18-1-19
Dear Partners in thought,
Having used that Agatha Christie line for the recent exit of Jim Mattis in the former colonies, it seemed appropriate to use it again in its very national context after this amazing Westminster and Brexit week and choreography.
As you have noted previous interludes pointed to a logical defeat of Ms. May deal as early as of December with a most likely and logical outcome, however sensitive and divisive, that I need not restating.
As we are flooded by too much news, I thought that I would provide you with bullet points that can be debated over a pint at the pub this weekend.
- HM’s government suffered the biggest defeat of any British government in parliamentary British history
- Theresa May’s deal is dead even if she and the government do not want to see it
- Her win of the no confidence vote put partisan politics ahead of the national interest and is no sign of any mandate
- The EU will not renegotiate substantially anything with the UK at this time whatever wishful thinking in the air
- A majority against the No Deal Exit which is already there in Parliament will firm up
- Labour will finally opt for a second referendum which Jeremy Corbyn will endorse short of his general election dreams
- Ms May will drop the idea that giving people a voice in the end is “a subversion of democracy”
- Parliament will find a cross-party majority to let the people revisit the matter of leaving the EU together with whatever viable option that the EU would have agreed to is left including likely a No Deal exit
- Technical objections to a second referendum like changing the law or the time it would take will be managed as soon as the EU backs the extension the UK needs and Article 50 is removed
- The latest YouGov people giving a 56%-44% 12 points majority to stay in the EU is a clear statement that a referendum “based on facts as we know them” is needed whatever sophistry in the partisan air
In the end, Brexit will not happen as the British will not want to be markedly poorer and marginalised in the world thus losing the independence they had as a strong and leading EU member state.
A crucial point that will sway the vote of many erstwhile Leavers is also the realisation that the leaders of Brexit given their social origins and status would never really suffer from an EU exit whatever grand statements by the likes of the Oxfordian John Redwood, Boris Johnson Michael Gove, or Jacob Rees-Mogg, the latter whose hedge fund management firm he founded is moving to Dublin.
I am not planning to comment much on the Brexit developments going forward as the news flow will be of a tsunami proportion and I realise the sensitivities involved. However please remember my Cartesian forecast and let us see whether Britain, the most rational country in the history of our modern world, keeps to its tradition. This whatever we hear from the partisan trenches.
Rule Britannia!
Warmest regards,
Serge
Desperate Measures 