No-Brexit Day Redux
Remember when it was early December, and we were all in agony awaiting the first Meaningful Vote on May’s deal, which ended up not happening that month? That was only four months ago. If we have six more months of this, we’re not even halfway through the end of the beginning.
Postponing the apocalypse to Halloween is better than ruining another Christmas, I suppose. And it does give some cause for optimism where there hasn’t been much.
But as this Twitter thread points out, Theresa May’s deadline isn’t October. Her deadline is summer recess at the end of June.
When I heard the news I wondered whether Parliament had enough time to change the exit day in UK law again before 11 p.m. today. Twitter provided some reassurance that a minister can make the necessary changes without it having to go back to Parliament. Hope they remember to.
Parliament is now in recess for Easter, taking the pressure off wavering MPs and leaving room for the more extreme Brexiters to roam the airwaves unchallenged. When I joked last Friday about Mark Francois ending up as the next prime minister, I didn’t expect that the Telegraph would seriously propose it a mere five days later.
Meanwhile, the close result of a nationwide 2016 referendum has been overturned:
The poll, held in February 2016, asked [Swiss] voters whether married couples and co-habiting partners should pay the same tax. Voters rejected the proposal, with 50.8% against and 49.2% in favour. But the supreme court has now voided the result on the grounds that voters were not given full information, and the vote must be re-run. The information provided to the electorate was “incomplete” and therefore “violated the freedom of the vote”, the court ruled.
Wouldn’t it be terrible if we were like Switzerland?