Idiot's Guide to Brexit 10

Boris finally got what he’s been wishing for, but most people think he should have been more careful about that.

In Season 2 of Idiot’s guide, I will spare you my bloviating and regurgitating, and instead offer coverage by others that I find illuminating.

In this piece in The American Interest, my friend Michael Mandelbaum offers a lucid appraisal of Boris’s options, concluding that “none of the four paths he can follow is likely to lead to a happy ending, or indeed any ending at all.”

And in this piece in the Guardian, Johnathan Freedland moans that “The leave vote is consolidating before our very eyes, while the remain vote is hopelessly fragmented.” Freedland pleads with Remainers to form a bloc, “with or without Labour,” to oppose the no-Dealer bloc now crowding around Boris.  

Then, there is this email from my friend Julian Huppert, who served as Lib Dem MP for Cambridge during Cameron’s tenure as PM, and who is still much involved in the hurly-burly. I asked Julian how he sees the prospects for the unified remain bloc that Freedland is pleading for. The final paragraph of Julian’s email is in answer to my question whether it’s likely the second referendum could ask voters to choose among three options over two rounds of voting (what Julian refers to as “transferable voting.”)

“There is a lot of work on trying to build a remain grouping - as a Director of JRRT, we're finding some of them! The biggest problem at the moment is Labour, who steadfastly refuse to engage; indeed they actively try to stop other groups making arrangements. Under Corbyn, that won't change, and there's no real mechanism to change him as Leader in time. 

If there is a snap election, then (depending on exactly when it is!) we would argue that the UK should remain in the EU. If there's time for a referendum, that would be the method to deliver that, because a) it's more democratic as a way to resolve the outcome of the previous referendum (which we should never have had) and b) more likely to be achievable than a straight revoke position. If there's clearly no time left for a referendum, then our position is to revoke. This has all been through party conference, and will in sure be discussed in September at the next one. 

As for transferable voting, it is a sensible system, widely used in all the political parties, by parliament itself, and in lots of other places. It's not perfect (but see Arrow's theorem), but absolutely the sensible way to do things like this. However, it is strongly resisted by Labour and Conservatives alike for use by the public. We lost the 2012 AV referendum precisely on this. Bringing it back for a controversial vote would add an extra layer of complexity and political challenge.” 

Finally, let’s revisit the bar chart from Season 1 showing shares of world GDP in 2018 pre-Brexit. When we now add the post-Brexit shares, it becomes clear why Donald Trump is rooting for Brexit, and laughing out loud