The organization's People's Vote (“the voice of the people”, that is, according to the well-known saying, the voice of God) held a demonstration in London, impressive by all measures. More than half a million supporters who did not want to leave Britain from the EU and demanded a new referendum on this issue, and the police, who usually give figures a few times smaller than the organizers, in this case remained silent, recognizing the extreme number of events.
The majority of the participants were young people who think of themselves in the framework of a united Europe (and only Europe!), Who protested against Brexit, which takes away the future of young people. But there were also notables, for example, London’s Labor Mayor Sadiq Khan, who said: “The two options that the Prime Minister can offer us are a disadvantageous brexit deal or the absence of any kind of deal. Two and a half years ago, after the first referendum, the British were promised nothing at all, and they should have the opportunity to speak out in order to remain in the European Union. ”
Mayor Khan is right in that the talks between London and Brussels are very difficult, they took a tough stance on the continent, and there was nothing left before the critical timeframe - in half a year, on March 29, 2019. UK must clean the room. What is the conclusion: let us hold a new referendum, which will establish that with the exit from the EU, we just joked. Brexit will be forgotten, like a bad dream, and everything will remain the same.
The desire is clear. In chess and cards, the player also often wishes to move, realizing that his move does not bode him anything good. True, the rules of the game do not allow this. "Map place" - say the players.
The referendum is essentially the most powerful and final argument in politics. Therefore, by the way, it is customary to use it with the utmost care. If the decision taken at the 2016 referendum, in the course of its practical implementation, turned out to be far from such a profitable one for Britain - well, what to do, you should have thought before. If we declare: “Now we didn’t like it, we will hold a new referendum”, the Brussels counterparties will have a question whether this new referendum will be definitive or if the islanders have seven Fridays a week and then another is not excluded, etc. Doing business with such a partner will be a little hunting.
At the same time, it is not at all obvious that on the continent they are generally eager to return to the state of affairs that existed in 2016. The status of Great Britain was special, excluding Schengen and the euro, and in the sense of subsidies and subsidies, it (in the opinion of others) received much more than it gave.
This is not to mention the fact that it fully justified the fears of General de Gaulle, who did not allow Britain into the common market in the 60s, because she, as the general considered, would be in him a US Trojan horse.
Therefore, the return of the prodigal daughter to the EU will most likely be associated with a number of new conditions - and there is no certainty that they will like the advanced British youth and the mayor Khan. And then what? Again a new referendum?
Almost a hundred years ago, a British international official and theorist of international relations, Harold Nicholson, published an instructive brochure titled Diplomacy in the series of the then librarians of the British Knowledge Society. In it, he wrote how wrong the views of the wide British public on international relations.
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“In Great Britain, for example, the ordinary voter has not yet learned that foreign affairs are essentially foreign, that is, that they affect not only our national interests, but also the interests of other countries. He thinks that foreign policy is built in the same way as the budget or any law relating to public education, that is, that it is prepared by the relevant minister, reported to the cabinet, approved by parliament and then passed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for execution. Thanks to this misconception, he believes that it is enough to come up with a foreign policy that meets the interests of the UK in order for this policy to be implemented. He ignores the fact that foreign policy must be coordinated with other powers, also possessing powerful weapons to protect their interests and prejudices. ”
And he completes his reasoning quite abruptly: “The stupidity of such requests sometimes makes one despair of democratic diplomacy.”
After almost a century, the reason for despair has not gone away.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.