Find Your Way Back
There has been some media and political agitation recently about the idea of holding some sort of popular vote about Brexit. The exact formula still remains unclear. What Vince Cable called a 'confirmatory referendum' is definitely seen by some as an actual rematch of the 2016 referendum, while People's Vote campaign for a referendum on the final Brexit deal only.
The SNP has so far cautiously stayed away from People's Vote though a couple of MPs (aye, that's ye Steve'n'Pete) seem 'open to the idea' (Wishart's words) of supporting it. It has already been argued (and demonstrated?) that officially backing People's Vote would be a very bad idea for the SNP. Simply because 'UK Better Together in the EU' has a cable-thick (pun intended) string attached: 'Scotland Better Together in the UK'.
This being said and regardless of anyone's personal stand on the issue, the idea of a 'confirmatory referendum' has some traction in public opinion if recent polling is any indication. The average of the six most recent polls shows that voters are (for once) consistent as about 52% (after undecideds removed) think that leaving the EU was the wrong choice and support holding a second referendum. Though of course it might not be the exact same 52%.
Obviously an almost even split is well within most polls' margin of error and falls far short of a landslidish change in public opinion. And of course it's all wishful thinking as the second referendum will never happen and the only option on the table is the infamous 'meaningful vote' that was so painfully strongarmed from the government last June.
Interestingly, in their latest 'poll-toll-you-boak' UK-wide survey, Survation added a question about 'who has a better plan for Brexit?' with a prompted choice between May and Johnson only. Unsurprisingly, as neither has any plan worth mentioning, 'Don't know' wins by 3% but both Theresa and Boris get their fair share of support.
The SNP has so far cautiously stayed away from People's Vote though a couple of MPs (aye, that's ye Steve'n'Pete) seem 'open to the idea' (Wishart's words) of supporting it. It has already been argued (and demonstrated?) that officially backing People's Vote would be a very bad idea for the SNP. Simply because 'UK Better Together in the EU' has a cable-thick (pun intended) string attached: 'Scotland Better Together in the UK'.
This being said and regardless of anyone's personal stand on the issue, the idea of a 'confirmatory referendum' has some traction in public opinion if recent polling is any indication. The average of the six most recent polls shows that voters are (for once) consistent as about 52% (after undecideds removed) think that leaving the EU was the wrong choice and support holding a second referendum. Though of course it might not be the exact same 52%.
Obviously an almost even split is well within most polls' margin of error and falls far short of a landslidish change in public opinion. And of course it's all wishful thinking as the second referendum will never happen and the only option on the table is the infamous 'meaningful vote' that was so painfully strongarmed from the government last June.
Interestingly, in their latest 'poll-toll-you-boak' UK-wide survey, Survation added a question about 'who has a better plan for Brexit?' with a prompted choice between May and Johnson only. Unsurprisingly, as neither has any plan worth mentioning, 'Don't know' wins by 3% but both Theresa and Boris get their fair share of support.
What raises eyebrows here is that, given the choice between the one who made a pig's ear of the whole shebang and the one who jumped ship to avoid being held accountable for anything, a majority of people are still willing to give one or the other a chance. Survation should have added Kermit, Peppa and Ernie to their prompts, juist fur laffs.
But of course Boris can be trusted with having the better plan. After all his expert opinion two years ago was that Brexit would be a titanic success. Or wasn't it?
I Want to See Another World
Now let's just pretend for a moment that the Second EU Referendum is actually a possibility. This has been polled on a regular basis multiple times since June 2016 and here is what the trend says:
The trendlines here bear an uncanny resemblance to those in Scottish Independence polling though the two issues are completely unrelated, aren't they? Or are they? And here is what the average of the six most recent polls would deliver:
Of course this not a major upset as these voting intentions are roughly within MOE and you never know what could happen after an actual campaign, especially if some sorts of dark money and election fraud were at work again. After all if a resurrected Vote Leave was fined again for electoral malpractice, Tory-crony donors would only be too happy to foot the bill as it would be only a droplet in the ocean of profits they would make from post-Brexit NHS privatization, to name just one of many likely money trees.
Which Side Are You On?
Once again I used Survation's last comprehensive poll for crosstabs that may shed a light on why remaining in the EU is now the preferred option. It is slightly less Remain-leaning than the current average (51-49 instead of 52-48). But the differences between the various subsamples and the national average, and the patterns they show, matter more than the absolute values per se.
Women being more supportive of Remain than men comes as no surprise as they are also generally more supportive of Labour in England and of Scottish Independence if polls are to be believed. So we may have some sort of global pattern here. The usual Generation Divide is also painfully obvious here. Baby Boomers are in full I'm-Allright-Jack-And-Fuck-Them-All mode again, no matter the consequences, contrary to all the other generations. And the older they are the worse it is.
The education and income crosstabs are trickier as some certainly would love to interpret them as some Uneducated-Proles-vs-Public-School-Elite sort of thing. I guess only a three-dimensional crosstab with age would show that it's again more complex than you might think at face value. Some sort of combination of a reverse correlation between age and education level and a direct correlation between age and income would certainly be more enlightening than the raw education and income data.
Survation's results on the Geographical Divide look a bit off compared to other recent polls. London is certainly more supportive of Remain than their subsample shows and closer to their actual 60-40 vote. There is also circumstantial evidence in other polls that Wales is now at least evenly split and likely slightly leaning towards Remain. What everybody agrees on anyway is the revival of the North-South Divide in England with the frontier somewhere between the Severn-Humber line and the Severn-Wash line. Midlands evenly split is in itself a plus for Remain as the region was almost 60-40 Leave in 2016.
Last but not least the Political Divide is pretty much what you'd expect. Only Conservative voters massively back Leave. And surely need to be reminded that 70% of Tory voters is barely 30% of the 2017 GE votes and just a wee smitch above 20% of the electorate. Then of course these are bound to dictate the final say about being dragged down into the unknown or not. But Labour are the ones with a real problem with Brexit. Which is why we shouldn't expect to get any better from them than variations on "we don't rule out not ruling out" or something as half-baked.
To sum it up your Arch-Brexiteer would be like a not too educated male Tory pensioner from Southern Little England. The type that spends holidays in Benidorm and comes back whining there are too many foreigners there.
But of course none of this matters because Brexit was never about Brexit, wasn't it?
But of course none of this matters because Brexit was never about Brexit, wasn't it?
No Way Out
Brexit was always about scoring points in the never-ending Tory civil wars. Never about putting country over party but always about putting petty party infighting over the best interests of the country. It was painfully obvious that there never was any Brexit Plan A simply because David Cameron had deluded himself into believing Remain would prevail no matter what.
Rewind to Referendum Night and just remember the sighs of relief all over the Conservative Party when the infamous YouGov on-the-day poll predicted Remain winning by 4 points. Only a few hours later, when Sheffield and Birmingham declared for Leave, did it dawn on them all that the game was over and they had lost.
With Cameron gone all Theresa May achieved was going through all the improvised losing options from Plan B1 to Plan B12. And even that last variant failed to vitaminate her case enough for any meaningful results. So all that's left now is Plan C. C for Crashlanding.
Tories have locked themselves into a cage with no doors and then thrown away the key. And all they found to cover up their incompetence is lies and deceit topped with state-of-the-art poshtoff arrogance. Like the idle threat of refusing to pay the severance fee. Which would be reneging on international obligations, something no self-respecting Tory would ever consider doing, or would they? No wonder the whole posturing didn't go down too well with the EU's 27.
It's quite amazing May didn't figure out that going on live TV whining 'the dug did it' just wouldn't cut it. Especially not when dealing with the European Dug-O'Twenny-Seven-Heids who has loadsa both bark and bite in him. Only upside to her dismal performance is that now everybody is aware Tories have been knowingly leading the whole country up the garden path to the cliff edge all along. Until all what's left to do is jump.
Forget all the delusions. The EU will never offer better than a 'no-deal' deal that will be voted down by Commons and so will Chequers. Then Theresa May will limp on until 30 March when the Mogglodyte Rebellion puts an end to her misery and probably grants her a peerage as a consolation prize. Soon Baroness May of Maidenhead will be swallowed down a gaping black hole of oblivion on the Lords' backbenches, to be remembered only as the Worst Prime Minister Since H.H. Asquith. Unless she manages to better on that too in the meantime and becomes known simply as The Worst Prime Minister Ever.
Only in Edinburgh and Dublin will she be hailed a national hero, as the one who decisively paved the way for Scottish Independence and Irish Reunification. Let's just hope both happen soon enough to avoid Brexitocalypse taking too much of a toll.
Confusion will be my epitaph
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh
Soar Alba Gu Bràth
© Pete Sears & Jeannette Sears, 1982
No comments:
Post a Comment