Friday, October 27, 2017

10 reasons to have the softest of soft Brexits




Now is always a good time to take another look at the EU Referendum.

It was:

1) An Advisory Referendum

2) A narrow 48:52 victory, precisely the margin that Farage proclaimed - before the vote - would be "unfinished business".

3) The majority was 1.3 million - slightly more than those that voted Green in the General Election 2015.

4) Victory was based on Lies on a Bus, and a

5) Huge imbalance in Leave/Remain articles in the Press.

6) There was a massive age skew, because of  the elderly votes, and 16 year olds not being allowed to vote 

7) Also expats were not allowed to vote.

8) Saudi money, channeled via the DUP, put pro-Leave propaganda onto the Metro paper in London.

9) Cambridge Analytica money was improperly applied.

10) Probable troll, DavidJo52951945, tweeted to 100k following for Brexit, Trump, and Russia.

11) Looks as if Leave.EU used Twitter bots in their campaign

Those are ten -no,eleven- very good reasons to have a re-run of the referendum prior to Brexit. 

But if that proves to be impossible in this benighted and politically backward country, then at very least, the referendum gives Maybot a mandate for only the softest of soft Brexits. 

Certainly there is no democratic mandate for a Full English Brexit, only for the most frugal of Continental Brexits. Half a croissant with no jam.

Which might mean perhaps that we should stay in the Market and the Customs Union, and keep all environmental and social legislation. We could reasonably withdraw from identifiably inefficient bits of the EU, such as the legislation that allows export-import scams and dafty stuff such as the both-way meat exports that Caroline Lucas has identified.

[updated from here]

No comments: