Thread by @dirk1978

The Corbynistic Case For Revoking Article 50 (thread)

We’re in a right old pickle. The EU referendum in 2016 wasn’t planned properly, everyone assumed remain would win, and it promised something that couldn’t actually be done – leaving the EU.

I mean, we’re not going to leave are we? There’s no way it can be done. We’re in a kind of limbo at the moment. Like the guy who’s bought an expensive bike without telling his wife and any day now it’s going to arrive on the doorstep.

Disagree that we can’t leave the EU? The Good Friday Agreement isn’t going to be thrown away. And that means the Irish border must stay open and unfettered. That then means a customs union and most of the single market.

When you have the exact same arrangement outside of the EU as inside the EU (even though many claim every form of Brexit is highly damaging), but with no say and no representation, then no-one is satisfied. Leavers and remainers alike would rail against it.

When you can’t leave then you have to find a way of telling everyone who voted out of the EU in good faith – who were told their vote counted and would be enacted – that it’s not happening.

The popular method of doing this is via another referendum. Have another vote and hope that this time remain wins and everyone goes “fair enough, let’s go home.”

That’s after parliament (who have spent 3 years arguing and deciding precisely nothing) agree to which set of questions are put back to the people.

Naturally, people of a remain disposition would say that no deal shouldn’t be on the sheet because it’s unthinkable. But leavers will say of course it should, because otherwise you aren’t fully leaving.

If you make it a 3 way choice, it splits a binary remain/leave choice. So someone will be aggrieved that their ‘side’ will be split between 2 options.

If the options are remain, deal, no deal, then the half of the country who want to remain will vote remain while the half who want to leave will vote between deal and no deal.

The result is that remain wins with 50% while deal has 25% and no deal has 25%. Not really fair whichever way the 3 way choice is presented.

I can’t see a way forward with another referendum. I don’t think anyone backing it has really thought the whole thing through and followed the logic. That leaves us with little option but to cancel the whole thing. Here’s how I think it can happen.

Most political commentators don’t know what Corbynism is. They wrongly assume that it’s something to do with the man.
Corbynism is radicalism. It’s the desire to feel part of something. It’s the need to change things. The feeling that injustice anywhere needs to be challenged.

In 4 years it’s completely changed the public’s thinking on austerity, public ownership of utilities, and what kind of country we should be.

Corbynite MPs aren’t afraid to call out the failures of capitalism and tell the public we need to radically change our energy, society and emissions to save the planet. The rules have changed.

But technology has changed things too. TVs are constantly on. Phones are recharged twice a day from overuse. We hardly ever talk to each other.

We’re desperate to be entertained and our attention span is now so tiny we’re not satisfied unless we have at least 2 different types of media trying to force their way into our eyeline.

I can make a fairly safe bet you’re reading this on your phone in your left hand with your little finger propping up the phone and your thumb is scrolling. You probably also have the TV on that you’re not really paying much attention to.

Remember when we listened to CDs with 12 tracks and actually paid attention to them without wanting to skip to the next track in a shuffled playlist of thousands of songs?

The TV debates in the 2010 general election were an indication of how technology was changing - or perhaps just highlighting - how short our attention spans had become.

There was a live favourability score for all the leaders on the screen. When Nick Clegg said something reasonable, his rating instantly shot up.

People were changing their minds on voting intention in real time. The Liberal Democrats shot up in popularity due to this instant-consumption culture that Twitter, Facebook, smartphones and MP3 players had provided.

So here we are, 9 years later and that phenomenon has carried on. Trump happened because he’s controversial, not despite it.

That desperately short attention span is inherently lazy – it simply doesn’t have time to consider all angles and it fights back against anything that requires nuance or balance.

We all want and need to be told what to think, because to do otherwise requires effort. The thought process of humans who are trained to have technology take care of everything for them is thus:

“do I need to think about this?”

“No? OK, onto the next item”

Revoke!

Here’s my conclusion. Corbynism creates the zeitgeist. It doesn’t follow it. It’s daring and radical. And it’s the only movement which can successfully make the honest argument that we just have to revoke article 50.

A 2nd referendum is the antithesis of this – it’s dishonest because it attempts to obfuscate its aim which is to get a mandate to revoke article 50. And it objectively creates more problems than we have now.

So my message to anyone who considers themselves progressive and wants to fix things: make the case for revoking article 50 and be rewarded by being handed the reins of the country by the voters. They will be happy to have some clarity and people being straight.

The ever diminishing, ever isolated Faragists won’t be happy until we end up in some white, cut-off island dystopia. Don’t worry about them. They’ll fade away and go back to some moderation when they have some social cohesion to melt their fear and anger away.

Thanks for reading.

cc @RFewtrellUK @shaunjlawson @sjwrenlewis @hot_diggity_d @mrdavidwhitley

@GayLabourBrit @A50Challenge @OwenJones84 @AllyFogg @BenPBradshaw @billybragg @David__Osland @drjanaway @edwardpoole1975 @StevePeers @pete_sinclair @stephenfry @GeorgeAylett @Kevin_Maguire @PaulbernalUK @EmmaKennedy @ProfBrianCox worth a read/RT?