Welcome back to Frog Blog, and happy 2017 to you all! This entry isn’t a weekly recap, so feel free to ignore and tune in next week. What follows is one of my ramblings about the state of things. As you’ve probably gathered, I am not normally someone given to optimism. However, as we begin a new year and try and put the nightmare of 2016 behind us, I am making an effort to see the year ahead in a positive light. Ok, so no intervention, divine or otherwise, looks like it will rid us of the catastrophe of President Trump, and four years of his erratic and infantile rule is a cause for major global concern. But while, last year, I thought that miseries like Brexit and Trump would just keep coming in 2017, now I believe things are going to improve. Here’s why.
1. Brexit isnt the “Will of the People” – or even Inevitable
The line being endlessly pedalled is that “the people have spoken” and that the government has “a clear mandate” for Brexit. In fact, just 17 million people voted out, and the Leave campaign fought dirty and told lies, so the word mandate is already a little stretched.
Had the vote been extended to 16-17 year olds, had all expats been allowed to vote, had even just a fraction of the apathetic 12 million non-voters gotten off of their complacent arses… It would only have needed one of these for the result to have been different. As it stands, it was just 37% of the electorate (26% of the population) that chose Brexit. And it was a narrow win. This is not a clear mandate. It was just a snapshot of attitudes on 23 June, attitudes inflamed by toxic campaigning. According to numerous recent polls, were we to re-run the referendum today, Remain would comfortably win. Would it still be “undemocratic” to oppose Brexit then?
In many countries, notably Switzerland, where referendums are common, it is standard to have checks in place when putting questions of major constitutional importance to the electorate. Usually, a two-thirds majority is required. But in the UK’s referendum, there were no such safeguards. Our government of the time was so arrogantly convinced it would win that it gave no thought to the chance it might not.
My point is that, while Leave won, losing all faith in the people of Britain is unfair – the blame lies squarely with David Cameron for failing to consider the idea he might lose, and with Boris and the Leavers for conning the electorate with lies about the NHS and Turkish immigrants.
And as the Brexit car speeds ever closer to the cliff’s edge, the swell of support for leave is only going to go one way. People can and do change their minds. This is important, and is what democracy is all about. After the vote, I thought there was no way either the government or parliament could avoid enacting Brexit. But as we are increasingly faced with the reality of what leaving the EU means, the tide could turn. This year as negotiations get underway, the likes of Liam Fox, David Davis, Boris and all the other deluded MPs who blithely claim we’d be “better off alone” will for the first time come to understand what the EU really is, how it works, and why leaving isnt just monumentially stupid, it’s also fiendishly complicated and guaranteed to do us harm. And as they come to realise it, so too will the electorate. Stopping Brexit is a fight that could still be won.
2. Austria & the Rise of Pro-EU Sentiment in Europe
With all the electoral upsets of last year, it was easy to overlook this fleeting bit of good news. Austria voted in the spring for a new President and came oh-so-close to electing the fascist, eurosceptic Norbert Hofer. In the end, the Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen won, but so close was the result that it was soon contested and a re-run was scheduled.
The re-run ultimately took place in December, several months after Brexit. This time, it wasnt nearly so close: Van der Bellen won on a left-wing, pro-EU platform. This is part of a recent trend of increased support for the Union which has been brought about by – of all things – Brexit. Across the EU as a whole, desire to leave has declined from 30% to 26%, and every EU member state would vote remain in a referendum. Evil, it seems, really does sow the seeds of its own downfall.
3. Trump and the Electoral College
The other major political shock of 2016: Donald Trump. Yes, this is a disaster, and one with potentially apocalyptic consequences. We’ve all been trying to come to terms with the shock since the 9th of November, wondering “but how could the American people vote for that?”. Well, they didn’t – at least, not a majority. 46% of the electorate (that’s just 20% of the population) voted for Trump – far less than voted for Hillary. What got Trump in the White House (along with a little help from his friend in Russia) was the Electoral College system. Hillary Clinton got exactly 2,864,974 more votes than Trump. Now that is a mandate. Or at least, it should have been.
There will be bleak and terrible moments during his presidency, which for the US, and the wider world, is going to be all about damage limitation. At these times, we all need to remember that most Americans wanted President Clinton, not Trump. He is a threat to decades of social progress, is liable to screw up the global economy, and he’ll do immesurable harm to the US’s reputation. He’s already making good headway with the latter, in fact. But evil sows the seeds of its own downfall. The damage he’ll do in four years will see him suffer a humiliating defeat in 2020 and the Democrats will retake the White House. In fact, he might not even manage a full term. There’s a cheering thought.
4. Le Pen and France
Another reason for my cautious optimism lies here in France. The Brexit-induced spike of support for the EU has been more muted here than other countries, but it has still made a difference. Even if Marine Le Pen wins the presidency this spring and calls a referendum on EU membership, she can no longer be confident of the result she craves. The latest polls show a majority would vote to stay in the EU. Britain is again to be commended for having provided a handy practical demonstration of why leaving the EU is a fantastically stupid idea.
But in truth, I’m not even afraid that Le Pen will get as far as that any more. Brexit was enabled by the government’s failure to run a sensible referendum, and Trump’s victory owes more to arcane electoral rules and a little Russian hacking than to a stupid or prejudiced electorate.
In France, the electoral system may as well have been devised with Marine Le Pen in mind. Designed by de Gaulle, it is a two-round system where multiple candidates may stand in round one. Should any win an outright majority, they’re elected. But normally, the top two go through to another round, head to head. De Gaulle’s system ensures that no-one ever becomes President without the support of a majority of the population. I simply do not believe that Le Pen and her toxic brand of racist, anti-semitic, anti-mulim hatred could ever win over a majority of this country.
Dont get me wrong, I’m not looking forward to five years of François Fillon at the helm, but I will happily tolerate it to see her defeated. France will survive Fillon, and maybe by the time his term’s up, the left will even have become credible again.
While it’s upsetting to see an apparent lurch to the right in attitudes across the globe, it’s important to remember it’s more nuanced than that. And in any event, attitudes change. Many of the woes besetting us were born of the global financial crisis of 2008. The wrecked economy stoked the misery and fear that lead us to 2016: an economic recovery will pull us out of it. In a few years we’ll be able to afford to be more liberal and open-minided again. So to sum up, yes the world’s in a sorry state, and it will be years before things improve. But I believe we’ve already had the nadir: now, the only way is up. In 2017, my glass is half full.