Ed. I can't speak on behalf of others but I'd note some views I have on the referendum and subsequent Brexit process. Firstly, the referendum legislation was only advisory and not legally binding so ultimate the power to make a decision rested with Parliament - and some may have supported the referendum on that basis. Secondly, one could argue that a major constitutional change such as leaving a union should probably set a target of 60% in favour of the change, as with the Scottish one concerning leaving the UK. Thirdly, the referendum option "Leave the EU" was poorly defined, although superficially "understandable" it could "mean" anything from joining the EEA to just trading under WTO terms, or anything in between.Had the government and Parliament decided that a marginal majority of just over 50% was not decisive enough to make such a momentous change that would, in my opinion, have been reasonable given the result was only advisory and the question was so imprecise. My basis for that is that one would expect our members of Parliament and the goverment to have a better knowledge and understanding of the facts on which to make such a major decision. (I agree one might question that of some MPs.) (Plus, I don't think the extent of Russian interference to cause political chaos has been explored. I can't prove that, just going on some analysis I've seen of various actions attributed to Russia around the time of the 2016 UK referendum and US election; I don't think Putin cared about the results, he ad others just wanted to cause confusion and division.)However, Cameron and his successor, May, decided to accept the result even though they both campaigned to remain. Interestingly, I'm not sure May was ever really a true Remainer rather than just following the Cameron's government line - after all she was at one time suggesting leaving the European Convention of Human Rights, now a prerequisite for EU membership. So having taken up the reigns of the leave movement it would have been the time for her to engage with Remainers, particularly the leader of the opposition - Corbyn - who had always had doubts about the EU. Instead we had the meaningless mantras of "Brexit means Brexit", " No Deal is Better than a Bad Deal", "Strong and Stable" and a rush to invoke Article 50 without any authority from Parliament (subsequently deemed illegal by the Supreme Court) and with no definition of what Brexit was. (There's a great TV programme - I think a Panorama one - where the EU negotiators note they were surprised that when Davis and his team arrived in Brussels the British had no clear idea what they were aiming for! No wonder the fishing industry lost out in the end.)Many of us who voted Remain realised that what the ERG wanted and were manipulating was a hard Brexit, there was going to be no consensus over what Brexit was (if I remember correctly May had as much trouble from the ERG as Remainers). Brexit was going to be as hard as possible. Up to that point there might have been compromise on a Norway style deal - I'm sure if he'd been asked Corbyn would probably have supported something like that (obviously I can't know for sure). However, many of us felt the public had been mislead about the aim of Brexiteers so a second referendum was the obvious solution. (Ms Greening came up with one good second referendum idea to help decide what Brexit meant.). I've skipped over a lot of detail but In essence following the result it was up to Brexiteers to approach Remainers; they didn't, instead they did their best to railroad through with minimal consultation as hard a deal as they could; hence we've ended up with the mess many of us predicted five years ago. Any project that's ill defined results in an unsatisfactory outcome, if not a compete failure ...In a way that's all becoming history, the real question is how do we get out of the mess? I guess now Johnson has his Pyrrhic victory of a deal it's down to the continuing negotiations. There's obviously the financial and other services agreements that are needed alongside rationalised travel for artists, performers and business people plus, hopefully, an EU ruling granting data privacy adequacy/equivalence in the next six months ... unfortunately I'm not sure what can be done about the increased costs, additional bureaucracy, delays and impracticable VAT rules that impede imports & exports; or the virtual border between Great Britain and Ireland ... Brexit isn't over yet, not for along time!
Michael Ixer ● 1899d