Today I want to broaden the perspective of this blog and do so formally. Regular readers will have noticed that I have given a lot of coverage to Brexit, the UK's vote to leave the European Union. It is obviously a hot topic and has resulted in increasing visitors to the blog. I will continue to cover the climate topic, but with increasing focus on the politics. It is something that I have always been interested in and I am involved in local politics as a district councillor. I have been campaigning for the UK to leave the EU for a number of years and during this recent referendum campaign I have personally delivery several thousand leaflets to the residents of my ward and organised others to deliver more as well as putting up a number of posters in prominent places and urged all my family and friends to vote to leave. As I did so I wondered if it would be enough. I hoped that there would be thousands of others doing the same. In the end, as we all know it was enough and we won!
In these early days since victory many people are still dazed here. We are only just beginning to take in the magnitude of what we did. Some are fearful; some even regret voting 'leave'. It is an extraordinary result as previous posts have said. The nation seems so unprepared as though they never thought about what would happen next. Even the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who clearly thought he would win a vote to remain. He has resigned and not done what he said he would do, which was to trigger Article 50 (the notice to the EU that the country is leaving). I don't believe he wanted to be the one to do it, or be associated with it. But, of course he is, and he will always be remembered as the man who gave us the vote that led to our exit. Of course he never expected to have to give us a referendum as he did not expect to win the last election outright. He was convinced that he would, at best, form another coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who would not have supported a referendum. But he ought to have considered the outcome of a leave vote, in which case he ought to have had a plan to follow through. I think he simply didn't think it through. He is a gambler and has huge confidence in his ability to convince the people of his case. Like all gamblers he eventually lost.
We are now hearing from some of the leading 'Leave' politicians that they don't accept that people voted to leave in order to reduce immigration. I am sure they are completely wrong and if they do not reduce immigration drastically then they will find a very angry electorate who will turn them out. We are now living (post brexit) in a new kind of politics. I will expand on this tomorrow.
In these early days since victory many people are still dazed here. We are only just beginning to take in the magnitude of what we did. Some are fearful; some even regret voting 'leave'. It is an extraordinary result as previous posts have said. The nation seems so unprepared as though they never thought about what would happen next. Even the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who clearly thought he would win a vote to remain. He has resigned and not done what he said he would do, which was to trigger Article 50 (the notice to the EU that the country is leaving). I don't believe he wanted to be the one to do it, or be associated with it. But, of course he is, and he will always be remembered as the man who gave us the vote that led to our exit. Of course he never expected to have to give us a referendum as he did not expect to win the last election outright. He was convinced that he would, at best, form another coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who would not have supported a referendum. But he ought to have considered the outcome of a leave vote, in which case he ought to have had a plan to follow through. I think he simply didn't think it through. He is a gambler and has huge confidence in his ability to convince the people of his case. Like all gamblers he eventually lost.
We are now hearing from some of the leading 'Leave' politicians that they don't accept that people voted to leave in order to reduce immigration. I am sure they are completely wrong and if they do not reduce immigration drastically then they will find a very angry electorate who will turn them out. We are now living (post brexit) in a new kind of politics. I will expand on this tomorrow.
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