The 2016 referendum may have dominated public discourse for months, but it was conspicuously silent on many key Brexit issues. Here is a list of ten points that no voters, or certainly very few, were aware of when they were asked Leave or Remain.
1. The bizarre idea we might leave the EU with no deal at all
According to the official booklet sent by the government to all households in 2016, it could take “10 years or more” for the UK to unpick and renegotiate new arrangements with the EU. Likewise, the manifesto on which the present government was elected in 2017 insisted the aim was to “secure a smooth, orderly Brexit”. It’s hard to see any mandate for a no-deal Brexit, either from the referendum or the subsequent election.
2. Losing our EU citizenship rights
HMG’s booklet said that through the EU people have the right to live, work or study abroad, but neglected to mention that every UK national – every man, woman and child – was at risk of losing their fundamental right of EU citizenship, with its democratic, political and economic privileges on top of national citizenship, whether they like it or not, without appeal and without any due process.
3. Losing permanent safeguards for workers
The government said EU membership “guarantees many employment rights”. But it did not explain the details of how EU law provides permanent safeguards in the UK courts for workers and trade unions against discrimination, for the protection of pregnant, part-time, fixed-term, agency and night-time workers, rights to rest and paid annual leave, and a host of other defences for workers when firms make redundancies, transfer staff or become insolvent; any of which could and would be removed by a UK government bent on deregulating the economy. No wonder the biggest trade unions in the UK, who understand the implications for their own members, have now said they want a public vote.
4. Loss of EU regional funding
No mention was made of the enormous loss of funding to the UK from the European Investment Bank. As the first report in May this year of the UK2070 Commission has pointed out, the UK’s dismal record on regional inequality has been due to far too little investment expenditure compared to other advanced countries, plus poor and erratic domestic policies. Only EU regional funds and the EIB have exhibited coherence and longevity in recent decades, with the EIB investing £108 billion in the UK since 1973. That unique source of long-term investment finance and strategy, vital to combat inequality, will nonetheless be cut off, without anyone comprehending what was at stake.
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5. Risk to peace in Northern Ireland
The fact that the Good Friday Agreement was predicated on both the UK and Ireland being EU members didn’t get a look in.
6. Pulling out of a historic mutual defence commitment with other European democracies
The UK itself originated this relationship as the Western European Union in 1948 and it has since become part of the EU. Advantage Moscow!
7. Euratom
This was a virtually unknown treaty which, it turns out, is crucial to the transportation of nuclear fuel for power stations and isotopes for life-saving medical use in the UK. Who knew it would be linked to our EU withdrawal?
8. Uncertain future for farmers
The government booklet was silent in 2016 about the implications for British agriculture, which now has complete uncertainty over the markets, support regimes and tariffs it faces in future.
9. Divisions between the nations of the UK
Was there one word about what might happen if different nations of the UK voted for different outcomes? How will those differences be reconciled, in any form of Brexit?
10. What Brexit actually means
No one was told what the actual alternative to EU membership should be. Membership of a customs union? Membership of the EEA? A free trade agreement? Nothing at all? A complete mystery, with the absence of any alternative in the referendum bedevilling UK policy ever since.
In 1992, when France ratified the Maastricht Treaty by referendum, a copy of the entire treaty was sent to every household, so everyone knew exactly what they were voting on. We, in the UK, had in 2016 a 16 page glossy booklet with pictures, flimsy of content and empty of answers, on which to base an even bigger decision. The Leave campaign did little to flesh out the overlooked points.
Brexiters like to talk about the referendum as being “the largest democratic exercise in British history”. But democracy entails understanding what you’re voting for. Otherwise it is an empty exercise.
To paraphrase Churchill, never in the history of British politics has so much been taken away from so many with so little explanation.