The Economist on "The Land Labour Forgot"

A superb article in The Economist here.

At different times in the past both the Conservative and Labour parties have made the mistake of electing leaders who didn't like modern Britain.

The resulting collision with the electorate could, and did, have only one ending.

If what everyone seems to expect is right - and we all saw at the last general election that polls and experts alike can be horribly wrong - Labour may be about to repeat the mistake.

Only a Tory civil war on Europe could allow a Corbyn-led Labour party to win a General Election. Last night's vote is a reminder that this is not quite impossible. That's why disagreements on Europe must be managed in a way that does not tear the party apart.

Even if he became Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn would never be able to turn Britain into the sort of country he believes in. But the Conservatives cannot afford the sort of self-indulgence which might give him the change to try

Comments

Jim said…
A civil war on Euorpe? hmmm.

don't think that will happen, but the question has to be asked "where now dave?"

Associate membership seems to be his only lifeline. Just saying.
Chris Whiteside said…
I don't think it will happen either, but it could.

You've just put your finger on the biggest problem with determining Britain's membership of the EU - defining what "In" means and what "Out" means.

I would be dead against any second referendum which was used as an attempt to reverse the result of the first one. But if there is an "out" vote there might be a case to have another referendum on the specific issue of whether that means "Leave the EU but stay in the EEA" or "Leave both the EU and EEA"
Jim said…
If there is an out vote in the first one, that would be the only reason a second referendum is not required. Dave's only option now is to go for associate membership, which will appear following the next treaty, so we would be looking at around 2020. 2021 ish. so you see associate membership will be just a promise, because "associate membership" is not available in time for 2017.

this will be the next referendum, which is required under the referendum lock to ratify a new treaty.

so we can see that its going to be a double referendum, and it has to be. Unless of course we vote to leave in the first one, then there would be no requirement for a second one as the referendum lock won't apply anymore, since we have left.
Jim said…
By the way, I'm not saying that a 2nd referendum on should we leave the EEA or not would be a bad idea, I'm just pointing out that the event of a LEAVE vote in the 2017 referendum leads to the only situation where by a 2nd referendum is NOT legally required.

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