When Ireland voted “the wrong way” on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 and on the Nice Treaty in 2001, on both occasions, Irish voters were sent back to the polls for a second shot at coming up with the “correct” answer. The same “opportunity to learn” had previously been extended to Danish voters who had rejected the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 , though in that instance an “opt-out” provision for Denmark (The Edinburgh Agreement) was included in the 1993 re-vote.
Would it be reasonable to include the 2015 bailout referendum in Greece that ‘inspired’ the Greek government to disregard the recorded political will of the Greek electorate and negotiate a bailout package anyway?
The European “project” doesn’t tend to take “no” for an answer. That said (and this is just reading tea leaves), if the EU had sent the British back to the polls, or if the UK government had sent the public back to the polls in short order, then the vote for ‘Leave’ would likely have increased.
So I’m thinking a longer game was entered into. A game that would allow the European establishment to turn the screws on the UK’s political class. I’m coming around to thinking that the basic idea is to have Britain on its knees begging for a second go at things. The UK had (in political terms) a very favourable arrangement with the EU. But any advantage the UK might have had before the Brexit vote, won’t survive a second vote – their relationship with Europe will be “brought into line”. They will. go. backwards. in relation to what they had before.
And (initially at least) the British people will be immensely grateful for having been given the chance to make good on their mistake. The dawning, that they’ve been placed ‘properly’ under the heel of Eurocrats and technocrats will come later.
And Jeremy Corbyn’s UK Labour Party’s social democratic ambitions will be dead in the water. That’s important, but not something that gets any oxygen whatsoever in mainstream media. There is no ability within the European framework to re-nationalise industries or sectors of the economy that have been privatised. None. Europe is a liberal project, and that means (broadly) freeing the private sector to do as it will, and ensuring that once free, there is no capacity for a government who might want to gear the economy to serve (to steal Jeremy Corbyn’s phrase) ‘the many and not the few’, from slipping a leash on it and pulling it to heel.
In short then, Europe will simply continue to say “no” to whatever Teresa May might cobble together by way of a negotiating position for a post Brexit relationship with Europe. The press will keep hammering on that voters have realised the error of their ways and want to recant. Alongside that, a Project Fear on the dire straits to be expected from exiting Europe will keep doing the rounds – stuff like this or any number of other pieces I could pick from that overstuffed barrel of fish marked “Brexit Stories”.
People will vote again.
And the result – the ‘proper’ one this time – will be against their better interests, though absolutely in the better interests of corporate business interests and fellow travelers.
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