Tuesday 4 September 2018

Leavers led by Remainers

Guardian celebrations today at the news that a major union ( GMB) will be urging Labour to have a vote on the Brexit outcomes. It's a nice parochial argument: 

“As trade unionists, when we negotiate a pay deal with an employer, we go back to our members and ask them if they’re happy with it. Whether they want to accept or reject it...“That’s what people deserve now, because the promises that were made during the referendum campaign are simply not the reality we are facing,” he said.

The barely suppressed implication, of course, is that a referendum will reverse the decision of 2016, the only way in which another referendum could affect Brexit (a new Leave vote would leave [sic] all the same problems). Same goes for the other sort of people's vote the GMB are urging -- a general election. That would still levae a high chance of a Conservative Government and quite possibly strenghen the Leaver elements.

Further disingenuousness appears with this:

“People voted for change – they voted to take back control. They did not vote for economic chaos or to put jobs and hard won rights on the line,” he said...“The government need to know they have to come back and face the music – they can’t sell working people down the river. That’s why GMB supports your right to decide what sort of Brexit is the right Brexit.”
The implication is that the referendum would be about varieties of Brexit, not at all what the usual supporters of the 'People's Vote' would like, of course. If it is a vote about existing versions of Brexit (and the actual question would be tricky as we know), it would be Chequers or WTO. Whatever the question, voters would still have to choose on the basis of 'promises' which might well turn out to be 'not the reality' we will face. Opponents of referenda pointed all this out not long ago, of course, and the Graun is not ususally loath to criticise trades union proposals. As usual, it is any port in a storm, and any bedfellow in the Great Cause.

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