| Posted: 05 August 2019 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | 4
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It was referendum on whether the people of the UK wanted to leave or remain in the UK. The government was not duty-bound to act on the result.
However, prior to the referendum, the government mailed every household in the UK, stating the referendum was 'your decision. The government will implement what you decide.' LINK
It was not a referendum on whether to vote to leave. The question posed was simple: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"
There was no question posed of how the leaving should be done, though the implications of leaving or staying had been laid out in the aforementioned leaflet. Only after the leave result came in really did people start to pay attention to talk of types of deals and whispers of no deals or even mention of a 'divorce' cost.
Brexit could be undone but it is extremely unlikely. Theresa May invoked article 50 in March 2017, meaning the UK was committed to leaving within 2 years. The EU agreed to extend the deadline to 31 October 2019 in April of this year. As things stand, the UK is hurtling towards a no-deal exit and PM Boris seems quite happy with this previously-unthinkable outcome. To avoid leaving, new laws would have to be passed. Parliament could do this all by itself, but have shown an inability to agree on anything regarding Brexit, let alone being seen to stand up and contradict what is perceived as the people's voice (though, in reality, we don't actually know if a majority of the UK public remain in favour of Brexit).
As I see it, the only real chance of avoiding Brexit would be a snap general election in which the Tories are ousted and the public heavily backs Jo Swinson's Lib Dems. Unfortunately, this seems a very unlikely course of events.
Theresa May was trying for a damage-limitation type deal that would have been a fudge, leaving the UK with no voice in the EU, forced to pay into the EU for access to the common market, and with unresolved question marks over freedom of movement, but at least with constraints on the economic damage wrought by severing ties with the UK's most important trading partner (nearly half of everything the UK sells abroad is sold to the EU). And she couldn't get the backing for that.
No deal seems a very real possibility, which basically means massive economic damage to the UK and hand-cuffs on the potential for economic growth for years to come, threats to UK jobs, makes exporting to the EU more expensive and more difficult, a bit of a dent for the EU economically (the EU exports 8% of its goods to the UK), and possibly massive shortages on required imported goods, such as medicines. Also, reduced effectiveness in shared police information and less sharing of technology/scientific research. We have already seen the pound under massive pressure just from the increased chance of a no deal exit. That means inflation and a reduction to the average standard of living.
Perhaps the most damaging myth that has been peddled going back to the referendum campaigning is the idea of the UK being able to work out some clever deal that would give access to the common market but allow the UK to restrict freedom of movement. The EU has never given anyone full access to the common market without agreeing to freedom of movement. The closest is the deal with Canada which has very few tariffs on goods, but relatively high regulatory hurdles and big barriers on services (crucially, financial services do not have full access). London's financial services are the engine room of the UK economy. Cutting off that sector from Europe is therefore potentially crippling. Furthermore, the deal took 7+years to set up between Canada and the EU. The UK would be starting from square one.
Edited to correct typos
Edited by Peter Martin on 05 August 2019 at 1:15pm
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