I have only just come across this aphorism from Nietzsche:
There are no facts, only interpretations.
To that I would add this quotation from a post "Brexit Redux" by Chris Grey on his blog on the 21st November
Our
opinions are facts, your facts are just opinions is a logic doomed to infinite
circularity.
Grey attributes this attitude to the Brexiteers, though I suppose it applies to some extend to all of us.
However, I will try to assess Mrs May's current performance as far as possible on verifiable facts rather than just opinions.
I seems to be a fact that Mrs May is gaining a good deal of respect from the public for her doughty, determined fight, inside and outside parliament, to influence opinion in favour of her "deal." She certainly shows guts. " GGD,Number 3 " Guts Grit and Determination, was the cry of the Roedean girls to any member of their teams who appeared to be slacking off. or so I've read somewhere.
Well, she's certainly showing that.
But is it determination in a just cause, or shear obstinacy in a hole she has dug for herself?
In her favour, she didn't actually dig the hole - David Cameron did that, but she did offer herself to make the best of the situation.
This is where I believe the facts show that she continued and continues digging.
1. From the word "Go" she showed no recognition that the referendum vote was far from decisive. (As spelled out ad nauseam on this blog and elsewhere , in an electorate of 45milion , 17 million voted to Leave, but 16 million voted to Remain, and 12
million who were entitled to vote didn't. Add to that the 3
million nationals of other EU countries living in the UK whoweren't allowed
to vote, as neither were the one and a half million 16 and 17 year-olds. Further,
both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted strongly in favour of remain as
did Gibraltar (overwhelmingly, I think).
2. Nor has there been any recognition of the flaws in the Referendum procedure as these have been revealed in the past couple of years: the lies told, the overspending, the possibility of foreign interference.
3. Article 50 was triggered prematurely without proper preparation or plan, presumably to placate the arch Brexiteers in he party, and hold the party together - thus placing party interest over the national interest.
4. She drew "red lines" before the negotiations even began and has had to retreat on all of them.
5. She places great emphasis on the argument that "the British people just want us to get on with it." I'm sure a lot do, but that is not a responsible basis on which to make the most serious decision of the last 70 years.
5. She places great emphasis on the argument that "the British people just want us to get on with it." I'm sure a lot do, but that is not a responsible basis on which to make the most serious decision of the last 70 years.
6. She now appeals to all MPs to put "the interests of their constituents" above their personal preferences.
That last point is pure hypocrisy. As a Remain voter herself she knows full well that the best interests of all constituents is to Remain in the EU. No deal (and certainly not no-deal) comes anywhere near the advantages we already have by being members of the EU.
So in my view Mrs May's stamina and determination are not to be admired, but to be seen as bone-headed obstinacy in the mistaken interests of her own future and that of her party.
"C'est maggifique, mais ce n'est pas bonne pour la Grande Bretagne." to adapt another well-known phrase.
Article 50 was triggered prematurely without proper preparation or plan
ReplyDeleteThat's about the one good thing she did. If Article 50 hadn't been triggered when it was, it still wouldn't have been triggered today: Remainers would have attempted to thwart us leaving the EU by saying we couldn't do it until we had totally settled what we wanted Britain's post-Brexit future to look like, and then objecting to some detail or other of every possible proposal, so we never got there.
Their objective would have been to push the notification of Article 50 back, and back, and back, preferably until after the next general election, after which there would be a new government which replaced the one that had been explicitly instructed to leave the EU, which could then say, 'Yes, of course, we're going to leave the EU, but there are all these other things to sort out first, but don't worry, we're getting around to it.' But of course they never would.
And I don't see how the Remainers could have been prevented from achieving that. They've basically have got us stuck remaining in the EU, always technically about to leave, but never quite getting around to it. Eventually everyone would just forget about it. It would become one of these constitutional oddities: fifty years from now when the EU is a federal integrated superstate, we all use the Euro, pay Euro Income Tax and the government has to its budgets to Brussels for approval before announcing them in the House of Commons, 'Which province of Europe is technically still in the process of leaving?' would be a trivia question.
At least now we are definitely leaving on the 29th of March. That is something concrete. May's only, but greatest, achievement.
Everything else she's done has been a total disaster, I agree.
Well, I'm glad we have agreement on something.
DeleteYour speculation on the triggering of Article 50 demonstrates Nietzsche's point: "There are no facts, only interpretations."
Fact: The Brexit referendum was advisory. Had Parliament wished to make it binding, they could have done so (they did make the AV referendum binding) but they chose not to. Both major party leaders after the result announced that they would consider the referendum result binding on them.
ReplyDeleteOpinion: Had Corbyn lost the Labour leadership election in September 2016, the new leader could have reversed Labour's position on Brexit and indeed gone into the 2017 General Election (had May been so foolish to call it) with a Manifesto commitment to revoke the Article 50 notification. This would have superseded Corbyn's statement after the referendum (remember that he called for an immediate Article 50 notification).
Fact: No administration can bind a future administration.
I'm definitely anti-Nietzsche (and not just for this statement).
Had Corbyn lost the Labour leadership election in September 2016, the new leader could have reversed Labour's position on Brexit and indeed gone into the 2017 General Election (had May been so foolish to call it) with a Manifesto commitment to revoke the Article 50 notification
DeleteThat was Owen Smith's whole campaign, wasn't it?
But the Labour membership rejected it. So this is a bit, 'if we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs'.
(And in the process, arguably, Smith helped cement together 'support for Corbyn' with 'not ouright rejecting the referendum result'. Way to score an own goal, Labour Remainers.)
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