{"id":243,"date":"2019-05-14T14:46:25","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T13:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cranleigh.org\/politics\/?p=243"},"modified":"2023-11-15T08:45:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T08:45:25","slug":"dont-tell-anyone-but-im-voting-for-nige","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cranleigh.org\/politics\/2019\/05\/14\/dont-tell-anyone-but-im-voting-for-nige\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t tell anyone, but I\u2019m voting for Nige."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I shall be voting for Nigel\nFarage\u2019s Brexit party on 23rd<\/sup> May. It will feel naughtily enjoyable.\nNo-one can ever know, but do it I shall. And I will do it in spite of\ndisagreeing with Nigel Farage over the majority of what he believes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, he thinks that Europe\nwould be better without the European Union, that a continent of fully\nindependent and fully sovereign nation-states would be free and stable. He\nneeds a history lesson very badly. Imperfect though the EU may be, it is still\none heck of a lot better than Farage\u2019s vision, not least from a British point\nof view. I voted in 2016 to remain in it because I reasoned that, if Brexit were\nto weaken the EU terminally, we would be undermining the continental stability\nand balance that British foreign policy has for centuries been aimed at creating\nor sustaining. Nationalism has always been a disaster for Europe, and I was\nuncomfortable with Farage\u2019s version of it encouraging its development on the\ncontinent. If we left by referendum, I figured darkly, we might end up once\nagain returning by landing-craft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farage also bangs the drum of\ncontempt for our main representative institutions \u2013 Parliament, political\nparties, cabinet government \u2013 by going on about \u201cthe political class\u201d and the\n\u201cWestminster bubble\u201d and the \u201cout of touch elites\u201d and so on. In my view, the\ntone of Farage\u2019s populism damages the health of British democracy when he calls\nout the deliberations of elected representatives as some sort of conspiracy of\nthe powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why am I going to vote for him,\nthis once? Because he is right about the central question at hand: The UK must\nleave the European Union properly, because if you hold a referendum you must\nabide by its instruction. That unequivocally means what has been dubbed a \u201chard\nBrexit\u201d \u2013 no Customs Union and no Single Market. That this must be delivered is\na point of principle, but it is also crucial to the long-term stability of\nBritish politics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rear guard of Remainers \u2013\nAnna Soubry and friends \u2013 cannot seem to see that if they got their second\nreferendum, and they won it, the argument would never go away. You would have\nyour British Gilet Jaunes up and running in a flash; Farage, and the heirs to\nFarage, would forever be there, crying betrayal. In this scenario, the split\nover the Brexit issue \u2013 for now probably a more or less temporary one which\noverlays the customary left-right two party system \u2013 would become baked into\nBritish politics permanently as a new axis of public debate and partisan\nloyalty. Political paralysis would set in, with neither side coming off their\npositions, like some endless and terrible family feud from which there are only\nlosers. Sooner or later Farage would\nget a third referendum. On and on would the death spiral go, shriller and\nshriller would it sound, a whole generation defining itself around bitter identity\npolitics \u2013 are you Leave or Remain? \u2013 long after the original rational\narguments for either standpoint have been forgotten. Neverendums would become\nentrenched in the British constitution, parliament would be increasingly\nundermined, and civil disobedience and divisive post-truth politics would infect\nthe mainstream of British political culture. Hard Remainers may have\ntheir membership of the EU back, but at the price of British democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other Remain option is softer, of course. It involves being within\nthe European Union in all but name, really: something like May\u2019s deal or a\nsofter version of it. This can be defended by pointing to the ambiguity of the\n52% to 48% vote, to the idea that hard Brexit would break the Good Friday\nAgreement apart by re-imposing a hard intra-Irish border that would inflame\nrepublicans, and to the likelihood of economic damage if we were to \u201ccrash out\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, the vote was close, but there was no super-majority requirement or\nquorum measure for that 2016 referendum. So the decision was the decision, and\nthroughout the campaign both sides of the argument were clear that the decision\nwould mean leaving the EU fully. A half-in, half-out arrangement such as May\u2019s\ndeal or anything that could yet be negotiated between her and Labour would be a\nfudge that would leave us with many of the worst features of the EU and none of\nthe potential best features of a cleaner Brexit \u2013 less regulation and so forth.\nI little doubt that we will remain in close cooperation with and in practice largely\nin alignment with the EU whatever happens; but in the \u201chard Brexit\u201d scenario we\nwould not<\/em> be legally bound to accept\nand enforce laws made by majority vote in the EU\u2019s council of ministers which\ndirectly conflict with our own perceived national interest. In most of the\n\u201csoft Brexit\u201d scenarios being debated, we probably would be effectively bound\nto EU rules, without necessarily having a say in them. And that, like remaining\nvia referendum, would mean that the argument would just rumble on and on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Ireland, nobody has said they will build a hard border. It would\nbe a muddle and probably a smugglers paradise, but with no hard border there\nshould be no return to violence. The DUP could probably yet be won around by\nthe arguments in favour of preserving an integrated Irish economy if given a\ncopper-bottomed, cross-bench guarantee that the union would remain in place\neven with a customs border in the Irish Sea. The Irish border is probably the\nmost intractable issue of them all, but it has been heavily exaggerated and\nleveraged by Remainers here and in Europe in order to torpedo Brexit. As for\nthe UK economy, there may be structural change in many sectors which will cause\npain, and there may be some initial shock which triggers a cyclical downturn.\nEqually we could see a short-term bounce from deferred investment. Businesses\nare better prepared now and the economy seems oddly buoyant. Brexit need not be\ncliff-edge stuff. Once we leave, adjustments can be gradual \u2013 a sort of UK-wide\nbackstop. Above all businesses want more certainty, and so they need a\ndecision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so above all does British politics. I will be interested to see what\nhappens on 23rd<\/sup> May. All bets are off, but for now Farage\u2019s party is\npolling well. The vote could end up presenting an instruction that Brexit must\nbe somewhat harder than our current political leadership \u2013 still reading what\nthey want into the 2016 result \u2013 is currently willing to consider. Even if\nthere is economic damage through leaving with a hard Brexit, this would be far\noutweighed by the political damage that remaining within the EU would cause. We\nhave to get out, and we have to move on. If the Brexit party can provide some\nsort of mandate for that in the upcoming elections, and this then brings\nmoderate Remainers off their current positions and towards a conclusion to all\nthis, then it will have served its purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if that means we never have another referendum about anything else,\never again, then so much the better!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Von Hayek<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I shall be voting for Nigel Farage\u2019s Brexit party on 23rd May. It will feel naughtily enjoyable. No-one can ever…
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