Posted on 06/14/2016 8:48:51 AM PDT by dennisw
“For our Brit readers: is this whole Brexit debate as much of a Kabuki play as it seems to me? You just know that, no matter what the voters say, the eurocrats aren’t going to let the U.K. leave. There will either be out and out fraud in the election, or if they can’t get away with that they will find some reason or another to ignore a leave vote. Am I wrong about this?”
That is my take too.
Electoral fraud is somewhat more difficult to accomplish in the UK (or for that matter, quite a few other countries) than the US. Its possible -Cameron’s party is under investigation for cheating in 2015. But it looks like the margin for exit will be too big.
However, the referendum is only advisory! All the relevant legislation, including dealing with forty years of Brussels-made law inflicted on/ accepted by the British, has to go through Parliament in Westminster. Most current MPs are pro-EU. There is already talk about sabotaging any legislation to get the UK to actually leave that is introduced by the government, which wants to stay in anyway. This is why if “leave” wins the vote, they have to make sure Cameron is replaced with someone who at least has publically committed to leaving.
(one irony of this is that Johnson is campaigning to leave but probably really wants to stay in, while the Labour leader, Corbyn, is pro-Remain in public but its pretty obvious he is more sympathetic to the “leave” side)
So my guess is that “Leave” will be allowed to win, but the relevant laws to make that happen won’t get through Parliament for one reason or another. Also keep in mind that one of the houses of Parliament isn’t even elected. Of course this will be a gift to the UKIP candidates running in 2020.
Bureaucrats have their own way of thinking. Whenever there is talk about cutting back or lowing authority, their first inclination is to “cut the meat and protect the fat”.
Say you have a dozen programs, only one of which is popular and efficient, whereas the other 11 are wasteful and bloated. So you offer to cut the popular one. This puts pressure on those who want to cut.
In this case, there are likely at least *some* EU programs that work well and are liked by the British. So they will offer to end these immediately, while insisting that the unpopular and stupid programs can either not be eliminated or can only be eliminated at great cost and time to Britain.
And, it will get worse. Popular goods flowing back and forth will be curtailed, while unpopular things, like immigrants, won’t be. They will even make things like TSA lines for people who want to cross the border in either direction. It is, and will be, pure harassment.
Couldn’t work like that. EU programmes aren’t enforced in Britain by EU bureaucrats (they haven’t the power), they’re enforced by British civil servants in British government departments. The moment a British government tells those civil servants to stop enforcing them, they’ll stop.
Yes and no. That is, while the EU bureaucrats didn’t enforce, the Brits created enabling acts to carry out the EU directives. So much of their law has been modified, and their bureaucrats will still enforce these things until they are repealed. Decades of them.
In any event, it is going to be very interesting to watch.
Yes and no again. You’re right in that EU directives which are incorporated directly into primary legislation will take a lot of parliamentary time to unscramble. Most, however, especially the trivial ones which tend to cause the most public irritation, are in the form of Statutory Instruments. These are applied by government ministers under powers delegated to them by primary legislation, and are thus much easier and quicker both to introduce and to remove.
Many of these government ministers are pro-EU, so I would look forward to all variety of procrastination. There doesn’t seem to be any way to make them change. Except perhaps when you finally get a strong, anti-EU PM.
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