This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/07/brexit-roulette-uk-future-referendum
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| With Brexit we’re playing roulette with the UK’s future. But will we win? | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Who do you trust on Brexit? The air is shrill with people whistling to keep their spirits up, but to me the chancellor’s warning in advance of his autumn statement that there could be trouble ahead sounds more adult. Meanwhile uncertainty grows, as does interest in emigration, especially among young professionals. Imagine you have a son or daughter who, dismayed by the referendum, is thinking of moving abroad. Naturally you would prefer them to stay, but how would you convince them? Already their family will suffer the usual pressures – housing, health, education; now, for the foreseeable future, they will face new potential instabilities, whether of income or employment. | Who do you trust on Brexit? The air is shrill with people whistling to keep their spirits up, but to me the chancellor’s warning in advance of his autumn statement that there could be trouble ahead sounds more adult. Meanwhile uncertainty grows, as does interest in emigration, especially among young professionals. Imagine you have a son or daughter who, dismayed by the referendum, is thinking of moving abroad. Naturally you would prefer them to stay, but how would you convince them? Already their family will suffer the usual pressures – housing, health, education; now, for the foreseeable future, they will face new potential instabilities, whether of income or employment. |
| The commonsense Britons seem to have developed a taste for the roulette wheel. Mass immigration was a gamble, and the referendum a second blind leap to escape the consequences of the first. Now it turns out the government has been dicing with the constitution. How long could it take to sort everything out? Two years, five, a decade? Nobody knows. The referendum was a game played by high rollers, but the outcome means we’re all gamblers now, as people like my imaginary son or daughter find themselves forced to place bets on their futures. | The commonsense Britons seem to have developed a taste for the roulette wheel. Mass immigration was a gamble, and the referendum a second blind leap to escape the consequences of the first. Now it turns out the government has been dicing with the constitution. How long could it take to sort everything out? Two years, five, a decade? Nobody knows. The referendum was a game played by high rollers, but the outcome means we’re all gamblers now, as people like my imaginary son or daughter find themselves forced to place bets on their futures. |
| How could David Cameron have taken such a risk? The whole thing was a kind of schoolboy dare. Boris Johnson took the bet without expecting to win, as if it were a bit of a jape, the Eton wall game played out on the back of a prostrate nation. Does that make the Tories guilty of putting party before country? No, because in the Cameron/Johnson world the Tory party is the country. Now we are told to stop moaning and return to the Victorian spirit that made us the greatest trading nation on earth, and assert ourselves as Commonwealth leaders, as if the 20th century never happened. | How could David Cameron have taken such a risk? The whole thing was a kind of schoolboy dare. Boris Johnson took the bet without expecting to win, as if it were a bit of a jape, the Eton wall game played out on the back of a prostrate nation. Does that make the Tories guilty of putting party before country? No, because in the Cameron/Johnson world the Tory party is the country. Now we are told to stop moaning and return to the Victorian spirit that made us the greatest trading nation on earth, and assert ourselves as Commonwealth leaders, as if the 20th century never happened. |
| Whether quitting the EU was a serious option, or a Boys’ Own fantasy, and whether the world is once again our oyster, is something we are about to discover. All we know for sure is that the government has no strategy, and that the trio in charge are in different ways inadequate for the task. | Whether quitting the EU was a serious option, or a Boys’ Own fantasy, and whether the world is once again our oyster, is something we are about to discover. All we know for sure is that the government has no strategy, and that the trio in charge are in different ways inadequate for the task. |
| I need no persuading about the frustrations of Brussels: I’ve negotiated there, fumed there, sat in on summits with my former bosses Peter Carrington and Margaret Thatcher, who did some fuming herself. And yet confronted with the in/out question, Thatcher would have been cautious. “What is the alternative?” I can hear her say. “If we leave, where do we go?” As a realist, she wouldn’t have banged on about how we’re the fifth biggest economy in the world and could go it alone. True, London has more billionaires than any other city – about 80 – though the fact that our nearest rival is Moscow doesn’t say much for the nature of the competition. What matters is income per head, and on that we’re way down the league. | I need no persuading about the frustrations of Brussels: I’ve negotiated there, fumed there, sat in on summits with my former bosses Peter Carrington and Margaret Thatcher, who did some fuming herself. And yet confronted with the in/out question, Thatcher would have been cautious. “What is the alternative?” I can hear her say. “If we leave, where do we go?” As a realist, she wouldn’t have banged on about how we’re the fifth biggest economy in the world and could go it alone. True, London has more billionaires than any other city – about 80 – though the fact that our nearest rival is Moscow doesn’t say much for the nature of the competition. What matters is income per head, and on that we’re way down the league. |
| Might the one-nation reforms Theresa May promises persuade a would-be emigrant to stay? Perhaps, but while you’re doing one thing you’re not doing something else, and that side of the Brexit bill will be enormous. Instead of developing and modernising our society, a stupendous effort will be needed to hold it together. | Might the one-nation reforms Theresa May promises persuade a would-be emigrant to stay? Perhaps, but while you’re doing one thing you’re not doing something else, and that side of the Brexit bill will be enormous. Instead of developing and modernising our society, a stupendous effort will be needed to hold it together. |
| Can May take the strain? It’s not just a mess Cameron has left her, it’s an ammunition dump that could go up at any moment: the post-Brexit economy, Scotland, our EU negotiating team, the Tory party itself. For someone wondering whether to stay or go, May is a doubtful plus. If she steps down, Johnson could have another bite at the cherry. The only fun there would be that in 2020 he could be up against Corbyn: Laurel against Hardy, the Labour straight man against the Tory joker. As Henry Kissinger said when asked for his opinion of the Iran-Iraq war, “Pity only one can lose.” | Can May take the strain? It’s not just a mess Cameron has left her, it’s an ammunition dump that could go up at any moment: the post-Brexit economy, Scotland, our EU negotiating team, the Tory party itself. For someone wondering whether to stay or go, May is a doubtful plus. If she steps down, Johnson could have another bite at the cherry. The only fun there would be that in 2020 he could be up against Corbyn: Laurel against Hardy, the Labour straight man against the Tory joker. As Henry Kissinger said when asked for his opinion of the Iran-Iraq war, “Pity only one can lose.” |
| I don’t know enough to say “it will never work” – any more than the Brexiteers do when they insist that it will. If Brexit is a gamble, it follows that, given time, it could pay off, as gambles can. Meanwhile, however, I sense a deepening malaise, one that the cockiness and intemperance of many Brexiteers is set to worsen. | I don’t know enough to say “it will never work” – any more than the Brexiteers do when they insist that it will. If Brexit is a gamble, it follows that, given time, it could pay off, as gambles can. Meanwhile, however, I sense a deepening malaise, one that the cockiness and intemperance of many Brexiteers is set to worsen. |
| The saddest thing about our present condition is how anyone with honest doubts about where we are going is labelled a whiner, unpatriotic or “anti-British”. It’s the intolerance that’s un-British, and if I myself were thinking of going (I’m not), it would be that that tipped me over. To quote Cyril Connolly, there comes a point where it’s better to feel dépaysé (disoriented) abroad than in your own country. | The saddest thing about our present condition is how anyone with honest doubts about where we are going is labelled a whiner, unpatriotic or “anti-British”. It’s the intolerance that’s un-British, and if I myself were thinking of going (I’m not), it would be that that tipped me over. To quote Cyril Connolly, there comes a point where it’s better to feel dépaysé (disoriented) abroad than in your own country. |
| • George Walden was a Conservative MP between 1983 and 1997. His book Exit From Brexit is published by Gibson Square, £9.99 | • George Walden was a Conservative MP between 1983 and 1997. His book Exit From Brexit is published by Gibson Square, £9.99 |