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy."
So, we elected Trump and we don't like it so we'll just have new Presidential elections in 2016?
Umm, no. There is no point in having the democracy if something is put up for a vote and then if the elites don't want it they can just backtrack and say, "I want to do it over again."
The voters spoke and the British elites will have to deal with it.
While part of the EU, British workers were getting shafted with lower wages as low-cost labor was imported from Eastern Europe. Since everyone in these countries learns to speak English this particularly impacted the British workers compared with German, French, and Italian, for example.
The British political elites ignored the suffering of their constituents. PM Cameron was so out of touch with understanding the suffering of British constituents that he put it up for a vote and he lost.
The voters knew what they were voting on: exiting from the EU Customs Union, the cessation of the import of cheap labor that drove down wages.
The affected not only the working class but doctors and nurses/sisters who worked for the NHS. Now there will be labor shortages unless the firms in Britain and the NHS start offering appropriate wages.
Surprising that NYT columnists like Cohen, who is a liberal, does not understand that because of BrExit a number of people will again be receiving fair wages.
3
@David MD
No. British workers were not shafted by the EU, there is full employment in this country. So called immigrants, either do jobs that not enough Brits want to do, or not enough Brits are able to do. Endless research has been published in the last two years showing that European immigration has NOT depressed wages. And quite frankly how would the NHS be able to cope without all the European nurses and doctors? The NHS is chronically under-staffed as it is. You can raise wages as much as you want, but if there are not enough workers around, you need them to come from elsewhere.
5
Well said.
1
@Chris
NYT columnist and Economics Nobel Prize Winner Paul Krugman has written about the import of cheap labor and of course it depresses wages (and alleviates "shortages").
Without the import of cheap labor from Eastern Europe and other sources, there is a "scarcity" of labor until firms (and the NHS) raise wages to appropriate levels for market conditions.
Instead of going overseas (to the US and Australia for example) to get fair wages, the British donors and nurses would remain in the UK. If there are still shortages, they would have to increase wages until enough British citizens went into medicine and remained in the UK.
Now, thanks to BrExit, construction firms and the NHS, for example, will have to start paying appropriate wages.
Krugman: North of the Border
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/opinion/north-of-the-border.html
Krugman: Notes on immigration (with references to studies).
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/notes-on-immigration/
2
Yes vote again now that the voting public is finally informed about the entire issue.... Russia probably intervened in the election just they did in the US...Now Britons can decide exactly where they stand without Farrage and his cronies who have long since disappeared from the scene.
2
@Psst
Very probably indeed... if only we had a Mueller investigation here like you guys in the US, that would be the real eye opener for many here.
Exactly right! And while we're at it, let us redo the 2016 election for President of the USA.
2
The genie is out of the bottle and will never return to it.
Stay or leave, the issue of this is now as solidified as the issue of Scottish independence.
There is now another perennial favorite to trot out to rally the hysterical masses, like the non issues of abortion and gay marriage in the US, and oh yes, violence on the southern border.
1
Brexit was fueled by Putin mischief, as was Trump’s election. Our Treasury Dept removed sanctions against Putin’s pal. Our government and news media is likely infested with Russian moles and sympathizers as is probably Britain’s.
3
Do-overs and mulligans are the stuff of illusion (next time I will get it right). Unfortunately, here with Trump and in Great Britain with Brexit, there are no second chances to correct a disastrous decision short of beginning the process anew. We have an election in 2020 if Trump remains in office that long. The Brits need to go through an even more difficult process if that is even a possibility, to enable a new referendum and reverse course.
Magical thinking is fine in children's storybooks, but we live in reality.
1
The EU does have a creepy history of repeating referendums until they get what they want. Both Portugal and Ireland were forced to repeat their referendums until the answer was a "Yes" in favor of the EU. So, the precedent already exists. The bigger question is that this is not a democracy anymore (unlike Mr. Cohen tries to swindle you in this article). Imagine holding repeated elections until the "appropriate" candidate wins, and then trying to rationalize it by saying that "a democracy can change its mind".
4
Little England (and Wales) is not capable of NOT cutting off its own nose to spite its own face, Mr. Cohen.
The sensible union would be between Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. With Scotland in the mix, the Protestants from NI wouldn't have to worry about Catholics from the south dominating. And Ireland is now ready to leave behind the failed politics that was once dominated by the Catholic Church.
It's a no-brainer. England and Wales lose, everyone else who has a brain wins.
2
This vote happened close to our election. It was sold as salvation to the NHS, and a solution to unlimited immigration. Much of it was untrue. We WISH we could do a do-over on Trump, single handedly wrecking the country. The U.K. can and must return to the EU, or fail. What’s left? Brexit won’t help the NHS, and the lies it was sold on won’t hold water.
1
The first vote was an ill-advised sham. Boris's lies and Putin's bots made for a poorly informed electorate. Any exit from the EU will do great damage to the UK for generations. The best of the bad exit plans was trounced in Parliament. Now is the time for a courageous leader to speak the truth. Hold a second vote or ignore the first, which was non-binding.
2
and they need to keep voting until they get a result that Roger agrees with!
1
1. Membership in the EU is better than any of the alternatives, period.
2. Brexit threatens to paralyse the working economy and thereby choke off public services, including health and education, creating an even bigger mass of ignorant, desperate people primed for servitude, exactly like Trump's base, a worthy goal for some apparently. The British media are entirely complicit in this.
What an opportunity for Labour. Not, apparently, when dotards rule. With the government in tatters the main problem for Britain now is Corbyn.
3. The Brexit Tories will do anything to achieve Brexit, up to and including carpet bombing Brits economically, something like Bashir al-Assad. They are doing this to conceal, protect and further their offshore interests. They've encouraged widespread racism and xenophobia to gain their ends. They promote pompous delusions of freedom from geopolitical and economic fact. As a result Britain is a now a world-wide joke.
The Tories are nothing if not consistent. Worse is the fact that there is no focussed opposition - no person, no party, no press or other media, no mechanism - to stop this madness. Britain will find out the price of these shabby delusions and will pay. But they won't.
4. Brexit and Trump are manifestations of a Russian effort to disrupt and demoralise the west. Coordinated actors in both camps. Job done.
5. Britain must express itself legitimately on Brexit now there can be no doubt what is at stake. Another referendum, please.
2
A good read. It debunks the irrational argument that a second referendum would go against democratic principles. Catharsis is required. For over two years there has been nothing but Brexit and people in the UK are fed up with it. It has consumed lives. Emotivism, has drive a lot of this debate. Lies, lies and more lies have been peddled. Fudge, fudge and fudge cannot continue. The UK isn't exceptional. It has a proud history, but this is the modern world, rule Britannia is a bygone age.
1
A vote for a new referendum is a vote against Putin who partially funded Brexit through intermediaries. A vote against Brexit is a vote for British democracy.
1
Deciding complex issues via national referendum is more than democracy can bear. The "people" cannot be trusted to that extent. Ask Madison. That's why he and others devised representative democracies.
1
What if the Brexit was a good thing for bad reasons?
1
I said on the day of the vote that Brexit would not happen. I maintain that it still will not happen because it cannot happen. The Common Market was the linchpin of the United Kingdom's post World War II admittedly patchy prosperity -- with all the ups and downs and ins and outs. The European Union as the successor to The Common Market is key the island kingdoms continued economic growth. The British political and economic establishment knows full well that they cannot do without it. Only the most cynical and ambitious politicians, catering to the basest most xenophobic human instincts, would say otherwise. And they did. And they lied shamefully and despicably.
Now that their lies have been exposed the British electorate deserve to make a far more informed choice. Moreover, people who had taken participation in the European Union for granted — especially young people — will now get out and vote to protect their future. It is a foregone conclusion that this ridiculous right-wing brainchild will be aborted.
1
This is a great lesson, as is Trump, to the rest of the world about political snake oil:
Simplistic "Populism" is the craze of today
As it's easy to break things and walk away.
But the dreams once promised with a goal to regress,
Are just gossamer lies that soon can't hide the mess.
1
Without Brexit there IS NO British nation to have a national interest. Without an absolute veto, there is no nation.
Its that simple. No need for lots of words or lots of "argument".
If you want a real enforcement of "National Interest" its very
easy to find: the USA. We have a President, and his supporters, who really ARE enforcing OUR national interest! Not the EU's interest, nor China's interest nor the "International Climate Change Cabal"'s interest, but OUR interest.
M.A.G.A and also M.B.G.A.
1
@Doug McDonald
Yes, master. No messy discussion. Just your way or no way.
Make America Sane Again.
Brexit must be defeated, and Germany should get to keep its Fourth Reich.
The First Reich or the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t so nice; the ideological glue was Roman Catholicism.
The Second Reich wasn’t that great either; the glue was fear of the French and British Empires, and Bismarck’ culture kampf program.
The Third Reich was probably the worst of the four; it’s glue was lebenstraum for “biological” Germans, and the elimination of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and others. Of the four empires, it was probably the most ambitious and able where territorial expansion was concerned.
But what’s not to like about the Fourth Reich? It’s ideological glue is open borders, environmentalism, and a free trade that only mildly benefits Germans while mildly harming others. It’s not like the Greeks are being literally starved like they were by the Third Reich! They’ve merely lost their ability to manage their currency, control their borders, and keep their homes.
And the English have been opposing Germany’s Empires from the beginning - from Henry the 8th and his daughter, to Clemenceau, to Churchill and Thatcher. I think one of the Reich-masters said it best - they’re a nation of shopkeepers, small minded little deplorable people, mired in their parochialism.
I’m with Roger. The Empire must prevail. It’s the only way to everlasting peace, prosperity, and salvation and the Germans have been doing this since the fall of Rome, with England and her small minded allies always in opposition.
1
Time for a wake up call. Russia's, Putin's, cyber warfare is winning. Divide and conquer! Divide Europe! Divide Britain! Politicians are putting themselves first, party second, and maybe country third! In America Fox News is a huge propaganda network for Putin!
1
Well ...
It’s time to remind the British that although their hills and valleys are crowned with castles built by the slaves of bygone kings, queens, and aristocrats, they no longer command an empire on which The Sun Never Sets. The British don’t own India or great parts of Africa, or the American continent, and Canada appears perfectly capable of independent decisions.
So. The United Kingsom is a bunch of little islands on the edge of the Atlantic.
Time to forge alliances with France, Germany, and friends. Time for a second referendum on Brexit. Obviously.
What’s funny, of course, is that the United States ... a geographically vast, diverse nation ... is as wildly deluded and divided as little Britain/the U.K.
Are these jingoistic nationalistic delusions infectious or just delicious?
Brexit....."something so inherently undesirable as to defy prettification". Couldn't have summed it up better.
A re-referendum is the only correct move...in a rational world. But welcome to Trump world...where alternative facts share the airwaves and cyberspace in equal footing with actual facts. Trump on this side of the pond, and his British clones have created a set of premises attractive to a targeted audience; they have perfected Josef Goebel’s marketing skills; they have market tested the anxieties, needs and prejudices of their audience and tailor their propaganda accordingly. They brilliantly harvested the golden egg: the unquestioned loyalty of their respective “base”;, but foolishly they are killing the mother goose of us all.
1
They should hold a second vote. The voters in England are as ignorant as the voters in the U.S. in electing Trump. A very large number of them who voted for Brexit did not understand what it was. The day after the election the topic looked up on the internet in Great Britain was Brexit.
2
Sorry! $50 billion would not build ONE of Trump's walls. He's asking for a down-payment of $5 billion--which is really a dog whistle representing his white supremacist politics.
And yes, Britain is split---and so too is Northern Ireland. Remember the UK, Roger? How could you not, after May's dance with the bigoted, creationist DUP?
1
Absolutely.
1
By the way, here’s yet ANOTHER piece of right-wing bushwa...that the heads of the EU are in no way elected, and answerable to nobody.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_European_Commission
The elected EU parliament, in which Britain has always had votes and membership, votes to nominate and approve all the major EU guys. The EU comission is also answerable to that parliament.
1
Winston Churchill wrote his "History of the English-speaking Peoples." If he were writing today, his title would be, "Idiocy of the English-speaking Peoples."
@XXX A reply to my own comment: I should add, with apologies to Canada. (The Australians these days seem to be little better than we or the Brits).
And why hasn't Boris come up with a plan that will work? And why doesn't he clearly present it? And Corbyn? What twits.
2
Right, Roger! From Reader Picks comments I've seen, most agree with you.
So, NYT, stop featuring a front-page diagram concealing Roger's obvious truth in an obfuscating maze of Brexit-alternative paths with arrowheads. (The current diagram has 12 arrowheads, all leading toward or arriving at nowhere!)
There are TWO alternatives:
1. Second Referendum, remain in the EU.
2. ANY form of Brexit, weakening unity and economics of England, the UK, and the EU, just as Putin has hoped.
NYT, diagram THAT!!
2
Another Referendum? That would make things even worse than they are now. What do you do if Leave wins again? What will the question be? If another referendum results in the UK staying in the EU the electors who voted leave in the original referendum will feel cheated. UKIP has stated that such a action would become marketed as "the great betrayal" bolstering grievance politics and enlarging support for a waning UKIP. One question, what if Remain had won? Another Referendum would never be countenanced if Remain had won. Referenda are not part of the UK's political system, unlike Ireland or the Netherlands.
Referenda are good for simple questions such as do you want your rubbish collected on a Sunday or Monday. Not on complex questions as to our relationship with the EU.
1
This is why referendums are seldom a good idea. Complexity demands careful deliberation.
4
Neither Brexit nor Trump were a mistake, instead they are a testament to how real our political wake up is, despite the continuous flood of propaganda from the media attempting to dispel the validity of this sentiment for political change that is spreading around the world.
2
It makes little sense not to vote again, but this is about emotions and not logic. I sure do wish them well and hope that cooler heads prevail and a second vote is called for.
The real problem was having the first popular vote on such a complex issue. A second vote might, just might, resolve the immediate problem, but what about then having a third vote or a fourth. A representative democracy means the people choose representatives to make policy decisions. Former Prime Minister David Cameron misjudged the ability of the British people to evaluate such a complicated issue as membership in the European Union.
What would happen if American voters were asked to vote on continued membership in the United Nations? Can you imagine the demagoguery that would take place?
The British are on thin ice and any vote on the EU will result in greater division. It is a problem they created for themselves. They desperately need the kind of leadership that Theresa May or Boris Johnson cannot deliver.
If people are lied to in order to manipulate their vote on a critical issue, then the vote itself is invalid. Having a second referendum is not quite correct. England needs a valid first referendum. And the idea of deciding a nation’s future on the basis of a simple majority is madness. At least 60% in favor of leaving should be required. If an idea is clearly good, then it shouldn’t be too hard to get such support.
2
So the sentiment in this article seems to be if you ignore the will of the voters long enough you can invalidate their vote. We see it in the 'resistance' here in the States and in this drive for a new vote in the UK. It will not happen or be rewarded with the desired outcome. Voters are clear they want to take a step back from the rush to globalization. Assimilate the immigrants already in their counties and digest the changes already imposed before going further. Respect that or ignore it at your peril.
4
@GregP-
The voters chose Hillary Clinton. Despite Russian propaganda, voter suppression, Comey's blunder...they still chose her. That is without taking into account the tens of millions of habitual nonvoters, who are on average much poorer than the average American, and who would have voted Democratic if they had voted. The will of the people was thwarted. But w took back a lot of ground in 2018, and will take back even more in 2020.
@childofsol
You took back no ground in 2018, Republicans retiring enmass ceded the ground you gained. Even with that large number of open seats Trump still saw a smaller swing in the House and actually gained in the Senate so your prospects for 2020 cannot be predicted based on what happened in 2018.
New York and California account for ALL of the lead in the popular vote. Millions of Republicans in those States had no reason to vote, their Electors were already promised to Hillary so why stand in the line? If it was a popular vote election you could say she 'won'. It wasn't so she still lost. Your unwillingness to acknowledge that is just one of the costs of her candidacy.
1
But what if a “People’s Vote” results in a majority vote to leave, or results in a virtual tie?
This seems all too likely, given the past vote, and continued voter sentiment outside of London.
The most likely scenario seems to be a no-deal Brexit. After that occurs, the economic pain will have to be felt convincingly so as to put to rest the illusion of so many that the UK will do better outside the EU, and doesn’t even need a Norway or Canadian relationship with the EU.
1
@Deborah Christie - Continuous YouGov polling supports your impression that voter sentiment hasn't changed in the last 2 years.
If I were betting, I think the no-deal Brexit is probably the most likely outcome at this point.
As accurately characterized by Mr. Cohen, the first vote was “fueled by lies”, chief amongst was the broadly advertised claim that hundreds of millions of pounds would be returned to the financially challenged National Health Service with a vote to leave the EU. Boris Johnson, Neil Farange, and other pro-Brexiteers often and loudly peddled this falsity. It glaringly appeared on the sides of public buses in the country. This totally irresponsible and audacious lie probably tipped the referendum result in the close vote. A compelling claim can be made that this electioneering fraud nullified the results, and that a new vote on the original question is required.
3
Why not hold a referendum to re-enter the EU on March 30, 2019? It would still honor the results of the first referendum, and the terms of the first exit wouldn't matter.
3
Mr. Cohen:
You conveniently forget to mention that Labour wants the Brexit deal to fail so they can push for a new vote. They wouldn't vote for any Brexit deal. I would also point out the PM May is the last person you want making the deal with the EU because she personally wants to remain in the EU. Therefore she can't be trusted to negotiate for the Brexit in good faith.
1
Of course there needs to be a second vote.
At least we in the States know that - no matter how the Mueller investigation comes out, or whether impeachment forges forward - Trump will not be with us in the long term.
For that I have gratitude.
1
Britain has been shown its future, by the people that have to live it in their daily lives. Before the Euro, '00, Britain in the EU was a standout. After the induction of the Euro, factions were obvious; the Euro sowed its oats, its antlers began to show. Britain was not in the EZ, and wranglings over Fin Reg began to highlight divisions. Though more so in governance and among those professions intimately involved. Then came the US global version of a covered bond scam. QE by the ECB -- while actually a tool of urgency, began to permanently separate the EZ men from the EU boys. The Sound as a Pound Brits had been relegated to 2nd class EU citizens. Where they remain; if they get an up grade from 3rd class -- which is where they rank on most EU matters.
The same kind of insanity that exists in this country that lead to Trump's election seems to exist in Britain, too. At least they have a chance to reverse course and right the ship with minimal damage done. On the other hand, even with the removal of the Trump administration the harm already inflicted on the United States, both internally and externally, will take years to repair, if at all.
1
Succumb to the benevolent world government or suffer the consequences. The options are not good. Giving up all your power to a distant impenetrable bureaucracy is not better. The people who support the EU remind me of everyone in the distopian novel called WE. In WE everyone was required to think alike for their own benefit. People who disagree are punished severely. It is a scary time if the sovereignty of nations is disappearing all over the developed western world. We in the US no longer have sovereignty over our own border. The Democrats have a massive interest in letting as many illegals over as possible, ostensibly so they can have babies and claim citizenship due to the terrible reading of the 14th amendment.
Pro-globalization folks, like Cohen, frequently conflate Brexit - the unavoidably painful PROCESS of extracting itself from the EU - with the expected or desired OUTCOME from that process. The people voted for the later -
and the results were clear. By making the means to this end as difficult as possible and then conflating the deconstruction process with its PURPOSE, pro-globalization supporters seem to be trying to undermine the voters' will to have a major economic and cultural separation from Europe (and other countries). Perhaps the voters underestimated, not how hard Brexit WOULD be, but how hard it COULD be, due to pro-globalization supporters who do not accept their loss and the results of the referendum.
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"pro-globalization supporters", I guess that's redundant... sorry.
I don't see the point of a second referendum. The argument is that, "Oh, the voters didn't understand what leaving would mean--but now that they have seen the deal the EU was prepared to give the UK, they do." But that deal has already been rejected by Parliament. So if another referendum were to be held, voters would again be faced with a simple "leave" or "remain" question, with no elaboration on what deal "leaving" would actually entail. And suppose voters, in this second referendum, vote "leave" yet again. That wouldn't mean endorsement for May's deal--the deal has, after all, already been rejected. So the government would yet again be in the position of trying to figure out an exit deal from a vote that simply says, "We want to leave." Or suppose that, in this second referendum, a narrow majority says they want to "remain." Would Cohen then support a third referendum, when the leavers assert that there is no clear democratic mandate for "remain" (as they well could do, since there would have been two votes, with opposite results)?
Lastly, holding up the double vote in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty as an example of how democracy should work is rather odd. In Europe, the vote is generally seen as an example of the anti-democratic core of the EU: You get to vote, but if you don't reach the "right" answer, we'll make you keep voting until you do.
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@RC
There are two options left:
- leaving without deal (Hard Brexit)
- remain
"Leaving with deal" is no longer an issue because UK showed unable to negotiate and decide - particularly decide - an agreable deal after UK rejected all previous offers of EU ("Switzerland", "Norway", "Canada standard") and never had expressed AGREEABLE own suggestions so the last option isn´t a real one.
In addition: Any further negotiations on such issues only would make sense if UK is staying in EU during entire negotiation period (almost 10 years) Apart from that: 2 1/2 years are already wasted so this is another reason for both sides to do this again.
The "Brexiteers plea" - "out" for poöitical prices but completely "in" for all selected economical benefits of EU - isn´t acceptable for EU even if there were a 95 % majority in UK and no matter what Mr. BoJo, Mr. Rees-Mogg, Mr. Davis and some others are going to trumpet in Sun, Daily Mail and other tabloids for years. No way.
"Haed Brexit" means "real border" in Ireland because there is no other tecnical way to keep two different systems of tariffs, economy and migration separate when they hit each other in one area.
EU made the mistake not to make this point clear enough in UK but to leave it exclusively to Mr. Cameron and Ms. May for misguided diplomatic considerations. "Tell us what you want" never works when the other part takes it as invitation to double down.
This is one of the main reasons of the failure.
@ws I don't agree that there are only two options left. "Hard Brexit" would be bad for the UK, but it would undoubtedly also be bad for the EU. Indeed, although obviously bad for May politically, yesterday's vote rejecting her deal arguably strengthens the UK's bargaining position: it allows them to go back to the EU and say, "If you don't give us something better, hard brexit will happen."
I agree with you that the notion that the UK could get all of the benefits of the EU with none of the bad stuff was never going to work. But that doesn't answer my central point that a second referendum wouldn't make anything clearer than it is now: If "leave" wins again, politicians will again have to figure out an acceptable leave agreement. If "remain" narrowly wins this time, then the leavers will start calling for yet a third referendum. And such calls will be legitimate--why stop the game when the score is 1-1?
The fundament of democracy is that it is a self-correcting mechanism. The people may make a decision on one set of facts and circumstances and then may reverse themselves when new facts and circumstances present themselves.
We are not supposed to be slaves to the edicts of past voters and to hold those preferences as Holy Writ simply imposes a tyranny as oppressive as a direct despotism.
2
BRITAIN AND GUYANA ARE IN THE SAME BOAT.
So pivotal a measure. To leave the European Union. It is much more than a Customs Union. It is half way to a full political union. To pull out is an earth-shaking event. It literally turns the whole of Britain upside down. So why is this thing treated like a normal bill that requires a simple majority to pass?
Brexit to be valid should require a higher than a simple majority. It passed 52/48 percent, but should have required something between 60 - 66% of the vote to be valid.
Guyana recently held a No-Confidence Vote that passed 33/32. Throwing a govt out that was democratically elected is no trivial matter. To throw out a govt by a simple majority (a single vote or 1% ) is an extreme case of trivializing.
BOTH BRITAIN AND GUYANA are in the same boat - their constitution needs to assign different degrees of importance to earth-shaking bills.
And, yes, ever since Caesar's time 44 BC), it is known that the mind of the masses are fickle and can be manipulated.
Yes you would hope that another referendum could clear the air and see the British people deciding to stay, having considered all the facts, listened to their leaders and made a « rational » decision. Unfortunately, I fear that all the conditions are assembled for another Leave vote, maybe with a bigger majority. Indeed:
T May herself initially declared that a no deal exit was preferable to any other option
People in the UK, as in many countries across Europe and the world, have lost faith in their ruling elite and no longer trust them to say the truth. So anything the will say today, in defence of the EU project or otherwise, risks falling on deaf ears. Nor do people trust the mainstream media. I would assume that in the UK, as in many other countries, Facebook is the main source of news, and their algorithms do not foster open and diverse views of the world, but reinforce boundaries between communities and tribalism.
I have yet to hear anyone, among the UK leaders and politicians, presenting a clear view of the future for the country, whether in or out of the EU. Are they even capable of it?
As for the other side, I see no convincing attempt at taking this Brexit moment as an opportunity to revisit the EU project and start on a new path, that could unlock the negotiation with the UK and the EU itself on many fronts
The time just is not right and we may have to drink that nasty cup to the bitter end before we can think of shifting gear and start working on better options.
If we wait until we have a wise electorate before we institute democracy we will be waiting for a LONG time. And what do we do in the meanwhile, leave the decisions to our wise and benevolent monarchs?
We have no reassurance that our elected leaders are going to be wise and benevolent, given that they are elected by an unwise electorate, Trump being a case in point.
(No space here for issues of majority vote, gerrymandering, & Russia but issues acknowledged. It's somewhat off topic anyway.)
Hoping for a second referendum with an outcome to remain.
However, if the vote is close, very concerned about election integrity.
All it could have taken in US Nov 2016 and Brexit's first referendum was a hack to a few counties in a few swing states. I don't believe the results we got. All the poles are never that wrong.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/22/us-elections-hacking-voting-machines-def-con
You can never rely on those darn Poles. The polls are often quite unreliable.
It's time for Roger to state that he doesn't really believe in Democracy. Oh, Yes, he says he does, but if he doesn't like the results of a vote, no problem, vote again until he gets athe results he likes. The UK voted. Who is he to decide what is in that country's best interests? The British electorate has spoken. Now the politicians and the NY Times opinion writers will have to live with it.
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Unfortunately, it may be the people of Britain that may need to live with it. Rodger is expressing an opinion, entitled to it as your are.
Exactly right. It's not too late to put an end to this social and economic suicide by 1000 cuts. The Brexitential crisis can be avoided!
"Better the devil you know" is the apparent cry of those who overwhelming rejected Theresa May's deal.
Any chance we can have a redo on our fantasy 2016 presidential election? Better late than never.
1
@David We get that in 2020
Yes, by all means hold a second referendum and tell the rabble that this time we mean it. No redos! Unless we change our minds. Again!
2
How about best 2 out of 3? Really the elites are at it again
I'm starting to wonder if we'd all be better off without politicians? Trump, May, Putin... all a joke.
"The first was Britain’s 2016 vote, fueled by lies, to leave the European Union, trumpets blaring."
Mr. Cohn likes to play fast and loose with facts and figures.
Fact - 17.2 million people voted in the referendum to LEAVE the European Union.
Fact - It was the largest majority win ( total votes ) in the history of the Untied Kingdom
Fact - It was a free, and fair vote by all standards.
Fact - Each side told lies.
Fact - Both parties in their manifestos in the last general election promised to honour the result of the referendum.
Fact - the European Union has over decades, and through the use of treaties, corralled more and more power into the European Commission, which is an unelected body.
Given all this, I would like to think that Mr. Cohen truly does believe in democracy.
But I do not think he does.
I think for Mr. Cohen, democracy is a nuisance. You can see it in the way he writes this column. For him, democracy is something that gets in the way of how HE thinks the Western world should go.
Unfortunately, too many people like him with influence in this Western world are of a like mind.
And this, not the vote tonight in London, is the real story of Brexit.
I would like to believe that Mr. Cohen
2
Same old story: right-wingers and libertarians want all the bennies, and none of the responsibilities.
1
Does Mr Cohen think it is a good idea to hold as many referendums as necessary until he gets the answer he wants?
Kid: Mom, may I have a dollar for some sweets?
Mom: No dear, it's bad for your teeth.
Kid: Mom, may I have a dollar for some sweets?
Mom: ...
1
Yes, hold a second referendum.
Not what the people want but what Cohen wants.
In none of the NYT flow charts have I seen “Queen steps in” as an option. Is this not permitted under the British constitutuinal monarchy? What if the QE2 were to say, “We will not allow our Nation to be taken down by parliamentary paralysis/incompetence. Referendum shmeferendum, we’re remaining in the EU. May, you’re fired.”
Absolutely - please ignore the will of the people as expressed by a democratic vote. And, should the Brexiteers carry the second referendum, will you then call for a third? Or will you just keep holding them till you get the result you like?
2
A "do-over" for the Brexit referendum is in the national interests of all the people of the "United" Kingdom.
Many people in the "United" States would like to have an opportunity to have a "do-over" for our own Russian tainted 2016 Presidential election for the same reasons.
1
It pains me to read the comments, because this d mess is hurting everybody.
There appears no good way for democracy to right itself.
It appears to me that the referendum itself and
voting have been made in haste.
The break-up of Western Europe is suicide by
anger re immigrants.
There are so many complexities apparently
playing into Vladimir Putin's divide and conquer
strategy.
What would Churchill do?
Britain is as divided as the USA.
Don't ask me what to do, please.
The foolishness of both nations is crazy
catch 22.
Aristotle's mob is ugly politics indeed.
I am glad not to be elected to my State's
legislature having tried 3 times.
My, how the British resemble their American cousins. Just as they didn't really understand the impact of Brexit neither did we with Trump. Too bad we don't have the opportunity to vote again.
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@Tom Q We do, in 2020.
16
@Tom Q Oh, but we do have an opportunity to vote again, and vote we must. November 2020 can't get here quickly enough.
12
@Tom Q The US is not part of the EU. Yet we have trade and travel between the EU and the US. Britain held a referendum and chose to move to a trade relation with the EU that is more like the US.
Theresa May negotiated a tight trade agreement with the EU. Think of it as a tight-NAFTA. In my opinion, the Labor Party is choosing to be the "party of no", without offering any constructive ideas. They want the problems of any Brexit to fall on the conservative party, led by Theresa May.
Theresa May is quite willing to let the clock run out, and leave the pressure on Parliament. Parliament can choose to approve her deal, or leave the EU, and negotiate a different deal later.
It is clear that the choice between the EU and Brexit was falsely presented as a binary choice. Brexit is a multiple choice option. Theresa May, as Prime Minister, chose her version. And she keeps winning elections as Prime Minister.
4
A new referendum—yes. But the real question is whether the British electoral system can successfully resist the meddling of the Russians—this time.
@rjon
"Meddling by the Russians" ? Really?
How clever these Russians are, that their almost invisible meddling duped the British electorate to go against the advice of all of the Great and the Good (who like and benefit from globalisation, and who can't see why stupid people are against it).
When the electorate rejects the advice of all living ex prime ministers, all living US presidents, the entire academic establishment, and, no doubt, the Dalai Lama had he been asked, it is clear that an earthquake happened, and long ignored and pent-up anger surfaced.
It was the only chance the UK had to vote (mainly) about immigration.
What is needed is leadership in addressing the issues : Brexit is probably not the solution, but a new referendum would not solve matters.
1
Given the overwhelming evidence that Russia was involved spreading lie and misinformation during this referendum, as they did in our 2016 elections.
There clearly needs to be a new national vote on this issue.
"A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy."
Over here, Midwest-rule is (according to the Times) "damaging to the American national interest." The Cohen/de Blasio Theorem says that elections should only be valid if they meet expectations. It's called outcome-based democracy where you keep voting until you get it right. That holds for the Constitution. A democracy that cannot change its Constitution is not a democracy. Every election should be able to write its own Constitution. We did not write the US Constitution ourselves, so why should we be beholden to it? If my candidate doesn't win, then my vote doesn't count, and I am denied my rights. Vote-denial tyranny is the worst there is. The fatal error of the Brits was this: they should have excluded the illegitimate "leave" option from the ballot, just as Trumplanders should never have been allowed to (as Cohen so smartly puts it) "damage the national interest." Voters of the World, Unite, vote until you get it right.
I believe the EU's greatest public facing weakness is the current open-borders aspect of the Union. Things have changed dramatically since the inception of the EU and its border policies particularly with respect to migration from N. Africa.
In selling Brexit, voters placed greater emphasis on the border issues (whether real or imaginary) than economic issues which are now coming home to roost. The immigrant is an easy target and migration is a very useful lever. Our current Government shutdown is not just about immigration, it is about a stupid promise to build a stupid wall. Like "the wall", Brexit was sold heavily on Brexit being their "wall".
But for the long-term health of the EU and the pro-democracy member nations, I believe that re-thinking the open-borders aspect of EU membership should be revisited. Here I don't have any real answers but suggest a good start is to simply re-establish the need of passports to move from country to country. Tracking the movement of EU citizens is not a hardship and would provide governments the opportunity to better protect themselves against terrorism and illegal migration.
I have European roots in both Switzerland and Denmark. You use to have to show your passport as you went say from Denmark to Germany. You have always had to do that when going from Switzerland to Denmark. And you now have to do that when going from the UK to Denmark (post Brexit vote). This isn't a hardship and such a move will make for a stronger EU.
2
@RichardS Why you don't have to show a passport when you travel from one US state to another? Do you think it would make the US stronger when you'd have to show your passport?
Plus: Would you only track humans, or goods as well?
Brexit was a suicidal decision as was the election of Trump to the presidency. As dangerous as the first decision was there is some hope that it can be rectified, difficult as that may seem. But I'm afraid in our case it's more like Caesar and the Rubicon. It just looks easier to solve - but it isn't.
1
Thank you, Roger. Democracies need to allow themselves more ability when responding to coordinated disinformation attacks like the one perpetrated on Britain's Brexit vote in 2016. The results of that vote were not the will of an informed people. They reflected a frightened knee-jerk response to a manufactured threat hyped by Putin and his puppets. Clearly, the British public are better informed now and less susceptible to manipulation and fear-mongering. The majority of Brits don't want to leave the EU. Hold a 2nd vote. Rigidly sticking with the 2016 vote lacks common sense.
128
@BD Oh... now Putin is responsible for Brexit? This is laughable. We are in the era of "If you don't like it, blame the evil deus ex machina"
2
@Chip
What's laughable is your willful ignorance. It has been well reported that the Russians were involved as well as Cambridge Analytical who also helped Individual 1 in his chicanery.
4
@Chip Putin cyber bots were hard at work...........his indiscriminate bombing of Syria had driven millions of refugees this way (from the chaos that Bush and Blair created).........he grinned at the news of Brexit; he is delighted with his work and I have never seen him smile before or since.
2
I'm struck by Hugo Dixon's identification of immigration, health care, and citizens left out of the British economy as key Brexit issues are not dissimilar to fundamental issues in the US economy.
1
A second vote must take place. Fresh data is in hand and the disinformation spewed by pro-Brexit ideologues has been credibly disproved. The keys to remaining are comprehensive immigration and security improvements PLUS exposing Vladimir Putin for his role in the attempted takedown of a united Europe. Hey Brits! Stop fighting each other. Your real enemy is in Moscow!!
154
@Left, so I'm right. Data? Facts? Proof? The "pro-Brexit ideologues" have no use for them. I would fully expect a second vote to yield the same result as the first one, since the Leave forces have had two and a half years to study the highly effective tactics of the American Supreme Liar, his sycophants, and his propaganda outlets. In my opinion, expecting a Remain result from a new vote is just wishful thinking.
1
The extra ordinary way the Conservative Party has morphed into blaming societal evils on our partners and taken its eyes off Moscow is quite extraordinary but really theyt are jsut worried about the EU Commission straightening out London's most profitable business....money laundering and all well established British families either have their money in land, property or offshore....manufacturing is for oiks.
2
Above all, Brexit exposes the complete and utter impotency of most medium- and small-sized nation states in these globalized times, especially salient in the case of has-been-great powers of Europe.
In a world, where the former backbone of the prevailing order has clearly lost its way, where a revanchist ex-superpower seeks to destabilize everything in the hope of gaining from chaos, where a recently grown up colossus with a huge chip on his shoulders looms all over the horizon, where effective control and regulation of technological complexity exeeds the means of anyone but huge superpowers, the notion of 'national sovereignty', self determination or 'taking back control' exclusively within the borders of Britain, Germany or France is completely illusionary.
It has been one of the more tragic sucesses of the European Union that it managed to effectively disguise national impotency from its member states over the past several decades. Hence the vote to leave in a moment of national pride for Britain, and hence the constant attempt of the british government to sqare the circle ever since, to get out of the EU while trying to keep its protections and benefits.
From the outside, it looks like the definition of madness. And it puts all europeans in front of a stark decision: We can cling to our nation states and go under with them, or we can try to save the achievements of our democracies, of enlightenment itself, within an European Union.
2
"The bill for the divorce, which Britain agreed to under May’s rejected plan, would be about $50 billion, or about eight of Donald Trump’s walls."
I wanted to note as an aside that just one Trump's proposed wall has been projected to cost close to $50 billion. The $5.7 billion number currently being tossed around is just a down payment.
A second referendum with three ranked choice options for stay, leave without deal or leave with May’s negotiated deal would be the best way forward. Voters ranking their first and second choices on their ballot would produce a result among three options with the authority of a majority by eliminating the least-favoured option and counting the second choice on ballots with that least favoured option as first choice.
It is puzzling that this ranked choice approach has received so little consideration. It worked well in the U.S. in Maine, where it was motivated by a particularly contentious electoral history, and where recent experience implementing ranked choice voting in the last election has been described as “smooth, enjoyable and effective.”
The approach would improve, rather than just repeat, the Brexit referendum, and it would directly respond to the problem of unclear and misrepresented options that characterized Britain’s first Brexit vote. A ranked choice referendum would truly give voters an opportunity for an informed meaningful choice to guide next steps.
This is one of the best pieces on the Brexit mess. We have been through this twice in Canada, where the Quebec referendum was decided by an equally narrow margin. It is important that there be a clear question and that there be at least some honest appraisal of what the real consequences will be. The Brexit mess was instigated by David Cameron to appease the Blimpish little Englanders in his own party. He had no idea that he would lose, and both he and the leading Brexiters slunk off, including Nigel Farrage, the big friend of Trump and Bannon. Roger Cohen doesn't mention the Northern Irish, who can be counted on the complicate any political settlement, and the Scots, who may be tempted to leave a little England for the continent. The worst part is the closing down of minds and opportunities that Brexit inspires -- God help the health system without European manpower. Even more distressing is that the older segment of the population are Little Englanders. The young, who will have to live with the consequences, voted heavily for Remain.
2
'There are no good solutions to the current impasse '
Not so, even slightly! By statute, the 2016 referendum was advisory to Parliament, not legally binding, on result.
Legally, Parliament remains sovereign in the disposition of this matter - or any referendum result. that's the legal nature of the Referendum Beast.
Consequently May could with perfect democratic propriety say, 'We listened to what you wanted; we've really tried, but unfortunately the desired outcome was based on fraud and fantasy, and is unobtainable. So in the judgement of the Government, the best option to ensure the UK's thriving, is to remain.'
The EU would support this, and has made it clear that it's both legally possible, and the EU's preferred position.
Which by itself may ensure its rejection. English Good; EU bad. (A variation on an 'Animal Farm' quote.)
But my point is that there is a readily obtainable, sane, and constructive way out, involving nothing other than retracting the Article 50 application to leave.
The idea that holding another vote is undemocratic seems like abject nonsense to me. The purpose of democracy is to identify and apply the will of the majority. If the majority is still in favor of Brexit, then the vote will simply be an assurance to Parliament. If the majority is NOT in favor, then the vote will show that and Brexit will be justifiably abandoned.
As for whether such a vote is called for, I would say the obvious disparity between the current Brexit (The Brexit of reality) and the Brexit that was voted on (The Fantasy Brexit) provides more than enough justification.
May is currently speaking to the House, and has said she will not seek an extended deadline, and will deliver Brexit. Since she is going to win the confidence vote today, the ball is now in the EU's court: if they don't offer major concessions, there will be a No Deal Brexit.
A Brexit re-voting has been a no-brainer ever since the first votes were counted. Every Brit I know was appalled by the results and thought the referendum flawed.
Of course, it would have been nice if the US had voted again the morning after realization of the appalling results of the November 2016 presidential election.
1
@Bonnie Scott
Elections have consequences. If foolish people make the wrong choices, let them learn from their mistakes. Removing the moral hazard of voting rewards foolishness, intellectual laziness, bigotry and malice. It also undermines the very act of participatory democracy.
I'm European, pro-EU and live in the UK. As much as I would love Brexit not to happen I think a second referendum is a very delicate and tricky suggestion and not a complete solution in itself.
What would be the credibility of a second referendum, if 'remains' wins? Millions would complain that the tactic is to run referendums until you get the answer you want. Which basically means you just disregard the outcome of the first one. Then where would you stop if there is a call for a third referendum in two years time? Which democratic value will other referendums have in the future?
If there is a second referendum and the 'remain' camp now wins by a very small margin it will very dangerously divide the country even further.
If the remain camp wins, it's only the beginning of another story: how do you address the issues that led to Brexit in the first place: immigration, frustration with increasing legal and regulatory constraints from the EU, ...
I believe the European Union is a crucial instrument for the long term stability and economic strength of the continent but it is a sluggish and huge monolith that desperately needs reforms to work more efficiently and better adapt to each countries particularities. The UK has banged its head against that wall for too long. Doing a U-turn now would put the UK in a very weak position with even less chances of solving those issues from the inside.
The whole thing is now a depressing mess without a true leader or proper vision.
2
Mr Cohen is right. The referendum broke with the principles of Parliamentary representative democracy. Given both the fraudulent promises of the Leave campaign and the opposed truths now before the public, democracy would not be further defiled by a second vote. Indeed, if, as the result of a second referendum, the whole matter were to go back to Parliament where it should have stayed, the British constitution would be strengthened, and a subdued UK might begin to play a more positive role in Europe than it has as the Trojan Horse of the USA.
@Wayne Hankey - "The referendum broke with the principles of Parliamentary representative democracy."
The UK joined the EC (as it was then called) in 1973, due to the efforts of the ruling Conservative party. In 1974 the Labour Party, running on a platform that included holding a referendum about leaving the EC, won power. In 1975 they had the referendum.
67.2% of voters voted for staying in the EC. The Labour Party respected the results.
In 1983 Labour, now in opposition again, campaigned on a platform that included leaving the EC without a referendum. Labour lost. The Conservatives, under Thatcher, held no referendum and the UK remained in the EC.
PROVE that Cameron's calling for a referendum was illegal and perhaps there is a case that the results of the referendum are null. To be clear, I'm not asking whether the referendum is binding. That's a different question. I'm asking whether having a referendum itself was illegal, regardless of the results.
Regardless, the UK stayed in the EC in 1975 due to the results of a referendum.
Are they supposed to keep having referendums until the result suits a certain political point of view?
Sorry, elections matter and Brexit needs to be respected.
3
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" ---John Maynard Keynes
Keynes' quote seems like common sense, but such is increasingly uncommon. Emotion seems to be beating reasoning all over, with fear of immigrants ("them") ascendant thanks to nationalist leaders on both sides of the pond.
Britain is far better off in the EU, the inescapable conclusion of the experts. People that want to ignore experts, instead preferring nationalist emotional sentiment, are in for pain.
They can be as racist as they want, but dragging down a lot of others who can reason is not morally acceptable.
2
@David Doney -
Brexit voters have mostly NOT changed their minds. (Yes, a handful can be found and quoted in articles.) Calls for a second referendum are being made by Remain supporters, not reformed Leave supporters.
YouGov has been conducting almost continuous polling since the vote. Opinions haven't budged. Month by month they drift a little up or down, but remain well within the margin of error of the poll, unchanged.
"Britain is far better off in the EU, the inescapable conclusion of the experts."
Unless those "experts" are the elected representatives of the citizens their opinions do not decide policy and law. They only inform it.
"They can be as racist as they want..."
Were all or most of the 52% of British voters who chose Leave racists? On what basis do you make that statement? I have committed "Leave" friends who are very politically active in the animal rights movement and who ardently advocate for Palestinian justice. I have never heard them utter a racist statement. They are more committed to Brexit than ever.
Painting one's opponents as immoral, corrupt, basically sub-human, is done to dehumanize them in the eyes of one's supporters. I strongly encourage you to think twice before turning to those sorts of tactics.
Britain, you were fooled by Brexit just like we were with Trump. You can still reverse the mistake, just like we will in 2020.
2
Behind every stack of lies, a heap of money.
I believe the right wing leavers may be a front for British financiers who wish to free themselves from EU regulations. The goal would be for London to become a big Channel Island-style money laundering operation.
Very lucrative, and very handy for Russians and Saudis. Think of Brexit as neighborhood branch banking for Mayfair oligarchs and dictators.
3
If the Brexiteers want to follow their line of reasoning through to its logical conclusion, they should:
- permit a hard Brexit;
- cede Northern Ireland to Ireland;
- close the Chunnel.
Then see how that goes.
3
The Mercers, Putin and Trump will work to sabotage another referendum. The british like 47% of american voters have been totally duped by these three. We are witnessing destruction of the Western alliance by Russia and its alliance with no shots fired. Quite amazing.
3
No; UK shall not have a second referendum.
The same political left that has not accepted the US presidential election results from November 2016 hasn't accepted the Brexit vote of June 2016 either.
The liberal hooligans have been clamoring for another vote ever since with the expectation that the populist movement for leaving the EU can be somehow defeated a second time. The focus is to bring more Moslem immigrants into UK like France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
If you lost the first coin toss, you call for the best of three and if you lose again, try best of five. This has been the mantra of the decrepit liberal left that is being rejected soundly worldwide.
I hope the conservative government in the UK is smarter to prevent such an outcome.
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@Appu Nair
The people who pushed for and supported Brexit lied about the "ease" of Britain's leaving the EU and the potential effects it will have on not only Britain's economy but also on global economics. The decrepit and corrupt right wing in the UK and the US needs to grow up and adjust to the simple fact that it's not 1950 anymore and that time does not go backwards.
A second vote is definitely called for. And if the Brits vote for Brexit again, they deserve the consequences.
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Cohen is absolutely wrong to tell the British they should hold a second referendum. He is just arrogantly advancing his own personal agenda which is opposition to the British leaving the EU. But what effrontery to tell the British people how many times they should vote on the same issue. Britain is a long and well established democracy. They have the absolute right to decide for themselves without biased advice from some foreigner pursuing his own agenda.
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Not to change the subject, but there is no way that Trump’s so-called wall would cost $6.25 billion ($50 billion/8). That would be a small fraction of its total cost, were it ever to happen; not to mention all the big building companies slavering to get a piece of the pie; and that is why a majority of Americans oppose it. Trump is catering to a minority of Americans, plus a couple of rabid and vitriolic commentators.
And Britain should hold a second referendum.
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This is precisely incorrect.
If you think Brexit is a bad idea, a second vote is insanely stupid. It makes clear that you don't care about what the voters think AND it puts you in an impossible position if you lose (again).
If you're not willing to negotiate a soft landing, you're better off just overriding the voters' decision, and announcing "no Brexit and no more referenda. We made a mistake in holding the referendum in the first place, and it's our jobs as MPs to make these decisions. If you don't support our decision to stay, vote for another MP".
@DCLawyer68
Yeah, you elitists in power. Don't let the will of the people as assertively expressed in their democratic vote stop you from doing exactly opposite what the people have chosen. Democracy is only good and should only be respected when the people vote as you tell them to.
Didn’t Putin influence the Brexit vote as well? If so, he’s managed to send two of the world’s most established democracies into utter turmoil, helped by two almost book-end stooges in Trump and Johnson.
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Roger that Roger! The Brits have no other choice but another referendum.
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Can we do the same with our vote on Trump?
Democracy doesn't work that way.
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The US is a republic.
@Sean - A republic operates on a form of democracy. It's called representative democracy.
Whether we live in a republic, or a direct democracy, the results of legal elections are respected. That is trob's point.
Prove with SUBSTANTIAL evidence that the election was in some way illegal or corrupted and we have something to talk about. Until then, respect its results.
Don't forget the Russians had a hand in this, quite possibly a decisive one.
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If there is a second referendum—on a topic that was always too complex for a referendum— let's at least hope the pro-EU side has the commonsense to rebrand their option, "Stay", instead of the toffee-nosed and passive "Remain".
It’s not a first thought. The first referendum is people’s will.
Why do some people try to make it nonsense? You call this democracy?
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This truth seems self-evident.
Another vote makes sense to me!
Oh Lord save us from the callow bleatings of the “why not just hold a second referendum” crowd. As if they are the ones who have hit the magic solution - why has no-one else thought of this? So easy!
Except it isn’t, and you would know that if anyone actually sat and read the news properly. There is not yet support in Parliament for it, there is not yet any proof that the country will vote Remain. Show me a poll that calls it for Remain and I’ll show you one that contradicts it. And some genuinely want Brexit to happen! For every No-Deal-Is-A-Disaster there is a No-Deal-Is-Freedom. For every Peoples Vote there is a Norway , for every EFTA there is a Soft Leaver, every Brexiter has its Lexiter.
And so what then, if we hold this magical revote? Continue as before? Ignore the thousands of problems that created a leave vote? Go back to neglecting the same people and impoverishing the others? Slashing and burning the state? Asset-stripping the public? Have a Second Ref and get back to destroying parts of the country and stuffing gold in the willing mouths of The City. Because if you think a revote will fundamentally change the mentality of our governments and it’s derelict attitude, then you clearly know nothing.
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Brexit is another example that the most uneducated voter is the most easily manipulated. This has shamed Britain, in historic proportions. Maybe, Britain should be allowed to drift off into the Atlantic fog like a soggy old piece of cardboard, leaving the 'failing' world behind. Anyway, this is all just another win for Putin.
"..immigration, the areas of Britain starved of investment and left behind, a deficient National Health Service.." Gee, change Britain to America and National Health Service to heatth care in America, and you can sum up a foundation of our governmental problems. Is it the fate of English-speaking democracies to elect incompetent klutzes to solve our really big problems?
Keep holding elections until the liberals win.
Perhaps it's time to let the once-empire fall as a result of its own hubris...out of the ashes maybe something better will rise...or not...another one bites the dust
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I didn’t know so many folks who espouse democracy were so against democratic values. Keep voting until the peasants get it right, eh?
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The only real solution is to show the horrific “Proof is in the Pudding” to Brexiters, otherwise they will continue to fight for fantasy Brexit forever.
1. Crash out to World Trade Organisation rules 2. Watch hundreds of corporations flee to the EU 3. Watch layoffs approach 1 million 4. Watch lorries etc backed up for weeks at British and EU ports 5. Then the domino effect of complete economic collapse 6. See the tax base collapse 7. Suspension of government pensions 8. Watch the NHS die 9. Skilled foreign workers flee 10. Food riots 11. At each step, the Pound Sterling crashes lower and lower, igniting runaway inflation 12. Go begging on hands and knees for the EU to take us back
It will take 20+ years to recover from this stupidity, while Boris and his cabal sit on top, wrecking whatever is left. — OR WE COULD STOP THIS MADNESS NOW.
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Is Mr. Cohen writing British English or American English when he says:"Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party leader, has tabled a vote of no confidence in May’s government."
Here, thanks to Google, is the difference:
1.
US
postpone consideration of.
"I'd like the issue to be tabled for the next few months"
2.
BRITISH
present formally for discussion or consideration at a meeting.
"an MP tabled an amendment to the b
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We will have the opportunity in 2020 to redo our flawed election of 2016. Our system just doesn't allow us (Congress) to call for an election.
The UK "Leave" voters believed -- childishly -- that Britain could cherry pick all the upside aspects of EU membership, avoiding only the less attractive ones like open borders. Adults understood that the EU could never let that style of easy Brexit happen, or the whole enterprise goes up in smoke.
Under the circumstances, calling a "do-over" seems the only path forward.
Brexit is the result of flirting with a direct democracy. The reason for a republic is to create a buffer of elected officials that are entrusted to deliberate important issues rather than having the public vote on those issues, Why? The object is to keep the fluid and fickle public opinion once removed from governance. The model is Rome, not Athens. Referendums on local school funding are acceptable for public approval, but existential matters of the nation are not. If Remain wins, I presume there will be an outcry for a rubber match.
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@dudley thompson - Switzerland manages pretty well.
When the political "leaders" are ever more in the pockets of an economic elite, direct democracy will be ever more appealing.
@J Jencks
Dread the day direct democracy becomes acceptable for larger nations because mob rule is not for the faint of heart. Brexit is the tyranny of mob rule. If men were angels, government would not be needed---Madison.
@dudley thompson - What I'd like is for our elected representatives to respond primarily to the us, rather than the corporate lobbyists who chase after them on a daily basis.
For that to happen the burden is on US to speak more loudly. How many people write to their representatives on a regular basis? Not many. I write one short letter each weekend, either to the White House or to my local and state representatives. It takes only 15 minutes out of my week. I've received replies to many of them.
Real letters, on paper, mailed by USPS get noticed. Imagine if all 235 million American voters started doing that. Our politicians would FREAK!
Something else I'd like - more and better resources for our public schools, so that the next generation is better at critical thinking. (My mother, RIP, a teacher, used to say, "What other kind of thinking is there? If it's not critical it's not thinking.)
I reject the notion that we should be ruled by a technocracy that is distant from the democratic process. That is the direction the EU is moving and that is dangerous too, just like mob rule. The "technocrats" are very easily bought out by Big Capital. In the end our policy makers need always to be answerable to us, one way or another.
If you don't like the results of the first vote, call for a second. If the second goes badly, call for a third. If you can't win at the ballots, go to the courts. The European Union is broken. Britain should approach Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Hungary to discuss a future trade pact when they leave the Union also. If the EU wants to play hardball with Britain, I would support the United States giving short term help. The EU is an affront to democratic values. Hard Brexit, no looking back.
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am frequently hearing this argument for a "peoples vote": that the people now have access to a new set of facts- in short, that leaving the EU won't be an easy or painless process- and that the revelation of these facts justifies a reconsideration of the whole issue.
my question in response, and I say this not entirely facetiously: are these really new facts?
certainly the leave campaign painted an overly rosy picture of what a break from the EU would entail, exaggerating the benefits, and downplaying/denying the difficulties. it's what politicians have always done and will always do, and certainly not grounds to invalidate the results.
but did nobody in the entire remain camp foresee, and point out to the public, that the eu would not just let the UK leave on whatever terms the latter liked? that breaking from the eu would entail some economic pain? is that what mr cohen and other people's vote advocates are suggesting?
from what I remember, all this was foreseen, and the public was duly warned by the remain camp. considering how much of the british media was anti-brexit, it can't possibly be argued that the message never got out.
to summarize, i don't really think these are new facts. this is what the experts predicted. the british people were warned, and a majority of the people who bothered to show up and vote decided to vote leave anyway.
the results were legitimate, and so the government has an obligation to honor its side of the bargain.
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"A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy."
I could not agree more. A perfectly summary of a point too many are ignoring.
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Your columnist has it exactly right. A second referendum, a people's re-vote by an informed electorate, is now the only way out of this tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. People are allowed to change their minds, that is why we have general elections. I do not believe the first referendum was fair because of the lies that were told and the fantasy expectations that were raised. Time to correct that historic mistake. Call a time-out. Secure an extension from the EU to hold an orderly, un-rushed second vote. Given that second chance, my hope would be that common sense prevails and that Britons, especially those who were not old enough to vote in 2016, turn out in overwhelming numbers to vote to remain where they belong - in the EU. Just look at the young faces in the crowds outside Parliament last night waving flags in support of the EU! A resounding vote by Britons to stay and be a part of the European family could revitalize the European project and strengthen the Atlantic alliance.
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The referendum to leave the European Union was a huge mistake as the referendum did not take into account the perils of leaving the EU.
Theresa May can't be blamed for the Brexit mess, as the blame squarely lies with David Cameroon, who, in an effort to please the hardliners, went for a referendum, without understanding the consequences of it.
Britain is now facing a Hobson's choice: whether Britain should go for a deal or no deal. May tried to salvage the situation by negotiating with EU to remain as a part of Custom's Union. The only sensible way out of this impasse is to go for another referendum.
The socioeconomic parallels between the UK's attitude toward Brexit and America's attitude toward Trump are numerous, galling and not coincidental.
Post-election Trump is now in the process of learning that the emperor has no clothes. It's the same for Brexit's bluster and the proud British Empire.
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@traveling wilbury An excellent point.. emphasis on "not coincidental".
In reality, if there is going to be any progress on this issue, there are only 2 viable options: no deal or referendum. If the no confidence vote goes through, or a general election is triggered anyway, it’s unclear who would win. If labour wins, they don’t have a plan (or they do but they haven’t told anyone about it) so we would be back where we started. If the conservatives win, we’re back where we started.
Apart from fantasists who think a no deal exit is a great idea, most acknowledge it will be an economic and social disaster. So referendum it is
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Mr. Cohen is wrong. Brexit was a terrible idea, but the British people voted on it for better or worse. There must be consequences for the voters' actions. The UK would no longer be a democracy if there were another referendum on the same issue three years later (it would be the equivalent of taking the same test twice).
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What? This logic is weird. Bad decisions have to be permanent because self-punishment is more important than doing the right thing?
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@John Deel - Doing the "right thing" in a Democracy is accepting the results of a valid election. Another vote would essentially be a nullification of the first one. But the essence of democracy is the acceptance of a legitimately run election's results.
If convincing evidence can be shown that the original election was corrupted and therefore the results aren't valid, then by all means, nullification and another vote are in order.
Minus SUBSTANTIAL evidence, there is no justification to throw out the previous results.
Of course, once Brexit is complete and the UK is out, there's nothing to stop people from requesting a referendum asking the EU if it can re-enter.
Incidentally, another Remain/Leave referendum is no guarantee the vote will change. YouGov has been conducting continuous polling since 2016 and there is virtually no change for support for Brexit. Effectively Brits are split right down the middle. The slight fluctuations month to month are well within the margin of error of the polls. Any change in an actual vote result would depend on which side does better at turning out the vote, NOT on a change in views of the British public.
The graph on this link only goes up to 3/18, but polling as recent as December shows the same results.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/29/where-britain-stands-brexit-one-year-out
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@Michel was the UK no longer a democracy when T May called a snap General Election less than 2 years after the previous one?
Was the UK no longer a democracy when the Tories decided to have a no confidence vote on T May less than 3 years after electing her as leader (this driven by the same people who are shouting loudest that a 2nd referendum would be "anti-democratic", and "we've made our choice now stick with it", you know, unless it's something they want to change like the Conservative Party leadership, then it's fine..)
I really struggle to see how an additional democratic vote given the insanity of the past 2 and a half years, and all the extra information that has come out in the meantime, is anti-democratic.
It is, literally, democratic. It's just that some people are scared their ill-gotten desires may be taken away from them by the kind of democracy they don't like when used against them, but are perfectly happy to use when it suits them.
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The first vote was based on outright lies that only became clear once the process to leave got underway. Attitudes have changed, because people can now see what they’re getting into.
Not having a second vote would be a disastrous failure of government.
(It should be pointed out in passing that there’s no way Trump’s wall could be built for even 10 times $5 B.)
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"A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy. The people may do that when presented with the whole picture after seeing only a partial or distorted one."
2016 saw two major votes in the western world manipulated by Russia. Voters bought into deliberately distorted informational landscapes. Both "democracies" should be able to express a change of mind.
Britain can vote again. I hope they do. But we are likely stuck with the stain of two Supreme Court justices in effect chosen by Russia. Through a Russian asset. Very unlikely there will ever be an opportunity to undo that.
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What is profoundly wrong is the very idea of resolving matters of great national import by holding a referendum. It is difficult to reverse obviously bad decisions. What happens if a second referendum gives a different result but with a lower turnout? Moreover, referenda can be easily converted into a free-for-all mud fight in which logical debate is drowned out by a chorus of contradictory charges and conspiracy theories, like in the French referendum on the Maastricht treaty over a decade ago.
I regret the British voters' decision on Brexit. I'd rather they be full and active partners within Europe but their past behavior of being part in/part out was unsustainable and hypocritical. "Let their people go!"
This whole process has been a mess from the moment Cameron promised the referendum during the 2015 election. He will be condemned by history as will May, Johnson, Farage and very possibly Corbyn. The good that may come out of this? Much more political engagemen and hopefully a recognition that the E.U. itself is a good thing but must be reformed. And there must be a second vote. Not to have one is the undemocratic course rather than the opposite.
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@Michael Agreed. But its not a second referendum, but rather a "redo correctly" .... In order for a decision of the government to be reversed (e.g., BREXIT out of the E.U.), a referendum of the people should be a clear majority, as the majority has already spoken in favour of the original MAJOR decision, this through appointment of the government via election (empowering their decision for the period until the next election).
The redo of the referendum should require at least 60% in favour of Brexit. All referendum's to undo decisions of an elected government should.
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@Steph Duran The Brexit vote wasn't a decision of an elected government.
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The reaction in Britain that drove the Brexit referendum had much more to do with open borders, uncontrolled immigration and British legal sovereignty. The EU courts over ruling British courts is a tough place for British citizens to take.
Sometimes all things economic are not the most important to a sovereign nation. Principles count.
Britain's decision to leave or stay is more closely aligned with Britain's sovereignty and principles as a nation not economics or economic threats from the EU.
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Thank you, Roger. Fantastic piece!
The vote for the UK to leave the EU in 2016 was a cry from communities, England in particular, who felt overlooked. As London financial services flourished and post-war manufacturing declined, it was fairly easy for the Leave campaign to appeal to this frustration by promising a revivalism of a swashbuckling, self-governing Great Britain, ruling the seas, making goods again, controlling the borders and trading freely with the world in the name of Her Majesty.
Toss in a bit of jingoism against the free movement of Europeans who are “stealing jobs” and causing a burden on social services and we had a Leave campaign that stirred a potent cocktail.
Austerity measures by the Tories have decimated communities and have inflicted misery on millions. Often overlooked are the roughly 14 million people (1/5 of the population) living in poverty, the 1.5 million of those who are destitute and the sharp rise in child poverty.
I am all for a second referendum. Leaving the EU is a mistake and I hope the government will come to its senses and offer another choice now that reality has bitten. But regardless of the outcome of this debacle, the government must look beyond London and consider the millions of people throughout the nation who will continue to feel no satisfaction--whether we’re in or out.
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@Carl
Excellent! Thank you.
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@Carl Agree. You are highlighting the inaneness of 50%+1 referendums to undo decisions made by elected governments.
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@Carl
There is another group of people in England as in most other EU countries that are for leaving the EU. That is the intellectual left of centre. In Sweden both the ultra right and the modest left are for leaving the union. And I believe this is the case in the UK as well. Plus in the UK there is a faction of Tory that are for a very clean break with the EU.
I was pro Brexit but the last couple of years we have seen more swashbuckling from Putin, China, Iran and not least Trump which has made me rethink my previous stance. Today, for security reasons alone, I feel a second referendum would be positive, and hopefully with a pro EU result.
3
As a Brit living here in the U.S. I was simply astounded by how little voters really knew about Brexit before they voted. It was only after the vote that the full ramifications of the exit began to dawn on them. Many were just carried along on a "Brexit Wave" and most of the people I speak to over there would quite like a re-do.
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@JMR I agree. It's interesting how your description of the voters for Brexit emulate the voters for Trump. It's too bad we can't have a re-do.
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@Buddy Badinski
Oh but we do have a re-do, in 2020! Brexit is permanent, Trump is not. I deeply feel for Britain’s pain today.
And to JMR: As a Yank who lived in Britain for a time, I am also simply astounded at how little voters really knew, both there and here in the US, regarding the basic civic knowledge all citizens of both countries should have before making such consequential votes.
And don’t tell me, “but Real Life”. Do you watch Netflix or spend time reading celebrity news or anything else of the sort? I don’t; I study national and world affairs any time I have down time. Many citizens make choices to waste time on fantasy or truly useless things in the grand scheme of things while ignoring the work and, actually, enjoyment of citizenship.
John Adams had envisioned that the sacrifices of his and his son’s generations would allow their descendants to pursue art, music, and other Enlightenment era ideas of leisure. But he never ever imagined nor would he have condoned that those pursuits should lead to the abandonment of the basic requirements of citizenship: educated voting.
Citizenship is among the most important things in life. It determines the future of your children’s world. Dump the Netflix binge for a few weekends and make the time to study the issues before you mindlessly vote to wreck my world.
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@JMR absolutely. And I wouldn't blame the voters for their lack of knowledge. The EU is a huge and complex institution which is hard to understand. But the blame should definitely be pointed at both the yes & no campaigns in 2016. None of them believed there was the slightest chance of the leave vote to win; hence their complacent, lazy and self-interested campaigns. The information was full of untruths and exaggerations. But more crucially, there was no national debate on the 'what next' question.
Before you complete the sale of your house, you make sure you have another place for you family to live. At the moment we see the parents arguing on the street about where to go next because all they talked about for so long was just leaving the village. This is pretty common sense for most adults. So why do representatives and leaders of an entire nation couldn't even do that?
8
Jeremy Corbyn may already know that his party will force him to support a second referendum. About 75% of his party colleagues already believe that a second more-informed vote is the best option for the British people and its future. People I spoke to recently in my home town in Yorkshire -- a town that voted 4 to 1 in favor of leaving the EU -- now had very different views about their original vote to leave.
Watching the albeit chaotic proceedings unfold on the floor on the House of Commons, I am struck yet again the superiority of a parliamentary system where leaders have to directly face questions from opposition, prove a knowledgable understanding about all major policy issues, and have to think on their feet in real time. How refreshing to see such give and take. By comparison, our politicians are coddled amateurs, protected from any real scrutiny by the system and their handlers.
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Yes. Remarks here to the effect that "the people have spoken" ignore that the implications of the vote were poorly understood and are now better understood by the British people. Votes get undone and redone all the time and as long as it is by a democratic and constitutional process, there is no threat to democracy in the re-vote. (The United States got a partial do-over to our disastrous 2016 election in 2018, and we get another chance in 2020.) Democracy allows a course correction - bad votes need not endure forever.
-Marta (writing on Paul's account but not speaking for him)
5
As a Dutchman I felt very sad about the British decision to leave the EU. But now I cannot see a stay or return. For decades Tory politicians (and their horrible billionaire owned right wing tabloids) used the EU as a scape goat to disguise their own failures. They continue to do so even now by saying it is up to the EU to find a way out of the impasse Brexit is in. I start to believe the best solution is a no deal Brexit, because if Britain stays in, as a full member or as an associated partner in some sort of customs union, the British, especially the Tories, will continue to blame the EU for everything they don’t like and the UK will probably be an even more unreliable partner as it has been for the past decades.
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@Barteke
well said. good to see a continental perspective!
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@Barteke I think you've hit on something that has not been much discussed. Those tabloids. There has been mountains of head-scratching economic and psychoanalysis of what makes a Trump supporter, but the one thing they all share is a steady diet of Rupert Murdoch controlled media and tabloid journalism.
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@Barteke,by definition unreliable partner is a synonym for British. Britain has always favoured going it alone whenever the winds were blowing into her sails,while all of a sudden "tres entente cordiale" when things looked less honky dory. De Gaulle was right and still is:Britain should not have been admitted in the first place.
12
Whew....what a mess and what a dilemma. Although, several good points were brought up which would make another vote the most palatable. Mr. Cohen stated a universal truth: "A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy." He also wrote that both Denmark and Ireland have made out well in spite of several votes re the European Union. Yet it saddens me to see our closest ally, our sister nation if you will, go through this turmoil which could have been, indeed should have been, prevented.
This brings me to another point which can also be juxtaposed with our present political crisis of sorts. It is my understanding that Russia had an insidious hand in Brexit and helped sow the seed of this divorce. (Correct me if I am wrong, please.) And let us reflect what occurred in 2016 and persists until this day re Mr. Trump and Putin. Russia wants world domination, of that there is no doubt. Breaking up the European Union is step one. Step two is occurring here across the Atlantic....extreme polarization. It was The Great Unifier Lincoln who said, "A house divided can not stand." And look what has happened to our Home since Trump's election. The siding is rotting, the foundation cracking. But....to refer back to Mr. Cohen's statement: Our democracy is still strong enough to "change its mind."
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@Kathy Lollock-Brexit wasn't just a simple campaign tapping into people's dissatisfation. Cambridge Analytica harvested the private data of tens of millions of FB users without their knowledge. CA then created psychological profiles and used these to target people on FB with campaign ads and stories on behalf of the Brexit and Trump campaigns. CA was funded by Robert Mercer--also a major funder and influencer of the Trump campaign. Aaron Banks, the primary funder of Brexit was promised access to gold and diamond mines by the Russians. CA CEO Nix reached out to Wikileaks’ Julian Assange and offered to help distribute Clinton’s stolen emails….Skulduggery abounds.
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/19/630443485/reporter-shows-the-links-between-the-men-behind-brexit-and-the-trump-campaign
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/big-data-better-donald-trump/1383025
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@Kathy Lollock
Well put, but I think step one is to destroy NATO. We are about 2 tweets from that happening.
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@Kathy Lollock would like to refer you to an interesting column written this week in Canada's National Post by its main shareholder,Conrad Black,about the unchallengeable dominance of the USA. He states that Russia is a minor annoyance in the overall state of world affairs.
8
The author misses a key event in between his first and second.
May was -re-elected on a mandate to pursue Brexit after the referendum in a general election.
So: 1-2-3 you're out.
3
The Brexit mistake is what happens when plans are announced without the requisite planning having taken place. "Let's get out of Europe" and look what's happened. "Let's build a wall" "Let's do away with Obamacare" "No immigration" "Tax cuts for the wealthy". These "plans" will have the same fate at Brexit - all disastrous political ploys that too many have fallen for.
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@Mike
"The Brexit mistake is what happens when plans are announced without the requisite planning having taken place. "
Excellent comment, to which I should add the example of Angela Merkel's overnight decision to permit entry of one million immigrants without consulting her cabinet, the police or anyone else during the preceding two years of the Syrian civil war.
The politicians have indeed failed us, and that includes my own nation.
27
These plans do work for the special interests that crafted them and that’s what they are designed to do
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@Mike As the old saying goes, for every problem there is an answer that is simple, straightforward, and wrong. The intellectual laziness of so many people, who cannot be bothered with boring details spanning entire paragraphs in regards to the complex issues facing modern societies is slowly killing us.
The representatives we elect to do our countries' business need to actually do that instead of mouthing worthless slogans simply to get reelected ad nauseam. Or the people need to care enough to properly educate themselves, which seems an even taller order.
9
The most desperately obvious self-inflicted catastrophe of representative democracy on record. America's, while more grievous, took place through a structural miscounting of the popular will. For the sake of an estimable Britain, I hope their pending devastation can be averted.
Brexit is not about just Brexit. Leaders across the board are well described by Dylan's Ballad Of A Thin Man: "You know something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you Mr Jones."
The EU started to come apart years ago, its elites losing touch with their own nationals. It had a chance to realize the transnational project wasn't working when it couldn't deal with the Balkan Wars, but they remained complacent, assuming newer generations shared the perspective of those who, after WW II, nobly envisioned a transnational effort to stop European carnage.
The EU has been unable to deal with immigration, terrorism, and the monetary/fiscal policy disconnect. Being out of touch, its leaders were surprised when these issues resonated strongly with many Europeans, especially those in the East, which had essentially no history of democracy and little with liberal values.
Meanwhile, British elites failed to grasp the anxiety of their own people, leading to the absolute shock at the vote for Brexit. Had Brexit lost, the half the people who supported Brexit or were simply p.o.'d about something, were still out there, their complaints, some of which were legitimate, still needing to be reckoned with, a task neither May nor Corbyn indicate an ability to deal with.
It has seemed for a decade that many Brits, as with Europeans in general, have been losing a sense of collective identity, the consequent vacuum filled by long-standing national, ethnic, and religious identities.
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@Steve Fankuchen
An excellent comment.
As you point out, the British political elite was out of touch with public opinion, and in shock after the Brexit vote, and as a result they have been completely unable to lead effectively since.
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@ChrisW
Thank you Chris. It is especially reassuring to have a thought I have regarding Great Britain validated from across the pond.
1
Forget a new referendum. Why would you have government by referendum when there is an elected parliament to deal with complicated issues of governance. The original referendum was a stupid mistake by an otherwise skillful politician-David Cameron. May should negotiate a few meaningless cosmetic changes to the Agreement with the E.U. and present it to parliament, essentially ignoring the referendum. It would pass and be the end of this mess
2016 was a bad year for both Britain and the US. They need to rethink Brexit and we definitely need to rethink Trump. Both of these crazy happenings are due to hateful, untruthful press (and I don't mean Trump's 'fake news').
3
I truly do not understand those people who say it would be to "go against democracy" to have a Second Referendum.
This is ludicrous. It would only go against democracy if those who voted to Leave the first time were somehow disenfranchised the second time around. In fact, those who voted Leave the first time can DO SO AGAIN in the Second Referendum.
Here is my question to my fellow Brits: if you are so sure that Brexit is what the British people want, what objection could you possibly have to reaffirming that in a second vote? If you are not so sure, why would you want to propel the country into something it no longer wants?
Those making the "against democracy" arguments are cowards, plain and simple. Brexit is what the country wants, you say? Fine, so let's hear the country say that a second time.
1
The EU did everything they could to punish and sabotage the exit, that alone should give pose to any citizen about the EU.
4
So sad that you're "championing democracy" by demanding the British peoples be subject to an unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy in Brussels. That's why we rebelled.
4
Why? The Leave side won, and who are we to decry their choice?
Besides, as Dominic Raab said in a missive for the ages, Britain is poised to enter a Golden Age once the EU is but a memory. Who are we to doubt the Rt Honourable Dominic Raab?
I look forward to letting the Brexiteers have their cake. If only Boris were a little more like D'Artagnan, a little more dashing, a little less roly-poly...
This is a stupid suggestion and will not help anything. So you will have your second referendum and, suppose, you even win it and cancel Brexit altogether. Will it solve any problems that caused the Brexit in the first place? Of course, it won't. EU will still remain a useless anti-democratic globalist project directed at depriving people of real political power for benefit of international corporations. And it will get only worse in the future. It will also create a whole new problem - a substantial part of UK electorate will feel that their will and their votes have been ignored and discarded by the rigged system, and rightly so. Sure, they are all the same kind of "deplorables" as those who elected Donald Trump in the USA and don't even deserve a vote, but their discontent will be very real nevertheless. And what if the second referendum has the same result, what then? Have the third one? And for what? Let the UK go already. They will leave eventually anyhow. As will everyone else (well, except maybe for Macedonia and Ukraine, if they ever get in). The sooner that ugly contraption dies the better it will be for everyone.
3
Or don’t. The PM should simply say: I’m canceling Article 50. Breaking from the EU is too harmful to the current and future generations of Britons. We’re European. Deal with it. Stay calm and carry on.
1
Here is a scary thought, if Britain does a hard Brexit it could quite possibly trigger a financial crisis this time starting in London spreading to the continent then back across the Atlantic to Wall Street. Now imagine the C and D team players in the White House trying to deal with a worldwide financial crisis? Yes scary indeed, Trump would be on the phone with Putin seeking direction and advice as Wall Street erupted in flames. No one with the skills required to help would want to touch the stinking pile of incompetence that is the Trump White House.
1
All this hubris by the Remainers...I would have voted to Remain myself, if I had a vote, but what makes this side so confident that a second referendum would result in a Remain victory? Wouldn’t a second referendum just bolster the Leave campaign? I can imagine it already. Ad after ad after ad all saying, “hey look, remain can’t take a hint. Let’s crush them again!” The ultimate troll. And it would work. And if remain loses again, what then? A third referendum? I have little sympathy for the argument that this time is different because we have more information now. There were many well-informed arguments one could listen to before the first referendum, if one cared to look. If a voter is so stupid that he gets his news from Facebook feeds and obviously false bus-side ads, well, sorry, that’s on the voter. If it was so important for Remain to win, maybe the several young apathetic nonvoters who later lamented the outcome should have...voted! Imagine that!
1
Bad advice. A second referendum will just show that Remains will win, but by probably too small a margin to satisfy the greater population. It is much better to cancel Brexit altogether for now and give politicians a new chance to work on a political solution that everbody can understand, not just hollow intentions to "take back control". Thank goodness stupidity was thrashed - the Brits are a good step further than many of our voters.
British voters,
Learn from our foolishness and hold a second referendum and kill Brexit.
Just because too many of us across the pond have lost our senses is no reason to emulate us.
Your children and grandchildren will thank you.
The USA, the UK and the EU ... need to join forces against RUSSIA for trying to split us all up with division and discord. The West needs to reawaken to the Russian threat under Putin.
1
Years ago, I had to type something. On an electric typewriter.
I had consumed two glasses of white wine. My reflexes were fuddled. The letters that came out on the page were not the letters I thought I'd typed.
I got angry. Lifted a fist--brought it done on the keyboard. Ah! That felt better.
The typewriter was irreparably ruined. Had to throw it out.
What we see in Britain--and Lord help us! what we see in the U.S. is the politics of anger. You see stuff going wrong--you see stuff you don't like--you see PEOPLE you don't like--
--and resolve, "I'm gonna BREAK something here."
Like an angry chess player that, seeing the game going south--
--springs from his chair and overturns the board. Knights--rooks--bishops go flying across the room. No more chess!
I remember--we all do--how apprehensively we Americans watched the Brexit referendum. The 2016 race was still going on--and we had (as they say) a bad feeling about this.
If (as you rightly say, Mr. Cohen) lies and make-believe could wreak such havoc in the United Kingdom--
--what might they not accomplish in the United States?
You are right, Mr. Cohen. There'd be massive helping of CROW and HUMBLE PIE to be eaten all round. BUT--
--Britain's political system can still be repaired.
So can ours.
Unlike my electric typewriter.
Take a longer--cooler--wiser look at the realities.
Undo the damage.
3
If nothing else, this march of folly proves again that gender has little to do with quality of leadership, that women can be just as mediocre and incompetent as men.
Gender politics: R.I.P.
Vote again and get rid of the stupidity of Brexit. The time wasted on devising an exit from the EU that would not devastate the economy of GB has been a total waste of time. Liars and Conmen like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson fomented this disaster now allow the British public who know the truth to vote again and end the foolishness of leaving the EU.
As Gary from Colorado said, Brexit was a false solution to a whole complex of problems. As Roger Cohen said, the British people deserve a second opportunity to cleanse the air of lies. To me, it would also be an opportunity to clear the political air and if possible give some kind of new direction to the whole UK project. My own belief is that the British and Irish people need to wake up and try to perceive themselves as some kind of cultural if not entirely a political unity. Their different versions of Christianity need to be cleansed--on left and right--of illusions and ideological fraudulence. Their peoples need to see themselves as deeply connected to a European humanity cleansed of its own arrogance and materialism. A different version of the same cleanser needs to be applied here in the U.S., which must rid itself of Trumpism if it ever again wishes to possess serious international leadership and credibility. Roger Cohen knows how to say such things. Thanks to him for this statement.
I agree with much of what you have stated, but you might benefit from the researching and learning about the historical and practical realities of the British/Irish dissimilitude. It’s a little more than “differing views of Christianity”.
@John I certainly didn't mean to imply otherwise. The insufferable historical arrogance of the Brits has its place in this business, no doubt, but I have also known some fanatical Irish nationalists whose hatred consumed them. But we Americans have our own demons--and our own insufferable arrogance--to be cleansed. Trump is an ongoing disaster and we are not remotely finished with what he and his movement are doing to this country, and through our abdication of our leadership, to the world. Thanks, John, for this reply.
The British voters rejected what they had. The only alternative on offer is proving unworkable.
The solution demanded here, and in many places, is to just accept what they had and shut up about their complaints.
If Brexit is unworkable, then those who oppose it must offer something better to address the genuine concerns of voters. "Just shut up about it" failed, and re-running that referendum is both wrong headed and a very short term solution until this all comes up again at the next crisis.
The British really want to alter the ever-greater union, at least as it relates to them.
Others in the EU need and/or want more sovereignty too. Greece and Spain and Italy for example need to chart a course very different from Germany.
The Brexit failure is in many ways an EU failure too. The inflexibility is doing damage all across the EU, not just in Britain.
The "Remainers" need to offer specifics for reform of the EU, and make some show that reform is possible. Perhaps they could start by contacting other like minded members.
4
A compelling piece! To treat the first referendum as inviolable is to ignore the hard data that has accumulated since 2016. Britons know or should know in light of the impossibility of negotiating a favourable deal, something they didn’t in 2016 and should be allowed reconsideration, just as America will have the chance to reverse the madness of their 2016 vote next year.
4
"A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy."
Fixed this for you:
"A democracy that overturns the will of the people is not a democracy."
4
Regardless of what one thinks of Brexit, the people have spoken. How can a true democracy function if every time the people "did not vote the right way", according to pundits and the ruling class, we should repeat the vote until "they get it right"? Why not have a third referendum if the 2nd one fails? My heart says that we should have repeated the 2016 US presidential election, but my brain says "no way!"
3
The vote to leave was based on false and very incomplete analysis, and meddling by Russia and perhaps others. Now that much is known about the opinion-shaping lies and it is now known that the result is damaging to national interests, it would make no sense to say "our feet must be held to the fire created by falsehoods."
If a crew could vote on a certain course in a storm and then see that the course would put the ship on a rocky coast, wouldn't they call for another vote to use reasoned direction finders and find safe harbor?
3
The British have always been known to drive a sneaky bargain; the current Brexit salmigondis is a striking example of the time honoured strategy of divide and conquer: first slice open the soft belly of the opponents to the EU ,then rush to their rescue and close stitch a flawed agreement,to finally appear reasonably defeated while discreetly rejoicing at the havoc being created as a result. Machiavelli on the Thames.
Theresa May is still in command by having engineered her own defeat.Expect her to have all the cards in hand when after her party rallies around her ,she returns to Brussels, a she wolf in Scottish lamb skins to extract a better deal at 5 to midnight.
That is Britain for you;more feisty at the very moment she appeared vanquished. Now the above hypothesis is just what it appears to be :a mere supposition.
If having a "re-do" is anti-democratic as some say, why not have two votes, one to decide if they need or want to do a "re-do", and then another to decide on whether to stay in the EU or not? Two votes may be cumbersome, but probably necessary for something as important as staying democratic and as important as "Brexit".
2
What we are seeing as Britain deals with Brexit should give pause to Americans who support the wall. Complex problems do not have simplistic solutions. And the fallout of bad policy is typically worse than the original problem. So we have a partial shutdown of our government over an issue most Americans don’t support.
President Trump’s populist (pandering, really) views won’t lead to good outcomes for his base. It’s incumbent on Republican leaders to govern, even if it means risking the President’s ire.
3
I do believe a second referendum is in order, the first was in 2016, when the Brits voted 53.4% in support of Brexit, while 46.6% opted to remain, not exactly a wide margin.
Leaving the EU impacts Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as well, and the outcome might be completely different once voters realize the many negatives sure to override any benefits of leaving the EU.
1
Isn't the unstated premise of Roger Cohen's argument that the 2016 Brexit vote, based on Boris Johnson's fantasies, was illegitimate? Thus, the need for a real election in 2019?
By the same logic, couldn't Cohen argue that the 2016 presidential election was also invalid; remember how easy Trump said it would be to replace Obamacare, or that Mexico would pay for the wall? Or, does Cohen want to cherry pick which elections he accepts, and which to try again to get his outcome? Shouldn't Cohen have said so back then so that Brexit voters wouldn't have wasted their time casting meaningless votes like people do under authoritarian regimes?
Back then in 2016, EU officials made clear they would make Brexit costly for Britain to deter others from leaving. Obama, while opposing Brexit, said that Britain would go to the end of the line for a trade deal. All this information was available to the voters in 2016. Cohen isn't quite the democrat he pretends to be when democracy doesn't go his way.
2
When starting a major project, an organization will typically give approval only for additional work to learn more about the effort. At this early phase it’s not unusual for benefits to be exaggerated and risks minimized or unrecognized. Only after significantly more detail has been developed will they approve (or not) the entire project.
Brexit certainly qualifies as major, so it’s only fair that the people have another vote now that they’re more fully informed.
3
The irony of Brexit and May's offer to the European Union is that May was not in favor of leaving the EU. Yet, the British voters voted to leave the EU. Given the fact that May followed the path that the voters wanted is to be commended. Her fellow Conservatives would have simply ignored the voters and did whatever it is they thought was best.
Another positive is that the voters finally learned the whole story of why it was not a prudent decision, thanks to all the lies that were spread to convince them otherwise. Time has a way of exposing the lies that Politicians tell.
May would be smart to call for the new Referendum, if she remains in her position. She is one brave woman, who followed the wishes of the voters, despite her own misgivings. A rare quality indeed.
It sort of reminds me of what has happened here. Voters were lied to by the Republicans, Trump was elected, and we find ourselves in a similar position of the British voter.
Here is hoping we get a chance to get rid of the Republicans in the Senate, the Administration and the White House very soon.
Of course, the problem is we have to wait until November 2020.
At least the British have the possibility of there being a vote in the very near future.
6
May has done a great job to try to appease mostly the EU bosses. It has not been easy as the EU seems to working like any insular sect when it comes to someone wanting to leave it.
There has not been much give in these negotiations so what May came up with wasn't palatable for most. Just as many as the no-brexit side was the side that just wants a NO DEAL. They want
things more clear cut. No EU involvement. No one thought the EU would play such hard ball when the referendum was called. Most felt that the UK could negotiate a fair deal. Fat
chance. The UK's decision to leave the EU had to be made as difficult as possible so that other possible leavers would be
scared off from making such a move.
I'm not saying leaving Brexit is great seeing what is happening with Putin and China and Trump, but the Brits have been dealt a tough stance from the EU negotiators from day one.
2
It appears to me that the problem with Brexit is that it attempts to solve too many problems with one overriding solution. The problem of uncontrollable immigration seems to be the most urgent problem, and perhaps the most understandable. Immigrants come to the UK and dilute a very old culture, and at the same time tax infrastructure and the generous social programs firmly entrenched in British culture and politics. Then there is a problem of compromised sovereignty in a country with a deep and passionate sense of pride in its history and place in the world. Then there is the economic realty of the current day UK and the UK's tight integration with the rest of the European economy. These are all by themselves huge issues. To be sure there are many other smaller tangential issues in the mix, but needless to say, to tie them all together and expect to solve them with one overarching comprehensive solution called Brexit is challenging to say the least, and as we are seeing practically and politically impossible. And to have let all of these issues be linked together to be solved by one single referendum called Brexit in the first place was ridiculously and grossly irresponsible. Perhaps it's time to recognize the 21st century reality of these problems and address them one at a time in the context the EU.
5
Well said, except the $50B fee should be expressed as a portion of GDP, not something cutesy like a Trump wall.
The root of all of the West’s problems is inequality, put on steroids by abandoning manufacturing to China where big business can make more money with less restrictions.
3
@Garrett Clay Bingo!
Governing by plebiscite is usually a dangerous idea without an educated, engaged and “big picture” selfless electorate. Unfortunately, finding elected officials with the same attributes seems increasingly difficult as well. Seems to me that “Brexit” pros and cons required a much more fact-based and dispassionate debate before anyone was permitted to vote.
1
Immigration in the UK from Eastern Europe seems to have been a major factor in Brits voting Brexit. But the UK is gradually turning into a much less appealing land of opportunities for Romanians and Poles, especially as the standard of living in their own countries inches up. Besides, a vast majority of Romanians and Poles emigrate to the UK to work not to be on public welfare. And the jobs they aim for are jobs Brits try hard to avoid, or are not universally qualified for: construction workers, cleaning personnel, home assistants, etc.
1
@klirhed
Over decades the flow of immigration may reverse. But for more than a decade Eastern and Southern Europe have been depopulating as their enterprising young people move West and North.
The result is a very real effect on the British working classes: rents are way up, wages are flat, working conditions are worse, there is no state-provided affordable housing, and there is a fragmentation and dilution of culture which many people don't like. These issues have been completely ignored by both political parties for decades.
Leaving the EU may not be a workable solution - but there are real problems that have not been addressed.
What you are saying here is that the British should hold repeated votes until they get the result that you want. That is absurd and undemocratic.
9
On the contrary, when presented with the realties that the original vote was premised on dishonesty, and the only deal presented is unacceptable to the majority, a new referendum is logical, practical and democratic, as the precedent set by the Danes and Irish have demonstrated.
8
No, what he is saying is: “Now that there’s a deal based on reality and not fantasy, the public should vote their spproval. “ The people of the UK could still vote for Brexit, but now they would have a proper understanding of what it would actually mean. The original vote was based on the idea of leaving, also known as “marketing”. This vote would be like signing the final deal; you know - the one having an actual contract with all that fine print (500 pages apparently).
It’s one thing to dream about a new shiny car; it’s quite a different thing to sign on the line while considering the realities of such ownership: payments, insurance, maintenance, etc. Anything less than a second vote to confirm any deal will be the equivalent of getting taken by a sharp car salesman.
2
@Mike Murray MD
Sounds great until you look at how the conservatives sold Brexit. It was a scam, the people were told they’d have more money for the NHS, nothing more.
Now the true cost is clear.
3
The British people were deceived by greedy leaders and Russian Propaganda and Cambridge Analytica. A new referendum is required to escape from this obvious deception. Only one nation applauds BREXIT:Russia.
5
The idea of a second referendum in which the cut point is >50% is downright dumb, a fools' game no matter what the outcome.
The terms of engagement of these referenda are that >50% of the vote is the deciding factor.
A referendum is not an election of individuals to a Parliament, House of Representatives, or a Senate, It is rather the statement of the fate of a nation. And that should never be decided by a simple majority. Rather, it should be the expression of national will as represented by a fulsome majority such as ⅔ or ¾. Otherwise, the outcome is always polarizing.
Further, these simple majority referenda are anti-democratic because they take true decision making out of the hands of legislative bodies where they belong.
In fact, the final decisions such as Brexit falls into the place where it belongs: the elected legislative body. The proof of this is what is happening to the May government in the UK. Thirty months of mayhem which has denigrated the ability of legitimate politicians to practice good governance.
Good riddance to May. A referendum can be no more than a statement of guidance to the legislative body.
3
@Svirchev This is an inaccurate depiction of events. Parliament did indeed vote to start the Brexit process invoking article 50 in 2017.
@John
The comment was directed at referenda in general. As I explained they are foolhardy and anti-democratic. Cameron's dopey decision to call a 'simple majority' referendum in the first place has put the UK and the EU through torture. Had that referendum not been called, the issue of withdrawal from the EU would have continued to lack any gravitas. It is amazing that the people of the UK tolerate such incompetency, just as it is amazing that the American political system tolerates a national government shutting down over the idiotic idea of building a wall.
Imagine if three million votes had been discarded to enact Brexit.
3
No one in the UK can come up with a good way to do Brexit, because there is no good way to do Brexit. The British people must have another referendum on Brexit, knowing now that foreign enemies were stoking the fires of hatred and intolerance, and that their stooges were promising pie in the sky economics that have no foundation in fact. The only reason anyone would complain about a second referendum is because they fear that a now better informed UK will dump Brexit.
5
Brexit is damaging to Britain's national interests -- just as Putin intended when he bankrolled and media blitzed Farage and friends.
4
May is not to blame here. Rupert Murdoch and his damaging, lie spewing media in partnership with Boris Johnson and the like are the villains. Murdoch is a global problem, his brand of "news", stokes fear and breeds lies while countries end up in a mess in he gets richer. Take a second vote, sure wish we could in the U.S.!
8
Referandum to "Brexit" was an uninformed blind voting. A new one, now , will be an educated vote. It will save the "Chunnel" from destruction by jams in traffic and loss of jobs.
2
The first reaction I have to the Brexit vote is this: How much better Theresa May is as a leader than Hillary Clinton would have been. She focuses on issues, whereas Clinton was tempted into the mud by Trump, and unfortunately yielded to temptation. If women would like to be president at some future point, they should emulate Britain and Germany which can show them how it is done.
Feminists have instead opted for throwing away the due process presumably guaranteed by the constitution in order to achieve the aim of bringing men in high political position down.
This is done through innuendo, through gossip in the New Yorker and the New York Times. Unable to achieve a constitutional conviction of Bill Cosby, Gloria Allred replaced due process by a media trial, in which the prosecuting attorney ran on the platform of achieving a conviction.
Trials should be separate from politics, not shows in the manner of Henry VIII's prosecution of Thomas More, in which the conclusion was preordained.
And this same Gloria Allred was a prominent supporter of Clinton.
I am ashamed to read the New York Times because it supports the Me Too movement. I read it nonetheless, because it does have some good articles when it steers clear of feminist opinion.
Brexit is a serious problem for Britain. Like Roger Cohen I hope Britain remains in the European Union. Unlike Trump, I believe that politics should not be a zero sum game. Remaining in the union would help Britain hence the US.
2
@Jake Wagner
Huh?
Theresa May jumped the shark. All she was trying to do was one thing, keep her party in power. She will be remembered with the same respect and reverence as Chamberlain.
Brexit was voted on during a flurry of lies and misinformation and has now lost more than it can possibly ever recuperate in terms of businesses that have left and factories closed. The young and educated were NOT for Brexit - and it will be their cuntry and will have to live with the bad decision of the older and misinformed voters. Many of these young people are now voting age and should have a chance to have their say. I remember a headline - I think from the New York Times - Little England or Great Britain as a case for staying in the EU. Little England has come to pass.
1
Throughout all this mess, I keep asking myself one question: David Cameron, the guy who started all this mess. Where is he now? Hiding out in a hedgerow?
3
@FromDublin
You know they are trying to bring hedgerows back, it turns out they are important in maintaining species diversity in a monoculture crop system.
We need them here too. Perhaps we can get one for Trump to hide in once he gets out of jail, unless we do the standard penalty for treason, which is my vote.
The original vote was not legally binding. Parliament could just withdraw its article 50 application and call the whole thing off.
2
Britain believes in democracy about as much as the USA does...about zero. Democracy has turned into little more than a “speaker’s corner” where people can shout with a ballet but ultimately are shoooed away by the royals and treated as annoying peasants. They voted to leave THREE YEARS AGO for heaven’s sake.
2
@Pilot
Get better informed, the referendum was a con job, nothing more. That’s why they are in this mess. The people promoting it are all gone.
The last time a large number of British subjects were outraged by commerce, fortunes, rights, and foreign relations being controlled by a distant Parliament the results were Lexington, Concord, a declaration in Philadelphia, and Yorktown.
The underlying issue may be best explained by Gilbert & Sullivan:
A British tar is a soaring soul,
As free as a mountain bird,
His energetic fist should be ready to resist
A dictatorial word.
….. …..
His eyes should flash with an inborn fire,
His brow with scorn be wrung;
He never should bow down
to a domineering frown,
Or the tang of a tyrant tongue.
1
The whole show of a vote on a terrible plan, is to get a second referendum. The elite don't want to accept the fact that the rank and file voted to leave, now they are going to change the rank and files minds with these terrible nightmare scenarios and let them vote again. It is sad and pathetic. Have some courage sheep and force a no deal Brexit. In one week, there will be a working frame work and in a month Great Britain will free itself from a doomed union that will eventually collapse regardless of what you do. Or tie yourself to Greece and Italy, and watch you fortunes sink as they do.
1
Where do these uninformed perspectives come from? Independent empirical research is called for.
Where does Rupert Murdoch and his media empire figure in the turmoil and “fake news” leading to this continuing debacle? Just curious whether the UK’s apparently current egocentric leaders are as media driven as ours.
3
When a result is based upon false information and deliberate lies, only a complete fool is unwilling to change it.
The Leave vote in the UK was based upon deliberate lies and manipulation. Parliament would reflect wisdom if it required another vote. If it does not, it will allow lies—lies that the last two years have made manifest—to control the fate of the nation.
I wish we could have a do-over in the US.
4
A second vote would do nothing to unite this kingdom. Blame lies with British MPs, whose ego, arrogance, loyalty to party over people and disregard for consequences amounts to a tantrum of the elites. Sound familiar?
A second vote left for a holiday a long time ago. The UK is saddled with a hard Brexit like rice to China. Come back in 10 years for an update.
Quite analogously across the Atlantic, the American youth "deserve the right to determine their long-term future on the basis of reality", not what was served up to them in 2016.
1
Re: ..amaging to the British national interest.
It depends what you see as national interest
If it is $ yes. Economists agree on a set back of 2 to 4 % of the GDP
If you value a country not overrun with people from very different countries, some from cultures incompatible with Western values, a coherent national culture, and identity , Brexit is in the National interest.
There is only so many elites that are equally at home in London, Shanghai, and NYC, and so many foreigners a country can take before it disi ntegrates into squabbling tribes
The Danes have realized this and started a program to generate more of a national identity
The Danes are not hot heads. They are on to something
1
Perhaps you recommend a wall?
And a third and fourth if necessary.
2
What an appalling opinion piece, the delusional Europhile, willing to ignore the ironclad mandate of referendum result, news for you Mr Cohen, when a government gets elected in the Westminster parliamentary system there is some flexibility allowed in how they govern and the laws they pass. It’s representative democracy. BUT when the parliament decides to hold a referendum, it’s usually on very sensitive issue of conscious say the approval of gay marriage or the future of Britain and the EU where the feel the need to consult directly on a single issue of great importance. They don’t dare to decide the self...... this is what you and your like are suggesting to ignore... the highest and most direct mandate in western democracy.... and for what? To surrender to the EU elite yes men of Merkel and the European Central Bank....
3
Airstrip One should just declare democracy null and void and surrender its sovereignty to Big Brussels in perpetuity.
2
It’s funny, but all the prominent Brexiteers seem to be hiding underground someplace. Insould be too, were I vicious enough to be them.
1
I had the unfortunate and bewildering experience of moving back to the US from London right after the Brexit vote in 2016. I then got to witness the US make a parallel mistake in electing Donald Trump just a couple months later. I remember the Brexit campaign all too well. It was one lie stacked upon another in a heaping mess.
I was once told there are two ways to hide information. You can build a castle around it and guard it carefully or you can bury it in the midst of other information. Most people cannot remember more than a handful or facts or figures at any given time. Whether that's owing to willful ignorance or simple stupidity, I cannot be sure, but the effect is the same.
The Brexit campaign played on this fact. It's also a major reason why the Democrats lost the 2016 election. Well-reasoned policies supported by facts are beyond the ken or attention span of the polity. The Remain campaign spent their collective breath scuppering the lies of the Brexiteers in much the same way the Dems exasperated themselves dispelling Trump's falsehoods. This was folly precisely because most people cannot remember the original falsehood and the corresponding facts long enough for you to convince them of its falseness. And that presupposes they are open-minded enough to give you the time to make your case, which is clearly not a given.
If liberals better understood this, they wouldn't lose so often or be dumbfounded when charlatans consistently best them with worse ideas.
169
@Souvient Excellent post. Today, elections are won or lost on messaging. One lie on the side of a bus (claiming that money saved from membership will go to the NHS) was enough to persuade people to vote Leave. One poster with Syrian asylum-seekers was enough to make people vote Remain, thinking that would save them from immigration (It will, but only of European immigration, not asylum-seekers). The Remain campaign wasn't as pointed or as passionate, and that reflects a bigger problem. Just as American citizens know little of what their government actually does, so European citizens know little of how the European Union contributes to their well-being. Governments have consistenly taken credit for things people like, but blame anything their citizens don't like on 'Europe'. And who, pray tell, is Europe anyway? It's the collection of governments, not a 'faceless bureaucracy'.
The British public has been subjected to decades of demonizing or laughing at Europe; it was a tall order explaining why Europe was a good idea.
Perhaps the clear and total disarray in the ranks of their leaders will persuade people that this lot isn't able to steer them in a different direction....
14
@Souvient -- Yes, it was the same, but not what you make of it.
The mistake in the US was the selection of status quo to run against change, when the voters were fed up. They did not select, they rejected.
The British problem was also status quo that voters did not like, and the only alternative on offer an unworkable one. The unsatisfactory status quo was overconfident that voters would have to accept what they did not like. Sure enough, they did not accept it.
In both places, denial of a good alternative led to a bad alternative, rather than the no-alternative anticipated by the self-satisfied.
12
@Souvient. Your last paragraph appears to claim that liberals just need to become more like “them.” I firmly disagree. The campaign/electoral process itself is corrupted, not because the electorate doesn’t have the time or ability to reason things out, but because our feelings are being manipulated. Voters don’t need to be rational, or even educated. They need to be good people, with basic human sentiments. How to get people to be decent and sensible isn’t rocket science. Unfortunately, neither is how to corrupt human sentiment. We have a whole election industry based on the corruption of human sentiment.
6
If we cut to the chase honestly, Brexit was about a single issue: immigration. The influx into Europe from Africa and the Levant of all "those others" was the engine that drove Brexit. The same thing happened in America. The two movements, Brexit and "Make America Great Again," are essentially the twin peas in the pod.
Fortunately for America, the end of Donald Trump is in sight, if not in 2019 as the cornucopia of Robert Mueller's revelations gush out and saturate the nation with just how awful the president is and was, and how he got there, we will self-cleanse, re-boot and begin to scrape away the putrid crust from the streets, sending it back to the sewers from whence it came. We will be ever watchful.
But America is a huge land, unlike The United Kingdom. There's only so much room for home-growns and, frankly, Europe was tiring of the trans-Mediterranean diaspora from Africa of the problems of the Ethiopians, the Sudans, the Libyans, etc., etc. The sanitizing rationale for Brexit was economics but, at bottom, it was much the same as Trump's border Wall: "keep them out." Now the UK, between two stools as they grow wider apart daily, finds itself in a most untenable position. Will it say, "We were wrong, all along?" Or will it double down and become Poland or Hungary or Marine Le Pen's France? Or Donald Trump's America?
1
"a second referendum would need to focus on the real issues that caused the Brexit vote: immigration [...] None of these problematic issues were caused by the European Union"
Actually, the EU did make immigration into a huge problematic issue by expanding East, embracing the poor weak economies of old communist block countries far to readily and quickly. This eastwards expansion was unthinking and ramped into full membership very quickly, such that a large number of their citizens upped and left for wealthy Western Europe, and guess where in particular? Right, they passed through France, Italy, Belgium straight to the UK with it's strong economy, strong social services, and of course, free world class Health Care. Result: a populace in many regional towns and cities feeling swamped by 'foreigners'.
I'm a UK citizen and strong remainer, but to absolve the EU of any fault in all this is simply wrong. There's been serious mistakes made on both sides.
3
The 2016 referendum was deeply, deeply flawed: Cameron called it in a vain attempt to silence the right wing of the Tory party who have been Eurosceptics for decades. He also allowed this faction far too much credibility and air-time and it was they that got misleading messages about immigration and the hot-button topic of the NHS into the public domain. To compound this, he made the winning line a simple majority (who in their right mind does that at referendum?)
Losing by 230 votes is more than a bloodied nose, its a KO. May's leadership as PM is over. There is no better deal on the table. Parliament is not going to come up with a plan B, C or D. These elected officials who have no idea how to proceed should immediately go back to the population for a second referendum.
91
Everything you write makes sense, but sense has nothing to do with what's happening on either side of the Atlantic. As has been well documented, Vladimir Putin subverting British democracy brought about the passage of Brexit, yet there's no political will to confront it, meaning no second referendum.
Further, of all the reasons you list for a second referendum, Brexiteers, like Trump supporters, are driven by only one, Xenophobia. They'll gladly destroy the British economy, go without food, water, medicine, and a roof over their heads, to get a hard Brexit, no different than Trump's inane wall.
In the few interviews in which cabinet hard Brexiteers have been remotely honest they admit that working-class Brexiteers wrongly believe that a hard Brexit will solve all of their problems. Cabinet hard Brexiteers still perpetuate the lie that Brexit will miraculously allow the working class to "take back" jobs which disappeared before their grandchildren were born and which were not lost to immigrants. (It's very similar to what rural and coal-state Trump voters believe).
Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer, for the Labour Party, maintain the pretense that they can either force the government to negotiate a different deal, or that without one can magically use isolationism to create a modern nation which is prosperous and Utopian. The only constant in Corban's plan seems to be that all these things can somehow be accomplished by exploiting anti-Semitism.
Who knows, it worked before.
2
I think it would set a bad precedent for the British people to revote on Brexit. Yes, Brexit is and was a bad idea and it is hard to understand why Cameron called for the original vote in the first place. But, it is now the will of the British people and it has to be respected. I don’t like the fact that the loathsome Trump was elected President but you don’t hear anyone here asking for a do-over.
4
@Mark Siegel
This is wrong on several levels. It's possible for "the will of the people" to change, as knowledge increases or values shift. In the US, this has occurred with slavery, with women voting, with same sex marriage, etc. And yes, a great many US citizens want a do over on Trump; we typically do that in the next election.
1
@Mark Siegel: Failure to hold a run-off to establish a popular majority in the 2016 presidntial election was a blunder to cap US history.
My understanding is that the EU will not allow Britain a “go back and do over” a re-vote is meaningless, if they want back in, that will have to be negotiated, The chaos brought on by this vote is never to be repeated by any other EU nation, they are showing Britain the door, don’t let it hit you on the way out.
4
@DJM, it appears to me that you are largely right. The UK held a binding referendum almost three years ago. However, it was binding only on the UK government. It had no direct effect on the EU, which is based on a treaty between 28 sovereign nations including the UK. After a delay of several months, the UK government formally invoked Article 50 of the basic EU treaty. This simply written article allows a sovereign EU government to unilaterally withdraw from the EU. It specifies a set time period to allow exit terms to be negotiated, but says nothing about rescindings or extensions. This makes sense, since unilateral withdrawal of one country of 28 is expensive to all of the EU countries.
Why the UK decided to start the negotiations with the EU by doing the diplomatic equivalent of setting off a nuclear bomb is beyond me. However they did that almost two years ago. A popular referendum cannot change this because the people never voted to invoke Article 50. They voted simply to start a vaguely-defined exit process.
The EU has thrown the UK a lifeline by interpreting Article 50 to mean that the UK can unilaterally rescind its invocation of Article 50, at any time before March 30. After that, Article 50 is very specific in requiring that any future negotiations have to conform to Article 49. This lifeline is what the UK people can vote on in the next 90 days: should the UK rescind its invocation? yes/no
@DJM More nations will probably be headed for the exit soon. Italy might be next.
I strongly suspect that Putin had his hand in the original vote - another reason to hold a new referendum.
1
So, where are the millions of Mea Culpa marchers in the streets chanting "We were wrong! We want a revote!" for that second referendum?
Clearly, May's "failure" is due to her inner remainer dragging its feet.
One shouldn't be so sanguine about double-crossing your Brexitteers.
A simple majority referendum is no way to make a major cultural decision in a democracy.
3
This whole debacle was an example, to paraphrase Marx , of history being both farcical and tragic at the same time.
A repeat referendum might reverse this formulation on its head - history might repeat itself, in this case, as a triumph for both good sense and Democracy.
Who knows? Humpty Donald might even fall off his wall and all the king's horses and men.....
This is not a sporting event where you win two out of three to advance. The plebiscite is over. The British people voted to leave. It is up to the British government to execute the will of the people. If the current PM cannot do so get another PM. Many Americans would like a second vote for president. There are no second chances.
5
I believe you are using "tabled" in the UK sense, but shouldn't you avoid that word since it has a different (opposite) meaning across the pond?
3
I agree 100% that a People’s Vote, i.e., second referendum, is needed.
But imagine in the US if the Congress said that when the people voted for tRump in 2016, they didn’t know that they were getting a malignant narcissist who is a tool of Putin, so we have to re-run the US election. About half the people would go berserk. The same thing will happen here, if a People’s Vote reverses Brexit.
Still, we have to bite the bullet and do it.
@Jeffrey Herrmann democracy is letting the tyrants punish the rebels and then voting again? No, this mess is due to the tyrants in Brussels punishing the Brits for having the audacity to demand freedom. The EU needs the British banking system to maintain control, and allowing the Brits to leave is unacceptable.
The first referendum was a political stunt that failed. It was guided by lies (sound familiar?) which misinformed and mislead the voters. They were told that Brexit would bring back money from the EU (350 million lbs per week for the NHS) which was a blatant lie. This will be an economic disaster for Britain, which will have a ripple effect throughout Europe, the US and the rest of the world.
David Cameron should be ashamed of the disaster he has wrought on his country.
Now that the people of Britain are better informed about this mess they should be given a second chance to right this wrong. A second referendum is the only viable solution.
I feel almost as bad for the Britons as I do for Americans who have been repeatedly lied to by our current administration.
1
Seems the the U.K. is out of informed followers and, perhaps, informed leaders. What's next, chaos? A second Brexit vote makes more sense than flopping around like a dying fish.
This is incredibly naive - there's no time for another referendum and moreover, the risk of civil disturbance due to the government ignoring the will of the British people is real and too high.
5
This reminds me that we need to shift from fantasy Trump to reality Trump.
In 1520, England was a minor power on the periphery of Europe, a country of little importance. During the Seven Years War, startlingly, she gained an Empire. By 2020, England will have come full circle. The various Acts of Union will unravel. Even Cornwall could join an independent Wales, and Yorkshire a resurgent Scotland.
England itself will keep Boris Johnson and Piers Morgan for public entertainment: Panem et Circenses
Maybe there should be a referendum on whether to approve a second referendum.
This has been a mess from the beginning. Cameron bowing to UKIP pressure, feeling arrogant enough to hold a referendum with no plans in place whatsoever, because the 'people' would never vote to leave. Just like 'Trump will never win!' And it has been growing increasingly shambolic ever since.
'A democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy.' I cannot agree more. I'm fed to the teeth with the jibes from the Leave camp, the 'get over it, you lost' din. Many of the 52% admittedly never participated in the voting process, even though it's possible for them to vote for MEPs and hold them to account, just like it is with any other UK elected officials (whose election processes had also been ignored). In addition, everyone's idea of 'leaving' is different. And far too many people believed the mis- and dis-information on both sides (though that NHS bus propaganda is still believed by many, I am sure). I would be bold enough to say that the majority didn't really know what they were voting for or just how complex EU constitutional law really is. Now more have a sense of it, that's for sure. But it has been a messy process of discovery.
And what of the 48%? Why should their opinions cease? That isn't a democracy, indeed.
Either allow another vote or just cancel Brexit. We cannot go on like this. Too many other pressing issues are being ignored (NHS, social care, the environment).
Mr. Cohen:
Sounds good in columns but doesn´t help in practise.
Why?
A second referendum would make sense only if public opinion had changed.
Do you think this change of mind had happened in the last 2 and a half years of constant fire Brexit propanganda by Brexit-mass-media, of successful recent "barrage fire" by all shades of "No-May-Deal" activists in the last months, of complete unwillingness and inability of Ms. May and and her few remaining allies to tell British people what will happen beacause of "Hard Brexit" in a CREDIBLE way and of cowardice of EU to inform all in UK who want to listen or not what´s possible and what´s not?
I don´t. Don´t take your own personal intellectual knowledge or the understandig of your peers for voter´s knowledge horizon. Actually the disastrous political behaviors of Ms. May and Mr. Corbyn in the last months have burned all bridges not allowing even the construction of viable footbridges at present.
If you hold a second referendum right now and this will end up to "Brexit!" again as it will be not to exclude this kind of Brexit is going be the "hardest Brexit ever" leaving even no room for any govermental measures agreements on procession and transaction settlement after leaving date. ("Betrayal!" "Undemocratic!" and so on to mention only some more or less friendly expressions) that will be badly required in this case.
May always talks of the will of the British people that has to be respected. Truth is that the British people had no clue what a Brexit means for the UK when they voted. They were misled by lies and simplification.
1
@Lars, I suspect that most UK voters knew in general terms what a withdrawal would involve. I doubt that very many had a clue that the UK government would start out by invoking Article 50 of the fundamental treaty.
@Grindelwald
Lars is obviously right.
The goal "withdrawal" is always involving Article 50 because Article 50 and it´s implications is the only way to reach this goal. So they had no clue indeed when they voted for Brexit ignoring Article 50. Simple formal logic.
You can´t say "I wanted to climb Mt. Everest and I definitely knew all what is involved but I never had a clue that I had to buy crampons, to hire some Sherpas and to pay ten thousands of Dollars as admission fee before" either.
As a Peruvian "no tengo vela en este entierro", but I wish the UK leaves the EU with out an agreement to see if all those predictions of terrible consequences do happen or if they were just the usual exaggerations.
2
I fully agree with a second referendum to sort this conundrum out once and for all.
Lets have multiple referendums till we get a vote of staying in EU.
1
If the British get a "do over" on Brexit, can we get one for the 2016 election ? Would only be fair to allow us to correct a huge mistake too....
1
No, no. You are too far from the scene. You are an intellectual who deals only with abstractions and words. All the smart British politicians who worry about the future and not just the short-term disturbances of readjusting Britain's economic and trace policies, desperately want out of the deterioration and disintegration oozing from the European Union. Those Brits want to save the future of Britain and escape from a sinking ship. The day Germany will do the same will sound the death knell of the EU.
All the grandstanding of Macron will not change things. Macron’s anti-French nationalism is such a mistake. Modern France is in a free fall, and will not avoid destruction. It is a matter of time. The French elite is still smarting from the disappearance of the old France as an international power, wiped out by the destructions of WWI and WWII, and the humiliation and loss of prestige. They conceived Europe as restoring their role as a leader of a block counterbalancing both the US and Russia. Now Macron still lives in the illusion that a France-led Europe will become a player against in the American-Chinese confrontation. It's enough to come to France and live in this impoverished and stagnant country to realize this is the chimera of faded glory. Britain is right to get out and reestablish its natural link with the prosperous and growing English-speaking community of the world: the US, firs and paramount, Canada, South Africa, Kenya, Australia, New Zealand, and all the rest.
1
To have a healthy democracy a country needs:
An educated populous.
An informed populous.
An involved populous.
Apparently countries on both side of the Atlantic lack this.
We deserve what we get.
3
Brexit and Trump are prime examples of small thinking, lack of vision, an inferiority complex and the fear of not being up to the challenges the PLANET faces as the world is hurtling towards environmental catastrophe.
We do not need nationalism, we need a world government that can effectively address overpopulation, the primary driver of global warming and the ongoing environmental destruction we will all be facing exponentially in the future.
Unfortunately, Trump and May are too small to comprehend this, and Merkel was always too timid to articulate the substance of it.
There is simply no courageous leader who is up to the task.
I am always amazed how freely the term 'national interest' is used. It is claimed by all and sundry, usually when they want to push through their particular interest. From early on every child is told that money isn't everything. But when Britain voted in a referendum against further membership in the European Union the result was a stunned howl of those who think economic issues should outweigh everything else. Those voting for Brexit were portrayed as either dumb and ignorant, fooled by demagogues or demagogues themselves. But apparently not a single intelligent, clear-minded soul among them, At this point it should be a matter of principle insisting that membership in the European Union is voluntary, not a historical irreversible necessity, as the remainers and much of continental Europe insist. The European Union has a habit of voting until the desired result materializes. Again on principle that should be opposed. I (who would have voted 'remain') know quite a few British who are neither dumb, nor fooled nor demagogues and educated to boot who are nonetheless pro-Brexit, in fact several of them turned more so during the process. They all realize that economic sacrifices will have to be made, but are convinced they are worth it long term in the face of a European Union that keeps members in line by being coercive ( making leaving extremely difficult) rather than by convincing through its advantages.
2
The West saw too seminal events that reveal real weakenesses in our two greatest functioning democracies: the Brexit vote and the election of President Trump. Both are the product of deception and manipution, the Brexit vote by the English trading in lies and Trump’s victory at least encouraged by Putin’s interference. But both Americans and Britons should have been able to see through these folk selling snake oil. Alas, that they could not says much about the pathetic state of western democracy. Healthy societies, grounding in the the will of an educated populace, do not elect tv stars president nor chase the folly of somehow leaving the European Union to protect one’s sovereignty.
I say no second vote. The English were unwise enough to believe Johnson et al. Live with it, and accept that England and London will become economic backwaters. So sorry. In the US, I have grown weary of liberals demanding that Congress impeach Trump. A waste of time. No realistic prognosticator thinks he would ever be convicted. Beyond that, impeachment allows the voters who put us in the mess off scott free. No. Wait until 2020. Either the Narcistic In Chief faces his scariest reality, losing, or Americans reelect him and wallow in the mess he continues to create each day.
Democracy has consequence. Britons and Americans made their beds. They need to sleep in them.
@Paul
" England and London will become economic backwaters." Yep, this would be curious, indeed. We are still young enough to see that this dire prediction has no chance to come true, whatever happens to Brexit. My own bet is that Brexit will pass, and England will survive, and London remain the great financial world center it has always been.
1
“Brexit is damaging to the British national interest.”
“Brexit is damaging to the British national interest.”
Yet again: “Brexit is damaging to the British national interest.”
There it is. This, after all the hype and falsehoods, and rhetoric that spurred on this entire reckless endeavor from the start, is the heart and soul of everything that has happened ever since this narrowly won, no binding referendum occurred. It’s just Reality.
The Conservative Party, in a pathetic, ludicrous, heedless march towards the edge of a cliff, is in utter denial of the hard, unalterable reality that Brexit is grossly regressive, and will damage the UK badly for years to come. Good economics, and impartial, nonpartisan data have shown it over and over again. The structure of 21st economies the size of the U.K. (or even the US) just aren’t as strong going it alone. All the wishing and demanding will not make it so - nor will any and all of the bluster and threats aimed at the E.U. “Make it better! Give me better! I need better...” is all well and good, but the power and leverage was never in the UK’s favor in these negotiations. There was never incentive for Europe to make it easy - so they didn’t.
The current state was clearly inevitable right from the start for anyone with a sense of history, economics, and an iota of negotiations training.
The solution is what it has always been from the start: WAKE UP! Just Stop Brexit!
They can - and they must.
2
The ideal solution to break the Brexit impasse is not a re-do. Rather, Northern Island should split from UK and merge with the rest of Ireland, stay in EU. Scotland should declare independence too to remain in EU. Leave the English to enjoy a hard Brexit.
1
When you want something in the worst way - sometimes that's exactly how you get it.
Brexit became a surrogate for everything driving the darker side of the populist movement, summed up in "England for the English". It's no surprise it's going so badly - it can't possibly deliver what those who voted for it want.
The U.K. has one consolation in all this mess - at least they don't have Donald Trump running things. But it's a cold comfort; Charles P. Pierce sums it up thusly:
"The Brexit vote was an act of wish-fulfillment. It certainly wasn't all that well-moored in reality. Its major opponents badly underestimated the power of wish-fulfillment in politics. Now, they have an ungodly fiasco on their hands. Americans should be able to identify with that."
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25909054/theresa-may-brexit-plan-defeated-house-of-commons/
Now that they've gazed into the abyss, a second referendum would not be the worst way to go - assuming it gives the people a clear choice.
There is a basic current difference between the US and UK, despite the several posts I’ve seen linking them. Namely, that the UK has the option of a vote of no confidence, followed by removal should it be decided that the current regime cannot govern properly. On the other hand, the US must continue tolerating a president with a clearly criminal past, for 2 more years — one clearly wreaking havoc on a global scale, beyond the parameters of BREXIT. Still, democracy is failing resolutely, even in its ‘small fantasy’ resolution. As one article today has it, “The train needs a Driver”. The question worth struggling with is the possibility of powerful leadership without thug- driven fascism and scapegoating. Has it ever occurred in human history? Perhaps with Asoka in India’s Buddhist past. Other guesses?
What an absolute ludicrous idea of even suggesting a second referendum. The people of Britian had ther say at the first referendum. If there was a second referendum and the vote did change to a 'stay' majority, then the 'leave'campaigners and supporters would have every right to ask for a third referendum. Just respect the voice of the people and get it done.
2
This could have all been avoided in the first place if someone had bought that ever so modest Nigel Farage a big bucket and a tape recorder. He then could have put the bucket on his head and listened to his own voice to the exclusion of all other noises, and then taped himself being modest about himself, and played the tape at night while he slept, hey presto, Nigel would have been able to listen to himself constantly until the day he dies, and then we wouldn't have had to.
Nonsense.
Unlike America which is an undemocratic divided limited power constitutional republic of united states, the United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy with 66 million people being represented by 432- 202 members of parliament. The people already voted for Brexit fair and square. Case closed.
post factum it is clear that Theresa May should never have sought to become prime minister. That task should have been taken on by the Brexiteers, first of all Boris Johnson. He cowardly refused and continued to poison the debate in the UK with his lies.
But let us also be clear the UK was never really was fulheartedly in Europe. For more than 40 years they again played the rol of 'perfidious Albion', resisting with all their hearts any progress in European unification, fighting for every possible exception.
Charles De Gaulle was right to oppose their membership to the (thence) European Community. He knew them from up close.
Russia likes Brexit. That’s a good reason all by itself that it’s a bad idea.
The assumption is that many Brexit supporters have changed their minds and that a second referendum on the original Leave/Remain question would yield a Remain vote.
That is far from certain. YouGov has been conducting continuous polling since the vote and voter views have not shifted in a meaningful way. Month by the month the results have drifted a bit, but it's all well within the margin of error of the poll itself. That's the data. At the level of personal observation I can add that Brexit voters I know have grown only stronger in their support of Leave. It's to the point where they welcome a hard Leave. Like pulling a bandage off a wound, that want it over with, even with short term pain.
A second referendum should have been held a year ago, but not on the question of Leave/Remain. UK leadership failed the citizens when they did not hold a referendum on the TYPE of Leave to pursue. It's too late for that now. They no longer have any legitimacy in the minds of a majority of voters, Leave and Remain alike.
The first graph only goes up to about 3/18. But polling since then has remained effectively unchanged:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/29/where-britain-stands-brexit-one-year-out
I would love it if we could have a do over of the 2016 Presidential election right now. Wouldn't you? But is that Democracy?
British need to understand that Brexit means the end of Britain.
Brexit was Britain's own Trumpian scam. UK should indeed hold a second referendum, as the USA needs a re-vote to ensure the Kremlin is out of each of these catastrophes. But neither country has a viable democracy, so it is not going to happen.
The past two years have been exhausting for my country. I think for many of us, it feels like we're stuck in this bizarre twilight, paralysed by lucid dreaming as we sleepwalk into what, by all accounts, is looking to be a disaster.
Though I can only pray for an end to Brexit and a return to our European family, the lacerations that have been inflicted into our society cannot end any time soon. It's been almost horrifying watching, over these two years, the hysteria and sheer contempt with which the emergent blocs hold each other. Whether we end Brexit or not, Britain will be a bitter, angry nation for much of the future of my working life.
2
If remaining in the EU is Britain's best option, the nation should continue to hold referendums until the "remains" win.
1
Both Britain and The US either are or have been global superpowers.This produces a mind set that seems to outlast the reality of the present situation. This is understandable, but it acts like an ego that gets in the way of any endeavour.
1
Folks like Mr Cohen don’t think referendums, or elections, are a choice between legitimate alternatives. Instead they think it’s an intelligence test, where there is a right and wrong answer. When they don’t get the result they like, a do-over is begged for. Surely the gullible proles who got it wrong the first time will get it right the second time?
3
Normally, when children demand a do over after losing, they at least offer "best two out of three." If they lose again, it is "best three out of five."
This is just a do over because your side lost.
You have as many excuses for losing as Hillary Clinton, but you did lose a national vote.
Your simplistic "get over it" argument is missing three important points, nay, facts.
First, unlike the US, where various issues are listed as ballot initiatives or propositions during regularly scheduled elections, the UK and others can use a referendum on an issue independent of a normal election cycle.
Second, like Clinton, the referendum may have been "lost," but the "winning" side is then responsible for coming up with an actual plan to enact the decision. In the UK they've failed to come up with a workable plan that won't severely damage the nation(s). In the US, we have Trump, who's failed to come up with any plans that don't damage OUR nation.
Third, Trump didn't "win" the same way that Brexit won. There, "Leave" "won" by a popular vote, and people are now regretting not having thought through the implications. Here, Trump LOST the popular vote, and people are definitely regretting not having thought through the implications.
So, yes, you can change your mind. It's just in the US we can't act on that regret quickly enough. We're working on it.
1
@Mark Thomason Except that this is not a "game" and it is certainly not a child's game. When so much is at stake, does it really make sense to stand on ceremony. Oh, wait, isn't that the British way?
1
This is such a mess, it would be great to just hold another vote which, hopefully says no brexit, and be done with it.
As the famous quote in yes minister, being honest that the policy was wrong gives the advantage of surprise in the house of commons. Be honest, hold another referendum and get on with your lives.
What's hard for me to understand is that, so far as I can tell, the British Constitution makes no provision for referenda to decide major issues. If the followed their own rules they wouldn't be in this mess.
3
@Mike Livingston Britain has no codified constitution, only Acts of Parliaments to define the current rules of the game.
That, and the fact that international issues should never be decided by a direct vote of the people - the average citizen is not equipped with all of the required information to make such a far reaching decision, and is easily bamboozled by catchy tag lines... as we are witnessing ourselves.
The EU was and is destined to fail. It’s a currency union among totally independent sovereign nations with no real political union save for the dictators in Brussels. The latter are compelled to write standards on permissible banana curvature and the proper way to cultivate cucumbers because they can’t do much else. It foolishly enables irresponsible nations like Greece & Italy to borrow in Euros at the same interest rates as stalwart Germany. This is less about the UK’s messy divorce and more about the rest of the EU unwilling to face reality.
22
@Alan - To succeed it either needs to step "back" to being a trade bloc or it needs to step "forward" to being a Federated Europe, with a single governance structure, central bank, AND with centralized budgeting for all countries. That's what some leadership wants. But I highly doubt most European citizens would agree to that.
8
@Alan -- That is the problem, but it is not destiny.
They could fix the Euro system so that it can deal with recession and regional troubles. The dollar is fixed, and the Euro could be.
The problem with that isn't the fix, but the cost of a fix. I don't mean the cost of a rescue of Greece, I mean the cost of nation state sovereignty entailed in creating a true national currency for the EU as an "ever greater union."
The people who created the Euro did not want to stop here. They meant to do the ever greater union. They said so constantly.
Brexit is because the British don't want to be part of that greater union. They were fine with what it used to be, not so fine with what it is now, and totally unwilling to take the next step to a true union.
That is why Britain opted out of the Euro; this has been clear and coming for some time, in slow motion.
14
@Alan - There are several ideas that should be clarified here. "Irresponsible" (not protestant) nations, like Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal (the so respectfully called "PIGS") have paid or are paying - take Greece - for their bail out, in the form of harsh social reforms.
On the other hands, that austerity - which in some cases I find reasonable - has been forced to indirectly bail out northern banks. I guess nobody pressed German banks to buy debt from Greek or Italian companies or State, I suppose it was decided on the basis of high benefit (and risk).
Surprisingly, Iceland took the opposite approach, and their citizens decided not to help their banks, which in turn meant not to pay foreign investors. Nobody considered this irresponsible, but quite the contrary, people of Iceland were applauded for it.
I also would like to point out that "responsible" Germany has never fully paid its debt. Neither that caused by WWI loss nor the WWII one. Allied countries never recovered back all the money spent or invested in war and post-war reconstruction. In fact, Greece pardoned Germany some billions for WWII war debt. But Germany is still considered as a serious and responsible nation. Why?
European Union, and Euro, has been and still is a great business for Germany, France, or UK. Also, European funds for less developed countries have usually been recovered in the form of big contracts for companies in donor countries.
14
Regardless of which side you are on concerning the Brexit vote, it has never made any sense that you would hold a BINDING vote when no one had any idea of what the actual terms of any exit were. Imagine 200 plus years ago our Founders asking citizens to ratify the Constitution before it was written.
A second vote at least would be an informed vote.
20
@Jeff From close-up, I am not sure what we 'know' now that we did not know then. Uncertainty has grown rather than resolved, and in any case - as in the US - voting behaviour owes more to emotions and 'vision' than to evidence or analysis. And the Brexit Referendum was closer in spirit and effect to the Declaration of Independence than to the Constitution.
1
@Jeff It's not a binding vote, in fact. The referendum, legally speaking, was only "advisory".
1
David Cameron's thought he had a clever plan to quickly dispose of a hard right demand to leave the EU by having a referendum to decide the question. It blew up in his face. Theresa May who did not support Brexit became PM. She was left with impossible task of actually implementing Brexit. She came no where close to satisfying the Brexit perfectionists. But the hard right doesn't want to lose power so they will stick with May. May's Brexit plan isn't really Brexit. She leaves major pieces in place which the Brexit supporters think treacherous back door ways to stay tied to the EU. The conservatives still have their draconian austerity to fall back on. They don't want to lose that.
2
@c harris I think you should also consider the role played by Juncker, Verhofstad, Tusk and Barnier (I do *not* say by Europe) - they, too, faced festering discontent among the Member States, especially given the treatment meted out to Greece, Italy, Spain, etc. Moreover, the referendum hurdle was set too low - such complex and uncertain issues require at least US-style 2/3/supermajority. But behind it all is the way internal party splits become national and then international crises. As with the Tory Eurosceptics, so with the Republican Freedom Caucus.
1
@c harris -- Britain is caught between the Irish peace deal and the EU deal.
They rightly put on high priority on keeping the Irish peace, after the very long "Troubles" and all the terrorist and other fighting. It is hard to draw a line on when that began, but it might well be thought older than the UK itself. Peace in Ireland is a very big deal.
At the same time, withdrawal from the EU requires opposite things. The Irish peace deal was possible because of the EU's terms. It allowed a fudging of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The border could be there and not there, technical but open and without practical meaning among EU members. No passport control, no customs, no check of any kind at the border, and the border stations and effectively guards gone but for vestiges.
Withdrawal from the EU necessarily upends that essential term of the Irish peace. Saying something will be worked out later is nonsense. There is nothing to work out. It is impossible, and there is no remedy. If there is a border again, then the peace is off, the fudging of it defeated.
The "remedy" is to let Northern Ireland go from the UK, to rejoin Ireland, or to have the Irish accept it and move on that they are divided. They fought over that, and they would again.
Brexit is damaging to GLOBAL interests. I don’t see how a hard Brexit wouldn’t send a lot of Western economies into recession.
5
Correction - it is not "about 8" of Trump's walls. $50 billion is the full cost on ONE wall. The $5.7 billion he is demanding is but the down payment.
17
Trump’s $5 billion is 0.5% of this year’s DEFICIT - not the budget - the deficit. In the big picture it’s peanuts. But suddenly, after helping mightily to add $12 trillion in new debt the last decade, Democrats are deficit hawks. Where were they in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, etc etc?
1
The same thing the republicans are doing now; looking after their own short-term self-interest and re-election prospects instead of the doing what is best for the country as a whole.
2
@Alan, did you not notice the Obama administration was trying to pull the US out of a deep recession during those years? How convenient you forgot about the Bush administration starting 2 wars off budget & on credit, while pushing through a big tax cut skewed to benefit the rich. That bit of fiscal irresponsibility caused me to leave the Republican party.
3
Am unclear why Parliament can't simply vote on a binary choice: Remain vs. NoDeal Exit? Why the expense, delay and confusion of a 2nd referendum?
2
@Unconvinced - Remain has already been voted on in 2016. It was rejected.
The question now is:
Request an extension from the EU for further negotiation vs. NoDeal
1
@Unconvinced
Both the main parties stood at last election to accept the referendum result and to deliver it.
MPs were therefore voted for on party line and remain MPs are now 60% of parliament.
Does this answer your question?
1
@J Jencks It was *not* rejected *by Parliament* - nor would it have been. And the European Court has made it abundantly clear that the UK can rescind Article 50 unilaterally (unlike, say, extending it, which requires the consent of every other Member Sate).
For those who believe in such things, it's worth noting that in the Old Testament, even God changed his mind (Exodus 32, 12-14).
Surely the British people should be accorded the same opportunity as God.
13
@Charley Darwin
Is this going to be best of 3, 5 or more?
After every vote, the people unhappy with result demand another vote.
People will stop taking the vote seriously
1
@Charley Darwin
I agree. What a trainwreck. Now that Brits KNOW the consequences including the mess Ireland vs N. Ireland, and Scotland being against it, MAYBE they should have another referendum. What have they got to lose? I think a lot of Brits have changed their mind now that reality is staring them in the face and want to remain in the EU.
1
@Mike - Yes! People will stop taking Democracy seriously if the results of legitimate elections are tossed out.
If people can conclusively PROVE that Putin's minions hacked and altered election results there's a case for nullification. Otherwise, there isn't.
Misrepresentations and lies by politicians do not qualify as cause to nullify the results. If they did then every US and UK election of the last 200+ years would be null and void. Voters need to do their homework and accept the consequences of their decisions. Brexit needs to be completed. THEN the UK can vote on whether to apply for re-admission to the EU.
The problem with this story is the three side debate. May's deal was defeated by an alliance of people in favour of hard brexit and people in favour of a remaining in the Union (through a second referendum). But that same second referendum would requier the support of both the Government and the Parliament, and unfortunatelly it risk also being defeated by an aliance of people in favour of hard brexit and people in favour of the deal. The hard Brexit folks have the advantage their option is the default one. Unless moderate brexiters and remainers ally themselves, they will win.
2
I am sympathetic. But a realistic case for a 2nd Referendum now needs to take a stand on the framing the proposition. What EXACTLY should we the people be asked to vote on this time? Can we invite Roger Cohen to write a second column taking a stand on this matter? Can we CHALLENGE him to do so? If he doesn't, then his endorsement of a second vote cannot be deemed a serious policy proposal. Just more posturing without a plan. We've had rather too much of that already, I am afraid.
2
@W Martin - Most of the people I've read proposing a second referendum skate around the question of which question to ask. Perhaps I'm cynical but I think it is because they want to plant an assumption that the only question is the Leave/Remain question, and by so doing, tilt the table in their favor.
It's not the only question. It is one of several. More thoughtful writers point this out and place it as the FIRST question. If the result is Remain, then we're finished. But if the result is Leave, then comes further questions such as Negotiated/Hard exit...
Hard=> finished ...
Negotiated => discussion of terms to propose to EU
When it comes down to it, the first question HAS been asked and answered already... Leave ... The failure of the UK leadership has been in not adequately involving the public over the last 18 months in the type of leave to pursue.
I guess I'm cynical. I think it was no accident or incompetence on the part of leadership. I think they wanted to sow this chaos. Involving the public means ceding control.
2
@W Martin -- Just keep voting until Roger's faction likes the outcome. He says his opponents are stupid, and should not be allowed to win.
@W Martin
The original winning margin of about 52% was unconvincingly small. In order to not split the country in half, the referendum should have required a larger winning margin and could have--why not at least 55% or 60% or even 2/3. The more consequential the vote, the more a sizable majority is needed to make it stick. The US Constitution requires 2/3 to pass a constitutional amendment and ratified by 3/4 of the states. We require 2/3 to override a presidential veto to pass legislation. Certainly a vote on Brexit is important enough to require at least a 2/3 majority. A simple majority on something this difficult to do was unwise from the start.
If there are three positions, soft Brexit, hard Brexit, or Remain, perhaps there could be a series of questions decided by ranked voting. Voters would rank their preferences: first choice, second choice third choice. The preference to receive the most votes, regardless of rank, would prevail. It is too important a question to leave it to the parties.
Voters should have more definitive information on what kinds of consequences would flow from a Brexit vote. The first referendum had the kind of campaign pie-in-the-sky promises one would expect in a typical election. Now it turns out to be more complicated. If Britons are asked to vote on Brexit again, they need to really think it through.
Quite right, Putin’s prints are all over the first referendum. Time to come clean. ALSO, Trump’s wall is expected to cost $30 to $40 billion, the $5.7 billion is a mere down payment. The issue in Congress boils down to if we’re not going to jump why walk the plank? Both the UK and US are facing the realities of how to trash a Putin inspired assault on democracy. The route is through rusty legislatures not accustomed to having to make momentous decisions on their own. Hmmm...
16
@Denis -- If Putin was that all-powerful, he's be a lot further ahead than squabbling in Syria and eastern Ukraine and begging China for deals.
@Denis: it may not be a coincidence that one of the leaders of the Brexit campaign is called Boris... (only half in jest)...
@Mark Thomason Understand Putin's objective. It is to destabilize the west, that's enough. Ironically, it's the same strategy that Kennedy had to deal with against Khrushchev. Then the Soviets called it "wars of national liberation" They didn't care what war or when, they just wanted us to chase our tails. We over responded beginning with JFK's May 25, 1961 speech often called the Moon Shot Speech. In that speech JFK asked for more money for everything from Polaris subs to the moon shot and he got it. But we over did our opposition to the Soviets with Vietnam. Reagan again tried confrontation when the Russians were acting up in the 1980s with Star Wars. Today is more dangerous because Putin has penetrated domestic democracy.
Brexit is as damaging to the British national interest as Donald Trump is to America's national interest. Anger and rage in both the UK and US reign over both peoples. Only by general election in both countries will these intractable conundrums of 21st Century life be ameliorated (or worsened). Existential reality in England and in her independent daughter country, America, has been kicked to the kerb in these social media days.
3
I have long suspect that the Russians interfered in the Brexit Election. From my distant view it would seem best within the British parliamentary system to have a second vote on this idea. Again, from my point of view Britain is better off to stay within the European Union. As a scientist I look at these matters from a different view which encourages scientific cooperation from all countries in the European area. Leaving the EU greatly hinders scientific research by breaking research activities into pieces instead of encouraging research activities. Further, the EU has taken strong steps to reduce environmental issues that have not been taken elsewhere. Further it seems to me that the ease of cooperation between research labs in badly crimped by leaving the EU. The EU has managed some very large projects quite well which is a benefit to all members of the EU, the large hadron collider and the huge fusion reactor are the most prominent examples. I hope the British government can come to its senses and quickly.
13
@Tlaw - There is a danger with having a repeat vote because of suspicions that Russia interfered.
If there is HARD evidence of interference and that this interference altered the result, then by all means a nullification of the vote makes sense.
But if the evidence is weak, not obvious to the large majority of voters, then it is a real danger to Democracy to nullify an election result. The mere suspicion can't be considered enough, or EVERY election would be subject to nullification.
Before Remain supporters start asking for a nullification, they need to provide irrefutable evidence of corruption of the vote, compelling enough to convince a large part of the 51.8% Leave voters that Britain was essentially attacked by a foreign power.
Anything less and it will be like a loser screaming, "foul!" every time a game is lost.
@Tlaw On that basis, you must feel it best that the US also have a second vote on its Russian elected president?
Throughout the arc of history, few good things happen when either individuals or groups of individuals either are marginalized or feel themselves to be so.
The larger examples of marginalization have given us Brexit and the want-to-be reign of Donald Trump. Other examples include the 9/11 attacks, the first and second intifadas and, in the view of some historians, the first and second world wars in the last century.
Disaffected individuals include many political assassins, whose actions have often had larger ramifications, and Lorena Bobbitt whose mutilation of her husband was more the subject of tabloid fascination than anything else.
The United States are periodically less united. Texas succession, the State of Jefferson on the west coast and the State of Franklin on the western flank of the Appalachian mountains all are expressions of centrifugal forces from disaffected individuals and groups.
We have a choice to make. Either we find a better way to reduce inequality and reduce marginalization or we will continue to play Whack-A-Mole as we lurch from one crisis to another, vitiating our ability to progress as individuals and nations and ultimately as a species.
10
"The British, and particularly the British youth, deserve the right to determine their long-term future on the basis of reality."
Sounds like a great plan. The U.S. has similar reasons to reject a fantasy-based presidency and his Republican enablers in 2020. May sanity regain a foothold in Britain as well as America.
7
@Alan R Brock - I agree about the British youth. Of course, it's elderly still have the right to vote too, and they did.
After Brexit is completed and a little time has past, the youth should step forward and promote a new referendum proposing re-entering the EU.
But what was started in 2016 through an entirely democratic process, needs to be finished first.
Incidentally, youth voter turnout for the 2016 vote was initially underestimated.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high
1
The EU has successfully played hardball, making a Brexit accord impossible for the UK to accept. This was done not for economic considerations but for punitive reasons towards Britain and as a warning to the Italians and others who chafe under the thumb of the German dominated EU. Merkel and her quislings in the EU are on the precipice of doing what the blitz couldn't: bring Britain to heel and accept the primacy of German interests.
5
@Chris: your reference to “the Blitz” is offensive and unnecessary and reveals a rank nationalism. The younger generations would rather put these ill feelings behind them and work together for a better Europe.
@Chris -- Maybe punitive, but also maybe just to make them stop. It is the EU powers' vote against Brexit.
If the Remainers had not proved themselves to be deeply unpatriotic, and instead given their considerable energies to the negotiations with Brussels, thereby presenting the UK as a UNITED front, the situation would by now be very different. Instead they have sabotaged the negotiations, and are trying to adopt the EU principle, by make the UK keep voting until they get the result they want. The EU is an unelected and profligate beaurocracy, shored up with as many lobbyists as Washington DC, and never intends to give any of its members a fair shake (except the founders in Brussels, France and Germany) and are now planning to establish its own army. They have done irreparable harm to Greece, Italy, and Spain, and done NOTHING to address the sad and ongoing migrant/immigrant crisis on the southern borders of Europe. If Europe had not had such IMPERIAL intentions, and remained only a trading COMMON MARKET things would have been much better. Go to youtube and listen to Peter Hitchens speak at Reed University..."The EU is but Germany by Another Name" for a very interesting view that is outside the current debate.
2
It’s ironic how things often come around. The manipulated and non-binding referendum of 2016 was mostly influenced by a strong undercurrent of xenophobia. Now the U.K. faces an immigrant fate itself. It will became a second class European citizen. The E.U. is the dominant economic and political force in Europe and second to the US worldwide. Great Britain can leave as much and far as it wants, it still will be subject to basic economic and geopolitical forces. It will need to obey the rules of the E.U. in order to co-exist but has no vote or influence on any decision. It will see its chances to thrive and prosper greatly diminished. That’s the typical fate of an immigrant. But an immigrant would jump to the chance to become a citizen with all rights and privileges. The U.K. has just done the opposite for the delusional idea of self determination. What goes around, comes around.
10
@Oliver Herfort: Brexit won by a thin majority during an exceptional of influx of migrants to the whole EU. Now that the influx is reduced, or managed, or deterred, or whatever its status is, the pressure is off for Great Britain to split from the EU.
1
It feels as if we British are, for our sins (hubris being one) being condemned at present to live out, as a nation, the script of a Monty Python film.
More seriously, as award-Winning journalist Carole Cadwalladr has been uncovering for some time, dark Russian money and disinformation flowed into the Brexit campaign, just as it did into the Trump campaign.
These national catastrophes are connected, by Putin's purpose to weaken the Western alliances.
Naturally, we must shoulder our share of the blame. Segments of our press have spent the previous decade whipping up fear about immigration.
I too support a second referendum. If we hard Brexit, I fear we will be a United Kingdom no longer. Scotland, which voted solidly to Remain in the EU, will look to its own second referendum on independence from England, and, in the years of economic chaos following such a Brexit, likely achieve it.
What a shameful irony for the Conservative party (supported by Rupert Murdoch's Times newspaper) whose full title is the Conservative and Unionist Party, to have then, through their own bitter and myopic squabbles, have ultimately presided over the demise of Great Britain.
26
@Jenny The press has, since the UK joined the Common Market in the 1970's done NOTHING but malign first the market and then even more so when it became the EU...the press carries a huge burden for influencing the public against the EU. Much more than the whipping up over immigration. Just a word about that.... In a country groaning under the weight of too few services (housing, hospitals, transport, police, schools) and bearing the influx of Labour's 3 M plus immigrants, its no wonder people had had enough.
1
Conservative policies are always destructive as ultimately they are primarily fueled by racism and greed. Conservative policies are the enemies of freedom despite being touted as the opposite. A quick examination of some of the most destructive governments over the past century bears this out. The Nazi party, Stalinism, Maoism etc. were all deeply conservative ideological movements. Not a one of them held a shred of liberalism. It’s time we label conservatism for what it really is.
In Switzerland the land of referenda they do things differently. If the citizenry gives the wrong answer in a referendum (e.g one incompatible with existing legal obligations) the federal council 'slow walks' the result and waits for a new referendum to set things straight. There is no hysteria about the "people have spoken" as if any one poll is set in stone and un-revokable. The Brexiteers are now in full "project fear" mode harping on the immovability of the first referendum. The columnist has it exactly right.
24
Yes but then the Swiss only granted women the vote in 1971! In the 1959 referendum 67% of Swiss men voted no to women voting.... finally granted a mere 78 years after New Zealand, 69 years after Australia, half century after Britain. No we don’t need lessons from Switzerland on democracy or referendum. I trust British good sense over EU dogma.
@Dactta well nobody's perfect.
1
The real problem is that people on both sides in the UK only seem to know what they don't want, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of consensus about what they do want.
4
@DH -- Brexit knows what it wants, and can't figure out how to do it without losing the Irish peace. That is because there is no answer.
@DH: only the Brexiteers don’t know what they want. The remainers are perfectly clear.
There is no do over else what good are referendums?. I predicted long ago the business elites along with the Military Industrial Complex will torpedo this just Brexit and force a back out. It will show that the will of the people doesn't matter thank you Roger Cohen for confirming that. The Theatre gymnastics in Parliament is just a show to appease the public - how many citizens are going to accept it?.
2
@Larry: the Military Industrial Complexes are more likely to be in favor of instability, so they were probably behind the Brexit vote.
What good are referenda? Referenda are good because they can directly express the will of the people. If the people’s will changes, so be it — the people’s will changes.
Parliament is sovereign and referendum has no legal standing in the UK. So agreed, a referendum is literally useless except for propaganda purposes to reel in the ignorant.
1
Sometimes, and especially in turbulent times as these, a new party needs to emerge if only to capture one overarching issue position. With no major British party now espousing “stay” while a large plurality do, this may be that time.
1
Let's not forget that the the most searched for term on Google in Britain during the twenty four hour period following the result of the Brexit vote was
"What is the European Union?"
9
brexit has caused great division and damage to the united kingdom, and chasm between the euro oriented high flyers found in london and the left behinds on the empty high streets in other cities seems irrevocable.
writing as a european citizen, it is my hope that the uk does indeed 'leave' on 29 march - with or without a plan. their staying would continue to expose other european countries to the poisonous hate-filled delusions that will continue to plague that unlucky land for years to come. europe has numerous other problems, and to deal with the empire nostalgia of the british should not be one of them.
4
Brits don't like the EU. They also don't like May's plan.
A new referendum won't shed one photon of light on the question of what plan the Brits do like.
Parliament could vote on a bill to rescind the Article 50 notification this week. Passing it would determine whether a new government comes in to give the country's yackagentsia a couple more years to try to decipher what Brits want. Sinking it would signal that British contempt for the last two years far outweighs their contempt for the EU.
1
Obviously mass migration is politically destabilizing.
The world needs to address and cure the causes of mass migration. Climate change will only intensify the issue.
11
@Steve Bolger Thank you.
When mass migration works - so that the melting pot works, producing a society united and more dynamic than before - that's fine. Much immigration in the US has worked in this way (it helps that the US really is a nation of immigrants).
If immigration - for whatever reason - does not work, in that the communities do not integrate, then the divisions in society can be very hard to heal.
In the UK the majority of people clearly expressed their view, over decades, that the rate of immigration was too high. There has been an irreversible social experiment, for which the people did not sign the consent form. Their views were ignored and dismissed by both political parties. That's the main problem.
2
@ChrisW add to that the crippling weight on public services....and in an era of cuts because the profligate Labour party squandered every penny, buying voters with cushy public sector jobs, and unlimited immigration.
@Steve Bolger Mass migration is not destabilizing. Fear mongering is.
At the very least why not have a vote to decide if there should be a second referendum? The issue is disputed now that the British people have a much clearer view of what Brexit really entails, why not put it to the people whether they would like a second referendum on leaving or staying?
2
May did her job and did it well. She was well focused on her mission - something few people can do. Independent of her feelings she followed the will of the people. DJM
2
@DJM-Consultant Not so. One might have had more sympathy for May in light of the hysteria and fractiousness of the Conservatives had she not shamelessly played up them. "No deal is better than a bad deal." "Brexit means Brexit". And her self -imposed red lines against a free market and customs union,, all have come home to haunt her and hurt the UK.
2
@T.R.Devlin
Then focus on the PROBLEMS, not the messenger. Solve the problems collaboratively; BREXIT is NOT a solution as it has no real effective method or basis as May found out. DJM
@DJM-Consultant she made no effort to truly get a deal, and is only hoping to scare the people into a second vote and a mandate to stay. It is a fraud and a circus. A deal would be done in a week, if a no deal Brexit were to happen.
What if was the other way around?
The British people had voted to Remain but opponents in the parliament were attempting to thwart their will and Brexit?
5
We've literally already seen it, and Cameron botched it. What's your point?
1
Once the opportunistic demagogues (e.g., Boris Johnson) have been exposed for the frauds they were all along, once the bad outside actors who desire a hobbled West (e.g., Vladimir Putin) have been identified, and once the true consequences of Brexit are known, hold a second, and legitimate, vote. Devoid of the rainbows-and-unicorns badinage of Johnson and his ilk, the choice becomes clearer, the consequences starker. And the notion that democracy cannot possibly survive a revote is risible and certainly doesn’t suggest the durability of democracy in the UK. In the US, the people can call for a revote on an unpopular outcome (euphemistically called “recall elections”). The only difference is that the British people would be attempting to undo the damage before it occurs, a profoundly wise effort for which future generations would be eternally grateful.
11
@Tom Heintjes Britain could lose Northern Ireland because of Brexit.
A second referendum appears difficult for a couple of reasons. First, what should be the referendum options? More than two options would most likely result in the winning option get less than 50% support. The two options Remain-Brexit would not do the trick because the key issue is "What kind of Brexit?". Thus, in my opinion, the way out should a government of national unity with Tories, Labours, SNP, and other parties. Furthermore, such a government should not devote itself to Brexit only but to re-building a fair welfare state. In a word, the National Health System is as important as fixing Brexit for overcoming the social and political divisions that are slowly destroying the fabric of society in the UK.
1
@FFFF: Only one main issue drove Brexit, the same issue that spat up Trump, and created the present political impasse in the US: migration control.
Ask for the impossible in order to get nothing. Tried and true subversion!
The UK didn't vote for this mess called Brexit. Now that reality has peeled away the pre-referendum propaganda based veneer to show the true costs and consequences of a withdrawal from the EU, a re-vote by an informed electorate is required.
6
@T Mo - 51.8 of the voters voted for Leave.
According to YouGov data as recently as a few days ago, support for Leave vs Remain is effectively the same as 2 years ago. YouGov has conducted continuous polling for the last 2 years and it hasn't changed.
The original Leave result, apx. 52/48, was close and could have gone either way depending on extraneous circumstances affecting voter turnout. The same holds true today. Brits are split right down the middle on this question.
Article from a few days ago:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/01/14/mps-prepare-brexit-vote-where-do-britons-stand
Older article with a clear graph. Recent results continue the flat trend line of this graph:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/29/where-britain-stands-brexit-one-year-out
Referendum questions need to be made more clear. In this instance one could imagine 3 questions, clearly formulated by parliament, such as 1/ Remain, 2/ currently negotiated deal, 3/ total Brexit with return to WTO trading rules and closing of borders. Perhaps voting 2 should be made to specify a run-off choice of 1/ or 3/ if 2/ loses.
1
@Bluestar - Advocates of another referendum often skirt over which question to ask (as did Mr. Cohen). Their purpose is to frame a referendum question that is tilted towards their desired outcome ... NOT the way democracy and referendums work.
The more thoughtful ones propose something like your suggestion, either a 3 question ballot, or a 3 question and 2 stage vote.
1. 3 questions, with voters ranking their choices.
a. Remain
b. Leave with negotiated deal
c. Hard Leave
OR
Referendum 1: Leave or Remain?
Referendum 2 (if #1 is for Leave): Negotiated or Hard Leave?
The problem is, the first stage has already been done and the vote was for Leave. Now the only question is HOW to leave.
The only basis for nullifying the results of the first election is to claim it was an illegitimate vote, corrupted in some way (Putin? hacking?). Without indisputable proof of foreign interference strong enough to change the vote, or hacking, there is no basis for nullification. Lies by British politicians don't count or every election of modern times would be invalid.
The only legitimate path forward that I can see is to COMPLETE the Brexit process and live with the results for a while. THEN, after some time has passed, raise the question of re-joining the EU.
@Jencks: Not all those who voted for Brexit may be in favor of a Hard Brexit. All choices should be available for those who wanted a soft Brexit first and “no Brexit” second.
In any case, opinions have shifted, and the next moves should reflect that.
Finally, don’t forget those campaigners for Brexit who vowed to fight on if they lost. It is time for them to wake up and smell the coffee ... and stop whinging.
@BluestarRight, not complicated enough already...
As a young mid-20s german i grew up only knowing the great benefits of Europes open borders and single currency market.
The EU was and is one of the greatest ideas of the 20th century, but i believe it lost it‘s track from ideological idea to a market orientated organisation taking blows to the idea of founding a trans-national union of like-minded countries and cultures with the addition of too many former UDSSR members and some serious rework of the fundamental principals is needed.
Despite that, i believe for all members the benefits of the EU outweight the negatives by far and i never understood the reasoning of the Brits for voting like that. Yet the vote is casted and while my country is a prime example of how mistakes can be rewritten in a democracy i doubt it would be good for anyone to have a second referrendum.
The EU is not a playground for hissifits. Either you are IN and support the idea (looking at you Poland) or you are OUT.
4
@Toykio - I am encouraged to read your comment. I, too, believe the EU is a great idea and has led to unprecedented peace and prosperity. But in the last 10-15 years it has been usurped by Big Money corporate power. I point to the actions of Monsanto/Bayer and their lobbying influence as an example.
I welcomed Brexit because I thought the shock of the vote would wake up the EU leadership, including the heads of state of certain countries, to the danger they were creating by ignoring the concerns of common people.
Unfortunately even the Brexit vote has failed to do that and the EU leaders instead have decided to make the process as painful as possible for the UK, in order to discourage other EU countries from taking a similar step. Instead of reforming their governing structure and policies to acknowledge the discontent of European citizens, they are using threats to try to keep them in line.
I live in France now. Most of the French people I know are moving away from support for the EU because they feel it does not have their interests at heart.
This will not end well.
2
Seems to be a bit of sophistry in the assertion that the UK controversy over immigration is not an EU problem. Perhaps not an EU problem in the sense that the EU claims that internal movement within the Union is not immigration, at least since Schengen. But if you're a Brit and suddenly the language and culture of those around you has changed, there is clearly immigration. As to the $50 billion fare to depart, in an era when B2 bombers cost around a billion dollars each, that's not such a big a number. Less than half what MacKenzie Bezos is going to walk away with.
1
Brexit was the biggest vote in British history, yet, the pols refused to follow through on liberty. They choose tyranny instead.
Great Britain had a chance to be a powerful country again. Their pols failed them. The people deserve to know what freedom looks like once again.
5
@Cjmesq0
RE: Great Britain had a chance to be a powerful country again.
How is that supposed to work? London is one of the capitals of the world, or was before Brexit. This very paper had an article about London as "The Capital of the World" in 2017. It seems that they already were doing well. I don't know how being smaller and weaker will change that. Britain became wealthy and powerful because of overseas colonies. The same option is not available today. And today they have to compete with behemoths like us, Russia, and China--the latter two intent on bullying everyone else. I don't know how "going it alone" is supposed to work in today's world.
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/11/world/europe/uk-london-brexit.html
5
@Cjmesq0: these things are always difficult, but it seems clear that there were a number of factors that skewed the vote, so a second one would be appropriate:
1. Lack of a clear mandate for any specific exit option (hard or soft etc)
2. Lack of clear information about consequences of different exit options (should have been costed by government), including patent lies by Brexit proponents and warnings by Remain campaigners that were not easily evaluated.
3. Russian interference
4. Lack of consideration of youth vote
5. Exclusion of many Britons living abroad.
It should be noted that proponents of Brexit stated that they would not accept a “Remain” vote, but would continue campaigning. They cannot now turn round and say that this one vote is binding for all time just because it went their way... What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander...
@Cjmesq0
London does not equal Great Britain.
The City of London has done great all along, the financial sector. But the rest of England is suffering horribly and doing worse. No way they will be a world player like they once were, those days are over.
Imperial nostalgia is the stuff of fascism.
1
What I find particularly grotesque about both Brexit and the election of Donald Trump is that the class politics that left people behind, undercut their education, and discouraged their political participation for decades, was sponsored by the very flunkies that #peoplesvote and impeachment now have to save if either state has a chance.
That is, we now have to go in and clean up another mess of anti-government class warriors (Brexit anti-EU has echoes of, and is a nationalist cousin to Thatcher/Reagan 'government is the problem' ....)
But really, probably the main problem is that those on the center and the left who rightfully bemoan the inmates that have taken over the asylum, are not really active citizens for the most part.
Sure they vote , perhaps not even this in the US case. But do they participate in a culture of political engagement? Offline, in reality? Do political issues and the sense of having a civic life in common with others, some who they simply tolerate, suffuse their daily life? This is what democracy requires, a constant need.
Why?
Because the minimalist theory of democracy suggests a technocratic elite can manage a state and it's best to leave politics to a few. But elites fail. When they fail the worst aspects of human nature are available among the many for manipulation.
Right-wing populism has an easy path where the many are marginalized from politics as in EU technocracy and in the capture of representatives by capital interests as in US.
9
@Brendan - The technocratic bent and trend of the EU leadership and governing structure absolutely must change if the EU is to survive. I had hoped the Brexit results would wake up Europe's leaders to that reality. But it does not seem to have made a bit of difference.
1
I hope that people in Britain get a second chance -- another referendum. The vote in 2016 was not an informed choice -- people were given slogans and hype, without a clear explanation for all that quitting the EU would entail. Now it's clear.
I wonder if people in general -- in the US as well as in Britain -- have less appreciation for what a contract - or a treaty - means.
Trump has broken/is breaking agreements he has no right to break, and the Brexit fantasy seems to involve the idea that Britain is entitled to a "better deal" than the one they agreed to.
17
It is characteristic of the Right to demand all of the bennies, and accept precisely zero of the responsibilities.
1
England does not have the resources to support a go-it-alone strategy with the rest of the world. It has chosen to isolate itself from the largest markets in the world, the US and EU, and cannot possibly compete with China for position as it tries to reenter. Its people rely on imports for food, and its energy sector (BP) is already carving out its own survival strategy. Its formidable financial services sector will be isolated. The last remaining vestige of its former empire, Northern Ireland, relies on free trade and movement of people with is larger neighbor, Ireland--both of which end on 3/29 without any agreement.
Expect a sinking pound and great deals on year round vacation travel to London.
16
Good advice. Better than my advice which was just to push the British Isles 100 miles west in the Atlantic. What might bring Leave around is a hard look at immigration. Is the UK taking in more than what might be considered their fair share of low income immigrants from, or through, the EU? Immigration from Africa and the Mideast seems to be a political problem for all of Europe. The EU and UK need to look at this together and establish what is fair for both external immigration and immigration within the EU in a 10 year plan that they can both accept. Don't cave to the extremists, but show that negotiations, diplomacy, takes into consideration that which all the parties consider to be fair. At worst the fantasy that Brexit was based on considers some people to be bad, or others. Make the point that this is not true, but recognize there is a strong feeling of cultural identity among many of the EU's populations, including Britain.
Solve the larger problem for all parties and other problems will seem minor, i.e. handled easily in a spirit of cooperation. The reality is, is that was why the EU was set up. Everyone has prospered and been at peace, and it would be foolish to throw this away over immigration or temporary economic problems that can be solved through cooperation.
It might be wise to explore how more democracy, people's involvement, within the EU might give its citizens more of a sense of belonging, i.e. with more of a say, or input, on the big issues.
3
@loveman0
The people have spoken. They voted for Brexit. Period. I can’t imagine the mayhem and revolt if it’s not implemented. All these fine journalists pushing for a second referendum will now have to declare themselves against democracy. Their role is not to push for a second referendum, or a third, etc., until they get the results they want.
2
@Danielle: unlike you, I *can* imagine the chaos that would be caused by Brexit, and I think the U.K. would be better off remaining. The leave vote was borderline and younger people would like to remain. Since they are the ones that will be stuck with it (and are most likely to cause chaos!) the U.K. would be better off voting again, just like the other countries mentioned. Leave campaigners had vowed not to give up if they had lost, so they have no grounds to resist a new vote.
2
That vote scraped through, and did so on the basis of a pack of flagrant lies. And things have changed.
Thanks for the usual threats, though.
As someone who would lose a great deal if Brexit should actually happen - my pension is denominated in the sinking pound, and I stand to lose my health coverage - I'd like to thank all those Americans commenting here in favour the UK remaining in the EU.
p.
23
A common argument from the "leave" side seems to be about the oppression of the EU--imagine belonging to a union, they say, that dictates laws to you and takes money from you. Well, as an American, I don't need to imagine. The United States is a union of sovereign states that have all agreed to be bound by a federal government whose laws they obey and whose taxes they pay. The result of this union? Longstanding security, civil rights, and astounding prosperity. (We are, in fact, the richest nation in history.) Those who argue the oppression, in principle, of belonging to a union overlook the extraordinary benefits of membership--benefits our Founding Fathers were brilliant enough to foresee.
I hope the UK holds a second referendum and the British people put their country back on a path of prosperity again.
19
@g
In the United States citizens vote for their president and their representatives in Congress. In the European Union the Brussels bureaucrats are unelected and rule from on high in a top-down fashion that is thoroughly undemocratic.
6
@richard.sypher In the past 11 years the US has had 2 Presidents not elected by the people but appointed by the electoral college and a political party who has lost the popular vote by millions yet still controlled Congress until 3 months ago because of gerrymandering. We are at no advantage.
13
@richard.sypher Not quite sure the US is well-placed in lecturing the EU on Democracy. How representative is Mitch McConnell, who is now refusing to hold a Senate vote that could well end the shutdown?
17
Electorates do make mistakes. This was certainly the case in England. Do another Brexit vote. Set the bar higher - must pass with 2/3 majority to be valid
13
Fascinating that no one here raises the obvious question, what if the do-over vote wound up same as the first?
What, no way that could happen?
No way someone like Trump could actually win the election, of course.
Hillary’s a shoo-in, right?
7
@FB
Definitely a possibility. But not a relevant example because Trump and Hilary were not a 'do-over' , they were a one-shot, first-time competition. Brexit is not.
Also, Britain doesn't have the same machinery trying to disenfranchise voters. Something that contributed to Trump's victory, and part of the broadened Southern strategy of the Republicans for decades.
Brexit did have a huge campaign of disinformation and falsehoods about the EU, rooted in xenophobia and nationalism. I don't think that would play well again, given how obviously without a clue the 'Leave' campaign has been, and all the falsehoods that came to light . 350m pounds a week for the NHS, etc.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check/2016/may/23/does-the-eu-really-cost-the-uk-350m-a-week
Also, look at the blue wave in the house, the disapproval ratings of Trump. The electoral college may yet come through for Trump. But a majority voted for Hilary.
My guess is remain would win given how out to lunch and incompetent the conservatives were in general and the overestimation of the UK's importance in the global economy, which is really limited to the financial sector in the City of London. There attempt to 'bargain' with the EU was painfully laughable.
Imperial nostalgia is a deadly disease.
@FB: you may be right, but there is still a decision to be made to decide between “hard” and “soft” Brexit. Time for another vote anyway... otherwise there is no way forward anyway.
Unlike the die hard core of Trumpers here is the US, most of the people who were duped by the Russians and the radicals in the UK have seen the error of their ways. Resistance to a second referendum is strong among Tories for the same reason support of Trump is strong among Senate Republicans - doing the right thing will destroy their party.
The only thing keeping them in power today is a widespread fear that Corbyn would be worse.
16
Imagine accepting a plead deal from a judge, delay your report to jail date, then ask for a new trial a day before incarceration. It may have sounded better before, but now you have changed your mind facing the completion of the deal. Same as changing your mind to sell your house after accepting a legal, binding agreement. Do overs on elections should be viewed the same way. Actions have legal consequences, as do elections. If the ballot issue was legal, it should be binding. If people want to change The Brexit referendum, I am sure legal remedies exist. People asking for a do over doesn’t sound like a legal reason.
4
@Jay
In your first example, what if new evidence came to light? Wouldn't that justify an appeal?
In the first referendum, the British people were woefully uninformed, not all "evidence" was on the table.
Every election day is a chance for citizens to change their mind, and reverse course, having learned from experience.
A second referendum would in fact be more democratic in my view, so the public can make a properly informed decision.
9
@Jay: it should not simply be a “do-over” - if “leave” wins, the UK still needs to decide what kind of Brexit - “hard” or “soft”. The need for a new referendum is clear.
@Jay It was an advisory referendum in the first place.
It's a shame that Corbyn never really backed staying in the EU. His statements that he could get a better deal from the EU are as delusional as May's claims last fall that she could win further concessions. The options on the Brexit table are as follows: no deal (catastrophe), Norway plus (Tory Brexiteers don't want that), or Canada. Corbyn has been aiming all along to get himself into 10 Downing Street, instead of addressing the real problem. He should have taken a strong Remain stance. The spectacle of May and Corbyn at each other's throats instead of thinking what's best for their country is quite sad.
BTW - It took Norway 20 years to negotiate all the trade agreements it needed to with the EU.
9
" ... after a crash course in the facts of what membership brings for Britain..." the primary unfortunate fact, as your own link, Roger, suggests is that the country would still be divided. If a 48/52 split to leave in the first referendum is questionable, so too a 52/48 split in favor of remaining on a second ballot is equally questionable. Personally I am 100% in favor of Remain, but I see that "a crash course in facts" has not budged the opinions of the Little Englanders who are looking forward to all the fun of the 1950s. Forget salad greens from Holland and Spain -- Davis has fixed up a great trade deal with Belarus to import tinned cabbage salad.
5
BRAVO !!
Britain should go to the EU and get the March 29 deadline extended, in order to give Britain decent time to organize and implement a new referendum, so as to prove to themselves that staying in the EU is really what the British people want.
And, yes, the difficult problems that motivated the Leave campaign can be addressed! Those problems pale compared to the problems that Britain would create for itself by leaving the EU.
Also, the greatness of the EU owes a lot to the major part of itself that is Britain. No wonder the EU has been stubborn: No body wants to be pulled apart. The EU needs Britain, and Britain's leadership in the world needs the EU.
10
The political 10th house, the state, including that famous address of #10 (no coincidence) Downing St. is wavering in the midst of its current test of time. The old ways of government have run out of time, everywhere. The world is in a wake up full of changes that in this year will begin to take form. Our next exit will be from the political theatre that has been put in place of our governments by the special interests.
4
Very much agree with the article, it may bo too optimistic. One may admire May's persistence, in my view it is stubbornness to hang on to a position she is just not qualified for. Unfortunately Corbyn is equally unfit . What it would require are statesmen who have the well being of the country in mind and engage with the people and across parliament to find the best solution for the future of the UK. With the incompetence and partisanship ( not unlike in the US) the worst option of a hard Brexit just may happen.
3
A man I liked, so friended on Facebook, is now sharing memes saying things like "Leave means leave: No deal, No problem". That it is divorced from reality does not mean it will not happen.
4
Not only people change their minds and survive but also people often have to change their minds to survive. What Brexit demonstrates is the complete lack of sense and of future of the narrow minded nationalism that has infected democracies. Brexit is the best possible boost to the European project, a project rooted at overcoming national differences for building a durable peace on a continent that had been affected by recurrent wars (including two world wars)and aiming at the welfare of all - not only the wealthy.
18
@FFFF How is Brexit a "boost" to the "European project"? On the contrary, it is a bane.
I admire Theresa May. She does have a moral spine. I am a strong remainer, and moreover a leftist, and French, but I would have backed her in the Commons. Democracy had spoken and should be respected and democracy is a also the right to make mistakes. The Brexit should be implemented, even if, but later, the British People decides to join again the Union. If it is not implemented, it will be indeed a breach of trust. Most of the commentaries here are in favor of a second referendum and point to the lies of the Brexiters. There were lies on the other side also — the immediate economic mealtdown for instance. How do you know there will be no lies during a second referundum? And why not a third? Now that her plan is dead in the Commons, the only way out would not be a referendum Brexit/remain, but a referendum on May's deal, because it implements, in its very imperfect way, a promise to the People. Only then, if the People votes no, would it be possible to have another referendum on Brexit itself. The People has spoken, its will is respected by the deal (although the lies of the Brexiters are not) it is up to the People to decide.
9
@Academic "Democracy" has not spoken: something like 700,000 British citizens resident in the EU were denied a vote in the referendum. It seems most likely that had ALL the British affected by Brexit been able to vote, those people would have made a significant difference.
Brexit is a historic mistake, and its promoters lied thoroughly and now those errors are coming into the open. No. The referendum should let us undo this error, not just consider Mrs. May's mess.
8
@ James Wilson It is beyond outrageous that Brits living in the UK could not vote in the referendum.
Thank you Roger - I fully agree that a new referendum is the only way out of the Brexit swamp. But you play down immigration by listing it with lack of investment etc and saying "none of these problematic issues were caused by the European Union".
EU rules allowing freedom of movement are at the heart of this mire. Many in Britain feel their livelihoods are under threat because citizens from all EU member states - including Eastern European nations such as Poland, Bulgaria or Romania - have the right to work anywhere in the EU and many are willing to work for less than the locals in Britain.
Add a dose of xenophobia and, hey presto, it's a perfect recipe for Brexit.
11
@John Herring Non-EU immigration has been higher than EU immigration for decades. Hard to blame that on the EU.
Every Brexiteer knew we would eventually end up here but they went ahead with it anyway. When they got the result they wanted they had no idea how to make it work.
9
@ John Herring EU nationals do much of the work that Brits no longer wish to do (fruit picking, construction). They are also heavily represented in the ranks of the NHS. With Brexit, the new 'skilled visa' plan with its minimum threshold of 30 000 BPS means that the only route for unskilled labour (as the demand for it will not decrease) will be people trafficking from developing nations. I think this is what Tory hard Brexiteers wanted all along - to replace legal EU workers with a new slave class. They will still need people to clean their mansions, mow their lawns, and fix their toilets. Who do you think is going to do it? I am convinced that the hard Brexiteers want to create an environment similar to the US, where harsh immigration policies and reluctance of the native-born to do tasks of hard manual labour means that an entire population of labourers will be forced into semilegality and living in the shadows.
3
Amen. AND include 16- and 17-year-olds in the vote. AND us EU residents, who are allowed to vote in every single election except parliamentary ones. AND require the outcome to be a supermajority: a minimum of 60% to 40%.
This would REALLY make a second vote the will of the people, not the 17.3 million minority who have hijacked the country in a referendum that was never legally binding.
21
Simple! Britain just grants Northern Ireland independence, just like Britain gave India and Hong Kong their independence. Border problem solved, and EU trade to-from Britain is just like any other non-EU trade , with lots of inspections/taxes/tariffs and delays.
While their at it, give Scotland independence so the Scots can stay in the EU.
9
@Greg Gilliom The Unionists would never have it.
Scotland...I'm there & I'm not convinced everyone is ready to go there just yet.
As a brit 'immigrant' living in the EU and a remain voter I completely agree - I really do not understand why a second vote is not given more emphasis. The argument that it damages trust in democracy is farcical. The original vote in 2016 asked a simple question with no plan and no known outcome. Over 2 years later we now know what it means to leave the EU. We also know that a huge amount of impossible promises (Easy trade deals, not owing the EU anything) outright lies (£350 million a week to the NHS, which was debunked during the campaign but still allowed to be used to manipulate the electorate) and even rascist propaganda (remember the certainty that Turkey would start their ascension into the EU and so we would have 80million Turks suddenly knocking on our door - ridiculous on so many levels) were made during the build up to the referendum. There is also strong evidence that Russia purposely manipulated the electorate as has been shown during the Trump election. All of this alone should at best cause the result to be null and void and at the very least give grounds for a new vote.
80
@Henry W
I want to add that as a British citizen who has lived in the EU beyond the 5-year mark, I was appalled not to be allowed to vote in the referendum. I understand this restriction for domestic elections, but for a referendum that so affected my life and that of my ex-pat compatriots, we absolutely should have been included as voters.
11
David Cameron and the Conservative Party are responsible for the rolling Brexit shambles. Surely any major change to the status quo, should have demanded a minimum support of at least 60%.
If I want to change the rules of the social clubs I belong to, the minimum threshold required is either 60% or 75%. The Brexit vote was a 51.9% to leave and a 48.9% to remain. Hardly an overwhelming response to change the status quo.
Those who pushed Brexit blamed all the ills facing Britain on being in the EU. Leaving the EU will still leave the same unresolved issues, without the EU scapegoat fall back position.
Another vote on Brexit would confirm the 2016 vote, or stop a Brexit that will make Britain poorer, and start the dissolution of the UK.
A common theme in Brexit and the election of Trump, was the free propaganda of Rupert Murdoch, who was pro Brexit and pro Trump. How has that worked out for Britons and Americans?
48
What about the rest of the EU, do we want the UK to be part? Brexit is good riddance and the rest if the EU can work on strengthening itself without the British obstruction.
11
No, Mr Cohen, I disagree. I want them out, now.
Where I agree is that in a democracy minds can change. I also believe that in a democracy it should be allowed to make wrong decisions; therefore I would not be against to let Britain reapply after 10 years earliest; of course under the same conditions than any other country interested in joining the EU.
8
@Marie
I am sorry to hear that - as a UK citizen who has lived in other EU countries and has family there I want to remain a part of the EU. It is unfortunate that people in my position are being made to suffer, and those who truly want to remain in the EU. Britain has been a vital part of Europe we respect it and have come to its aid in the past. Now we need Europe to help us - keep extending the hand of kindness and perhaps we can right our own ship in time.
5
@Marie
You ignore the Russian efforts at subverting the EU through their support for Brexit and other nationalistic parties throughout Europe. A weak Europe makes Mr. Putin happy; and everything that sows discord between its members makes him smile. Breixt is a historic mistake for Britain, and it hurts the EU too.
@Nora,
The saddest thing is, that Brits living abroad were not allowed to vote on an issue that concerns them. My English neighbor is taking Luxembourgish language classes and will apply for Luxembourg citizenship.
A second referendum is definitely in order. Not only did Russia use social media to covertly promote Brexit, but Russian officials also met secretly multiple times with Arron Banks, the billionaire British businessman who funded the Brexit campaign with the largest political donation in British history! Leaked documents revealed that the Russians discussed letting Banks in on a gold-mining deal that promised several billion dollars in easy profit, if Banks (whose wife is Russian) would support Brexit. Brexit was also backed by Cambridge Analytica.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/19/630443485/reporter-shows-the-links-betwee...
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusio...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/russian-influence-brexit-v...
74
A second referendum cannot and will not be held. Also the statute for Article 50 comes into force 29 March deal or no deal.
No deal simply means going to WTO rules. Hardly the end of the world. People voted to leave the EU not do some sort of deal that keeps them tied into the EU.
8
@Mr Chang Shih An
Sure it can, and should. A narrow majority voted to leave the EU based on false promises with no plan to make them reality. Now that the real possible outcomes are clear, and many of the earlier Brexit lies have been exposed, the British have a chance to think again.
16
Well, then, let’s apply the same to your own little reunification issue, and wish you the best of British luck with that.
Surely a new referendum is prudent. If people previously voted based on fabricated information, then this result is not a surprise. Have a reality based referendum.
31
@EC
Prudence has been replaced by fake nostalgica promoted by right wing media.
It's so simple, so very simple, that no political body could possibly admit it's the right thing to do.
They'd rather their economy self-destruct, so they can all be victims and blame somebody.
If they need an excuse, the broad evidence of corruption should be enough, along with the lies.
Rees Mogg is really creepy in my opinion. There are lots of other perps - Cameron and his upper-class twit stupidity, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, Arron Banks, the Kochtopus, and trolling from abroad, just like everywhere else. Those guys are really special.
Thirty pieces of silver, anybody?
27
@Susan Anderson I'm not surprised that there seems to be a clear correlation between the aformentioned Brexiteers and a visceral sense of deep unpleasantness. Lying, 'fogeyness' and backstabbing all appear to be inherent qualities in these odd litlte humans. What happened to them when they were children, god only knows but it couldn't have been pretty.
1
Yes, another vote on Brexit is not ideal, but there is no reason there cannot be second chances in a Democracy. The US should have used its second chance and impeached Trump, but instead it muddles along in self-destruct mode.
26
@Anthony
The US DOES give a second chance, in fact, even more, a third chance, and a fourth chance as well, every four years. The US is flexible, and can change directions. But like a huge tanker or container ship, you have to give the full process time and space. This process takes many years.
The EU populations should also have that second chance, to revote every four years on whether they want to stay in the EU. It'd be very curious indeed so see what the ordinary French people, or the ordinary German people, would vote for. And not just living and acting as the pawns of elite politicians who play the anti-national game only to further their personal cocooned lives in magnificent buildings with generous salaries, and have not much sympathy for the daily plight of the workers on the ground.
2
British voters made a major mistake. Now, if they want, they have the option of simply changing their minds. Here in the USA we made an even worse error, and can only wish that we had such an opportunity to reverse it. Seen from here, there’s nothing debatable about it: vote again, fix the problem, and please be kind about our hopeless envy.
58
@Tim Hunter
@Anthony
The US DOES give a second chance to rectify errors, in fact, even more, a third chance, and a fourth chance as well, every four years. The US is flexible, its whole history proves it. The country can change directions. But like a huge tanker or container ship, you have to give the full process time and space. This process takes many years. It took the US three full years to decide entering WWI. And another 2 years before responding to the threats of WWII.
Voters in the US have in fact a huge opportunity looming for reversing the mistake of 2016. The people will vote again, and very soon, as soon as next year. This is precisely what is at stake now in the Washington squablles. Both Democrats and Republicans are in fact already acting as part of their campaigning for the vote of 2020, and the desired refreshed expression of minds.
3
If you ask someone who voted for Brexit these two questions they inevitably cannot give you sensible honest answers :-
1. How did being in the EU negatively affect you today ?
2. How will Brexit improve your life tomorrow ?
Better to be inside the tent arguing than outside begging to get in.
27
@Andy Morrissey
better for the uk perhaps. not better for the other people in the tent though...nobody seems to be thinking of them!
@cossak I disagree with you there mate. Most members states want UK to remain ( if not all). Look at voting patterns in EU parliament to see who and how many times others have voted with UK. You'll be surprised how often the UK agrees with others and how often disparate countries agree with the UK . BREXIT affects ALL member states within the EU not just UK.
it's important to recognize that Brexit and Trump are products of the conservative turn both countries took in the 1980s. Reagan and Thatcher unleashed a conservative reaction to the post-war order, damning its progressive taxation and government safety nets. They adhered to free trade and continued immigration, because they listened to the high priests of post-war conservatives, economists. But ordinary conservatives admire traditions, and economists aren't part of them.
Conservativism values the past, including religion and family habits. It assumes there's something of value in it, regardless of flaws. Those who voted for Trump or Brexit are conservatives afraid of losing national character.
If tabloids excoriate Europe in Britain, media in the U.S. has ripped liberal identity to shreds. It's not surprising so many support Trump, when you realize what they hear about liberals.
Globalization is a liberal phenomena. Some Democrats oppose free trade, but it's basic liberal policy. It isn't a basic conservative one.
Liberals want free trade with good rules. They want legal immigration to increase, which will decrease undocumented immigrants. Liberals favor interaction, favor universal voting, want to limit government interference. It's time the British people, and us, start considering what liberalism really means.
Because we're seeing what conservationism really means right now.
12
Sigh.
Globalization is “liberal,” only in the sense that capitalism inherently expands in a liberal fashion.
The real diff between liberal and conservative, here, has to do with different attitudes towards regulating what capitalism does; conservatives want nations to stay as they were without regulation, libs want nations to change in intelligent ways with regulation. They agree on the capitalism part.
7
@Brian
Liberals also value cooperation. Conservatives value conflict.
@Brian “Conservatism” has always supported free movement of capital, which is why your iPhone is made in China. Free movement of labor is limited to maids and farm workers, but it’s always less than complete freedom, so that disobedient workers can be threatened with deportation. It’s the rich man’s version of globalization, and highly attractive if you’re a rich man with a good set of blinkers.
Liberalism, for what it’s worth, strives for a greater coherence of thought. Why, after all, should the people who make the beds in hotel rooms have fewer rights than the people who sleep in them? It might not always have the best answers, but at least it has the courage to ask the questions, and this in the long run brings greater happiness than simply averting one’s eyes.
At the end of World War II, the British PM Winston Churchill thought about unifying Britains and Americans, by giving the citizens of both countries a passport under the same flag. Could that be the solution? To make the UK the 51st U.S. State?
It would make the US-UK for years to come the strongest nation on earth. But I have no idea if there could be found a majority for this old but still audacious proposal on both sides of the ocean….
@robert
if i could give the U.S a piece of advice, it would be: don‘t do it!
The Brits are permanent complainers and the U.S. has more than enough to do, mangaging its 50 states. No toublemaker needed.
3
@robert
Now that is an interesting idea. One could turn Scotland into one big golf course; with plenty of accomodation for the minimum wage legal immigrants living around Glasgow, with buses to take transport the workers and direct fights from Moscow for the favoured guests But wait a minute , didn't the Americans fight a war to gain independence from Westminster? Do they really want to take on another failing democracy to join their own. Strongest nation..............
2
@robert
During all my years in Manhattan, my own proposal was to make Denmark/Norway the 51st state of the Union. Hard workers, conscientious citizens, full of the joy of life and fitness,great healthy food, marvelous sailors, beautiful women, a dream state.
The trouble is most ordinary Americans don't know much about Danes and Norwegians. They know more about Sweden, Volvos and IKEA.
I never found a follower for my proposal. And that was before those Scandinavian countries became flooded with immigrants from Europe and the rest of the world, fragilizing a delicate culture.
1
I'd love a second vote, but it won't happen because it would require primary legislation to enable.
There is no majority in the commons for that (unless it becomes labour policy; unlikely as Corbyn is a leaver)
3
@Steve Tittensor
I believe it will have to happen. The how remains unclear.
That the British Parliament had the chutzpah to overwhelmingly reject Conservative PM May's Brexit plan is startling enough.
The results say sober observers would have devastated the British economy and weekend the nation inexorably. Brexit would have installed a virtual, political wall in the English Channel that would have isolated Britain from the rest of Europe and the world.
Walls in the 21st century, whether concrete, steel or virtual, do not add to a nation's security. They restrict it.
14
Redo the referendum. "Remain" wins. There is no Brexit after all. Push reform within the E.U. on internal immigration rules. Pass new rules to slow external in-migration from countries outside the E.U. Thereby preserve national identity, articulated as a primary British national priority. Finally, reviewing history from the Napoleonic wars through the two 20th century wars and to NATO, embrace the obvious national security (and prosperity) need for Britain to be inside the E.U. and not outside it. And, incidentally, work within the E.U. as a major player to encourage all other E.U. member countries to stay in the E.U. as well.
23
@C.L.S.
The UK always had control over immigration from outside the EU: people coming from Africa, the Middle East and Asia had no free pass into the country. Despite have complete control over these in-flows the Tories, under Mrs. May as Home Secretary, and all her predecessor could NEVER reduce those numbers to levels they considered agreeable. Yes, people were upset by immigration from WITHIN the EU that was uncontrolled, but there's no evidence that Britain will be any better able to control these flows after Brexit, given its poor showing at controlling non-EU immigration previously.
@C.L.S.
and why exactly is keeping this noxious reluctant (soon to be former member) country in the EU a priority for europeans?
The real question is, “is there time for a second referendum?”
A hastily called referendum now would be a bad idea. Apart from logistics, there is not enough time to explain the problem of Brexit to the British citizens. It will take time especially if one has to explain the integrated supply-chain with European companies and how it will be disrupted.
Let there be a no-deal Brexit! On the morning after Brexit (i.e. 30th March), Britain would have to decide where to have a hard border? Between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland OR between Northern Ireland and British Island? Either way there would be revolt.
In the meantime, supply chain disruptions would make people wonder what went wrong!
At that time, you should have the second referendum.
6
"Britain is a parliamentary democracy. "
Except whenever direct democracy will get us the result we want?
Roger, I would not bring up the second Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon as a shining example. Uncool move, dude.
2
The disease that both the British & Americans have succumbed to is one and the same. It is called "Living in the Past". In Britain, the majority of people who support Brexit do so because they are nostalgic about the good old days of the British Empire "Rule Brirannia, Britannia Rule the waves" and so on. and chhoosing to forget that how they begged the Europeans to let them into the then Common Market. Had they not done that, who knows where Britain would be today. When you dream big and live in its fantasey, things can get pretty ugly. As Mr. Cohen explains, the fantasey of Brexit was sold to the people with lies and falsehoods. It is time that the "Reality" of Brexit be put on vote.
In the United States, it is the nostalgia of the good old days of post-war euphoria. As the only intact country and nation in the World, we controlled the World. Our Industries were working full capacity producing everything that World needed. In the absence of competitors and low cost labor, our industries could afford paying their workers a decent wage and thus the great American Middle Class was created. Unfortunately for us, the rest of the World got going. Low cost labor markets opened in far away lands of China, India, bangladesh, etc and OUR Free Market Capitalistic System was quyick to take advantage of this winfall. The rest is history. e need to move with time and look to the future. But for that to happen we need an informed citizenry and that we do not have, hence Trump disaster!
16
What Theresa May and the other flag-waving populists didn't understand was that the slogan "Brexit means Brexit" meant precisely the opposite, depending on whom you talked to.
The reason the 'remain' vote has increased substantially is because voters have had two years to contemplate the chaos that would ensue from a hard Brexit, while a soft Brexit satisfies hardly anybody, as evidenced by last night's vote.
Yes, the U.K. needs a second referendum, consisting of three choices:
a) Hard Brexit (a leap in the dark)
b) Soft Brexit (as negotiated by Theresa May)
c) Remain
And after having had two years to contemplate, analyse, discuss and debate the consequences, voters would consider the results of the second referendum to be far more legitimate than result of the rushed (and manipulated) original referendum.
26
If the decision was so important it warranted a referendum originally, why would an updated vote now that the choice has become clear be undemocratic (failure to meet the citizens wishes)? It was a relatively close 52% to 48% decision, so it was hardly a mandate. Today's choice is the real choice between soft
May-negotiated Brexit and no Brexit. Not many are really behind a hard Brexit, which would be a disaster.
This may be the most momentous decision for the UK since WWII. The UK got a "special" deal when it joined the EU. It won't be able to get the same deal if it leaves and changes its mind later, so it is extraordinariy important to get the decision right.
A sole, isolated vote to make such a decision with little knowledge of the final dimensions of a Brexit that is predicated on the desires of the people surely should get a second look - especially if it appears the people changed their minds. After all, is the UK a democracy or not?
10
Another vote is obviously the right course. Maybe I've become too pessimistic, but I seriously doubt there will be another vote.
5
Unfortunately, I'll be the same voters.
Immigration is the core issue, and it has not been addressed in the UK, in Europe, or in the USA. The alternatives offered to the populace are: (1) accept millions of immigrants who drastically alter the national character, or (2) limit immigration, even for desperate refugees, as Hungary has done and Trump wants to do. Places like Japan and Russia have restricted immigration throughout modern times.
Mass immigration does change the national character, often for the worse. Unfortunately, anyone opposing mass immigration is accused of racism/nativism. On the other hand, humanitarians who would allow mass immigration are viewed as traitors (Angela Merkel), and their "Open Borders" policies are scoffed at (Nancy Pelosi) as unworkable and unrealistic.
Although some people try to deny it, national character and culture do exist in the form of shared values, language, and traditional norms. Most people are proud of their national character and do not want to see it drastically altered, especially for the worse, and partly out of comfort and familiarity. The French, for example, dislike the Muslim practice of covering women from head to toe.
Unfair taxation and extreme capitalism aggravate the problems. When "economic benefit" flows mostly to the 1%, average Brits pay the price of losing their culture just to make the rich richer. Same is pretty much true here in the USA. No wonder they, and we, are so conflicted.
14
@Unconventional Liberal
"Places like Japan and Russia have restricted immigration throughout modern times." Canada, Australia, China, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Monaco, also have controlled and restricted immigration.
The reality of history is that it takes centuries to build up a culture, with working habits, a flexible language, shared values, communication, including religions and intellectual beliefs. This is a long process of maturation and care, like great wines, or great architecture, or a national highway or ocean ports system. This is a long, patient, controlled and methodic growth and increase.
But the process of destruction, annihilation, corruption and degradation can be much swifter, some catastrophe, wars, invasions, waves of foreign immigration,etc... Whatever the causes, production of a culture and civilization is a long, slow, patient process. Its destruction is a much faster event or process.
The ancient cultures and civilizations of our Western past are good examples: The Persian Empire, the Greek and Roman civilizations, so slow in maturing, disintegrated much more quickly. Same thing happened to the France of the 18th and 19th c., it is happening to Britain right now. In some future it may happen to the US as well. China and Japan are well aware of the risks. So are Canada and Australia. It's too easy in the comments, to build wonderful abstract plans and draw political rules and forget the building and cohering process of time.
3
Please define the “national culture,” of the USA. I just go with “e pluribus unum,” myself.
Of course it's a disaster for Britain. It is also damaging to western democracy. But that's what the low information voters wanted. Good bye Scotland. What about that border in Ireland? That'll be interesting. Why should they vote again? They're getting exactly what they voted for and, unfortunately, so is the rest of the world.
9
So much more of the reality and consequences of Brexit are known now than when the mere concept was proposed and passed.
Give the citizenry the opportunity to voice their opinions, in light of what they've learned.
27
@WAMama
I agree, especially now that probably a quarter million of Brexiteers have since shovelled off their mortal coil and an equal amount of young Remainers are now eligible to vote.
"The bill for the divorce, which Britain agreed to under May’s rejected plan, would be about $50 billion, or about eight of Donald Trump’s walls."
Mr. Cohen, please don't spread Trump's misinformation in your columns. You imply that Trump's wall will cost about $6 billion. However, the money that Trump is requesting is just a downpayment -- something that he never mentions. The total cost of the wall is estimated to be between $25 billion and $50 billion.
39
If the globalists do not like the results of a Democratic referendum, redo the vote until you get the result that you want.
May could not get a good deal because the EU bobby trapped the negotiations, they did not negotiate in good faith. It anything, it just reinforce why the UK needs to leave in the first place. The EU is not good for the UK.
National sovereignty is worth fighting for, and is worth exiting from a non-democratic and bureaucratic union.
All of the hype is Chicken Little and the year 2000.
5
@Philly
Global unity is possibly more worth fighting for, I would suggest.
9
@Jerry S
Yep, more wars are needed to overcome resistance to unity. And don't worry, they are coming. And the next ones will be even far more destructive than WWI and WWII. Then, we'll be all united in our efforts to rebuild a civilization on what is left of the planet.
Somehow, I just know that you cannot name one specific way in which those negotiations were “bobby trapped,” let alone provide any evidence that that was true.
2
Question: Why would the EU accord Britain an extension?
The referendum was held in June 2016. The May government held off tabling article 50 till March 2017 without doing anything useful with that time.
It then started negotiating at a leisurely pace and from a completely faulty premise about its own strength, confident that the EU would be riven by internal differences and, unbelievably, completely unaware of the actual and detailed nature of the ties to the EU. Even basic and routinely collected economic data, such as the volume and the nature of the daily exchange of goods between Britain and the EU, wasn't consulted.
More unbelievably still, it realized suddenly that a departure from the EU would turn the border between Ulster and the Irish Republic into an outside border of the EU. And that this development would, in itself, create a risk of falling back into the bad old days of The Troubles.
As all of this was available information that no-one bothered to look at and as the rhetoric of the brexiteers hasn't abated, it isn't immediately obvious what good an extension would do. Besides, with the EU parliamentary elections scheduled union-wide for 26 May, an extension cannot be more than a few weeks. Unless you contemplate installing a fresh British delegation while art.50 is active???
And a fresh referendum... In the unlikely event that this could even be get approved, what would the question be? The same one as before?
The only outcome will be more strife.
11
Indeed, correct Mr. Cohen.
Elected leaders should prevent the populace from making grave mistakes. The Brexit referendum was, after all, non-binding. Parliament should act as the adults in the room and acknowledge the fact that the razor thin Brexit majority was, indeed, the wrong choice for the UK, the EU, and the global economy.
Further, much time has past since the original referendum, and demographics have shifted. Some of the more pro-Brexit older voters have left the roles, and more anti-Brexit younger folks have joined the roles. If a country is going to be mistakenly run by referendum, at least it should be acting upon current data.
A second referendum would provide cover for all parties, and likely yield a Remain result.
17
Prime Minister May's compromise got just less than 1/3 of vote amongst MPs. So either the Remain or the Leave side of MPs have a large vote than her (maybe both). So a 2nd referendum should be between Remain in EU or Leave with no deal (yet).
Yes, in the 2016 referendum Russia tried to help Leave. However, big Euro business tried to help Remain. The BBC had a constant stream of Euro business bosses saying that Leave would be a disaster. However, by rules setup by the Remainer government at the time, the unlimited Euro business lobbying was legal, and the Remainer BBC was happy to help them for free.
Also, the government massively outspent the Leaver side with Remainer propaganda, such as mailing a Remainer leaflet to every household in the UK. The government did their big spending just before bringing in a rule saying that spending on either side should be monitored and limited.
In a second referendum between Remain and Leave the polls are very balanced. That's why a significant group of Remainer MPs will try to make a second referendum be between Remain and Theresa May's compromise deal, with no option for Leave with no agreement. They call this "taking the option of No Deal off the table". Theresa May may do a deal with the Remainer MPs to limit the second referendum to exclude No Deal, which will infuriate the majority of public who voted to Leave in 2016.
JFK: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable"
7
It's hard not to argue that holding a second Referendum on Brexit would be the best solution to the stalemate now plaguing Britain, and by turns Theresa May. Especially when the once loudmouthed proponents of it -- Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson in particular, have been strangely quiet of late and the difficulties of it leaving the E.U. unscathed have become ever more apparent.
And then there's the fact that many Brits didn't vote one way or the other for it in the first place, and those who did might have changed their mind.
If Britain wants to avoid the same stalemate we currently find ourselves in, they'e do best to let the People decide.
After all, that's what Democracy is all about.
37
"People change their minds and survive."
Government by referendum is a bad idea in general. The first referendum was a bad idea and the second just as bad.
People can indeed change their minds and survive and can do so freely at the ballot box in elections for their representatives who then represent them in the government and governing process. This is how people have a say in the government and this is how a government is a government of the people. A referendum is not the answer or the way.
6
A second referendum seems like the obvious solution.
It should be obvious to all that Britain is better off in the EU than outside of it.
60
@Bill White
but at this point, it isn't better for the EU...
"May’s recognition that a no-deal Brexit would be an economic disaster."
This is only true from the perspective of the oh so broken financial status quo.
1
The real problem is that the referendum was a political ploy to shut up "Make Britain Great Again" members of the Conservative party once and for all. Unfortunately it backfired because David Cameron was out of touch with popular sentiment.
No one had time to understand the issues and many took it as an opportunity to express their general discontent and didn't necessarily understand what the effect of their vote would be.
From a practical point of view the referendum was the equivalent of buying a car you've never even seen a picture of from a used car salesman. The referendum question should have been "Do you want us to investigate leaving the EU and get back to you, so you can vote on the results?". Pretty much the way things appear to be headed now, without all the propaganda and nastiness.
46
@PJ - excellent rewording of the original question. If only...
To make it democratically palatable, the question could be divided into two referenda: first, let the people decide whether to consider a change-of-mind referendum. Should they decide in the affirmative, then hold the change-of-mind referendum, having received the approval of voters to reconsider the question in the first place.
Of course, this would have been much easier had it begun earlier. But we, your neighbors on the other side of the pond, will refrain from throwing stones, as we plainly also live in a giant glass house.
14
Although more time-consuming and expensive, that is the best solution. A second vote now on Brexit is changing the rules in the middle of the game because some people didn't like the initial outcome. There should be a vote on whether to change those unspoken rules and allow a second referendum which, this time, should be binding. Otherwise, no matter what the outcome, the losing side will demand yet another vote. At some point, the decision, right or wrong, has to become final.
2
The right claims direct democracy is mob rule, but the direct democracy Brexit referendum, which Cameron never thought would pass, is the will of the people.
4
A poorly drafted 1st referendum seems to mandates a 2nd referendum, but that ignores the real issue, popular government and representative government cannot coexist. Either the people, via referendums, or parliament are sovereign. The EU is defective and has been taken over by people looking for a new empire. That is why the British people voted to leave. But leave how? May, assuming she survives a no-confidence vote, should immediately move to cancel the Brexit … and start over. No referendum, parliament must decide.
3
Some think there will be chaos and “blood in the streets” if a mistake is corrected. What is the alternative? What if the mistake of Brexit is not corrected? I would predict increasing chaos and blood in the streets. The dire consequences of Brexit are equaled by the dire consequences of not correcting it. Paralysis of government is easily solved by actions to achieve a higher goal.
The same goes for the US. Americans voted for chaos and got it. Our government - specifically Congress - has the power to stabilize the chaotic Executive but the US Senate sits on its hands waiting for orders from the President instead of acting like a part of the coequal Branch of Government in the best interests of The People. They have become paralyzed. They need to achieve higher goals.
11
The exit referendum was NON-BINDING. It has no legal force. Parliament can ignore it if they can cobble together a majority to cancel Brexit. No need for a 2nd referendum except political cover.
107
@Kevin Davis
Alas, almost every MP voted, twice, to endorse the referendum result. The prime minister before the vote, Cameron, also made it clear that government would obey the result. The problem was that no one thought Leave would win. As a result, the question was vague, the implications were not discussed, and the Remain side were complacent. Membership of the EU was not an important issue for voters in 2016, at all, but now it will be a live one for years, whatever happens.
15
The threat of instability to the Good Friday agreement between Britain & Ireland is just not worth anything Brexit promises to deliver. The free movement of people and goods is paramount to the continuation of an imperfect agreement which has never the less given us a generation of what we can recognize as an end to hostilities, considered insurmountable for over a century. Brexit is what people do after a very bad night at the pub, and then cannot undo for the rest of their lives, all over the British isles.
72
@tourmakeady
I am astounded at the people who want either a Hard Brexit or No Deal Brexit – and who are willing to jeopardize the Good Friday agreement to get it. May has stepped up when no one else wanted to and has done her best to thread the needle in this impossible task. People love to say no but possible solutions they don’t have.
Second referendum is obvious to everyone more than 1000 miles away - the UK's myopia on this is astounding. Brits were lied to by the likes of crazy Boris Johnson, and are now being played by May, and plotted against by Corbyn. Do they really want to crawl back into their 1950's "stiff upper lip" security blanket? Now that the issues have been widely aired for 2 years, a fresh vote would be better informed and much more meaningful. Just like a redo on our 2016 presidential election, right?
389
@MCV207
Your last sentence undermines your point. Do you support a redo of the 2016 presidential election? I hope not. Who gets to decide, ad hoc, that the will of the voters should be disregarded? Queen Elizabeth? Shall we keep holding elections until (and only until) her preferred outcome comes to pass? Please don't abandon democracy so easily.
No one mentions this, but I suspect that Brexiteers would boycott a second vote, on the grounds that they had a vote already, thus robbing a so-called "People's Vote" of legitimacy. The only way it could still claim legitimacy is if the number of people voting far exceeded the 17+ million who voted for Brexit in 2016, and I doubt that would happen. Articles like this underestimate the depth of feeling, I fear, and oversimplify the issue.
7
@Julian Not true. There is an abundance of precedent for a people's right to vote on the idea to exit (as has occurred) and then an ultimate agreement on the actual exit. Why would you or anyone subvert democracy unless you have an ulterior motive?
12
@Julian Clearly you are a voice of sobriety. What you posit of a Brexiteers boycott of a second vote may come true.
However, there is nothing sober about the maelstrom roiling in the Parliament and demonstrations in the street with no solution in sight and the clock ticking.
As Cohen says there are no good solutions. So this devolves down into what is the least worse alternative since there is absolutely no way to put lipstick on this pig.
Surely a new vote by people who now hopefully have a greater understanding of the pitfalls of opting out is a reasonable approach rather than to continue on glued to the results of a flawed referendum which, in any event, was closely divided.
Hopefully a new vote with a different conclusion would calm the parliamentarians enough to enable them to go straight and fly right.
Of course this would not satisfy all. There will still be plenty of jingoists with arms folded akimbo who will not budge. Remember there is no guarantee of a different outcome but I think it is more likely than not.
This is a truly existential problem for Great Britain. It's a one-shot. There's no replay once your out. This will affect the country for decades to come. This will hollow out who knows how many industries (start with banking) and may even lead to the dissolution of the country, breaking with Scotland for instance.
It's now or never, people.
10
A second vote was never contemplated when the initial referendum was established. To decide NOW that a second vote is necessary is changing the rules in the middle of the game. At what point does a vote become final? If the pro-Brexit forces lose the second vote, won't they have legitimate grounds for demanding a third vote? After all, what makes two votes the magic number?
The only way around that, as another poster here has proposed, is to have a referendum on authorizing a second vote. That would be proof that the people truly desire a second vote.
1
Brexit seemed, to some, a dream come true, get rid of foreigners taking Brits jobs, regain their sovereignty. But then pesky reality showed up and made them sober, even repentant. Perhaps their citizens are not that dumm, and can see the harm in leaving a cozy arrangement of social value and economic interdependence. There is wisdom in calling a second referendum and reconsider; why lose something that, once gone, may not return.
20
A second vote seems the only way to go, now that the reality of the choices are more clear. However, what would the choice be in any second referendum?
1. Remain in the EU?
2. May's negotiated deal?
3. Just leave, without a deal?
Should all three alternatives be put in a referendum? If so, then what happens if Choice 1 gets the most votes, but is not the majority? The leave option could be split between Choice 2 or 3.
6
@Doug Welsh These are good questions and perhaps a sequence of votes is appropriate for an issue of this magnitude. Requiring a supermajority is also an option. Extending the time from March 29 is essential, whether by withdrawing the original notice or obtaining an extension.
3
As Jack mentioned, there should be a sequence of votes or questions. Ballot questions with three or more choices can fail to reflect the voters' will.
2
@Doug Welsh
The referendum could have your 3 options with "Single Tranferable Vote" STV rules: Each voter gives first choice and second choice. After voting, the option with fewest first choices is canceled, and the second choice of the canceled fist choice votes are added to the other two options.
Alternatively, now May's compromise is seen to have <1/3 of MPs, the vote could be between two options: "Remain in EU" and "Just Leave".
This is only a single anecdote, but a friend told me that their in-laws voted for Brexit purely as a protest vote, not expecting it to actually win.
If there were many such voters, (not to mention all those who were misled into believing that leaving would bring more money to the NHS, for instance) then a second referendum would be proper
17
@lm We know there are almost a million such voters, they signed a petition asking for a second vote. Most of them, said to say, said they hadn't known what they were voting for, and if they had, would have changed their minds.
14
If not knowing what one was voting for is a legitimate reason for a second ballot, virtually no elections would be final.
Yes, it appears that the pro-Brexit advocates lied about many issues. But, the voters were warned by the "remain" forces that the rosy promises by the pro-Brexit side were unreasonable. Surely it isn't unfair to expect the voters to use some common sense when making a decision? If lies during a campaign were a reason for a second election, we should be electing a new president right now.
7
Presidents are voted in for fixed terms; Brexit is open ended. Apples and oranges. If you make a mistake with a president, you vote them out in 4 years. Brexit doesn’t work that way once it actually happens.
6
Brexit need not be a binding resolution. It was an impulsive maneuver and so should have no future.
Sure, there was inevitable political fallout from the vote. The political fortunes of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson are likely doomed. David Cameron has a blight on his legacy. Prime Minister May is probably fated to be a sacrificial lamb. So be it.
But the damage can still be mitigated. Following through on Brexit will irrevocably harm Great Britain and the rest of Europe. Public opinion has soured sharply. What Johnson described as "the dream of Brexit" is more of a waking nightmare. The logistics don't match the rhetoric.
It's time for a new vote, this one more sober and thought out. The stakes are too high to turn one mistake into untold disasters to come.
42
If there is a second referendum, it should require what the first one so obviously should have: a supermajority of 66% or 75% to pass. Things is such huge import cannot have credibility when they pass with 50% plus 1. And only a minority of the possible electorate bother to vote at that, reducing the credibility further.
30
@Marc Goodman Certainly, if Remain were to win a second referendum in a landslide, that would greatly help put the issue to rest. But to set a supermajority threshold in advance? You're really going to say that 65% wouldn't be enough to overturn the decision? Given the enormous stakes, I think that would be highly irresponsible.
I can see, though, that requiring a small supermajority might help get Leavers agree to have a second referendum at all. I would suggest requiring the margin to exceed that of the original vote, thus, requiring a 51.891842% supermajority. This would respect the original Leave vote, while reflecting the small margin it received. I think it would be sporting to say that if Remainers can't leap that small hurdle, Brexit should proceed.
9
@Marc Goodman
Nonsense. A referendum to stay should not need what one to leave needs. Big changes require consensus. Making a change as huge as Brexit on the basis of a close 52 - 48 vote is not democracy, it's stupidity.
3
@phil - You're up-side-down. Did you mean to respond to ScottB?
Another referendum may be the only way out of the mess created by the last one, but it is not clear to me, as an observer from across the pond, whether the result would be different. What is clear to me, is that a referendum is one of the worst possible ways to set public policy, as the initiative process in California has demonstrated time and again. Issues such as Brexit are simply too complicated to be decided by a yes/no popular vote.
5
@Joel
apparently, it's such an older/younger split, that the older people who have died in the past two years to be replaced by the younger people being old enough to vote would soundly swing the vote to REMAIN> (that's without anyone having changed their minds.)
8
One thing the EU should make crystal clear is that if Brexit in any form occurs and in a future move to rejoin the union after the pain of going alone becomes unbearable, then Great Britain will only be allowed back if they agree to relinquish the beloved Pound Sterling and accept the Euro like the rest of the members.
17
@Ron Wallace
Adopting the Euro is not a requirement for any EU member. There are several EU countries that retain their own currencies.
"Brexit is damaging to the British national interest."
I disagree. Britain has been in the EU for 46 years. If the EU was so bad to "the British national interest", then why did it take so long for the Brits to figure out that they were unhappy, and decided to leave?
*Britain entered the EU on January 3, 1973.
6
Britain joined the Common Market in 1973.
Since the Parliament is in such disarray over Brexit terms, who will decide the question if there is a second referendum? Will it be a simple leave or stay again or will the vote include a leave deal? A yes/no vote is likely to be close leading to continuing bitterness. Three or more options on the ballot will obviously lead to an inconclusive result. What will EU's attitude be to all this? The UK has never been their most enthusiastic member. Would they agree in advance to accept a close vote in favor of staying? Might they not think "we'll have to face again in a few years, the next time the British voters are upset with their leaders". Surely the EU wants this ended once and for all.
All of the doom about a no deal Brexit is based on the fact that the experts say the UK will be much worse off out of EU without a deal. But just like Y2K things don't always turn out as predicted by experts. Bilateral trade is in both their interests. If the UK leaves without a deal on March 29 I suspect on March 30 leaders from both sides will be around a table having suddenly discovered how much they need each other.
4
@Michael Feely
Th situation from the POV of the EU will not have changed. They will still need to discourage other leavers and will continue to make the foolish British pay, pay, pay.
Indecision and lack of a plan sure are damaging to the British national interest. Brexit itself might cause a temporary impact, but over time the nation will move past it and recoup the losses. Sovereignty and independence are more valuable to a nation than temporary trade decreases. And while we all suspect that racism played a part, that is not the entire story.
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@Another Human
Sovereignty is a phony issue. Why does Britain need it in this form (leaving the EU) and more than two dozen other nations do not?
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I guess we could ask why the Baltic states "needed" sovereignty from the Soviet Union? Is the fact that they want it enough?
Just because other countries are happy with the EU arrangement doesn't mean that the UK, with a different history and cultural background, has to be satisfied with the EU. I think that Brexit is a mistake (not that I have a say in the matter), but the fact that other countries like the arrangement is a weak argument for the UK to remain.
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@Barry Short
The Baltic states are now EU members …
A democracy that changes fundamental rights through a 52-48% (non-binding, disinformation infested fiasco) referendum margin is not a democracy. The government should have said, "Thank you for your advice, but . . . ."
Parliament should properly still do that, but politics intervenes, making very difficult to arrive at a good outcome.
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@dairubo If Brexit goes forward, the next issue will be how to get back in the EU. There will be be a new problem with the EU's requirement that new members must join the Euro. The UK now has privileged status outside the Euro; this status would likely be lost. The Euro has been a costly experiment, but the EU is stuck with it as the cost of going back would be too great. Beware, UK, you won't be able to go back either.
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"The first was Britain’s 2016 vote, fueled by lies, to leave the European Union, trumpets blaring."
Yes, the first referendum was all lies, aided and abetted by Russia, a bleak forecast of what they would do here.
In the fall of 2017, I attended a lecture by the British Consul of Boston (more of a trade position versus an actual diplomatic role.) Fairly young herself, she spoke at length how many were having second thoughts, and of all the "remainers", it was Britain's youth who were facing a future of lessened opportunities.
I don't understand May's adamant opposition against a second referendum (I wish we could have a second presidential vote now!) because, if the referendum was unfairly presented, and was helped along by disinformation from Russia, well, it stands to reason the country deserves a second vote.
Why should you beholden to a first vote that was based on lies?
The fact May can't get through any agreement tells the world Britain is not really into Brexit.
So, go ahead and let them vote now that British citizens have seen the future and, via their elected ministers of parliament, roundly rejected it.
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@ChristineMcM Wholeheartedly agree. I don't understand the opposition to another referendum. And I hope if our country was doing irrational things that others would tell us the same!
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@ChristineMcM
I’m so glad someone finally brought up the Russia connection. Putin has been interfering in elections in all the Western democracies and wreaking havoc with our institutions and sowing unrest. He and his cronies were heavily involved in the Brexit vote. Why is this never mentioned? Of course there needs to be a new referendum, and Russian interference needs to be a major part of the debate.
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@ChristineMcM I'm always delighted to see and read your replies to any NYT topic. They are invariably intelligent, articulate, and well-reasoned. Thank you for the time you spend in participating in these forums.
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While I disagree completely with the decision to leave the EU, I firmly believe that a second referendum would set a dangerous precedent for democracy in Britain. Although many are having second thoughts now, the people's wishes in 2016 was very clear, and they should be carried out. Governments should not be able to simply force the people to repeat their vote until they receive a result that they are satisfied with.
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NO. Only 51.9% for Brexit in 2016: the people's wishes were NOT very clear. It meant that half of Britons were in favor of leaving the EU while the other half were opposed.
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@Wing Wong
If a second vote were held within days of the first vote you would have a legitimate point, but it has been two years and new facts are in play. It is just as legitimate to ask for another vote after two years as it was to ask for a first Brexit vote 23 years after the Maastricht treaty. Maastricht was not "till death do us part" and the first Brexit vote was not a permanent restraining order.
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@Wing Wong: Not changing course when it's clear a mistake was made is known as throwing good money after bad. It's generally not recommended.
Of course a second referendum makes sense. The question is how big a part will be played by disinformation which was very evident in the first referendum and probably led to this fiasco from the start. Unfortunately, those who will profit from exit still have clout and a propaganda machine.
21
The British have a nursery rhyme for this one: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men, managed to put Humpty together again. (Or so it reads in the pro Brexit version).
5
Angry white spite had its moment in the electoral sun in 2016 in both the UK and in the USA.
Once the white spite settled and revealed a comprehensive inability to govern rationally on both sides of the pond, it's become readily apparent that both the UK and the USA are now 'woke' to reality and ready to outvote white spite as a governing model.
It's time for rational minds to take charge and rejoin modern civilization.
For all the Brexiters, Trumpers and members of the White Wonder Bread Society who thought turning back your old-fashioned racist clocks in a modern, technological, pluralistic society was a real solution, we've arranged to hand out door prize time capsules of the 1960's and 1970's to you as you exit the voting booths after the 2019/2020 UK and USA referendums.
Time to get on with the future...not the past.
Time to undo the damage done and move forward.
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@Socrates: door prize time capsules of the 60s and70s? That is the most original thing I've read in while. We should do the same for rural America, but push the time back to the 50s.
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@Socrates as a species we have not evolved as far as I had thought in the last 100 years. What is it going to take to get to the next level? Maybe a reboot is necessary.
9
Brexit and USA comparisons are without any fact of foundation. Pluralistic society does not mean that Britain must be ruled by unelected bureaucrats sitting in Brussels.
There are several issues with the UK remaining. Most of the benefits of EU have accrued to London while the rest of the country is hollowed out. The porous borders of eastern European countries that are in the EU allow unfettered immigration to the UK. Yes, unfettered illegal immigration is bad.
All in support of remaining in the EU offer platitudes, no facts. Great benefits they say. How great no one says or knows.
The UK was doing well before EU, and while in the EU. it will do so again after some adjustments.
Sky is not falling. The wonderbread crowd has made a choice. They are free to.
Please get over Trump's election. That will be over soon. We will get to make a choice too. We shall make a wise one.
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As so often, Thucydides provides a classical model: in 427 BCE, Athens voted to execute the adult male population of Mytilene, a city that had revolted from the Athenian empire, and to enslave the women and children. While a ship was en route across the Aegean to carry out this fell resolution, the people, in a less enflamed mood, voted to rescind the order.A second ship was dispatched which, by immense effort, barely overtook the first. (Book III, paragraph 49) First thoughts are not always best thoughts. I hope Britain will find a way to retreat from the course it is on. It would provide some hope that we in the US might also retrace our steps away from the existential precipice to which an unfortunate election has brought us.
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@Grant Franks- The Brits should send a symbolic threat ship to Russia to protest their disinformation and social media interference in U.K. and US. governance.
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@Grant Franks Three cheers for a humanities education!
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Someone was a St. John's grad! ;-)
1
The sad part about all this is that at a time when decisiveness and charisma are needed, the left's leadership is both indecisive and dull. At a time when pulling the nation from the brink of catastrophe, Corbyn is unwilling to take a firm stand to Remain.
Britain stands to fracture, with Scotland going its own way, should a Brexit take place. Britain loses far more than any of the European nations that changed their minds and came through just fine.
Here in the US, we are starting to see the ravages of flamethrower politics between the consequences of the Tax Scam Bill, Trump's foreign policy shocks, the trade wars and the government shutdown. Trump is breaking all of the norms of governance with his insistence on getting his way in instituting policies that go against convention.
The U.K. is two years ahead of us in its journey to madness and chaos. Soon, we may know whether voters get to turn the clock back. Here, at home, we are just getting ready to begin the election cycle with the first contenders to announce their runs as a new Attorney General is about to be confirmed and Robert Mueller wraps up his investigation. Will we continue on a mad path and end up with so many contenders that it will be left up to superdelegates to pick a presidential candidate on the left? Will that candidate also ignore the issues of voters who were left behind in 2016?
History must not repeat...
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking [2019]
https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
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@Rima Regas.....you covered the story, so it's now a bit more understandable! But what's up with Corbyn?
@Meredith
Thanks. The Guardian had a good piece about the historical markers of Corbyn's rise and his problematic nature.
"Perhaps Corbyn thinks he has been playing a clever game, keeping the Leave minority of Labour voters on board. However, this is at the expense of alienating the vast majority.
Given the popular view that the referendum result was principally swayed by the discontent of the “left behind” and those with “nothing to lose”, I was interested in the point Corbyn made last week that the left-behind in Mansfield may have voted Leave but the left-behind in Tottenham elected to Remain.
But what do you make of a so-called leader of the opposition who “cannot wish away the votes of 17 million people who wanted to leave”? What this means, given the preponderance of Labour people who voted to remain, is that a Labour leader affects to be swayed more by the Conservative supporters whose government he wishes to dislodge. It is as if, in the early 1980s, he would have opted for Thatcherism, or sado-monetarism, because more Conservatives voted for what the Conservative government of that era became.
Corbyn is a walking and talking disaster. Just imagine how different things would be now if the increasingly impressive Yvette Cooper had beaten him to the Labour leadership."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/13/brexit-jeremy-corbyn-only-listens-leavers-why-labour
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@Rima Regas....thanks for Guardian link.
One of the comments said --"Can we get over feeling sorry for Mrs May?" Likewise, can we get over the "Jeremy is a good lad" schtick? He's a disaster."
This is a crazy situation.
For some semi-comic relief, you might watch Boris Johnson on cspan at Politics and Prose Bookstore talk about his book "The Churchill Factor". I was reminded of it by a comment and enjoyed watching it last night. Lots of laughs in the audience and was also an uplifting talk.
Someone said Trump and Johnson have similar, rather unique hair do’s! And similar warped politics?
But at least Boris Johnson, a former journalist, wrote an entertaining, witty and enlightening book “The Churchill Factor”---on Churchill’s various policy choices and his effect on the world.
The current president of the United States couldn’t even conceive of such a book, much less ever write one--- about anyone, much less a Churchill.
1
A second referendum would be the happy ending that the half of Britain that voted for Brexit doesn't deserve. They deserve for the British economy to crash and burn as a direct result of their actions. But, of course, that isn't what the half that voted against it deserve.
7
Regardless of how Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn's vote of no-confidence goes, Theresa May and her government must resign after one of the most crushing parliamentary defeats in British history. Since long before the 2016 Brexit referendum, the track record of Conservative Party mismanagement has been nothing but a tragedy of errors.
If only the British public could have confidence in the competence of the opposition, it could legitimately hope for some sane guidance out of the thicket of Brexit. There is no competence, however, and therefore no confidence in an angry Labour leader better known for his anti-European and anti-semitic rhetoric than for much else.
It's easy to say that Theresa May and her Conservative government must go, but much harder to figure what should replace it.
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@John lebaron
"...Theresa May and her government must resign after one of the most crushing parliamentary defeats in British history."
Rarely has there been in recent history an elected official who has taken the brunt of as much public humiliation as Teresa May. Incredibly, she shows every sign of wanting to hang on...
2
Another Brexit vote might be unsatisfyingly close. Why not limit those voting on the people's choice to those of age 50 down to voting age. That would lean more towards remain and older folks, though they may have voted differently, might accept the fact that the vote is for a future world and it should be left to those who will spend most of their lives in that future.
4
@David Koppelman, the older folks might also recognize that they were being excluded from the political process based on their age, and realize that's just as bad as doing it based on gender or race, and refuse to accept that kind of illegal and immoral treatment. Age discrimination is still discrimination, and although it's a convenient way to ignore those you don't agree with, it has no place in a democracy. Also, are you really suggesting that a 50-year-old who might live to 80 or 90 won't be spending a lot of their lives in that same future? Wow.
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@David Koppelman
That's a terrible idea, very undemocratic and age discriminatory.
@David Koppelman
Indeed. Have you ever seen the movie "Wild in the Streets?" Nothing can change the shape of things to come...
I agree completely. However, I want to point out that $50 billion is hardly equivalent to 8 of Trump's walls. the $5.6 billion figure Mr. Cohen's calculus is based on is a FRACTION of the total cost; in other words, merely a down payment. It seems that fantasy scenarios are rife on both sides of the pond.
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@Asher Taite. Thanks for pointing out this poorly edited toss-off line.
Isn't it obvious that the divisions in the UK as in the US have been exacerbated by the interference of groups with lots to gain through the division and destabalization of the Western Democracies? How long till armed groups fight in the streets? A key part of Democracy is compromise to solve problems, without hard inflexible positions. If immigration and border security are problems, fix them without Brexit and walls which nobody actually thinks will work.
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Another referendum will actually be the third on the UK's membership in the EU. I think it is important to remember that the UK had it's first vote on the question in June of 1975, when voters where able to say whether or not they wanted to be part of the European Communities (or the EC, what would become the EU). The UK had joined the EC just 2 years earlier. More than tw-thirds of voters voted to remain in the EC at that time.
So, the vote in 2016 was actually a do-over, forced by the right and conceded to by the Tory government in a shameless move to maintain a majority. I think it is important to keep this in mind, especially in the face of any criticism that a followup third vote is a betrayal of the 2016 vote (i.e., because the 2016 vote was itself a betrayal of the original 1975 vote).
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@Scott Nolde - good point. Interestingly, England, Wales and Northern Island all reversed their vote, and only Scotland wanted to remain.
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@Scott Nolde
Well done. You have raised a point I have not heard from a single expert, pundits or TV commentator: 2016 was indeed the third U.K. referendum on membership, and tainted by a scare campaign plagued by lies and voter fraud (Cambridge Analytica et al.).
2019 will hopefully see a 4th referendum hailing a resounding victory for European cooperation. Yes, the project is flawed, but not nearly as flawed as would be a dis-United Kingdom trying to recreate its Victorian glory.
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@Scott Nolde
Not true. The 1975 vote -- for a Common Market -- was for a very different animal. I know because I voted in it. Since then, the EU has grown enormously both in its geographic reach and in its regulatory policies. The first referendum on the modern EU in 2016 was a disaster in many ways.
David Cameron would never have proposed it had he believed the UK would really leave. It was purely to placate and win over UKip supporters on the far right. Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson completely hoodwinked the British people -- who harbored plenty of real anger for a variety of reasons, few of which had anything really to do with their complaints and which had gone unrecognized by both parties -- with bold lies and false promises. These have since been exposed and many "leavers" -- I know this from conversations with friends in a Yorkshire town that voted 4 to 1 in favor of leaving -- would refer their choice in a second vote.
Fortunately, and unlike our own painfully rigid system, the British have a real chance at a do-over. Is there any such option available regarding our choice of President? Do we have the mechanism of a no-confidence vote? The British people will be doing their descendants, especially the younger generations, a huge favor by pressing for a second vote and avoiding the harm that an uninformed first vote would cause.
10
Corbyn wont come around for another referendum. He has even less integrity then May does. He wants to use the catastrophe of Brexit for his own power and then have nothing more to say or do. Trusting Corbyn to really have a plan is like trusting his twin Bernie Sanders, they are demagogues who will say anything and its opposite for power.
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@Greg Jones
Mr. Jones what gives you any insight into Jeremy Corbyn's character. Bob Dylan nailed you cold when he wrote in Ballad of a Thin Man, "Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?"
1
@Greg Jones
Greg, I think you're being a bit unfair here to demagogues.