United Kingdom
Related: About this forumIf "Leave" wins, is there still some way to keep Britain in the EU through renegotiation?
Or is it just "we're out, and that's the end of it"?
Also, I understand that a Leave victory would probably mean Cameron's resignation, but is it likely that his departure would be followed by a snap election under whoever took over from Cameron?
And if that snap election occurred, would we see a Europsceptic Tory PM do some kind electoral pact with UKIP(at one point, Farage implied that UKIP would dissolve itself the moment the UK left the EU, but it now seems that that won't happen)?
Final thing: Angela Merkel was totally unyielding on Cameron's demands that the UK be allowed to set up more immigration controls for EU nationals. Is it possible she taking that stance in the hope that the UK WOULD vote Leave?
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Mind you, these days it's not clear everyone in the UK wants to stay in the UK.
Corrected.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)mwrguy
(3,245 posts)Denzil_DC
(7,187 posts)All UK referendums are.
In practice, not honouring the result would probably be party political suicide, if not electoral suicide after all the hype.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,147 posts)(which is the kind of event that gives me an 'atheist in a foxhole' moment) has made noises about renegotiation. But most people tell him there's no chance, and the rest of the EU is in no mood to make more concessions. No, I don't think Merkel wanted the UK to leave; but she wasn't going to allow the UK to make its own rules, just when a large part of her own party, and those to the right of it, are criticising her migrant policy.
My guess is Cameron would go after a Leave vote. I'm not so sure the new leader, Johnson or whoever, would call an election (and, under the news fixed term parliament rules, they can only do so with a two thirds majority in parliament - so those MPs would have to think an election is in their own, and/or their parties', interest).
I doubt UKIP will dissolve itself, but it may become irrelevant once outside the EU - ironically, it needs the EU parliament proportional representation system to win seats.
Matilda
(6,384 posts)How strange! Could be a real bun fight in the event of sudden death or an illness that took the PM out of circulation for a while.
I don't doubt that Boris wants the job, but he's only been in parliament for two minutes could he really pull all the factions together and keep things running smoothly?
Denzil_DC
(7,187 posts)so he's de facto deputy if Cameron was to fall under a bus or a particularly large sow or whatever.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,147 posts)to keep someone onside - either the leader of the juniot member of a coalition, like Clegg of the Lib Dems in the last parliament, or a powerful politician from a slightly different faction who is acknowledged to keep them happy - eg Prescott under Blair, or Heseltine under Major.
Boris was in the Commons from 2001-2008 or so, when he resigned after winning the mayor of London race. He has the contacts and enough MPs will support him (their procedure is the Tory MPs get it down to 2 choices with rounds of voting and the least popular dropping out each time; then the party membership have a one-person, one-vote election). Could he keep running things smoothly? Probably not, but that's not his aim; becoming PM is. Doing the job well would just be a bonus to him.
TubbersUK
(1,439 posts)The Tories could, theoretically, put UKIP out of business by replacing Cameron with one of the Brexit leading lights. They must be very tempted right now.
greatauntoftriplets
(175,694 posts)European Commission chief
'Out is out,' warns Luxembourg's ex-PM Juncker to Britain
Published on Thursday, 23 June, 2016 at 14:12
(AFP) European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker insisted on Wednesday that there would be no renegotiations with Britain following its membership referendum.
"The British policy makers and British voters have to know that there will not be any kind of renegotiation," Juncker told reporters in Brussels.
Juncker said the EU would not go further than the renegotiation deal that Prime Minister David Cameron sealed with his counterparts at a summit in February. There will be no kind of renegotiation
"We have concluded a deal with the prime minister, he got the maximum he could receive, we gave the maximum we could give," Juncker said after talks with new Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern.
"So there will be no kind of renegotiation, nor on the agreement we found in February, nor as far as any kind of treaty negotiations are concerned.
"Out is out."
TubbersUK
(1,439 posts)given that making concessions to the UK might encourage other member nations to rock the boat.
In terms of UK politics, it looks like Cameron will have to go fairly soon and the Brexit leading lights will be looking to take over - I imagine that they would then do all they can to avoid a snap election (too much of a hostage to fortune).
But who knows really?
Denzil_DC
(7,187 posts)to "stability", given how the markets are tanking. Given the apparent current national mood, I don't know if I'm in a rush for a general election myself either.
Give it a few months as the reality and buyers' remorse start to kick in, though ...
Denzil_DC
(7,187 posts)it doesn't look like the "winners" this morning have any appetite for renegotiation, and I don't think any significant figures in the EU have the will or patience for it.
Just about the only way I've heard that this process could stop would be if there were a general election before Article 50 is invoked, and a party won that had stood on a manifesto of not leaving the EU.
For various reasons, I can't see that happening. We're stuck with it, and I'm currently hearing some Leave clown on BBC on my telly waffling on about how we don't have to invoke Article 50 (bullshit) and basically admitting they don't have a clue about what they've gotten us into or how it's going to be resolved.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I wasn't thrilled with most of the political figures on either side of the referendum(Jeremy, I think, did the best of any party political figure on the Remain side, yet had to argue for the preservation of a status quo that has done real damage to a lot of Labour-voting areas; Dennis Skinner raised valid points about those consequences on the Leave side or the argument, yet failed, AFAIK, to condemn the xenophobia among some of the other Leavers...as a person who has always been a figure of strong and consistent Left principles, this was a major failing on his part) and would have voted Remain mainly as an antiracist vote.