The change in polls has been marginal. Most of that shift isn’t even due to people switching opinions, but to non-voters saying next time they’d vote Remain. Which means a second referendum that voted to stay by a small percentage could leave half the country feeling cheated and enraged...Suppose a new vote ended as recent polls suggest: 52:48 to stay. That would mean 48 per cent of the electorate would twice have voted to leave, and yet had been denied. Why would they accept this vote as final? They were told the original one would be decisive. The government’s leaflet promised “this is your decision — the government will implement what you decide”. There were no caveats. Nobody said, as would have been sensible, that if we voted out the country would be asked for final approval when we knew what the future really held.
Introducing something that could have been quite insightful, Russell cites:
An entrepreneur I know [who] employs hundreds in a deprived area. The business exports to the EU, and will be damaged by any Brexit. Yet the staff overwhelmingly voted Leave. They feel proud of having had their voices heard for once. They feel they have achieved something tangible that may improve their lives. They would be shocked beyond tolerance by its being snatched away.
There is a glimpse at last in this that the little people are actually not that easy to frighten or bribe. They might not be driven simply by short-term gain either. God forbid, but they might even have political views that extend to beyond where the next paypacket is coming from. And finally, in this slide to heresy, which Russell has so far resisted, they might even have a good case for Leave.Thank goodness Russell can rely on the old argument about lies told during the campaign
Other straws in the wind might suggest the heresy too. The egregious E Macron, still popular in the UK but not in France,'believes Brexit can be reversed', according to a Times report of a UK Cabinet meeting. He expounds what we all knew for years:
the French president is playing a dangerous game that could result in EU leaders offering Mrs May a package that she cannot sign up to, in the misguided hope of reversing Brexit entirely...Some in Downing Street think that if there were a second referendum in such a scenario the public would blame the EU and vote to leave without any deal at all.
This stance,backed with a threat to boycott any meeting to decide a final deal, is what prompted J Hunt to compare the EU to the USSR in that it wants to punish anyone who leaves, the Times says. Another Cold War term suggests itself for Remainers bleating on about reversing Brexit -- useful idiots. The Graun will not let up, for example, and today's issue even contains a warning about the costs of Brexit from 'The chief executive of the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland [who] has warned a no-deal Brexit could tip the UK into a recession'. The RBS! Precipitator of the whole 2008 Crash! You have to admire the brass neck!
Meanwhile even the Gudrian was persuaded to include a story (now reduced to the equivalent of the web backpages) that EU spending has risen dramatically, with obvious consequences for all those would be still left paying in:
Brussels committed to €267bn in 2017, almost twice the size of the union’s annual budget
The figure has soared in the last decade, as the EU has splashed out on big infrastructure projects, such as motorways and bridges, in central and eastern Europe...The report also showed that EU staff pension liabilities rose to €73bn up from €67bn in 2016. EU budget guarantees – loans to EU member states for economic development, as well as loans for foreign countries – increased to €123bn, up from €115bn.
The Gudrina, of course, uses the story to imply snarky attacks on all those mugs who thought the UK 'divorce bill' would be a mere £39bn. Apparently, the EC now thinks this sum can be increased as EU spending increases and thus so does 'our share'. Happily so far the UK Government has said '“The UK cannot be made to pay for additional spending beyond what it has signed up to as a member.”'
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