The European Union Referendum Act 2015 is an Act of Parliament that made provision for a non-binding referendum to be held in the UK on whether Britain should remain a member of the European Union or leave.
The bill was introduced to the House of Commons by Philip Hammond, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 28 May 2015 and the Act was subsequently passed by 544 votes to 53 on 9 June 2015. The bill was therefore overwhelmingly approved by the Commons at that time, and subsequently given the approval of the Lords, largely I suspect because none of the MPs believed the British public would vote to leave the EU. Furthermore, the Act was given Royal Assent on 17 December 2015.
The staging of an in-out referendum had been a Conservative Party manifesto commitment during the 2015 general election; a bill authorising such a referendum was put before Parliament by a senior government minister; and the bill was overwhelmingly approved by Parliament and endorsed by our Monarch.
In accordance with the Act and the public duty of the Electoral Commission, an impartial guide was posted to every household in the UK and Gibraltar in the week beginning of 16 May 2016. The advisory leaflet was entitled: “Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK”. This leaflet clearly stated: “This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide”.
It is therefore disingenuous for anyone to suggest, following the public vote for Brexit that our current Conservative government, led by Theresa May, does not have a mandate from the people of this country to put into effect the result of the referendum.
Why therefore does Theresa May now think that she needs to obtain a further mandate from the British people in order to implement our wishes?
Would any other British government that won a general election, as the Conservatives did in 2015, with a clear manifesto commitment to hold a referendum, not believe they had a mandate from the people? … Obviously not!
Would such a government still doubt that they had a mandate when the general election result was followed up by a clear majority in the subsequent referendum? … It is difficult to understand how they could!
Furthermore, when the current Conservative government have managed to pass through both houses of parliament, an act explicitly authorising the triggering of Article 50, why would Theresa May suddenly get cold feet and feel that she needs more support, especially when by calling a general election as she has, she is placing in jeopardy something that she already has the power to deliver?
Clearly a large number of MPs still resent the decision taken by our people to leave the EU and a large number of peers do also, but Article 50 has now been triggered and the default position in two years time is that we will be out of the EU and in the absence of a more amenable trade agreement, we will be trading with the EU on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms, something that would not be economically desirable for us, but which would impact far more negatively on the EU than it would us.
Whatever concessions Theresa May’s government would have negotiated with the EU, the settlement reached could be no worse than WTO terms and so both the Commons and the Lords would have had to accept them, because they would be the resultant de facto trading arrangements irrespective of what Parliament might want.
It will be more painful for the rest of the EU if we part on unfavourable trading terms than we have at present, and so no matter how much they protest, the EU will be forced to agree to a continuation of the arrangements we already have. Anything else would result in them cutting off their nose to spite their face. Theresa May therefore does not need a larger Commons majority in order to strengthen her bargaining position with the EU. Guy Verhofstadt the chief Brexit representative for the European parliament stated as much in an article today for the Guardian news website.
He stated: “Will the election of more Tory MPs give May a greater chance of securing a better Brexit deal? For those sitting around the table in Brussels, this is an irrelevance. British officials will represent the people of the UK in the negotiations, regardless of the number of Tory MPs.”
Could he have been any clearer?
Guy Verhofstadt together with many pundits here in the UK believes that Theresa May is cynically taking advantage of the current state of disarray within the Labour Party in order to strengthen the Conservative majority in the Commons and secure for her government a further three years in power, but this does not ring true when we consider how often Mrs May has in the past stated unequivocally that she would not hold a snap election before Brexit.
Theresa May was a Remainer during the referendum campaign and prior to that never spoke out about the undemocratic nature of our EU membership, which has been opposed by the majority of our people. She is not a politician for whom the will of the people is sacrosanct. If this was the case, why would she have continued to do nothing to halt uncontrolled mass immigration into this country when it is clearly opposed by the majority of our people, and like our EU membership, has been opposed by the majority of our people for decades? Why also would she therefore suddenly become determined to oppose the vested interest groups that have shaped Conservative Party policy throughout all of her career and insist on enacting the will of the people regarding Brexit?
My suspicions are that the Conservatives’ apparent commitment to Brexit is insincere and largely tactical.
They know they cannot be seen to blatantly override the will of the people by disregarding the outcome of the referendum and believe they must be seen by the public to be doing their best to deliver on their promise that “[t]he government will implement what [we] decide”.
Furthermore, the Conservatives know that Mrs May cannot be seen to willingly give in to Remainer demands that we hold another referendum, but she could delay implementing Article 50 for as long as possible, in the hope that some thing – some event – might provide the pretext for shelving Brexit. Furthermore, if a suitably convincing pretext for doing so could be established, Theresa May could after a period during which the public have been softened up by months of anti-Brexit propaganda, hold a second referendum disguised as a general election.
The forthcoming general election is being presented to the public as primarily a test of public support for the current Conservative government’s policy of implementing Brexit and we already see suggestions that the LibDems, the Labour Party and the Scottish Nationalists may form a ‘Progressive Coalition’ in an attempt to defeat the Conservatives, and while this may appear a long shot, if enough people also vote UKIP in support of Brexit but in such a way as to sap support for the Conservatives, then the Progressive Coalition could successfully weaken the current Tory position.
It may be a long shot, but in a world in which Brexit will become a reality unless the referendum decision is somehow reversed, ‘drowning men’ will ‘clutch at straws’.
Whatever the truth regarding Mrs May’s intentions, the general election that she has called does in effect provide the Remainers with the second referendum they have been demanding and if the Conservatives should not be returned with a larger majority, but perhaps as a minority government as they were in 2010, it is likely that the shelving of Brexit will be the price that the Conservatives will have to ‘reluctantly’ pay in order to remain in government.
In such a scenario, the Conservatives will not be blamed for defaulting on their promises; Mrs May will be looked upon as a heroic figure who did her best; we will remain subject to EU domination; and the further crushing of our nation under the heal of global bureaucratic tyranny will continue apace.
By Max Musson © 2017
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John
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Absolutely right, Max. She has a full mandate to go ahead.
I questioned long ago why TM was not implementing Article 50. And like you, I believe the reason was that she was hoping something would ‘turn up’ to reverse/delay/shelve Brexit. I have had my suspicions all along. I thought she was doing well until she come up with this election idea.
I am of the old school where we abided by a democratic decision, because by definition a referendum (or even an election) will leave some people dissatisfied. I would hope, that had the vote proved to remain in the EU, whilst I would have been bitterly disappointed, I would have been mature enough to accepted the decision without going on marches, slagging off those with a different opinion to me and generally behaving like a child throwing it toys out of the pram. I certainly would not have called for a second referendum because I didn’t like the outcome of the first! That simply is not democracy. (I would like a re-run of the 3.30 at Haddock because the nag I put a fiver on didn’t win – so I don’t want that result.)
But then we come to the behaviour of the EU hierarchy. It is, not to put too finer a point on it, abysmal. Even before any negotiation’s take place they are making demands, laying down the ‘law’ and even resorting to outright blackmail. That is not negotiation. Britain should walk away at this point, telling them to come back when they are ready to talk sensibly and like grown-ups. Meanwhile we should be pursuing our own trade deals. The European manufacturers will soon bring pressure to bear on the EU, and then they will have to negotiate around whatever we have put in place during the time they are sulking in Brussels.
Personally, I want to see trade with Europe – and the rest of the world. I voted for a Common Market in ’73(?) when Liar Heath assured us it was ‘for trading only’, and still believe in that Common Market. I spent 15 years in Germany in the Army and got to know the German people (and a lot of Dutch and Danes and though various other activities since French and Spanish). They are very little different to you and I. Its the damn politicians who foul it up all the time. I always said that if you put a dozen soldiers from different nationalities in a room they would find some beer and have a good laugh. You couldn’t do that with politicians.
Let us hope that Mrs May is not Mrs Maybe. If this democratic decision is overturned or diluted to be unrecognisable I will be out on the streets on marches, disruptive and anything else I can do in my advancing years, against the undemocratic way things had been handled.
Max Musson
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Thank you John, you make some good points and I’m sure a great many of our people sympathise with the sentiments you express.
tony l
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While I share your suspicioun with regard to Mrs May’s delay, I doubt very much that her cunning plan is to see a loss of Tory MPs so that her hands are then tied.
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More likely is it that she’s just looking at another 3 years.
Max Musson
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I didn’t mean to imply that Theresa May is personally hoping for a reduced Conservative election result, simply that she may well have been persuaded to hold a snap general election, possibly on some other pretext, by behind the scenes ‘string pullers’ for whom a weakened Tory party would be a price they would happily pay in order to shelve Brexit.