Right, so this is really the sort of text trailer for the podcast below (see link at the end), but since everyone is getting on me for not writing enough articles and simply posting podcasts, I will write a little bit about the subject up above.
The Referendum was in the uniquely dreadful situation that it was setup legally as an advisory Referendum, but that Cameron had told the public that they would definitely carry it out.
By making it advisory, the Leave side could be as lying, confusing and misleading as they liked, campaigning from several positions at once, with none of them producing the final outcome and not to have any of this challenged in the courts. By contrast in Switz, the maximum 4 campaigns p.a., need to write a clear manifesto and if campaigning strays out of that area and they win, the result is thrown out by courts, as happened quite recently. Rep. Of Ireland also have far better methods and safeguards. I heard a complaint from there that nobody asked them for their input.
Nor did Cameron have the power to force Parliament to carry out any particular deal, so he couldn't even make them carry it out. Nor did he stay and supervise the process as he had pledged to voters.
If a particular version of Brexit had been written down, maybe 1/3-2/3 of Brexit campaigners would have rejected it and it is highly unlikely that voters would have got it over the line. But Cameron was more concerned with appeasement, giving every bit of red meat to his ERG right that they asked for. Now we are living with the terrible consequences.
The proper course of action is to prosecute David Cameron for misconduct.
Firstly for neglecting his duty to consider the consequences of making the vote binding, and secondly for neglecting his duty to prepare the nation for departure.
That latter cemented the Leave win, because it made it entirely clear that he had no intention of honouring his promise.
Will the Tory Party offer to take us back in? It's a well strange idea and not one I have any insight into, but they were ruthless enough to make people want out against all the expert views and with public opinion changing fast or the Leave vote dying off, it might give them some sort of a boost. But the Tory Party is not going to spring back on the back of any one measure. If they have a future it would be a long process.
If the Tories did support rejoining or some similar position, it would give the green light to Labour and the LibDems to push harder. It would remove an EU presumed red line against giving the UK full membership in case the Tories came back to want to Leave a 2nd time. If it did revive the Tories a bit it might also be at the expense of ReUK. So it can only be good thing long term and stranger things have happened. One of them is walking around, having been beaten by a lettuce.
If we want to pin it down to a specific moment, I suggest that it was the moment that Cameron decreed that the vote would be binding.
The record shows that he did this because he knew that voters were planning to treat the referendum as the advisory one that it was. He makes that clear in his "Manor House" speech.
Much as I would get a kick out of posh Dave getting fingered for misconduct in office and sharing a stainless steel toilet, I am quite sure there aren't any laws that he has broken. Maybe if we had had a codified written constitution he would have broken that but we haven't. We could not have forced him to stay on and can't get him for resigning.
If he had said he wasn't staying on, that would have been an incentive to vote OUT, to get rid of the smug gammon.
It went wrong for Labour and the Tories, at the point when Cameron's Government caved into pressure from the far right Farage and UKIP to hold a referendum on EU membership in the first place: over fears of loosing some of their traditional voters in marginal constituencies to UKIP. Corbin's possible path to lead the UK was also in part derailed by the toxic political environment created by Cameron's week leadership on Europe.
I agree parliament did not have to be bound by an outcome of a referendum that was technically advisory: however the fact the Tory leadership then went ahead with Brexit was another manifestation of the same week leadership that had allowed the manipulation of marginal far right interests in holding the vote in the first instance.
The Referendum was in the uniquely dreadful situation that it was setup legally as an advisory Referendum, but that Cameron had told the public that they would definitely carry it out.
By making it advisory, the Leave side could be as lying, confusing and misleading as they liked, campaigning from several positions at once, with none of them producing the final outcome and not to have any of this challenged in the courts. By contrast in Switz, the maximum 4 campaigns p.a., need to write a clear manifesto and if campaigning strays out of that area and they win, the result is thrown out by courts, as happened quite recently. Rep. Of Ireland also have far better methods and safeguards. I heard a complaint from there that nobody asked them for their input.
Nor did Cameron have the power to force Parliament to carry out any particular deal, so he couldn't even make them carry it out. Nor did he stay and supervise the process as he had pledged to voters.
If a particular version of Brexit had been written down, maybe 1/3-2/3 of Brexit campaigners would have rejected it and it is highly unlikely that voters would have got it over the line. But Cameron was more concerned with appeasement, giving every bit of red meat to his ERG right that they asked for. Now we are living with the terrible consequences.
The proper course of action is to prosecute David Cameron for misconduct.
Firstly for neglecting his duty to consider the consequences of making the vote binding, and secondly for neglecting his duty to prepare the nation for departure.
That latter cemented the Leave win, because it made it entirely clear that he had no intention of honouring his promise.
Will the Tory Party offer to take us back in? It's a well strange idea and not one I have any insight into, but they were ruthless enough to make people want out against all the expert views and with public opinion changing fast or the Leave vote dying off, it might give them some sort of a boost. But the Tory Party is not going to spring back on the back of any one measure. If they have a future it would be a long process.
If the Tories did support rejoining or some similar position, it would give the green light to Labour and the LibDems to push harder. It would remove an EU presumed red line against giving the UK full membership in case the Tories came back to want to Leave a 2nd time. If it did revive the Tories a bit it might also be at the expense of ReUK. So it can only be good thing long term and stranger things have happened. One of them is walking around, having been beaten by a lettuce.
"Brexit" is not a moment.
If we want to pin it down to a specific moment, I suggest that it was the moment that Cameron decreed that the vote would be binding.
The record shows that he did this because he knew that voters were planning to treat the referendum as the advisory one that it was. He makes that clear in his "Manor House" speech.
The consumation of appeasement.
Much as I would get a kick out of posh Dave getting fingered for misconduct in office and sharing a stainless steel toilet, I am quite sure there aren't any laws that he has broken. Maybe if we had had a codified written constitution he would have broken that but we haven't. We could not have forced him to stay on and can't get him for resigning.
If he had said he wasn't staying on, that would have been an incentive to vote OUT, to get rid of the smug gammon.
I've not heard the podcast. However, much as I consider BoJo a clown, Truss and Kemi both demonstrate that the Tories have MPs who a worse by far.
Second, it was Cameron who transmogrified an opinion poll into a decisive vote of 48% to 52% of 72% of registered voters.
It went wrong for Labour and the Tories, at the point when Cameron's Government caved into pressure from the far right Farage and UKIP to hold a referendum on EU membership in the first place: over fears of loosing some of their traditional voters in marginal constituencies to UKIP. Corbin's possible path to lead the UK was also in part derailed by the toxic political environment created by Cameron's week leadership on Europe.
I disagree.
There was nothing wrong with holding a referendum on the question.
The problem was in parliament being bound by a vote that the electorate knew was not binding.
I agree parliament did not have to be bound by an outcome of a referendum that was technically advisory: however the fact the Tory leadership then went ahead with Brexit was another manifestation of the same week leadership that had allowed the manipulation of marginal far right interests in holding the vote in the first instance.
Ah, but they were bound.
How could they go back on a written decree sent to every household in the country when they don't have a backbone between them?
They ought not have been bound, but the fact remains that they were.
They were bound by placing their own tenuous grip on power over the public interest, in their failure to stand up to the political far right.