WD>> I really like Tusk for saying something without saying it ...
BF> LOL! But seriously, I really feel sorry for our UK friends now, that BF> Mrs May has made such a fool of herself.
No, it isn't she who has made a fool of herself. It's the whole of the British government, the parliament and, ultimately, the British nation. Theresa May is doing an impossible job. First of all, parliament doesn't know what it wants and much of the population doesn't know what it wants either. This was evident all the way back to the referendum when the majority for Brexit was so slim, and in the two and a half years since then nothing has changed.
Members of the governing party, the Conservatives, can't agree on what they want and neither can the opposition. Mrs. May had to make a decision on what she was going to put to the European leaders but she couldn't take the advice of anyone in the British parliament simply because there was no majority for any decision. It took most of the two years for Mrs. May to decide on what to ask for, bearing in mind that she knew that she had to get it past the European leaders, therefore it had to be a compromise. There were so many splits in opinion here that, whatever she chose to do, it would have commanded no more than a minority, and a small minority at that, of support from parliament. No-one else would, or could, have done better than she and at least she stuck solidly to her decision when all around her were advising her to change this or change that. Had she changed her stance then she would have been accused of vacillating and being weak. I admire her for not giving in. No-one could have done better. And no-one was willing to challenge her for the prime ministership because they knew they would face the same problems and that they, too, would be held to be a scapegoat in the inevitable failure. With her slim majority, parliament could easily have forced a general election - but they didn't.
No, it is we, the people, who have made fools of ourselves. We should never have had the referendum. David Cameron thought that we, the people, would vote overwhelmingly for the status quo, because that's what we normally do. He was wrong. He underestimated the unrest among the people because of the poor state of certain things in the country, like the National Health Service and the number of immigrants we were taking. People with loud voices stirred up the country by saying, "Look at all the money we could save by coming out of the European union. We could spend it on the NHS, we could stop immigrants taking our jobs (even though unemployment is at its lowest for many years), we could get back our fishing rights, etc., etc., but not once did anyone say about the *benefits* we get from being in the EU. Or if they did they were shouted down and if they said that things would not be as good out of the EU they were branded as scaremongers.
In spite of all that, the referendum result was extremely close, but it has become apparent that, in the two and a half years since then and because leaving the EU is proving not very good for us, if we were to have another referendum the outcome would be very different.
But many in the government are saying that "the people have spoken and now we have to deliver, whether or not it's good for us, and whether or not they've changed their minds." Why shouldn't we have another referendum when, in the first one, we had no idea what we were voting for?
I voted to remain. What I would like is another referendum to see whether the result will be different now that we have a clearer idea of what's going to happen. I will still vote to remain but for purely personal reasons. Since the referendum the value of sterling has gone down and so it costs me a lot more in France (although fuel for my car is much cheaper!). When (if?) Brexit happens, shall I have to get a visa to visit France? Shall the conditions under which I own a house in France change for the worse?
BF> As an age old Anglophile I can only pity all of my UK friends... :(
Thanks!
Your good friend, David
-- Formerly ICHTHUS (Reading) UK (1987-2007 R.I.P.) (2:292/854.110)
