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Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Brexit Might not Happen at all?

So argues John Cassidy, and fairly persuasively. Go by what they do for and foremost. It's notable what David Cameron did and did not do after the vote.

"As I noted on Friday, Britain won’t be exiting the E.U. anytime soon. If and when the U.K. government invokes Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty of 2007, which grants member states the right to leave, there will be at least two years of negotiations about the terms of Britain’s future relationship with Europe. And that invocation of Article 50 is likely to be delayed for quite a while."

"Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to resign in the fall has stopped the clock until a new leader of the Conservative Party is elected to replace him, which won’t be until the start of September. Even if Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, who helped lead the Leave campaign, were to win the leadership vote, it’s not clear when he would invoke Article 50. In a column for the Telegraph on Monday, Johnson said that Britain’s departure from the E.U. “will not come in any great rush.” Indeed, his primary intention seemed to be to prevent panic. “I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be,” he wrote


"As someone who has watched Johnson’s rise, with amusement, since he was a journalist living in Brussels and writing scare stories about the European Union for the Telegraph, I wouldn’t necessarily take anything he says at face value. In this instance, though, he may have inadvertently told the truth. Four days after the British public voted, narrowly, to leave the European Union, there are reasons to doubt that the referendum result will ever be implemented."

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-brexit-might-not-happen-at-all

Yes, the rise of Boris Johnson is sort of funny just like the rise of Donald Trump. Like with Trump it's also kind of scary that Johnson has a good chance to be the next UK Prime Minister.

I do get the sense though that Johnson no more than Cameron ever expected Brexit to happen. Both had manipulated this absurd issue for political gain and both have egg on their faces.

Johnson wants to be PM but not to be the one to handle Article 50.

"If Cameron had invoked Article 50 on Friday morning, Britain would now be on its way out: the exit process is irreversible. But thanks to the Prime Minister’s clever maneuver—which is surely what it was—the country has some time to reflect on the consequences of Brexit, which are already turning out to be far more serious than many of the people who voted Leave realized. In addition to plunging the country’s political system into chaos, the referendum result has prompted a big fall in the stock market and the value of the pound sterling, and it has raised questions about Britain’s creditworthiness. On Monday night, news came out that Standard & Poor’s had stripped Britain of its triple-A credit rating, another blow to investors. Ordinary people may be more concerned that, with the school holidays coming up, the cost of taking a European vacation, which many Brits of all social classes do every year, has jumped by about twelve per cent."

What seems likely is that if it does happen it won't be for awhile.

"If Leave supporters could have foreseen the result of their votes, how many would have changed sides? Vox-pop interviews conducted in the course of the weekend indicated that at least some of them were having second thoughts. And one prominent Brexit campaigner has wavered, as well."

“When I put my cross against leave I felt a surge as though for the first time in my life my vote did count. I had power,” Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of the Sun, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper, wrote on Monday. “Four days later, I don’t feel quite the same. I have buyer’s remorse. A sense of be careful what you wish for. To be truthful I am fearful of what lies ahead.”

How can you not be? Here is a piece by someone who voted Brexit, Sean O'Grady who now says they will stay in the EU after all.

"Brexit won't happen in the end – here's why."

"I voted Leave – but, looking at the reasons, it's undeniable that we'll stay in the European Union after all."

"Even for an optimistic Brexiteer like me, the last few days have been difficult. Many people who voted out are already feeling a bit betrayed as certain fundamental truths sink in. The “uncertainty” is already affecting the real economy as we see. Project Fear probably understated some of the dangers, though overstated others absurdly, the latter as former Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King has said (a calm voice in these frenetic times)."

"Before long this uncertainty will feed through even more concretely from the slightly abstract world of financial markets and exchange rates through to jobs, savings, and, above all, the value of people’s homes, which is where most people’s wealth is stored (especially some of the less well-off voters who opted for “Leave”). This is really why I suspect Brexit won’t, in the end, come to pass – because most voters can’t afford it in the short run, whatever the longer term advantages. Call it blackmail by the financiers or the Establishment if you wish, but it is a fairly nasty ransom note all the same."

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-wont-really-happen-second-referendum-markets-value-housing-pound-a7106996.html
Like Keynes said: In the long run we are all dead.

As O'Grady notes, foundational questions like this are not best for a 50+.1 vote.

"The margin for Leave was pretty small, in reality, and so the mandate is weak. Most countries have a constitutional convention that big changes have to command a two-thirds vote in a legislature or referendum, and this was nowhere near it. In the early 1970s, when Ted Heath took us in (without a referendum), the phrase used by him was that he needed the “full-hearted consent” of the British people to take such a momentous decision. It probably wasn’t there in 1971-72, but it certainly isn’t there now. Some Brexiteers are suffering profound regret, and we may as well acknowledge that, such is the gravity of the situation. They do not want to wait the many years, perhaps decades it will take for Brexit to be the better option for them and their families (ironically it is the young who have time on their side to enjoy the post-Brexit future, but I won’t press that point)."

The young are the ones who's future older voters like O'Grady have scrambled. As it's about their future, maybe only the young should have been allowed to vote? But he does admit that what Brexit amounts to is sacrificing years or even decades for some alleged benefit way down the road.


"We live in a democracy where Parliament is sovereign. That means that only Parliament can give effect to the will of the people. David Lammy's idea that Parliament can just ignore the referendum is going too far, but it is true that Parliament's job is to decide what to do next. So what shall we do next?"
This Brexit voter concludes:

"We all know that if there was a referendum on holding a second referendum, the people would be in favour of having another vote. It is certainly the general view in Parliament, and of course we now have the Scottish and Irish dimensions to the problem now crystallising, as well as economic realities. People want to think again, and the politicians have a duty to let them."


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