A. His lips are moving!
Never a truer word spoken in jest. Both campaigns accused each other of lying with remain being called Project Fear and Leave called Project Hope by its supporters can be seen to be Project Hopeless Optimism at best and more truthfully Project Lies.
The extent of how much Project Fear over-egged the pudding is still to be determined as the markets are falling even now and companies are making real plans to relocate staff. Third party commentators in other countries are still projecting recession and massive job losses as a result of dislocation of capital. Hope currently seems the only defence against the recklessness of Project Lies and no-one wants the worst case scenarios to come true.
However Leave has already show itself to be a pack of whoppers with all the major planks of Leave now exposed to be not even believed by the Leave team themselves.
Money for the NHS- both IDS and Farage have recanted that they ever said that. They only said we could. However that clearly was the message on the bus and the woeful Leave NHS TV advert. Lie number 1.
Immigration - Dan Hannam, IDS and Fox have stated that their preference would be for UK to join EEA which was widely acknowledged to be the worst option for the UK, i.e. the so called Norway option.
It would mean
1. Access to the single market for goods but not services and services at 80% of UK economy
2. Accepting free movement of labour (however not citizens) - A bit of a moot point as most people coming to this country from the EU and EEA have jobs and/or contracts then we could still not turn them away. So not appreciable control or cut in numbers. See Dan Hannam on Newsnight with Evan Davies unbelievable reaction if you do not believe me. So no Australian style points system and only hair splitting on any real control. So all those who voted thinking they were reducing immigration this is not going to happen if they stay in the EEA.
3. Continued contributions to the EU so Brexit dividend will be much lower than even the accepted figure of 160 million a week.
4. No say in EU rules so not even sovereignty is reclaimed as EEA members accept EU directives but only have observer status in forming them.
Economy - While they would not be drawn on guaranteeing no loss of jobs its clear that many manufacturers and service providers are making plans for their own Brexit. The longer the uncertainty goes on harder this will be to reverse. Additionally we are already seeing slow downs in inward investment and construction.
Break up of UK - dismissed as unlikely by Project Lie has a real chance of not only including Scotland but also Northern Ireland. While not the biggest fan of Nicola Krankie it is true that she seems to be the only politician with a plan at present.
The unintended consequences have been the effective short term (hopefully) disintegration of both main parties at a time when leadership is required.
Additionally the rise of racism and the far right has been fanned by the result. The only people really clapping here are the right wing nutters and ideologues.
Personally I think do not think the result of the referendum is legitimate as Project Lies stole votes through their deception. While they are calling Remain supporters bad losers they themselves were preparing to carry on the fight in the event of a Remain vote including potential legal challenges to extending the registration process and the petition to parliament that has ironically been hijacked by the Remain supporters, so it is just hypocrisy to try and claim the high ground here.
This is the UK democracy's hanging chad moment and it is hard to know how to fix it.
Proceeding on the current course with a deeply divided country and with the likelihood we get the worst of all worlds will just leave everyone dissatisfied. A policy which damages our economy, relinquishes our EU citizenship, but leaves us having to follow their rules, accept unlimited free movement and deny access for our financial services industry would be an unmitigated disaster for both sides.
A second referendum may reverse the result but only by a similar margin I feel and though I initially supported it would probably only result in a call by the Project Lies supporters for another one.
A higher threshold and some requirement to publish a coherent plan for Leave would however tend to legitimise the result if they won it again.
The other alternative which is being seriously considered by Boris is not to trigger article 50, renegotiate the treaty again and see if you can get a better deal and then rerun the referendum. Again without consequences how do you stop the lies.
I honestly feel the only way for the country to heal is to put aside the referendum result and call a general election. Let each party decide where they stand and have them put together a full manifesto with regard to their position on Remain or Leave and allow the public to vote on accountable plans not pie-in-the-sky theories. I would also lower the voting age to 17 to allow the most affected by Leave to have their say. There is a fair chance we would end up with a coalition government of sorts which would be the closest thing to a national unity government. Which ever side one they would then have a clear mandate on concrete plans and not distortions and lies.
We have already lost significant influence in the world with the exit of our EU commissioner on financial services who was leading the UK charge on financial market regulation in the EU.
Unless we address this now then England(as I do not believe their will be a UK) will face a likely call by the next generation who feel cheated by referendum, in say 10 years once the older generation has died out to rejoin the EU but on most likely much worst terms than now. I.e. Join both political and monetary union.
No comments:
Post a Comment