Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Wonderland

Rachel Sylvester in the Times reports (£):
"We are trapped in a box,” admits one minister. “Parliament feels frozen by the referendum but people voted for a fantasy we can’t deliver. They can only have Brexit if they’re prepared to suffer the pain."
Let's get this straight. This is a minister speaking. This is a minister from a government that keeps going on in public about how wonderful everything will be, how they are making progress, that no deal is better than a bad deal, and every other platitude you can imagine. In private they call Brexit "a fantasy we can’t deliver."

In the meantime, the opposition repeat an even more meaningless slogan. What in hell is a "jobs first Brexit?" A Eurosceptic leadership scrambles around doing anything it can to avoid a commitment as it triangulates between the overwhelmingly anti-Brexit membership, the majority of their voters who are in favour of remaining, and a strategically placed minority of Labour voters who wanted to leave the EU.

So what to do? How about telling the truth. Maybe it's an idea not to pretend. After all, Churchill offered "blood, toil, tears and sweat" rather than "it will be all over by Christmas." Let them stop lying. Whether you support remaining or leaving, the facts are the same. It will be difficult. It will be expensive. It will cost money rather than save it. If there are any benefits, they will be a long way in the future. The risks are huge. The country is likely to be poorer, certainly initially. Most predict the best outcome to be a slow and continuous relative decline.

And if people are faced with that choice, a real choice, would they object if their representatives did their job and decided not pander to the ideological fanaticism of the lunatic right and destroy the country on the basis of a tiny, fragile majority in a one-off and ill-informed poll?

Telling the truth might be a bit much to ask for, but how about looking to their self-interest as this study of pro-remain tactical voting would suggest.
The Conservatives gambled by backing the leave voters exclusively and still came up short. They were punished by remain voters and stand to be punished further if they back an uncompromising Brexit. The Conservatives cannot win on a leave only platform.
Remain voters are the key to election victory. Both main parties are too terrified to speak for them. Until one of them does, we will continue to watch the consequences of the worst mistake in British post-war history take its toll on our national standing and the welfare of our people.

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