Seeds of Brexit

There has been some discussion in the groups I belong to on Facebook and on Cix as to who was our worst prime minister. David Cameron was in the lead for some time, but Theresa May came up to run neck-and-neck until she announced her resignation. Pity, if not sympathy, seems to have been a factor in that last change. For some reason, Labour PMs have not come into the reckoning. I would have ranked Callaghan as a challenger if only for his failure to go to the country in 1978, thus ensuring that Mrs Thatcher achieved an absolute majority in 1979. I would add his failure to back Barbara Castle's union reforms and his reversing of Roy Jenkins' progressive policy at the Home Office. Gordon Brown also came into consideration, but his custodianship was largely a continuation of what had started under Tony Blair, and he did at least come to realise what mistakes he had made as a chancellor and appointed Alistair Darling to start to put them right.

There must be some nineteenth-century qualifiers, but post-Victoria, only Bonar Law comes into consideration. However, it seems that  the worst one can say about him is that he was ineffectual.

No, May and Cameron take the top two places because they have been held culpable by all sides of the political argument. May has some excuse in that she was loyally following the path which had already been set down. She also felt it her duty to issue the Article 50 letter initiating the withdrawal mechanism as practically her first act on taking office. However, at no time did she pause in the face of evidence that Brexit was fatally broken by immanent contradictions, not least the UK's borders with Ireland, Spain and some island dependencies. The 2017 election served only to make it more likely that we would leave without a deal - which is perhaps what Mrs May's advisers aimed for. Away from Brexit, she identified many of the difficulties experienced by the worst-off in our society but failed to do anything to ease them. Indeed, she presided over a tightening of "austerity".

Cameron is condemned by Leavers for delaying the Brexit referendum and, when this returned a majority in favour of leaving the EU, in reneging on his promise to immediately legislate to leave and stay in office long enough to see it through. In the event he dithered and finally dumped the mess on his successor, after he decided after all to resign. Remainers condemn him for holding the referendum at all, or at least for declaring that it would be binding however narrow the majority. I would certainly condemn him for the last, but my main criticism would be that he should have held the referendum in 2010, when the Labour leadership was still on board with the European project. It could have taken the place of the pointless referendum on AV, a Gordon Brown idea which was in neither coalition partner's manifesto and which even Labour failed to support when it came to the vote.

There are other roots of the unsatisfactory 2016 referendum, though. We could have had a more civilised debate in the 1990s when Ming Campbell originally floated the idea, for a start. A more serious decision was taken by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in pushing through the devolution programme bequeathed to them by John Smith. In 1979, a virtually insurmountable hurdle had been built in to the Scottish devolution referendum by an anti-devolution Labour member. For the 1997 referendum, they went to the other extreme and stipulated only a simple majority.

Surely on a constitutional matter, even when confirming government policy, a significant majority - say 60% - would be necessary? It was certainly obtained for Scotland in 1997 (74% to 26%) and in the first Euro referendum in 1975 (67% to 33%). Welsh devolution would not have been approved (only .6 of a percentage point separating "yes" from "no" in 1997)  on that criterion, but given the flawed nature of the Welsh devolution settlement that would have been no bad thing.

So the stage was set for the Scottish independence referendum of 2014. The then leader of the SNP Alex Salmond had little difficulty in ensuring that a bare majority would be enough, thus reinforcing the precedent. When some opinion polls indicated that "yes" might actually win, the Cameron government panicked, resorting to promises which were not completely fulfilled in order to maintain the status quo. There were also fear tactics, like the strong probability that an independent Scotland would not be a member of the EU. In the end, "no" won but the experience should have warned Cameron what was to come in 2016.

Then there is the question of trust. There is already a prejudice against government between general elections, which grows with the age of the parliament, and shows itself in by-election results. It was almost certainly a factor in the size of the defeat of the AV proposition. Remaining in the EU was official government policy at the time of the Brexit referendum. Add to the general anti-government feeling the mistrust engendered by the delay in mounting the referendum, when it was or had been part of each of the coalition parties' manifesto policies, and you already have a handicap before people start to look at the arguments. On top of that, deputy PM Nick Clegg and most Lib Dem ministerial colleagues had broken a personal pledge to the NUS over student fees. The Lib Dems were then, as now, most closely associated with the European project.

The Liberal Democrats are committed to a further referendum on the EU. Although popular feeling has clearly swung against leaving - certainly against leaving without an agreement - the outcome cannot be taken for granted.