Kirsty Hall has a stunningly good post on Brexit that tells me many things I didn’t know – in particular, how short the notice was and how horrifyingly inadequate the necessary informing of the voter was. Basically she says Cameron did this for his own selfish short-sighted political reasons, blithely assuming Leave would fail, and he did nothing whatever to prevent the Leave win or to prepare the country for that outcome. The Scottish referendum, she says, was far more carefully planned and executed.
But then Brexit was never about the whole of the UK and Gibraltar examining the issues and deciding what was best.
Because you simply cannot drill down into such a complex issue in that short amount of time. It is impossible.
And that is why such vitally important issues like what would happen to the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland in the event of Brexit were simply glossed over and ignored. No one had the time to process how things would actually WORK. There was no time to go over the details with a fine-toothed comb.
Over and over I heard from undecided people, ‘why are we being asked this, I don’t feel like I know enough about it, it’s all so complicated, how on earth do I decide what’s best?’
Nobody bothered to give the details.
During the Scottish independence referendum, the Scottish SNP government published Scotland’s Future, a document laying out how an independent Scotland would work and addressing issues such as finance, the EU, currency and other issues.
It was a 670 page document and published a whole 10 MONTHS before the referendum and it was meticulously analysed point-by-point by both voters and the press. It was very thoroughly put under the microscope and in the end found slightly wanting, mostly on the issues of currency and the ability of an independent Scotland to retain membership of the EU.
It was made abundantly clear to voters that it was a big decision and if they were going to vote for Yes For Change and risk destabilising their country, they had better be very sure.
In contrast, the Vote Leave campaign published one 16 page pdf manifesto on their website. Did you read it? I never even heard about it.
16 pages obviously isn’t nearly as many as 670, so clearly it wasn’t going to be as detailed as the Scottish document.
Then I looked at the thing and it’s all in VERY. BIG. WRITING. So I downloaded it. There are 1293 words in the entire document. That’s it. That’s all.
Wow. 1300 words. That’s column-length. That’s a fraction of a chapter of a book. That’s small.
There’s nothing in it, she says. It’s just assertions and buzzwords, no real information.
In my view, voters were extremely short-changed in being given the tools to understand what Brexit would mean for them and their lives.
Of course it didn’t help that whenever possible consequences were brought up, the Leave campaign screamed ‘scaremongering’.
But they were able to get away with that lousy behaviour because there wasn’t time to ask the hard questions. The press couldn’t ask for clarification over and over again as happened during the Scottish independence referendum. There was no time to dig.
Farage, Johnson and Gove were never held over the coals by a press demanding a detailed and comprehensive Brexit plan as the SNP government were during Indyref. It there had been time for that, it would have certainly quickly become apparent that there was no plan and that it was all smoke and mirrors.
Because there was no real Leave Brexit plan other than, ‘right, that’s it, we’re off!’ — a fact that has been made abundantly clear since Friday.
Honestly, I thought it was only the US that did things that irresponsibly.
There was also no plan for Brexit from the Remain side because this was simply never supposed to happen. David Cameron very clearly expected the country to simply rubberstamp a Remain vote.
He called this referendum for his own political advantage within the Conservative party. It was never about what was best for Britain and always about what was best for David Cameron and his control of the Conservative party.
He thought he’d found a clever way to shut up the bothersome Eurosceptics. Have a referendum, win, then forever be able to tell them, ‘oh too bad, so sad, the people have decided’ — boom, job’s a good ‘un.
The only plan was to win and then briskly move on.
5 minutes in the Commons — ‘you’ve all had your say, best thing for Britain but jolly good show and well done all, next business please.’
If you think that’s just my opinion, this is a quote from the Independent newspaper:
“In the words of his biographers Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon, the Prime Minister had three objectives when he called this vote: “to pacify Eurosceptic critics, neutralise UKIP, and take the EU off the front pages”.”
It was never about you or your country.
And then there’s the fact that they’re all going off on holiday in a few days.
I am putting the blame firmly back where it belongs. On David Cameron and the Tory party for agreeing to this sham of a referendum in the first place and then executing it so badly and with such undue haste.
They ran it with the same blithe, unthinking, patrician arrogance that made them call it in the first place. Anyone who made the decision to call the referendum and then to run it in such a ludicrously short period of time is not fit to serve in public office in this country and they should hang their heads in shame. They ran a referendum under false premises and defrauded the public.
When they decided that a hastily called and badly organised referendum would shut up the Eurosceptics and scupper UKIP, the Conservatives did not care one whit about the possible outcomes for Britain of an actual Brexit. Which is why none of the potentially devastating issues were as deeply and rigorously explored as they should have been. Issues like the effects on medical research, university education, our economy, our standing in the world or the potentially difficult political situations that could result in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.
What does all that matter compared to David Cameron’s career?
And then the first comment, by John Farndon, is a real smack in the eye:
You’ve hit the nail on the head, Kirsty. About the process, you’ll be equally appalled (but not surprised) to know that this referendum broke the EU guidelines on referendums which the UK signed up to in Venice in 2007 on three key counts.
1) Governments are explicitly instructed to provide detail information laying out all the implications of the vote in full detail long before campaigning begins, so that voters know fully what they’re voting for. This should be in all official languages plus all significant minority languages. This is not a matter of whim but a key requirement.
2) In a referendum initiated by the executive (ie the government), Parliament must make it absolutely clear well in advance the course of action it recommends to the public. Since 500 out of 650 MPs were in favour of remain, it should have been clear what they recommended.
3) The government must also make it very clear to the public whether the result is legally binding or simply consultative. Because they failed to do this, there was massive confusion, with many people voting ‘leave’ just as a protest, safe in the belief that it would never actually happen. And now they say they cannot reject the verdict because many people believed it was binding and it would be wrong to deny the ‘will of the people’ which it clearly isn’t. !!!
You are absolutely right to castigate Cameron for his appalling overconfidence and chicanery in setting this referendum up so badly. But where was Parliament, where were the civil servants and legal advisors who must know all this better than me — who should have been there when the bill went through, when Cameron announced it, etc. Where was even the parliamentary committee which should have overseen this, the biggest single vote in recent British history? Parliament as a whole and its legal advisers have been so negligent it takes one’s breath away.
And now they are walking away from the calamity, washing their hands and saying, “Oh well, the people have spoken. It’s not our fault if it all comes crashing down.” Well, yes, it is. Parliament’s entirely. We expect our elected representatives to guide us in the right direction — which they utterly failed to do.
It’s a horror show.
