No Remain

September 24, 2018 Longrider General News, Political 9

No, seriously no.

If we do manage to get a vote on the final deal, progressives like me have to ask ourselves: how do we win it?

You could always try lying and fearmongering. It worked so well last time, didn’t it? But, seriously…

Trying to sell a final Brexit vote without Remain on the ballot would be like trying to sell a car without a reverse gear

Idiot! We had a vote. You lost. In a democratic society, a plebiscite is honoured, or there is no point in having it. What you don’t have is the sore losers keep having reruns until they get their desired outcome. Oh, and when someone calls themselves a progressive – I know I’m dealing with an arsehole – because only arseholes call themselves progressives. Progressives are bullies who will do anything to force their agenda on the unwilling using every dirty trick in the book, because they know they are right and everyone else is wrong.

If there is to be a vote, it obviously should include the option to remain. Len McCluskey, the general secretary of the Unite trade union (Labour’s biggest affiliate), told the BBC yesterday that he was strongly opposed to Remain being on the ballot paper. Labour’s shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, echoed this today when he told them a people’s vote “should be a vote on the deal itself and then enable us to go back and do the negotiations”, with no option to stay in the EU.

It comes to a pretty pass when I find myself agreeing with Len McCluskey and John McDonnell, but they are both right. We had a vote. It is up to government to deliver the result by taking the UK out of the EU. That they’ve made a complete pig’s ear of it is another matter.

In this context, how can centre-left progressives ensure that our agenda of inclusive prosperity, poverty and inequality reduction can prevail? Indeed, if we secured a people’s vote with Remain on the ballot paper, what is the key to being successful?

By cheating?

They described how typically European electorates are 25 to 35 per cent “cosmopolitan” types with an open, internationalist approach to the world; 15 to 20 per cent are “nationalistic”, with a more closed approach; and 40 to 55 per cent fall into “conflicted middle” groups with a mix of open and closed views.

Note the language here. If you disagree with the progressive cosmopolitan, you have a closed view. Like it. The contempt oozing from Umunna’s words is palpable.

The key to a winning coalition for progressives is to gain the trust of both the cosmopolitans and the conflicted middles. Currently, the populists – who tend to a more closed view of the world – are prevailing by building stronger, emotional connections with the middle group, whereas the cosmopolitans often repel them.

Well, he gets that right. Repel is precisely the word and the more they drip their poisonous disdain, the more repellent they become.

9 Comments

  1. Disagree on EU Ref 2

    If there – spit – is, agree no remain option

    But, Q should be:
    Accept Deal EU imposes
    or
    Reject Deal EU imposes

    Related:
    Delingpole: Suddenly Britain’s Brexit Future Looks a Whole Lot Brighter with the release of the Institute of Economic Affairs‘ (IEA) alternative Brexit plan – and its welcome by leading parliamentary Brexiteers

    Allister Heath wrote: Conservatism is in crisis in Britain, and it will take more than half?baked leadership plots to save it from calamity. The rot runs deep and wide; the Government’s pathetic inability to negotiate a proper withdrawal from the EU is merely its most immediate manifestation….

    “Vote Chequers, get Corbyn.”

  2. Some humour to cheer you up:

    …At the Edinburgh Festival this summer, for instance, Matt Forde, one of the handful of comics who is prepared to break taboos, set up a gag in deadpan style. He explained:

    Corbyn is against the EU because it limits a Labour government´s ability to control business – so he´s a nationalist.

    And he wants to take control of businesses – so he´s a socialist.

    Put that together and he´s a national socialist… I just hope he´s checked the Jewish community are OK with that.

    A few members of the audience walked out. But most stayed and enjoyed a transgressive thrill. Just as in the Labour party itself, party-line doctrine is set and followed by cliques rather than the broad mass of leftists…

    https://goo.gl/H12PLN

  3. I’m not sure that it is actually possible to have remain as an option on a future ballot anyway. We have already handed in our resignation so I think that the option would have to be rejoin on much less favourable terms. If these people think that leaving will be such a calamity, how about moving to an EU country and leave us to wallow in the fruits of our own folly.

    • This whole thing is more like a ballet than a ballot. Lots of song and dance, strutting, pirouetting, posing.

      But if Remain is to be an option on the ballot, so then must be Leave.

      1. Do you accept the deal? Yes/No.
      2. If No then what?
      (Answer only ONE of the following.)
      2a. Leave anyway. Yes
      2b. Remain. Yes
      2c. Renegotiate deal. Yes.

      In other words it is not ‘the people’s vote’ on the deal but a re-run of the first referendum.

      • There is no justification whatsoever for Remain to be an option on any referendum, should there be one. The people have already voted to leave, the only issues that remain (pardon the pun), are the terms on which we leave and who gets to decide if it is deal or no deal.

  4. Unless what the EU offers is anything but beneficial to this country and its people, the answer is the good old Anglo-Saxon two fingered salute, as displayed to the frogs at Agincourt.

  5. The Remainers insisted that the referendum question IN or OUT was far too complex for the electorate to decide, but now insist a complex technical document will not be too complex to decide for the electorate.

    The Remainers insisted that Parliament, not the electorate, should have the final say on Leave or Remain… even went to Court over it, but now they say the electorate, not Parliament, must have the final say.

    One has to admire the consistency of their inconsistency.

  6. Quote adjusted for factual content: “In this context, how can centre-left progressives ensure that our agenda of inclusive poverty and inequality production can prevail…”

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