I have to say, this country has a very unique approach to the idea of things such as changing your mind, compromise and debate. That’s kind of summed up by our parliamentary system, where we like to give one single party complete control, and the idea of a hung parliament or coalition (of chaos, right?) is seen as some sort of gasp-worthy disaster. Most countries in Europe have far more proportionate representation, often involving ten or more separate parties having to discuss, debate, negotiate, but ultimately compromise on policies that they feel are best in the interests of the country they serve. It’s good to hear opposing points of view, consider whether your original viewpoint is still the best plan of action, and if not then you simply don’t have to do it. This country is one of a small few where the idea of changing your mind or having a meaningful discussion, or perhaps even admitting you were wrong, is seen as some sort of outrage or sign of weakness. It’s a very British thing to puff your chest out and jump off the cliff if you said you’d do it, even if you know it’s going to hurt or even kill you. Almost like the idea of budging a single inch on your original viewpoint is a sign of defeat, but these colours don’t run etc. There are certain times when our grit and refusal to lie down can be both beneficial and something to admire, but this whole Brexit debacle is not one of them.
This nonsense idea that changing your mind now would be a failure, this isn’t democracy, the will of the people must prevail etc, is codswallop. We know a lot more now about what this ACTUALLY means and what the reality of both our options and possible outcomes are. Not everything, some things will always been unknown until you do them and it could go either way when you do, but we know more. And because of that, the notion of asking the people “do you want to still do this or not?” is not some sort of anti-democratic outrage, it’s actually the grown up thing to do within the context of this being arguably the biggest political decision of many of our lifetimes. Particularly if parliament can’t unlock itself. That’s what referendums were originally meant to be for, not to act as some sort of party point-scoring mechanism. That so many people are arguing against using something for its intended use, on an issue this important and that we now know a fair bit more about, is just typical of the British mindset. And I love my country, for the record. I’m proud to be from these shores, but caring for something or somebody means speaking up when they might be wrong or making a mistake, not just blindly adopting the mindset that you have to be loyal and backing them up even if they could be wrong, or even disastrously wrong.
I had a situation at my company a few years ago where we made the decision to change our operations, and with it a huge chunk of the entire business model, to something we all felt was quite revolutionary and although extreme in some ways, potentially truly groundbreaking. There were plenty of reasons to feel this and on paper, it looked like a really strong idea. But the further we went into things, the more conversations we had, the more that we gradually uncovered, the more we saw that this wouldn’t work. In fact, there became a fairly high chance that it would damage us badly. Worst case scenario closure, best case scenario downsizing or a case of staying more or less the same, but needing to do a lot more work in a more complex way for no uplift. Either way, the general consensus was overwhelmingly one of “actually, what we have now is better than all of these, even if we thought otherwise”. It wasn’t just the reality of implementing our own methods and strategies that wasn’t as straight forward as we had thought, we realised that we were plugged into multiple other companies that provided us with various services and products that make up our own business model, and if they weren’t going to play ball, or didn’t want to join us for the ride, or were going to charge us more for doing things in this new way, we couldn’t actually do it. Because how and more importantly, why would we? The admin would’ve been horrendous, we didn’t know how badly we would flounder while sorting it all out, and we also didn’t really see a clear way as to how at the end of it things would be easier or more profitable than what we had. So do you know what we did? We called the whole damn thing off. Mad, isn’t it, that when the reality of an idea hit home and it became clear it was probably a bad idea, or at best an unncessary one that resulted in no additional benefits for a lot more work, we thought it was silly and just didn’t do it. Yet by the logic of an awful lot of people, we shouldn’t have backed down, because we nailed our colours to the mast and you can’t go back. And yes, it was still a voting process at board level where we needed 50% plus one to pursue it. Which is actually the exact same criteria the referendum had - just get one more vote than the opposition and you win. Someone will probably say you can’t compare a country to a business but, really... well, you sort of can. Economies are businesses. Businesses on a colossal scale, businesses that have extreme duties of care that go beyond anything a place of work would have to consider, but it IS incredibly business like in the way it operates. If a business starts making less money it will either downsize or close - the implications of a country doing the equivalent are far graver, far more dangerous and frankly, far more completely and utterly terrifying than any business decision you could ever imagine. It isn’t even about the guaranteed end game, which as I said no one can truly know, it’s about being responsible and going “Erm... is this so completely enormous and, based on what we now see, incredibly complicated, that the idea of gambling and just doing this anyway is really daft and stupid?”
It’s okay to compromise. It’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to think something is a good idea and then see that it isn’t. These aren’t signs of weakness. But for some reason a huge number of people on this island think it is, and would rather fall on their sword than even consider having to utter the words “I think I made a mistake, I’ve changed my mind”. If people still feel what we’re doing is the right thing and it wins again, fine. Doesn’t matter if people think it’s ridiculous, it is now known that a majority still want to push on, and at that point parliament will vote however begrudgingly to implement that decision. But there’s no reason not to have that final check before we jump. The only reason people wouldn’t want a second vote is if they think they might lose this time, and if anything the very reason they’re worried suggests that it’s a good idea. Because if it ISN’T the most popular choice any more, and if it DOES lose, we were right to not fling ourselves into the ocean, because it wasn’t the will of the people after all, whatever that phrase even means. And if it is? Then now we know. If what is going on is truly what the public wants then there should be no worries or hesitation in confirming it and getting us out ASAP. Plenty of people inside the commons could make their own lives easier while also making sure that it’s what we all want. Maybe people should ask themselves why they wouldn’t do that rather than ask why they should.