Even More Reflections On Brexit

Day 3 After Brexit

It's certainly strange that I have so much to write about the Brexit referendum vote even three days after the event. Part of the difficulty in getting my head around it has been just how unexpected the outcome was, given the advantages EU membership conferred upon the UK.

Extraordinary also is the immense buyer's remorse being expressed by those who voted 'Leave' as a protest vote, only to find out they won. This dovetails with the strange report where Google searches for the EU went up after the vote closed, as people sought to find out what they have left. In other news related, Cornwall has sought confirmation that indeed the money they used to get from the EU would be replaced by the British government. This would be a fair cop if you had voted to stay and then against your wish been made to leave. What's particularly rich about this one is that Cornwall overwhelmingly voted to leave.

Northern Ireland is one of those issues that could turn into a disaster. The Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to long hostilities was underpinned by the EU laws and agreements whereby one side got just enough to be Ireland and the other side got be just enough to still be the UK, but there would have to be no border because they were all in the EU. That's now gone. It could very well slip-slide back into the chaos that was the Troubles with checkpoints guns and the lot (would you like some fries with your bombs?).  The horrors long thought to have been left behind in history just might come back - all thanks to this vote.

Nicola Sturgeon has already signalled a second referendum to keep Scotland in the EU which means secession from the UK. It's funny how the last Scotish referendum was argued as a session from the UK, and defeated because of the possibility of being kicked out of the EU. The Flow of ironies never cease.  This may all go to show how referenda in general are  more destructive to the polity than previously thought.

And so the news trickles in.
There was an observation made that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove didn't exactly look too excited by the outcome - more surprised and perhaps like deer in the headlights as history comes charging towards them. After all the unbelievable scuttlebutt is that Johnson might be the successor to Cameron. And Johnson being Johnson he would be aware of how difficult and mountainous the tags would be to actually managed the messy divorce with the EU, and that he would be charged with all the social costs. He would be stepping in to captain the Titanic having steered it in to the iceberg, having assured everybody on board that the iceberg represented no threat, and that the Titanic was unsinkable.
Maybe.

I'm not there; I'm not a citizen; and I sure don't have the vote in the matter, but had I been asked I would have offered remain was a better option. I've been searching my own feelings on this as it has been so unexpected that the Leave vote would win. The more I turn over the morsels of information I can find, the more I'm inclined to think the case for leaving was not made, and perhaps overstated its alleged advantages. Some people might even describe it as being built on outright lies. Let's face it, Nigel Farage was quick to rescind the £350m he was supposedly going to hand the NHS.

Farage might think he is steering the country into his vision of the future, but it's really a nostalgia trip. That being the case, the ultimate bit of the nostalgia trip might object to losing a chunk of her wealth and her realm...

Her Majesty's Role To Play

One thing I had not thought about is what the hell Her Majesty thinks of all this. Yes, as a constitutional monarch, she doesn't get a say in it, but let's face it - she is the Queen. Will she sit idly by and rubber stamp the referendum result into law? It's hypothetical but what if Her Majesty simply does not approve of the measures and refuses to sign off?  This is actually a curious question from a historic point of view.

The Brexit vote has the likely outcome of splitting apart the United Kingdom. And as per speculation during the Scotland referendum last time, Her Majesty would remain constitutional monarch to these countries, some of which will want to stay in the EU, and England which has opted out. The question then is does Her Majesty want to be the Monarch who presided over the breaking up of the United Kingdom? And if not, just how far would she be willing to go to stop it?

Writing as an Australian, I am reflecting on the rather vast 'reserve powers' of the Crown that removed Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister - and while nobody can quite claim Her Majesty had an active role in it (we know she was a sounding board as was Prince Charles), her crown certainly had the authority to make that political action stick. So what happens if the next Prime Minister puts through the bill to ratify the referendum and turns up at Buckingham Palace to have it signed off and the Queen refuses to sign? Or she actively vetoes the bill using her reserve powers? It would be utterly in-democratic, but it would preserve the status quo.

It might be inconceivable but again, from an Australian point of view, this is not a stretch. She likely has the power and authority to (pardon the pun) scotch this whole deal. If she null-and-voids the referendum result, thus keeping the UK in the EU, it would take the sharp edge off Scotland's desire to leave and solve the problem of Northern Ireland and the eventual break up of the realm. It would be a move that would hark back to Charles I or King John with its unilateral authoritarianism, but if Queen Elizabeth II wants to preserve the realm, the she might just have to bring out the bazooka. It may even start a civil war - after all, that was what happened with King John and Charles I - but the Queen as an institution is not the Queen for nothing.

It's hard to say if there is such resolve in a 90year old monarch in the Twentyfirst Century. Her reign has been successful exactly because her thoughts on politics are opaque. We simply do not know what she makes of all this business. I'm not much of a Royal-Watcher. I don't really care about the Royal family at all except as a curious historic artefact, but I do wonder what their household has been like in the last 72hours. I'm sure they would be cussing the name of David Cameron that brought about these terrible circumstances, and then turning to advice on just how much power they still have to stop this thing. Just remember, if her authority can dislodge a Prime Minister in the Commonwealth, it sure can whack some bill that emerges from popular referendum.

Let's just say, if I were a Conservative MP that didn't want Brexit to happen, you may well think that I would be talking to the Palace about such options, "but I couldn't possibly say". The ultimate 1%-er is Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II. In turn, if Boris Johnson is indeed the next Prime Minister, and he really wants this Brexit as advertised, he might well need to have the resolve of Oliver Cromwell rather than the nationalist Ra-Ra of Winston Churchill. We'll certainly see.