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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Take two – how would a fresh referendum play out?
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Take two – how would a fresh referendum play out?
A spectre is haunting Parliament – the spectre of a new referendum. On Tuesday, Parliament voted to allow itself to amend any back-up plan that the government brought forward in the event that its own deal was defeated in the meaningful vote next week. As things stand, defeat in that vote looks inevitable at present. The odds on a #peoplesvote or fresh referendum or re-ferendum or whatever you want to call it have risen sharply as a result.
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Some of those might be likely, others are possible, but it is far from easy.
A second referendum will be the powerful against the people. A big old F.U. to the hoi polloi. Or at least that is how the leave campaign will present it.
It isn't about immigration. It is about being heard. It is about decades of people saying "we voted for one thing and you delivered another". Whether that is immigration or NHS services or whatever.
It is about people who feel, fairly or unfairly, that they are not being listened to. When you realise that it is obvious what a second referendum leave campaign would look like.
"They're still not listening."
Not only is the proposed deal undemocratic because it does not respect the Referendum result, it allows the EU to continue to make laws and rules that impact on our country which we will have no say in. It also threatens the integrity of the United Kingdom by treating Northern Ireland differently, allows the EU Court to impose judgements on us for many years to come and prevents us from making new trade deals with the rest of the world. Instead of being a global power in our own right, the deal lets the EU pull our strings for many more years and perhaps indefinitely.
I have issued a statement on the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration and have commented on the damage they would cause to our country. I have also challenged the Government over the impact on our fisheries and questioned the Prime Minister over the future control that the EU Court will exert on our country.'
She also gives notice of a demonstration in favour of her position, with a contact, but doesn't where it's going to be!
Up against them (Labour and the LibDem party machine) would be whom? UKIP is a busted flush and becoming untouchable, the Tories are too riven and their membership old and declining, Banks would have to be very careful, Farage is homeless.
Don't forget that in most people's minds the very people now standing in the way of their vote to leave are the same people who were spunking *their* money on duck houses and moats and pay per view frankie vaughn a few short years ago. And they still hold them in the same contempt.
The political class do not seem to understand in how much contempt the ordinary man holds them in. That was what Leave was all about. A second referendum will be a second chance to deliver the message.
Remain could win 59:41 - or similar - on a turnout of, say, 45% or so, similar to the AV referendum.
That’s be taken as a clear mandate by the powers that be, but would be very unhealthy.
Leave will have stronger cards and a stronger narrative in any 2019 vote than they did in 2016. I still subscribe to the school of ‘be careful what you wish for.’
There will be some very fired up leavers. But not all leavers want the deal, or no deal, depending on what would be on offer in the question. That dims enthusiasm for a start. Then the sheer ineptitude that got us to this point depresses the vote a little bit more. People thinking it is all pointless as MPs won't follow through anyway.
It adds up. If it is about getting the same people out as last time, leavers will find some harder to get out than remain will.
Leave ran a better campaign. A smarter, better, more effective campaign. Whether it was a legal campaign is another matter, but it was without doubt more effective.
Throw £500,000 at Vote Leave and £1m at Britain Stronger In Europe, and VL would have put it into efficient targeting while BSIE would have pissed it up the wall.
So in the event of a second referendum, BSIE2 needs to match VL's savvy. They can do that by appealing to people's better instincts or their baser instincts. The lesson of the original referendum might suggest that baser instincts will win, and there's a fairly obvious dog-whistle on immigration that BSIE2 could try if they were feeling unprincipled.
My gut feeling is that EUref2 will be won by heavily targeted, predominantly local, digital campaigning rather than by national headlines, and VL were better at that first time. But then as Tim Shipman's 'Fall Out' describes, GE2017 was an attempt to "get the crew back together" from the previous election and history didn't exactly repeat itself...
Many of the 48% weren’t ideologically committed fans of the EU then, and still aren’t now.
What we don't take into account is how many people who didn't vote leave in the first referendum can be persuaded to vote for it this time around.
I actually believe that leaverism and corbynism are two cheeks of the same arse, they're protest votes against an establishment that doesn't bloody listen.
It's my guess that if leave focuses on a "Westminster sent you a message - up yours! Send them an up yours right back" (to paraphrase, rather crudely!), they can "do a Corbyn" and get even more of the people we see as traditionally disenfranchised out to vote.
Remainers have (somewhat tastelessly) focused on how in two years, the elderly who voted for Brexit died off, etc. But it's also been two more years of below inflation pay rises, crap jobs, creaky trains, expensive season tickets, longer queues to get in to see a doctor on the National Health. All of these are factors in a protest vote. It's not just about immgration. Even if it was, the first time around - a second referendum can and should be phrased as a protest against a political class that *never bloody listens*.
The DUP have made is clear they will bring to government down if the May's Deal is carried.
Labour leadership want a GE above all else.
Labour leadership are ambivalent about Brexit.
Therefore Labour will allow May's deal to pass.
Expect them to abstain at the last minute.
In any event after the last referendum it isn't practicable to introduce new rules now - not least because a vote that went one way but didn't meet a threshold would be an even worse f*** up than the current one.
At the moment labour MPs can get behind the decision to vote against for various reasons - those that hate the deal, those that are just doing so for partisan advantage, those that want another referendum, those that want a GE... take that away from them and it could cause issues for Corbyn.
There is a 1 in a 100 chance May's deal passes, and that's an overestimate. Arent't the no votes still going up every day? There's just not enough incentive for Lab MPs, most of whom want to remain, to allow it through, and the leadership which has been deliberately vague has little incentive to suddenly become definitive.
You stay at home presumably, and get very pissed off.
It will never arise.
The obvious answer would be for the leave campaign to push for "deal now, then vote the bastards out later". All they have to do is paint remain as the establishment choice, the tin-eared one that tells the electorate that the opinion of the little people doesn't really count.
Not the hardest task in the world.
The DUP have made is clear they will bring to government down if the May's Deal is carried.
Labour leadership want a GE above all else.
Labour leadership are ambivalent about Brexit.
Therefore Labour will allow May's deal to pass.
Expect them to abstain at the last minute.
Santa I have been a good boy
Regards
HYUFD
"Far too many Remain supporters are cavorting as if the mere act of holding a referendum will result in Britain remaining in the EU. There is first the small matter of persuading the voters of that course of action."
Yep. One of the more disgusting things about the new referendum campaigns is that they're not trying to persuade the GBP of why we should be in the EU. Hence they're not even trying to fix the thing they did wrong last time. Thinking you have the moral high ground and obvious righteousness on your side is not enough. At least the Europhobes played to win.
" If you were appalled at the anti-immigration message last time round, expect the Leave campaign to be worse; much worse."
There is one factor that is different: two -three years ago the papers and media were filled with images of (thousands of tragic and desperate refugees / hordes of would-be rapists and terrorists) (*) flooding into Europe. That is not, at the moment at least, happening - (because it is genuinely not happening / because the media have got bored of reporting it). (*)
It'll be interesting to see what future historians make of Reem Sahwil's inadvertent role in Brexit. The butterfly effect in action ...
(*) Delete as applicable.
what sanctimonoious crap
Remain have been in the chair for the best part of forty years and in that time they have comprehensively ignored all aspirations but their own,
No consultation as powers are handed over, treaties signed behind closed doors, immigration concerns slured as racist and now desperately trying to reverse a democratic vote.
There simply is nothing Remain can do
But they are often won by the candidate / position of who can appear to be kicking the establishment the hardest up the arse.
I believe that's what makes leave a shoo-in in a second referendum, whether it's no deal (as per Mr Meeks' article) or May's deal.
I’d take no deal over Remain or May’s deal but maybe not against Norway, depending on the answers to the questions.
Foolishly, I believed that when I voted Leave, my vote would be respected. I didn’t think I’d be told to think again and come up with the right answer by an arrogant parliament who have no respect for anyone’s views except their own.
Or there is a referendum agreed, and if we remain the Tories split and a GE occurs as plenty will no longer care what happens.
Remain would be a screeching U turn
That’s definitely a dramatic change
You can see from today's PMQs that Corbyn doesn't really give a shit about Brexit - all he want's to do is get into power to address poverty, public services etc.
I think you underestimate how badly Labour leadership want a GE.
The attempt to get one might fail; having got one leave may win; and if remain won it may be by the same sort of narrow margin which would resolve nothing. That leaves only a slender chance of a decisive and unifying second referendum. Folly upon folly solves nothing.
Since nothing can 'resolve' the matter at the moment the line of least resistance and maximum opportunity is for the present flawed deal to be passed by the House of Commons second time around, after a bit of cosmetic tweaking, on the back of Labour abstentions, with ERG and remainers reluctant support on the basis that all the alternatives are worse. Now that ERG know that the HoC can in practice block no deal, the present deal is their best chance. They just need a decent fig leaf to cover themselves with.
This then allows a great deal more diversity of possible futures (including Norway + and Norway for Now and Canada +) and has the advantage that the 600 pages of WA are already written. Backstop? Hold your nose and hope.
Just because they don't respond in the way you want them to, doesn't mean they're not listening. Or even that they're not taking note of your views.
The problem is that the GBP 'tell' the establishment (what/ whoever the fuck that is meant to be) contradictory things. "We want cheap housing!" screeches one lot, whilst another shouts: "We want higher house prices!" and yet more: "No new houses in my area, let the other lot have them!"
They have to listen to all of these contradictory desires and made a decision. Many people will feel aggrieved and scream about how they were not listened to. Perhaps they were not, or perhaps the officials were incompetent Or perhaps the 'establishment' tried their damnedest to weight up all the contradictory wishes and came up with what they thought was the best solution.
In fact, ideologues such as Corbyn and McDonnell will be even worse at listening, as they know very well what needs doing, and any contrary bleatings can be routinely ignored.
TL;DR: you can't please everyone.
Do you want to reward them for their failure with another shot at screwing it up, or do you want to listen to some experts this time?
At least if we Remained we wouldn't have to beg the French for essential medical supplies.
Do you want to reward them for their lies and allow them to rule over you like feudal lords, or do you want to do the proper British thing and throw a handful of muck in their eye?
I know it’s crazy to say, but The Deal is probably the outcome that causes the least turmoil. Ok so no-one loves it but it a) keeps control of immigration policy, b) has the default that we’ll still be relatively close to the EU. It can legitimately be argued that it reflects, roughly, the referendum result of a narrow leave win. It’s leave with remainian characteristics, but not necessarily BINO.
The perception in these areas, rightly or not, is that we've been shafted for 20 years while London and Londoners have had the best of everything and accused anyone who dared complain of racism.
No surprising they don't see much of a downside to no deal, particularly if it drags the metropoles down a peg or two.
But what leave?
I could live with May’s deal for all its deficiencies, I could live with Canada + or even Norway. No deal is trickier but with mini deals it would be ok. I just want out. And I don’t think I am alone.
But with so many against tweaks are not going to convince 75 MPs to flip. Cosmetic won't cut it. Most remainers don't seem to think alternatives are worse, they think no deal is not happening so why not go for remain. ERGers to some degree might be amenable, but they've been so intensely against it it is beyond reason enough would change course.
The backstop is the key. The DUP and enough Tories would then back it. But the idea May never said no hard enough is not plausible, so they really seem to mean it.
It's a shame. The Commons coming to an agreement to leave would be splendid, and save us a lot of anguish, this side of Xmas at least.
I agree with algarkirk that May, despite everything, may eventually triumph simply for that fact.
The simple fact Remainers cant grasp is the the system might work for a privileged few but it doesnt work for the majority and until theres some sign that a change is needed gets in to their thick heads there is no way they will put the issue to bed.
My fear is that the loons on both sides are so sure that the people will go their way, that they will agree on a No Deal - Remain referendum.
If we choose No Deal, then people will suddenly be shocked when it turns out that crashing out of the EU's existing relationships with other countries has an impact on the British economy. It will not be pretty.
It we choose Remain, then a very substantial minority of the people will feel utterly betrayed, and if you think politics is poisoned now, just wait until after this,
And, of course, the UK is due a recession. It might have nothing to do with whether we Remain or go No Deal. But it will come, and it will likely be nasty, and it will almost certainly be blamed on whatever choice we made.
It's time to tell the EU that the backstop needs to be endorsed - or ended - by the people of Northern Ireland. They will be cocky enough to think that they will never reject the EU's embrace (and they may be right). And it introduces a healthy measure of democracy into the process.
And then we need to accept the rest of Theresa May's Deal. It's not perfect, but it is better than the disaster that would be either Remain or No Deal.
Thanks to the tireless parliamentary legerdemain of Dominic Grieve, whatever sordid little plan B May brings to the house now is going to be amended and salami sliced up the wazoo.
Remainer though I am, I do not see a 2nd vote between No Deal and Remain ending happily. I would expect May's Deal to beat Remain and to beat No Deal is either of those choices were presented.
Who is on the Privy Council? Ministers, shadow ministers, past ministers?
If we're lucky sometimes power makes it as far down as Parliament, but only in exceptional circumstances.
I have never in all my life been so utterly fed up with our politicians.