M of A - The Imminent Dodging Of Brexit - A Gift For The Fascist Right
The Imminent Dodging Of Brexit - A Gift For The Fascist Right
We claimed that
BREXIT - is not gonna happen and pointed to a
propaganda campaign (see further examples in the comments there) launched to reverse the Brexit votes. Within that campaign two memes get pushed:
First, young voters feel cheated of their future because some old, grumpy people voted for Brexit. Well, these young voters of age 18 to 24, tearfully interviewed by the
BBC and
Channel 4, constitute only 5% of the electorate.
Only a third of them voted at all, 70% of those 1/3 of 5% for "Remain". This is a small part, and a not very interested one, of the population. Who are they to deserve some special attendance?
The second meme pushed is the "success" of some
petition for a #ReverseBrexit vote someone set up on the UK parliament website. It now has more than a million "signatures". That is a lot in a short time frame. But wait, any dog on the Internet can "sign" that petition provided it has some throw-away email address. I, a German in Germany, "signed" to test the procedure. It took me about 30 seconds.
This propaganda campaign will not have any tangible success, but it sets a certain atmosphere which then will be used to stall the exit process.
The EU exit mechanism is build in a way that allows for an endless postponement of the actual procedure. This is the way the British politicians will likely take. The
Jack of Kent Blog explains how this works:
The UK did not [immediately] send to the EU the notification under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on European Union which would have commenced the withdrawal process.
The Article 50 process is the only practical means by which the UK can leave the EU.
...
And so unless and until the Article 50 process is commenced and completed, the UK will stay as a member of the EU.
In short: no Article 50, no Brexit.
...
And it is entirely a matter for the Member State to choose whether to make the notification and, if so, when.
The UK immediately filing Article 50, as Cameron
once promised, would trigger a two year long negotiation period with the EU which would end with the legal exit independent of the negotiation results. After filing Article 50 the clock would run down to the deadline likely without any serious concession from the EU. The UK has therefore an interest to negotiate before filing Article 50. To negotiate before filing is its only chance to apply some pressure.
But the EU has no reason, or legal basis, to negotiate at all before the UK files. Why should it make concessions to a divorce letter that was not filed and may not ever arrive?
It is a stalemate situation. The powers that are against Brexit will use this to blockade any move.
The six founding EU members
claim to push Britain to file the Article 50 application immediately. But that is just playing to the gallery. In reality they
want the never ending stalemate:
There is no desperate rush for Britain to trigger the process for it to leave the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday, leaving London some space to work out its next move after a referendum vote to leave the bloc.
Despite the British voter decision for Brexit business as usual will continue with absolutely no change in sight:
Jack of Kent:
It is not impossible to imagine that the Article 50 notification will never be made, and that the possibility that it may one day be made will become another routine feature of UK politics – a sort of embedded threat which comes and goes out of focus. The notification will be made one day, politicians and pundits will say, but not yet.
And whilst it is not made, then other ways of solving the problem created by the referendum result may present themselves: another referendum, perhaps, so that UK voters can give the “correct” result, or a general election where EU membership is a manifesto issue, or some other thing.
This will not please Leave campaigners, and rightly so. It means the result of the referendum will be effectively ignored.
While this may be a convenient way forward for the EU bureaucrats and the politicians committed to neo-liberal globalization, the damage in the long run will be much more severe than a chaotic Brexit procedure.
Brexit will join a number of other issues on which the democratic will of the people has been ignored. This further de-legitimizes the EU and whatever it undertakes.
People who argue that a violent overthrow of the system is the only way forward will gain credibility.
The aborted Brexit will also give further impetus to the hard-rightwing parties currently cropping up in several European countries. These parties ostensibly cater to the "small people" who feel unrepresented and on the economic losing side. But the economic programs of these parties are anti-social and would only further inequality. They (ab-)use the grievance of the poor and middle class to gain even more power for the rich.
What is missing in Europe are leftwing parties that take the romantic longing for local nationalism - in opposition to bone-crushing globalization - seriously and merge it with socialist policies. The social-democrats once had that role but under Blair, Schroeder and Hollande they waft away into the anti-nationalism, neo-liberal globalization sphere. Nationalism has, for them, become a dirty word. This at the time as nationalism gains new popularity as the anchor for common people lost in the sea of neo-liberal arbitrariness.
The space left empty by them will be filled by fascism.
We, the few, actually have the final say." That's not how it should work.
