Bartering Beliefs

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you took a bit of a short-cut to get it? Perhaps it was jumping ahead in line to get a better seat at an event. Ever bob and weave through tough traffic? Perhaps it was fibbing to a maitre’d to get a better table or a reservation moved around to your convenience. It’s not always selfish - family and friends who are parents often make little deals with their offspring – finish 2 more carrots and then you can have dessert – or clean up your room and you can have 15 more minutes on the iPad. Most of these things are relatively harmless – some might even categorize them as incentives. David Cameron showed the world last week what happens when you barter your beliefs away.

The United Kingdom’s decision to remove itself from the European Union  in a referendum in June 2016 has the world aflutter. Stock markets dropped, the value of the pound crashed and political analysists who didn’t foresee it happened are agog with hyperbole.
How did this happen? Sure there are issues of xenophobia, isolationism and other elements at play. Before making that judgment, however, let’s go back in time to see how this could happen.

David Cameron took over the leadership of the Conservative Party in April of 2010 after Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister. Per Wikipedia: “The election resulted in a hung parliament, no single party having an overall majority in the House of Commons, the Conservatives having the most seats but 20 short of a majority. In the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement of 11 May 2010, the two parties formed a coalition government.”

The British Parliamentary system operates differently than the U.S. system, but the essential comparison for Americans is that no party won an outright majority so they had to bring together another party to get enough support to govern. The nearest comparison would be the GOP didn’t quite win enough votes to rule so they had to make a deal with the Green Party to be able to run the government. That’s how different and far apart the parties are in policy, but it was the first opportunity that the Liberal Democrats had to have a seat at the table and they took it.

The Coalition Agreement between the parties outlined the policy areas where they agreed to cooperate and the actions that they’d take. There was plenty of give and take from the parties that are so divergent in philosophy. So long as the Agreement was followed then the rest of the issues and policies could be supported. “Settling” on a few items in order to rule seemed worthwhile. The European Union was part of the Agreement and that began the process of placing a referendum on the ballot.

Not much happened in those first few years around the EU and the Conservatives were frustrated with the difficulty of ruling by coalition, Cameron made another deal in 2012 in a bid to bolster Conservative votes in the next election. Wikipedia: “While attending the May 2012 NATO summit meeting, British Prime Minister David Cameron, William Hague and Ed Llewellyn discussed the idea of using a European Union referendum as a concession to energise the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party. In January 2013, Cameron promised that, should his Conservative Party win a parliamentary majority at the 2015 general election, the UK Government would negotiate more favourable arrangements for continuing British membership of the EU, before holding a referendum on whether the UK should remain in or leave the EU.”

The tactic worked and Cameron and the Conservatives had a strong showing in 2015 – enough so that his second cabinet came together without the need of a coalition agreement. He then did negotiate more agreeableterms for staying in the Union as he had promised. But there was still a matter of the vote.



The June 23rd Referendum went forward and by 1.3 million votes the U.K. decided to leave the Union. Cameron immediately resigned in what many consider a statement of leadership and integrity. What they forget is that Cameron wouldn’t have had to resign if he hadn’t made the deals he did to gain power in the first place.


Many analysts in the U.S. have tried to draw a parallel between a vote to isolate and the Trump movement. They see it as foreshadowing for the November 2016 election. I don’t. I see it as another example of when people compromise their principals then there are consequences. Cameron bartered his beliefs and the Brits now leave the European Union.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Give me a break!

The idiom “give me a break” generally is used when you don’t believe something that has happened or been said. We’ve all muttered the expression a lot lately, especially around the 2016 Presidential race. I am going to use it here more literally. I started this blog in late July 2010. This is the 329 th iteration. At an average of 750 words that’s nearly 250,000 words. To compare that’s about three average mystery novels (at 80,000 words each), much less than the Bible (800,000 words) and nowhere near the IRS Code (4 million words). Originally Craig’s Corner was a way to keep me focused during a long stint where I was without work or income. With gainful employment it has become a welcome respite from the day-to-day tasks. I tend to focus on issues that are interesting to me but not necessarily a critical part of what I do day in and day out. My perspective isn’t unique, but I do look at the word with a different lens. I’ve tried hard not to be part of the echo chamber and been...
Read more

Hoping for Grace

I wrote this blog regularly for many years, 330 unique posts. Every Thursday I’d post my thinking for the week. I always strove to offer a perspective that wasn’t in the main discourse on a particular issue. It wasn’t left or right or even center – just looking at something from a different angle. There were some really great dialogues that happened with people who appreciated nuance and having a substantive conversation. I never sought for agreement from readers, just a healthy and respectful debate. The election of Donald J. Trump changed the engagement from polite discourse to flame throwing character assination if somebody disagreed. That wasn’t interesting or productive to me, so the blog no longer served its intended purpose. I return to the format because today because it seems to be a good way to explore an issue that I’ve been long committed to, but handled in a thoughtless way. Recently I made a thoughtless comment on a Facebook post that was undeniably racist, and demean...
Read more

Giving the gift

Image
The holidays are right around the corner. It’s a time of reflection, excitement and no matter one’s religious predilections a there’s a tradition of gift giving. Talking about the holidays before Halloween is usually met with revulsion and resistance. This time it’s different. While we can’t grant everybody’s #1 wish – that the 2016 U.S. Presidential election cycle be over – maybe we can do something close.   Let’s give Donald J. Trump what he’s been talking about. I’m wary of adding to the proliferation of commentary on the Grand Old Party’s nominee. But then maybe there’s something to the Trump complaints. Instead of dismissing everything that comes out of his mouth as made up, perhaps we should be doing is more of what he worries about, not less. The more recent complaints from the real-estate tycoon have to do with media bias. All “the media” does is lie, distort and never gives him fair coverage. This same media generated over a billion dollars of free brand and...
Read more