An open letter to leavers

[LoveInTokyo]

Dear Leavers

I’m sorry that David Cameron offered us a referendum and promised to respect the outcome, whatever it was.

Unfortunately, he was fucking with you.

He promised that referendum when he didn’t think he stood a cat’s chance in hell of getting a majority, and never thought he’d actually have to deliver on it. When he got his surprise majority, he made a big show of going to Brussels and pretending to negotiate with the EU to get us a “better deal”. Unfortunately, he already knew perfectly well that the UK already had a better deal than any other country in the EU, and that they were not going to bend over backwards to get us to stay. So he made a big show of negotiating and then tried to pretend that he had done something meaningful. He then went through the motions of holding a referendum, half-heartedly campaigning to remain. He did absolutely no contingency planning, partly because he never believed that leave would actually win, and partly because he already knew that he had no intention of staying to deal with the fallout if they did. That’s why he resigned the day after the referendum and waltzed off, whistling a merry tune.

He played a high risk game of poker with our money, and lost.

I understand that many of you feel defensive about your decision and dislike being labelled “thick” by angry remainers. As a remainer myself, I feel saddened and frustrated that none of you seem able to articulate any benefits that will actually come out of Brexit. But at this stage, I would quite happily accept that there will be no benefits, and settle for damage limitation. Unfortunately none of you seem able to explain how we limit the damage either.

We cannot leave the single market and customs union without there being a hard border in Ireland, which will put people’s lives at risk. We cannot leave the single market and customs union without severely damaging most sectors of the economy, which would cause untold hardship for millions of people living in the UK. I realise that remaining in the single market and customs union would make leaving the EU pointless, but it is the only way to limit the damage.

The government has made almost no progress towards getting a workable deal in place, and time is running out. We don’t have the infrastructure in place to ensure that supply chains of essential food and medicine will not be disrupted after Brexit day. We don’t have a plan to ensure that planes will still be able to take off and land, or that satnav will still work. We do not have any trade deals lined up. We simply do not have time to do any of these things.

Dear leavers, you do not have solutions to any of these problems, and more importantly, neither do Theresa May, Boris Johnson, David Davis, Liam Fox, Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrea Leadsom, Daniel Hannan, Jeremy Corbyn, Kate Hoey or any of the people who claim to think Brexit is the right choice for the UK.

A no-deal Brexit is unthinkable. It is not an option.

I realise that many of you will feel betrayed if we do not get the kind of Brexit you want. But to be honest, you’re going to feel betrayed even if you do get the kind of Brexit you want, because it will be unimaginably shit. This is not "project fear", it is "project reality".

The government has a duty to act in the best interests of the country as a whole. It’s not good enough to lay the blame at David Cameron’s door and say he held the referendum so we have to respect the vote. David Cameron has been out of office for two years. It is now plainer than ever that leaving the EU is a terrible idea, and there is still time to put the brakes on and not go through with it. If the government goes through with this when they could put a stop to it, they cannot continue to blame David Cameron and claim that their hands were tied. They are not.

It is time for Theresa May to do the decent thing and say, “I’m sorry, I know it’s what the people voted for, but it simply can’t be done without causing a totally unacceptable amount of harm to the country. And I have a duty of care towards everyone, not just the 51.8% who voted leave.”

I couldn't care less about the numbers. Referenda are advisory.

What should have happened was a year of research undertaken on behalf of the British people to check the feasability of leaving. Then, when it was found to be not just unworkable, but an act of profound self-harm, TM should have acted on behalf of all of us by calling it off.

Instead we had an absolute panic where everyone lost their heads and any opportunity for a reasoned and measured response was lost.

In a referendum proven to be corrupted by criminal behaviour and founded on lies. And that's without taking into account Russia's role. That's not democracy. Democracy depends upon people having full, free information, which is why there should be a vote on the final deal and why it should be a criminal offence deliberately to mislead the people.

Which politicians are going to try to turn it into a criminal offence when it means many of their colleagues would end up in jail? None.

Really.. before the referendum , this really wasn't a topic (being in EU or not) that was ever talked about in my village or circles. Most people I have met mainly care about what's going on in their immediate family / community, is the weather good, how's the school doing ... you know boring day to day crap which is just fine. Perhaps it was just a little unfair to suddenly expect everyone to become an expert on Irish border impact / Euroatom / WTO trade rules etc before the referendum and not just vote based on their best guess at the moment. And then... lots of people did think oh it's ok powers that be will never actually let it turn into a complete cock up....

akerman I have no problem with a vote on the final deal, either except the deal on offer or leave with a no deal, we’ve had the vote to leave

@Ackerman... very much agree

No deal is not an option.

If we had a further vote it should be between the final deal and remaining.

And if we have no deal by January, the government needs to agree an extension or retract its Article 50 notification.

100% agree Tokyo

Even if Leave voters are vehement that they knew what they were voting for, why has their narrative gone from embracing this brave new world where unicorns frolic in sunlit uplands to “we’ll get through it”?

akerman Please can you tell me what criminal behaviour are you on about as I believe both sides have been fined by the committee, what lies ? And any real and truthful evidence of Russian involvement that made over 17 million people vote to leave

LoveInTokyo so let’s just ignore the majority of the voters then and prove to them that their voice is never listened to and to hell with democracy,

Actually... why on earth would presenting a you can go no deal, this deal or remain ignore the people who voted. The voices of those who voted leave have been listened to ... hence the pouring of billions of pounds into investigating the ramifications of the referendum. (Which arguably should have been done before triggering A50 but that's another story). So now we are looking at the concrete possibilities on offer.. and that should include remain in case neither of those deals are ones that a leave voter originally wanted.

Rosstac, the majority of voters did not vote for a no deal hard Brexit. That was not on the ballot paper and if it had been, it would almost certainly not have won.

The problem is that the government allowed the people to vote on whether or not we should leave the EU without defining what that actually meant.

It is not enough to say "we voted to leave the EU and that's that".

We need to know what happens next. We need to know what will be done about the border in Ireland. We need to know what our trading position will be after Brexit and how we are going to continue to import the things we need without supply chains being disrupted. We need to know what arrangements are in place to ensure that planes can still fly and satnav will still work. (Answer: currently none.)

We understand that a small majority of people voted to leave the EU. But unless these issues can be resolved, it cannot be done without plunging the country into long-term political and economic chaos.

We've had two years and the Brexiters have come up with precisely zero solutions.

It doesn't matter that 17 million people voted to leave. Right now, 17 million people might as well have voted for unicorns, because it would be about as deliverable as Brexit.

@Rosstac - did any of these so called ignored millions bother to vote in the European elections. Or local elections. Turn out in those notoriously low.

rosstac - a cursory google search will offer you many accounts of Vote Leave being found guilty of criminal behaviour by the Electoral Commission and that the police are now dealing with it. Darren Grimes has been fined £20000. I'll post just one link below. I'll also go and find links to the many newspaper stories covering the issue of Russian influence. I did not, however, say Russian influence caused 17.4 million people to vote Leave. What I said was that the referendum was corrupted by lies. If you believe that some of these were told by Remain, that doesn't magically cancel out Leave's lies - it makes it MORE important that the lying is stamped out and that the public can have confidence in the result. If someone wins a race through cheating, loses their award, and then you discover that the person who came second also cheated, you don't just shrug and give the original, fake winner their award back. We deserve to have a democracy that maintains similar levels of integrity.news.sky.com/story/vote-leave-referred-to-police-over-breaking-electoral-law-11439218

news.sky.com/story/vote-leave-referred-to-police-over-breaking-electoral-law-11439218

Mrsr8 worried about what ? I just can’t believe that people think the Russians somehow made 17 million people that already wanted to leave the EU vote to leave, sorry perhaps I should say I don’t think most of them are bothered about leaving the EU more about stopping uncontrolled immigration from Europe

@LoveInTokyo

You express sadness and frustration that the potential benefits of Brexit have not been made clear to you.

I submit the following: I could write lots on each but a quick summary will do for now I think.

Money: The UK has, up to now, been a net contributor to the EU budget. If we are paying less money to the EU then we can use what remains for other things and it will be for the government elected by voters in the UK to decide what those things are…I think everyone accepts that we must still pay some contribution to the EU if we want to participate in pan-European projects.

Trade: The EU, as I understand it, currently essentially decides Britain’s trade policy for us. Any trade policy decided at the EU level has to take account of the interests of powerful lobbies in all member states. Often it seems to me that the decisions that those lobbies agitate for the EU to make in its trade policies operate to the detriment of the UK, the common agricultural policy being a strong example. Outside the EU, our trade policy need only to take account of the UK’s interests though they are diverse enough, big city financial centres, coastal fishing communities and small towns having very different wants and needs but they are all our needs and we aren't beholden to the wishes of others in the same club to protect sectors of their own economies at the expense of our own.

The EU is also a highly protectionist organization externally, levying a “common external tariff” on goods from non-members. Sometimes protecting one’s own economy is a good thing, but if the result is, for example, to artificially inflate food prices across Europe by restricting access to the market for competing sellers from outside, then IMO every consumer loses. Outside the EU, the UK can choose to operate differently, applying lower tariffs or none at all.

Law: For as long as we are part of the EU, the European Court of Justice remains the supreme arbiter in all matters of EU law, this is the case for all member states. In spite of the fact that we have a body called the UK Supreme Court, our own judges are not the final arbiters of the law in their own land, across a wide range of legal areas. Leaving the EU means that judges in our own courts will become the supreme arbiters of the law in many more areas, I don’t say all because some parts of the EU legal framework will clearly still apply after we leave.

So there are some of the benefits. I do feel though that leaving is about a failure of our own politics. For decades many MPs have simply ignored the responsibility that the power they hold isn’t really theirs. They have misused their powers at home and given them away gradually to the EU. They have taken no account of the voters who lent them these powers every 4/5 years and expected them to come back to them intact each time. Sadly they didn’t, more and more power being vested in the EU as its competencies expanded after Maastricht, Nice, Lisbon, etc.

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/heres-what-we-know-about-alleged-russian-involvement-in-brexit

akerman As most GE are won on lies, ( not telling the truth during the campaign and not carrying out their policies when in power) why do you what to start now ?

The UK gains massively and is more prosperous from being able to trade within the single market with our closest neighbours. The argument that we will be able to keep what we currently pay them is a false one, as we will be poorer all round, as David Davis' own impact studies showed. We benefit hugely from the EU negotiating our trade deals for us, as we are much stronger within a body of 500 million as opposed to striking out on our own as a country of 65 million. We are also considerably less attractive to other countries, once we lose our status as a foothold in the EU. This is why Japan says it will withdraw its companies and Canada and Australia have said they are far more interested in dealing with the EU than with us. There's a helpful two minute video on youtube where Ngaire Woods spells it out. The EU also operates a policy of not charging tariffs for the world's 50 poorest countries, so long as they are not trading weapons. The UK proposed and formulated many of the EU laws, and voted in favour of the vast majority of them. For as long as we hope for international co-operation on a range of issues, we will never be in a position of only relying on our own land. We will always be subject to international law and it is very hard to come up with instances on a personal, everyday level where this is a problem for people.

But Louise how can we leave the EU in a practical, workable way?

You can repeat that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow ad infinitum, that doesn’t increase the likelihood of people finding one.

LoveInTokyo But the majority did vote to leave the EU, LEAVE THE EU, what is hard to understand about that, how it is achieved is up to the government, The same government that gave the vote to the people by 5-1 majority, voted to invoke A50, etc How many more majority votes to you want to overturn till a tiny majority get what they want ?

rosstac - it's extremely unusual for an entire manifesto to be a tissue of lies, in the way that the Leave promises were in this referendum. And in the ordinary way of a General Election MPs have to subject themselves to another vote after a number of years. If we find that they have done a shit job, and failed to implement the promises we hoped for, we have the right to vote them out, so it's a completely different scenario.