After all the arguments and marches, opponents of Brexit faced a stark truth yesterday after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s likely election landslide: There would be no second referendum; divorce from Europe was inevitable.
With the Conservatives set to win their largest majority since 1987, Johnson will be able to push his divorce deal through parliament, allowing Britain to leave the EU next month.
It would be the country’s most significant geopolitical move since World War II.
Photo: AFP / PAUL HARDING -BBC
Some supporters of another Brexit vote blamed themselves for the crushing defeat. The main organization campaigning for a second referendum imploded, while the opposition Labour leader was ambivalent, pledging to stay neutral in another vote.
“I am distraught and like everyone else in the remain community wish we had more competent representation,” said Mike Galsworthy, an anti-Brexit campaigner, who was sipping a whisky before going to bed after seeing the exit polls come in.
The 2016 referendum on EU membership has been the most polarizing issue in recent British history, crystallizing divisions between cities and towns, young and old, and supporters and skeptics of globalization.
Photo: Reuters
For many pro-Europeans in Britain, another referendum represented the best chance of ending the turmoil and political paralysis. If they had united into a single political force, they might have stood a chance of overturning the result.
In addition to their own shortcomings, so-called “remainers” were outmaneuvered.
Over the past three years, support for remaining in the EU has led in almost every opinion poll, prompting some of the largest street protests in recent Britain’s history. Parliament twice forced Brexit to be delayed, but the main opposition parties failed to work together to forge a functional cross-party alliance.
While the Conservatives consolidated the vote of those who want to leave the EU, building a coalition of pro-Brexit voters across regional and class lines, campaigners for another referendum struggled to win converts or agree on a unified plan.
Gina Miller, a prominent campaigner for a second referendum, was among those who accepted that there was no way back.
“There is certainly not another vote,” she said, adding that Brexit would “get passed as an act of parliament, it will then be ratified as an international treaty and we will be out.”
Key to the defeat for the “Remain” camp was Labour’s refusal to join an initiative aimed at encouraging tactical voting, whereby people back a candidate to block another, rather than out of genuine support.
By contrast, the newly created Brexit Party agreed not to run against Conservatives in about half of constituencies to avoid diluting the pro-Brexit vote.
Many campaigners said the fate of their movement was inextricably linked with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the least popular opposition leader in living memory.
The most likely route to a second referendum would have been if Corbyn had become prime minister.
Other campaigners blamed strategic errors, such as agreeing to an early election when the prime minister was trapped in parliament, unable to pass his Brexit deal unamended.
Johnson got the election he wanted when the opposition parties’ united front against a vote broke.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS