The fourth day after Britain voted to exit the European Union has been a febrile one. Here’s where things stand:
Shockwaves from the vote have been reverberating around the world economy. A trillion dollars were wiped off world stock markets on Monday, adding to $2tn in losses on Friday, making this the largest two-day stock rout of all time.
The Sterling continued to lose value, dropping to just $1.32, its lowest point in more than 30 years.
Fitch became the third major ratings agency to downgrade the UK’s credit rating, following Standard & Poor’s earlier on Monday and Moody’s on Friday.
Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to stay on despite mass resignations from his shadow cabinet and a tense meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party during which Labour MPs agreed to hold a no-confidence vote in Corbyn’s leadership.
The Labour leader addressed a massed rally in Parliament Square after the meeting. He didn’t mention any leadership crisis.
The Conservative party’s own leadership contest continued to bubble, with chancellor George Osborne formally ruling himself out.
Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party, has reportedly begun exploring ways for Scotland - and Gibraltar, and possibly also Northern Ireland - to stay in the EU despite the vote.
“How do you make sure that the people who feel the world has passed them by come back into the system?” Blair asks. “If you feel the country should be unified, then the opportunities have to be universal as well, and not just for the people at the top.”
Even though I’m pro immigration, in order to deter prejudice, you have to have rules. You have to have order. And I think people feel like there are waves of immigration that they are powerless to stop.
I think the first thing we’ve got to recognise is the politics I grew up with has changed in a fundamental and significant way, and when you get a vote like that happened in the UK, you may disagree with it, you may even feel angry about it, but you have got to come to terms with it.”
As the conversation turns to the Middle East, Blair is interrupted by a heckler. “You are a liar! You are going to jail! You propped up the Saudi funding of 9/11,” the man shouts.
Blair stays silent until the man is ejected. “That’s one I haven’t heard before,” he says.
Over the next weeks and months people are going to get the chance to inspect the building,” Blair says. “Those of us who warned there would be an economic aftershock were accused of scaremongering, but we’ve had 2-3bn wiped off our stock market, a fall in the pound worse than any in 30 years - as I tried to explain, there is a difference between scaremongering and warning.”
Asked if there’s any hope for the UK to continue in the EU, he says “I think it’s possible, but I can’t be sure, and I think the leave campaign are very, very strong. But I think it’s possible that as people see the reality then they start to think it wasn’t such a good idea.”
He makes a comparison between the Brexit campaign and Donald Trump.
“There are two odd things. One is the desire to shake up the system, even if when you ask what shaking up the system means people aren’t clear; so there’s this populist tide left and right which says ‘the system is broken, and I’m gonna fix it’, and when you say how, they say ‘this country is gonna be so great’.”
There is a laugh in the room. “That is literally what the Brexit case was, by the way,” Blair adds.
Tony Blair is currently speaking to an event at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. He is in conversation with Rabbi Peter Rubinstein.
Rubinstein begins with levity by offering his condolences for England’s loss against Iceland. “It’s tragic,” Blair jokes. “It’s the sporting equivalent of Brexit.”
Then, to the meat.
Brexit is “the most important decision my country has taken since the 2nd World War,” the former Prime Minister says. “It ends just over 4 decades of membership of the EU, if it is proceeded with the way it is envisioned at the moment. It is a decision that is very indicative of the politics we are dealing with all over the world.”
He says “I got this result wrong. I thought we would stay.”
LabourList, the grassroots blog network, has joined the chorus of voices calling, if not for Corbyn’s departure, then at least for a new leadership election to quell the chaos within the party.
We cannot go on like this. It has been a devastating couple of days for the Labour Party in which it has lost a respected shadow Foreign Secretary, more than half the shadow Cabinet and some 34 shadow ministers in total. That was all before last night’s meeting of the PLP descended into a “brutal” row.
They continue:
Given that Corbyn has already pledged to stand in any leadership election, citing the “overwhelming mandate” he achieved last summer, it seems that a fresh poll would be the most straightforward – and perhaps the only – way to resolve this crisis.
Otherwise we are at an impasse. Several departing shadow Cabinet ministers have called on Corbyn to trigger a leadership election or, as Angela Eagle demanded, simply to “stand aside” because of a failure to “win the confidence” of voters and the public, but this will not happen anytime soon.
Following England football team manager Roy Hodgson’s resignation after that 2-1 defeat against Iceland, Reuters’ senior correspondent in Italy sums up the situation:
Guardian columnist Owen Jones has shared his thoughts on the future of Labour in a post on Medium.
Responsibility for this calamity lies with the Conservative Party, not the Labour leadership. Jeremy Corbyn is being blamed for sins principally committed by others. It is remarkable, when you think about it. The left is accustomed to being savaged by the Conservatives for promoting policies that would cause economic chaos and threaten the future of the country. That’s what they claimed against the modest social democratic proposals of Ed Miliband at the last general election.
Look at what these people have now done to Britain. History may judge the Tory Brexiteers to be the architects of the most radical, and ruinous, proposition to be offered and (presumably) implemented in Britain since the war.
Launching a coup in the Labour Party at this moment has diverted attention away from those responsible for this national crisis — not least by staggering resignations to ensure Labour’s woes dominate the news cycle for as long as possible. The opposition has a crucial role right now in filling the vacuum and offering leadership and a plan for dealing with the coming turmoil. The nation’s crisis has been deepened as a consequence of this political paralysis.
It will now be harder to define the coming crisis as a Tory-created crisis. Choosing this moment to launch a coup — amidst all the grief and fear of the referendum result — will only accentuate the bitter divide that exists between the Labour grassroots and the Parliamentary Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn’s most passionate supporters see a uniquely decent and honourable politician who is now under siege. The unfolding civil war between the two sides now threatens the very future existence of the Labour Party.
A formal split is being mooted involving the MPs effectively declaring unilateral independence. Mutterings about a leadership election in which Jeremy Corbyn is kept off the ballot paper would also guarantee a split. As far as I can tell, the rebels as things stand don’t seem to have a plan about what happens next. I don’t buy this is properly coordinated: it’s a kneejerk response if anything.
Will Straw, the executive director of Britain Stronger in Europe - the official Remain campaign - has attempted to make light of the situation with a possibly-slightly-too-soon football joke.
Asked today by Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister how she was,on the first day of a two-day royal visit, the Queen replied “well, I’m still alive anyway.”
Fabian Picardo, the first minister of the territory of Gibraltar, is in talks with Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party about “various options” to keep at least parts of the UK in the EU, the BBC is reporting.
“I can imagine a situation where some parts of what is today the member state United Kingdom are stripped out and others remain,” Picardo told Newsnight.
Northern Ireland is also potentially involved in discussions, according to the BBC.
Senior party sources have told the Guardian that the former Labour lord chancellor and justice secretary Charlie Falconer is consulting constitutional lawyers on whether a new federal relationship would be a legally sound alternative route to a full divorce between the EU and all parts of the UK.
The initiative was launched on Friday, hours after it emerged that Scotland and Northern Ireland had voted comprehensively against leaving the EU, and was agreed with by Ian Murray, the then shadow Scottish secretary, and Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader.
Party sources said Lord Falconer’s work would focus on a possible federal deal where each devolved region could negotiate their own membership of the EU, while staying in the UK.
To their supporters, both aging socialists represent the modern face of an anti-establishment uprising. With their focus on those forgotten by globalization, they may be drawing on the same resentment that fuels Trump and the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, but purport to offer hope, not anti-immigrant hatred, as a response.
To their critics, particularly among Democratic and Labour party leaders, Corbyn and Sanders also share a dangerous stubborn streak. By refusing to compromise their beliefs, these cantankerous old class-warriors risk are splitting the progressive majority at a time when it needs to be unified against the xenophobic populism of the right.
Bitterness, black humour, and schadenfreude all present in this succinct tweet by Donald Tusk, a Polish politician and president of the European Council.
Hashtags such as #Bregret #Bregretters and #Bregreter have sprung up on social media, while a poll by Survation for the Mail on Sunday found 7.1% of leave voters expressed regret over their decision, compared with 4.4% of remain voters.
MacKenzie, in his column on Monday, described the “surge” he felt when he voted leave, “as though for the first time in my life my vote did count. I had power.”
But he said on Monday: “Four days later, I don’t feel quite the same. I’ve buyer’s remorse. A sense of be careful what you wish for. To be truthful, I am fearful of what lies ahead.”
Karen and Carmen spoke to Adrian Cook, 46, a clinical researcher from Sheffield who voted leave as a protest vote, said he was now “so ashamed” of what he had done that he had issued an emotional apology to his wife and children.
Yes, I regret it. When I heard the result I should be elated but I immediately thought this is a massive cockup what have we done. I just thought my protest vote would give Cameron a kick up the trousers.
I voted early on Thursday not even thinking about it, I was that convinced. Me and my wife have had a series of heated debates. I’ve mostly been reiterating things I’d heard on the TV.
It was stupidity on my part. We’re told how badly off we are, how we need austerity and cutting local services and Brussels don’t do much for the man on the street.
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