BREXIT

Introduction

What do these people have in common - the editor of Private Eye, the Conservative who holds the record for the fastest time ever run in the London Marathon by a Member of Parliament, the fourth best golfer on earth, and the residents of Rathlin Island?  Answer?[1] 

Everybody knows that 51.9% of votes cast in the UK referendum supported the campaign to leave the European Union.   

The consequent response of the Government at Westminster is loud and unambiguously clear:-

“we must now prepare for the process to exit (sic) the EU.[2]”

The new Prime Minister of the UK says (and she really means it)

“Brexit means Brexit.”

The people have spoken.  The Government has a mandate and legislative authority to act on the people’s verdict.  There is no going back.  Whatever our reaction, the UK has to plan and is adjusting to the new reality of life without Europe.

Reflection

The outcome, however,  has shocked many people and institutions both at home and abroad.  A month and counting after the vote, the doubts fail to be quelled in spite of the confident message from the Government. 

Rather than simply ignoring the groundswell of malcontent opinion and conscious of remarks by people like the editor of Private Eye,[3] a review of lessons learnt and some listening might just go some way to help to heal the wounds of a bruising and divisive campaign.  It might even build an element of consensus.

It is easy with hindsight to criticise the Remain camp for failing to persuade the electorate of the wisdom contained in evidence that came from business, science and education.  That expertise outlined the consequences of withdrawal on research and development.  

Remain also undersold the expert warnings from a vast array of institutions like the Bank of England, Her Majesty’s Treasury, the IMF and others.  These bodies produced a litany of knowledge about the impact of Brexit on the economy.

Likewise, the Leave camp’s campaign lost credibility both before and especially after the result. A certain poster, an ex-post admission of telling lies about extra funding for the NHS and the disavowal of the empirical evidence from economists and scientists dishonoured their case.  The quip that the country is sick of experts undermined the honesty of the mandate to leave.

People are entitled to have doubts and second thoughts, especially when they hear Brexit proponents state that they were untruthful in the campaign.  Public concerns heighten when negative impacts on our economy[4] emerge.  For example, following initial record slides in foreign exchange values, there are predictions of further devaluation of sterling. 

The current predicament is partly the fault of Parliament and the inadequate thought that was given to the drafting of the legislation.  The European Referendum Act of December 2015 received an overwhelming support from MPs.  Given the constitutional magnitude of the issue, it is surprising that the elected law-makers failed to set a threshold for the winning result or for minimum turnout.

Expressing the numbers in context (using the Electoral Commission’s figures),[5] almost 17½ million people out of a total electorate of 46½ million voted for a British exit.  Expressed in other words, this “majority” comprises of 38% of the UK’s electorate.  On the basis of the votes of less than two-fifths of the total electorate, we are now resigning our membership of the European Union.

Impact on the Four Nations

Breaking down the results into what the BBC and others, including the new Prime Minister, describe as the UK’s four nations, two of them (England and Wales) voted by clear majorities to leave the EU (although their capital cities London and Cardiff voted to remain in); while in the other two nations (Scotland and Northern Ireland) the majority voted to remain.

There are many consequent concerns about the overall impact on the UK of the decision to withdraw from the EU.  One is the effect on social cohesion, another is the impact on our economy.  There are also legal and constitutional issues.   
How cohesive is this union of four nations as the United Kingdom embarks on dissolving its union with Europe?

England

Legal moves are happening in England.  A leading law firm in London has launched a challenge to prevent the Government from triggering Brexit and Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty without an Act of Parliament[6].

Furthermore, one thousand barristers -1000 expert and well-paid lawyers - have written to the Prime Minister saying that the referendum result is advisory and not legally binding[7].  They argue that Government should order an independent investigation into the pros and cons of withdrawal before making exit plans.  Pointedly, one EU law specialist barrister says that “unilateral action to trigger A50 will further divide us.”

On the issue of social cohesion and specifically  race relations and immigration, the respected English journalist and former Conservative MP Matthew Parris has written about his feeling of shame about being British.[8]  In his words

“The reliance of the leaders and opinion leaders of the Leave campaign upon resentment of foreigners, dislike of immigration and — in many cases — hatred of immigrants, has been absolutely disgraceful.  Anti-immigrant feeling won it for Leave, and they know it...”

Another journalist, Mark Townsend writing in the Observer (3 July) has described a fivefold rise in the number of racist attacks in the week immediately after the referendum.[9]

Four days before the referendum took place, the Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole described how and why what he calls “English Nationalism” underpins Brexit[10].   In compelling detail, he explains how it fails to meet four of the five characteristics or assets of national independence movements, with its “inexorable logic” being a standalone England.

Wales

There is evidence that a statistically significant section of the Welsh nation has changed its mind.[11]  Apparently some Leave voters there are experiencing what is being dubbed Bregret.  A Metro poll indicates a majority now in favour of voting Remain in the aftermath of the initial consequences of the result to leave.

In similar vein, a BBC reporter summarised the reaction in Wales to the country’s prospects following the appointment of the new PM.  He indicated[12] that the governing Labour Party in Wales will be watching carefully, its electorate having voted to leave the EU, to see if the UK government delivers on the Leave promise to replace EU funding with Treasury money.

Scotland & Northern Ireland

For the citizens and the devolved administrations of Scotland and Northern Ireland, questions arise about the democratic legitimacy of these nations being compelled to have their membership of the EU terminated against the popular will of their people.

When the former Prime Minister of the UK John Major visited Northern Ireland campaigning for a Remain vote, he warned that a second referendum could not be denied to Scotland if Brexit achieve a majority.  Now, it seems, that is likely to happen.  In the interim, there is also the prospect that Scotland’s Parliament will withhold its consent to Westminster legislation for formal withdrawal from the EU.

Since the establishment of devolved power to Stormont many years ago, the ruling politicians in Northern Ireland have always reminded the minority of the primacy of majority rule within its jurisdiction.  Now the largest governing party plans to deprive its majority of continued union with Europe.

And yet, Northern Ireland’s First Minister sought to explain away “our wee country’s” vote in favour of remaining in the EU.  “We always knew that this would happen since four of the five regional parties campaigned to Remain.”  Perhaps the issue was that the undefined “we” did not really campaign and did not articulate a case supported by empirical evidence.

The office of Northern Ireland’s First Minister has published useful guidelines which emphasise the need for policy-making to be evidence-based. Whereas the Scottish Government produced detailed support[13] to back the policy for its independence referendum, no evidence-based strategy was made to the Northern Ireland nation in favour of withdrawal from the European Union.   
The risks for Government acting without rigorous evidence have been graphically illustrated recently in the UK.[14]   Evidence to explain the loss of public trust in Government?

Following the announcement of the victory for Brexit, Fintan O’Toole published an article concentrating on the impact of withdrawal on the UK’s only land border with the EU and the consequences for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement[15].  English Nationalists, he argued, have jeopardised the settlement that has brought peace to Northern Ireland and cordiality to relations between England and Ireland.  He predicts that the old border will return and will become both a customs and also an immigration barrier. 

He addresses the campaign promise of Brexiters to remove the European Convention on Human Rights from UK law.  Because the 1998 Agreement incorporates the European Convention into Northern Ireland law this removal, he argues, would undermine the basis of the Agreement.  Given his plea to the electorate that the UK must take back control, the action of the new Foreign Secretary (as well as the Secretaries for Brexit and for Justice) will be followed with interest not just in Northern Ireland, but in the USA, Europe and the Republic of Ireland.

The European debate has become a huge topic of conversation for everybody, not just the political élite. For example, even the apolitical Rory McIlroy expressed a point of view suggestive of disappointment with the result.[16]

 

“If I’m Northern Irish, what’s better? To be part of the UK and not be in the EU?  Or to be in a united Ireland and still belong to the EU?  People are going to have to weigh that up.”

One recent scoop gives credence to the dangers of a Kingdom disuniting.  So serious is the problem that even the the UK's smallest nation may be affected.  It is reliably reported that Northern Ireland could experience its own fragmentation.  This has emerged as an option for its only inhabited off-shore island.[17] The suggestion is that Rathlin Island could separate from a disintegrating UK and join an independent Scotland within the EU.

©Michael McSorley 2016

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[1] Conscientious concerns about the result of the Brexit referendum

[2] Official Government response on 9 July 2015 to the public petition not to trigger Article 50.

[3]BBC Questiontime 7 July 2016  https://politicalscrapbook.net/2016/07/watch-ian-hislops-bbc-qt-rant-on-whether-remainers-should-shut-up-is-just-spot-on/

[4] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/pound-sterling-argentine-peso-worst-performing-currency-eu-referendum-brexit-a7127246.html

[5] http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections-and-referendums/upcoming-elections-and-referendums/eu-referendum/electorate-and-count-information

[6] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-legal-challenge-launched-businesses-move-to-block-eu-exit-without-act-of-parliament-a7118186.html

[7] http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/eu-result-is-not-legally-binding-1000-barristers-tell-cameron-34872103.html

[8]  http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/for-the-first-time-in-my-life-i-feel-ashamed-to-be-british/

[9] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/02/anti-racist-groups-brexit-hate-crime

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/18/england-eu-referendum-brexit?CMP=share_btn_fb   Observer 19 June 2016

[11] http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/05/wales-has-now-changed-its-mind-over-brexit-two-weeks-too-late-5987173/?ito=facebook

[12] BBC 10 o’clock news Hywel Griffith report

[13] Scotland’s Future. Your Guide to an independent Scotland. 648pp. November 2013

[14] http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/chilcot-tony-blairs-iraq-policy-based-on-flawed-intelligence-which-was-not-challenged-34860941.html?utm_source=Newsweaver&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Chilcot%3A+Tony+Blairs+Iraq+policy+based+on+flawed+intelligence+which+was+not+challenged&utm_campaign=Chilcot%3A+Tony+Blair%27s+Iraq+policy+%27based+on+flawed+intelligence+which+was+not+challenged%27

[15] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/northern-irish-peace-sacrificed-english-nationalism Guardian 24 June 2016.

[16] http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/rory-mcilroy-says-we-must-weigh-up-if-united-ireland-would-be-better-than-brexit-uk-for-northern-ireland-34867231.html

[17] http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/rathlin-island-residents-consider-joining-an-independent-scotland-following-brexit-34873184.html?utm_source=Newsweaver&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Rathlin+Island+residents+consider+joining+an+independent+Scotland+following+Brexit&utm_campaign=UVF+blamed+for+huge+rise+in+tyres+on+bonfires