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I am reluctant to get involved in this muddle. However, it occurs to me that maybe the underlying problem is that Brexit is quite unlike normal Government projects.
Another big project is the high speed line HS2. Decisions on this huge project have been taken by the Government and despite the fact that not all Conservative MPs agree with it, the Government has been able to push it through.
If the Govt had been able to take the same approach with Brexit they would have pushed it through, whatever the views of dissenting Conservative MPs.
So, maybe the problem is “simply” that the Government were unwilling to accept the result of the referendum and remainers were put in charge of the project, with an inevitable underlying (maybe subconscious) wish to undermine the project.
Barry, interesting explanation.
Here’s an alternative.
I suggest that one of the many issues may be that nobody – not leavers, not remainers, not the government, not our parliamentarians, not the media, not civil servants, not the Prime Minister, probably not anyone in Brussels, not the people who wrote Article 50 – understood just how fiendishly complex the exit process would be. If the PM had understood this, she would not have triggered Article 50 within 5 mins, nor glibly set up a series of red lines that had so many detailed technical implications that they were essentially undeliverable except through a no-deal exit.
The Brexit decision (just like most voting decisions) was an emotional and ideological one not one based on any kind of detailed understanding. I don’t say that to condemn it – simply a statement of what it looks like to me – and how democracy necessarily operates in the real world where most people have better things to do than get into endless detail before casting a vote.
The result is that as the process has evolved, more and more complexities have emerged leading people inevitably to change their views and positions, abandon red lines, realise that promises could not be kept (eg rolling over all EU trade agreements before exit date), etc, etc.
These tedious (for most people) complexities have led remainers to argue for abandoning the whole thing and leavers to become ever more impatient and wanting just to get on with it. And. of course, this is all very fertile ground for conspiracy theories of all sorts.
As you say, Brexit is quite unlike any other process or any other government project. And it’s never been done before – so no previous experience anywhere. HS2 is simple in comparison – and yet it’s still a bit of a mess even though this is not the first time that anyone has built a high speed line. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by the muddle everyone is in, nor by the continually shifting positions as the implications of specific courses of action that people so glibly put forward eventually become clearer.
As for the media, most journalists are by necessity generalists or ‘specialist’ in quite broad areas (eg economics, or health, or…). It’s unreasonable to expect them to be able to get into the intricacies of every technical aspect of Brexit. And I wonder how many of their readers would care for that anyway. Those sorts of discussions are happening in specialist technical publications not in the mainstream general media.
But Marie’s point about anonymity is interesting and important. One would like to believe that, without anonymity, people would hesitate to take up positions that could later prove to be unsustainable. But the Brexit process has maybe shown us that that is not the case. Everyone changes their positions daily while claiming, as the PM does continually, that nothing has changed.
Jo
Yes. Having once been a top-down person (40 years ago) I can still understand and agree with your comment. From the top-down things are so complicated.
I sense there is now a “movement” amongst some intellectuals, with new kinds of vested interests, towards simplicity.
Maybe Radix contributors should consider and explore the differences between the two views? It may provide enlightenment of a new kind of middle way. Not just somewhere between left and right, but also between up and down. Down here, from where I write, simplicity is very appealing. Where left and right views can live together amicably.
Too simple maybe?
It’s hard for me to imagine a bottom up approach to the Brexit negotiations.
I agree that there is a desire for simplicity. And always good to simplify as much as possible but not more. Otherwise we’re into populist territory where every problem is presented as having a simple one tag line solution.
Your point about exploring alternatives along the lines you suggest is a good one.