
A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen - panabee
http://qz.com/717182/a-brexit-conspiracy-theory-nails-the-no-win-situation-boris-johnson-now-finds-himself-in/?utm_content=bufferdd5b0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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thomasfoster96
Well that pretty much nails it.

While on paper it still looks like Boris Johnson is in a great position to the
vast majority of the public, the next Prime Minister is going to have to
follow through with what they _know_ is a terrible idea, negotiate with the EU
with remarkably less leverage than the 'Leave' campaign thought they had, try
to deal with Scotland wanting to leave, restless regional pressure groups in
Wales, Cornwall and other parts of the country, as well as try not to have
Northern Ireland fall back into a state of ongoing political violence.

So Johnson either has put his hand up to deal with all these issues until the
next general election in (or sooner) 2020 and go to an election with a
struggling economy (I doubt and the Union slowly falling apart (remember,
Scotland's independence would topple the sitting PM almost certainly) or he
can wait it out, let another Conservative Prime Minister lose in 2020, and
become party leader upon the election loss and hope to win in 2025.

I doubt he thought this through very well. On the plus side UKIP's work is
mostly done so they mightn't poll as well any more.

~~~
bodyfour
Arg.. I just spent a half hour writing a long comment on this article, but
then Chrome crashed when I hit "submit". I'll try to briefly retype my
thoughts here since you've covered some of them.

It's quite clear that Boris did not want the referendum to win. While (like
all tories) he would occasionally grumble about Brussels nobody considered him
anti-EU during his time as mayor.

He was, however, obviously after the top job. He would upstage Cameron every
chance he got.

When he decided to switch back to being an MP, Cameron brought him into his
cabinet (without a formal position) He knew he had this referendum campaign to
fight and having the popular internationalist by his side would help him
command as much party loyalty as possible.

Boris then immediately pirouetted (bad mental image, that) and decided to lead
the "Leave" campaign instead. The grassroots (largely Euroskeptic) tories who
will pick the next party leader would appreciate his help. Cameron already
announced that he would leave before the 2020 election, so this would mean PM
Boris probably in late 2018/early 2019.

So the best result for Boris would be a narrow referendum loss while looking
like a great anti-EU warrior. A lot of the rhetoric he employed was to this
end -- when he would compare the EU to the Nazis, it would make him look
fierce to the hardcore Euroskeptics who controlled his future, while
whispering to the electorate-at-large that the whole Leave campaign was nutty.

It didn't work. He got what he nominally wanted, and now he has the chance to
be PM faster than expected... but he has to deal with the fallout from this
disaster.

If Cameron had invoked Article 50 immediately then the rest of the party would
blame a sloppy exit on him... "we had a great plan to pre-negotiate
everything, but Dave messed it up!" He's not giving them that option: if the
country is to be destroyed, he wants them to pull the trigger.

It's startling watching the "moderate" Leave wing falling over themselves to
dial back all of their promises during the campaign.... turns out there isn't
more money for the NHS... of course there would still be free movement of
workers from EU countries... maybe if Scotland doesn't want to do it we should
call it off to preserve the union.... etc etc.. In victory, they're terrified
of what they've done.

Of course, to the far-right any wavering will be seen as treachery. A fight is
brewing there.

Meanwhile, Labour is also in full self-destruct mode. Corbyn just sacked the
most credible member of his shadow cabinet and many of the rest will probably
leave in protest. There have been many times in British political history when
the out-of-power party goes through this sort of process, but never when the
governing party is also in such disarray. Interesting times, unfortunately.

I don't know if UKIP will disappear, though. They could now be the party of
northern grievance, locking Labour out of power entirely.

~~~
IsaacL
> It's quite clear that Boris did not want the referendum to win.

It's not clear to me. I think you are taking it as self-evident that Leave is
a bad idea. In the mainstream narrative, the EU is associated with everything
nice and international and the only reason to be against it is if you're a
crazy old-fashioned nationalist.

There's a classical liberal case for Brexit, though, which Gove articulated
reasonably well. I think Johnson kinda believes the same things, though
without Gove's conviction (I voted Leave but I don't like Johnson, I think
he's an opportunist). Like all conspiracy theories yours assumes that the
conspirators concoct these elaborate schemes which have multiple failure
modes. Leave had roughly 1/3 odds of winning all through the campaign, so it's
not that much of a surprise. Nor is it clear that a Remain vote would have
helped Johnson's career, given that almost the entire establishment backed
Remain.

> It's startling watching the "moderate" Leave wing falling over themselves to
> dial back all of their promises during the campaign.... turns out there
> isn't more money for the NHS...

The media is really playing up this angle. Vote Leave isn't the government and
the referendum wasn't a general election where the campaigners campaign on a
particular manifesto. There is now more money in the UK budget, where it gets
spent is up to the next PM.

~~~
peteretep

        > I think you are taking it as
        > self-evident that Leave is a
        > bad idea
    

Yeah. Me, every economist, the markets, almost all centrist politicians,
Obama, people who are highly educated, etc

It's funny to watch Leavers complain that people think they're racist, with
all their great arguments about common fisheries, not being able to depot Abu-
bin-whoever, and whatever other weird non-issue is flavour of the day, not to
mention the supreme irony of a people with an unelected upper chamber claiming
they're booting out a directly elected upstream parliament for "democracy".

~~~
IsaacL
> every economist

Most but not all. Economics is currently split into multiple schools which
disagree on philosophical fundamentals, and is hardly an exact science. How
many economists predicted the financial crisis? Those that did tend to be
small government advocates. (I don't endorse everything he says, but Nassim
Taleb is one example, who is also pro-Brexit).

I wish someone had made this point during the campaign, to answer the snipes
that Leave was anti-intellectual, anti-expert, and so on.

~~~
ScottBurson
> Nassim Taleb is [...] also pro-Brexit

He just wants all these puts he's been buying to be worth something [0].

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/nassim-talebs-universa-
invest...](http://www.businessinsider.com/nassim-talebs-universa-investments-
crushed-it-2015-8)

------
YeGoblynQueenne
Or maybe Boris looked subdued because he just had the flu.

All those plausible theories are just that: plausible and theories. Who knows
what's going through Johnson's head right now? Who knows what will happen in
the future? What good is this sort of analysis, that's based on some vague
attempt to form a theory of mind of a particular person (rather than a class
of person, say) by people who have never even met the person in question in,
er, well, person?

In any case BoJo and all the Tories on the side of Leave are typical
populists: their tactic is to agitate and profit. They shake the tree until
office falls out, then make a grab for it. In chaotic times, the populist
leads, so the populist actively tries to create chaos, in exactly the opposite
manner than reasonable politicians do (regardless of whether they are also
intelligent, capable or not).

This is BoJo's time. It's futile to hope otherwise. The whole country
abandoned reason. The prime idiot is not going to back down now. Those people
are not in this game to leave a good name for themselves in history: they're
in it to do well in the here and now, and damn the rest of the world to hell.

If the reasonable people in the UK wish to retain control, they have to get
their noses out of their consolation drinks and squeeze their brains hard to
come up with actual ideas, rather than pipe dreams and wishful thinking.

~~~
toyg
I think you're as guilty as the columnist to try and read one's mind. I don't
think anyone as well-educated and well-read as BoJo is in it only "for the
here and now"; most politicians fighting for leadership positions do have a
sense of purpose and historical role, as well as the competitive streak. It is
much more profitable, in the short term, to just hang around in the shadows,
brokering deals and pocketing kickbacks, than to lose sleep and health
campaigning and shaking hands. People who are born from money can be
narcissists, sociopaths or well-intentioned buffoons, but don't usually burn
the place down for the hell of it.

------
pi-err
There's a much better and simpler explanation to the 4-months delay.

As shown in Cameron's [white paper on Brexit from last
February]([https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/504216/The_process_for_withdrawing_from_the_EU_print_ready.pdf)),
the critical part of the exit process is to buy more than 2 years to define
the new relationship (article 50 has basically only this period as a hard
fact).

The paper does bold that a realistic timeline would be ~10 years. Meaning the
UK needs to find bullet points to negotiate additional time... with all the
free goodies of being still a "passive" member of the EU.

So they're buying 4 months now. They need this to understand their leverages,
friends and foes. Many in Europe will be receptive on avoiding a clash. Merkel
right now shows signs of resilience.

Make no mistake: part of the City and tech industry sees a strong potential in
Brexit - as long as there is no "free fall" period after 2 years.

Everything will be about buying time.

~~~
toyg
Extending the deadline requires unanimous vote, which, since enlargement to 28
countries, is basically impossible. The interpretation of paragraphs
describing art.50 triggering is vague enough that the EU will find ways to
trigger it themselves -- it's already been suggested that a speech taking
place in an EU setting and getting transcribed will be enough, which means UK
diplomats and ministers are now all but ostracized from formal meetings of any
sort outside the negotiation process.

There is no way this situation can extend for 10 years. The EU will not allow
it, especially if recession hits. If really UK elites get cold feet, we'll
have a general election with an europhile party winning and abandoning the
whole thing, with a second referendum forced.

------
dijit
[http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/25/brexit-...](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/25/brexit-
live-emergency-meetings-eu-uk-leave-vote#comment-77205935)

The original comment.

And probably somewhat close to reality, but we can't say for sure, only time
will tell.

------
GunboatDiplomat
So... does anyone really think any democratic government would be so crazy as
to totally discard the results of a referendum they called?

~~~
legulere
Sweden ignored a referendum where 83% voted for keeping left-sided traffic.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H)

Often decisions are better left to experts, something that representative
democracy usually achieves. I also think that we should explain representative
democracy as the population being able to hold the people in power accountable
instead of the people deciding things. So democracy might even be a misnomer.
This result is exactly what opponents of democracy meant when they identified
it with tyranny of the masses.

~~~
rayiner
Left sided traffic is the classic example of something that should be
determined by bureaucrats. Whether to let French people vote on laws that
directly bind British people is the perfect example of something that should
not be determined by bureaucrats.

------
Joeri
The brexit will happen, but the result will be a trade agreement that imposes
almost the same set of conditions on the UK, except without the ability of the
UK to veto new EU measures. In short, the UK is still going to be controlled
by Europe, but now without veto powers.

The negotiators won't be trying too hard to get a better deal from the EU,
because they'll be the ones in power, and if they fail to negotiate a deal
they'll be forced to give up that power. Trust politicians to prefer power
over principles any time.

~~~
skylan_q
_the UK is still going to be controlled by Europe_

No it won't, as the EU has become a legislative body governing aspects of
people's lives in the UK and it will no longer be the case.

~~~
imtringued
If you want a trade agreement with the EU then yes it will govern aspects of
people's lives in the UK because the majority of EU laws are trade
regulations.

~~~
slv77
In a deflationary environment countries that run trade deficits make the
rules. Germany is currently exporting its deflation (and its effects) to the
UK via its trade surplus which the Bank of England then has to mitigate.

At this point severe trade restrictions with the UK would likely mean even
more severe imbalances inside the EU and the eventual exit of Italy, Spain and
Portugal.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
Here's why BoJo's face, sad or smiley, doesn't matter one bit:

 _The foreign ministers of the EU’s six founding members, however, demanded
Britain start proceedings “as soon as possible” to avoid a long and
potentially damaging period of uncertainty.

The Dutch foreign minister, Bert Koenders, told the Volkskrant: “We can’t have
the kind of dithering Boris Johnson is suggesting. Everyone wants clarity:
people, businesses, financial markets.”

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, urged Cameron to step down soon,
saying: “A new prime minister must be designated – that will take a few days.
But there is a certain urgency.” He added: “We have to give a new sense to
Europe, otherwise populism will fill the gap.”_

The rest of the EU is not going to take this shit lightly when it is bad for
business and it's also threatening to overturn the status quo and give a run
for power to the Farages of the continent. If Boris, or whoever becomes the
next PM, decides to procrastinate, the result will only be even more pain in
the disengagement talks.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/eu-
founding-...](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/eu-founding-
members-britain-agree-quick-divorce-europe-exit)

~~~
peteretep
They don't get a say in it, so who the hell cares? Merkel has explicitly
supported taking time over it, and she calls the shots

------
scoot
Might as well link to the comment rather than the blog-spam which simply
quotes it in part, then in full, with no further analysis:
[http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/25/brexit-...](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/25/brexit-
live-emergency-meetings-eu-uk-leave-vote#comment-77205935)

------
gregn610
I wonder if a snap election could be called before article 50 is invoked? One
of the major parties could campaign on "Remain" and if they won, they'd have a
democratic mandate to ignore the referendum.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Look, forget about any of the major parties (like, the following two, Tories
and Labour). They are responsible for this mess, either because they wanted to
cause it (that's half of the Tories and a quarter ish of Labour) or because
they failed to stop it (three quarters of Labour).

The best chance the UK has to reverse the result of the referendum is Nicola
Sturgeon being able to do what she suggested today, blocking the process of
the triggering of article 50. If she really has the power to do that, then
there's hope still. Otherwise, the UK is screwed.

~~~
toyg
Sturgeon stalling will just give UKIP a majority next time around. How do
Scots date to tell England what to do etc etc. It's a recipe for civil war, in
the worst scenario.

Tbh I feel awful for Lizzie and Charles, who might end up being constitutional
arbiters in the process of disgregation of a kingdom their family kept
together for hundreds of years. They probably didn't expect to have to deal
with this shit at their age.

------
speeder
I am not much close to UK politics.

But doesn't UKIP have a rising popularity right now?

If neither of the two traditional parties want to lead Brexit, would not this
just result in UKIP volunteering and asking the population to back them in the
next parliament elections?

------
eternalban
As an aside we should note that the globalists' regime is, per their concerted
scaremongering propaganda effort since the Brexit vote, indeed so fragile that
the mere defection of one nation sends it into a tailspin.

------
golemotron
A lot will be determined by the decision of who is going to lead the
conservatives now. To invoke Lisbon, someone is going to have to stand up with
a strong positive vision. It's also in their interest to delay starting the
process to allow time for other countries in the EU to start their own
referenda.

If the UK does actually go through with Brexit, whomever takes on this
leadership role will have to court other countries in the EU to form a larger
bloc before the UK's negotiations with the EU finalize. It's either that or
accept a punitive deal from the EU.

------
chvid
The media has been fairly biased wrt. Brexit up to the referendum but after
the result is in they have just gone completely stupid.

Boris Johnson is an excellent future leader of the conservatives and will do
very well as a prime minister. That he was able to become mayor of London
shows his broad appeal to what is traditionally a left-winged and very EU-
positive place.

What will happen now is much more about the future of the EU and how to create
a well-functioning alternative for the many EU-countries who are not willing
to go towards a federation.

~~~
grey-area
Living in London I find your respect for Johnson surprising. Here is is a
summary of his achievements, most of which began before he was involved:

[http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-
news/politics/ex...](http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-
news/politics/exclusive-four-great-things-boris-johnson-did-that-ken-
livingstone-should-get-credit-for/11839.article)

The push for a better and bigger airport on the estuary was a good idea IMO,
even if it failed, otherwise it struggle to think of any concrete
achievements.

I doubt he'll make it to prime minister though, for one he's too intelligent
and self-centred to want to preside over the dissolution of the United Kingdom
and the difficult compromises that will be required if the uk wants access to
European markets. I can't imagine a less persuasive figure than the affable
but clownish boris to lead the uk in these difficult brexit negotiations.

On the future of the EU, that won't be decided by the UK who will have very
little influence after they leave.

~~~
chvid
My point is merely that he got elected in London which is not an easy thing
for a conservative.

UK's decision and how it will be handled will have very big influence over the
rest of Europe and will set the agenda for the growing EU opposition here.

The media frames this as an (almost isolated) UK problem but it really is not.

It is about the EU.

~~~
threeseed
Boris is not a conservative in the typical sense though. He's a populist like
Trump.

And for at least the next few years it will all be about the UK. In particular
all the internal work of redefining its relationship with the EU e.g.
diplomatic, trade as well as figuring out what to do about EU regulations.

I would be surprised if any EU country has the appetite to hold another
referendum when they see what it is in store.

------
threeseed
It really is a poison chalice all right. Of historical proportions.

To be in charge when the United Kingdom comes to an end and Britain fades into
irrelevance is something nobody could possibly want.

~~~
alva
You move towards the picture you create.

This sort of crazy hyperbole is why many people are scared. The UK will be
fine. We are members of the top international groups, NATO, G7 etc.

~~~
threeseed
The UK will not be fine though. Scotland is all but certain to leave. Northern
Ireland is also quite likely to find a way to reunite in part with Ireland.
The UK will be dissolved in all but name.

And of course UK will still remain within international groups. But it will no
longer be the key entry point for political, commercial and cultural
engagement with Europe.

To manage that shift is not going to be easy nor rewarding.

~~~
alva
"Scotland is all but certain to leave."

Not a certainty at all, especially if new EU membership involves taking the
Euro. There is a reason Sturgeon has not yet called the vote, they know that
EU joining terms are likely to be very ugly for Scotland at this time. She
first has to convince the EU to give them extremely exceptional rules (or
legal challenge so Scotland isn't necessarily leaving then joining).

Your statements are hyperbolic. No one has any clue what is going to happen
next. Making these assertions is unhelpful to everyone.

But. If you truly believe in what you are saying, now is the time for you to
make yourself millions of pounds in the next few months easily. Plough your
savings into the market, take large, leveraged positions against the UK.

~~~
nazgob
The Euro thing is kinda false. Yes, new countries have to adopt Euro but there
is no deadline and no penalty. They only have to promise to do it someday.
That is why some countries don't have it and will no have for many years.

~~~
kbob
But Scotland doesn't have its own legacy currency. There's no need/excuse for
a phase out period.

------
neverminder
There could be a life ring thrown in this situation after all - Scotland is
thinking of vetoing Brexit - [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-
politics-3663...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-
politics-36633244)

~~~
biosonar
And that will end well.

------
bikamonki
_The referendum result is not binding. It is advisory. Parliament is not bound
to commit itself in that same direction._

Is this true in UK's legislation?

~~~
thomasfoster96
Yes, in the UK the parliament has absolute sovereignty[0].

Parliament cannot be overruled by the courts (unlike the US or Australia,
where the Supreme/High Court can declare laws invalid), nor is there any
requirement for decisions to be taken to a referendum (unlike Australia or
Switzerland, where the constitution can't be changed without a vote).

The UK parliament can, in theory, ignore the referendum entirely - although
that'd be hugely unpopular if they did.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty)

------
internaut
Remain and the Media want to larp as Persian emissaries from 300?

