I was encouraged by a friend who does not agree with my views on Brexit to watch the television programme on the origins of the Referendum last night. It was in many ways salutary, demonstrating the relentless and well organised pressure from the right of the conservative party and from UKIP on Cameron and that Cameron was not especially keen on Europe himself, always having to argue for Britain’s exceptionalism. What came across was how much it was, and is, an argument purely within the conservative party and that there is never any reference or awareness of another half of the country; nor did anyone at that stage make the argument for remaining within Europe, not even Nick Clegg, a committed Europhile. So, it’s no wonder we are where we are.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Caro Carlo
You surely can’t really believe that Brexit ‘was, and is, an argument purely within the conservative party’; unless by yr use of the small ‘c’ for conservative you are surreptitiously including 17.4 million others, including most Old (pre-global-capitalist) Labour Party members? It would indeed be interesting to know which way Corbyn voted in the referendum; he certainly voted to have one…
xe
Dear Edward, Only as it was presented on tv last night in terms of the politics of holding a Referendum. Charles
Be that as it may, it seems unlikely we would ever have had a referendum were it not for this rift in the conservative party. I dont remember people demonstrating for the first referendum, in their thousands or at all in fact. Unlike now when tens of thousands have marched for a final say.
Charles!
We are all entrenched in our views now and unlikely to change them now! But a great many of those who voted Leave from the other ends of the UK are far less affluent or lucky or protected than you and I. Watching that documentary with Tusk, Sarkozy, Merkel, Barnier, Osborne et all united in common intent made me feel – like the Sunderland miner on Newsnight afterwards – that we should not be making our laws and policies in tandem with them: Leave was a vote for re-setting the public compact.
Dear Ruth, Yes, I can see that, but won’t the Sunderland miner in practice regret the economic consequences ? And I don’t see Jacob Rees-Mogg as a very obvious representative of the people. Charles
All credit to yr inclusivity Charles in accommodating this mr/s bibleofbritishtaste but surely s/he should not have omitted from the list of our masters and mistresses, that most egregious of all eurocrats, Jean-Claude Juncker…
You are right Charles; the decision to hold an In/Out referendum was driven by two things; internal Conservative party politics, and David Cameron’s belief that he would win it. He would never have called the referendum if he thought there was a serious chance of losing it, and thus having to leave Downing Street.
Cameron’s entire approach to politics was to treat it as a short-term tactical game. For a long time, he was good at it, and the risks he took paid off. But hubris gets them all in the end.
I thought he believed in his own good luck, which served him well for a time, but was, in the end, his undoing. Charles