Changing its spots

Subject: Changing its spots.

What a predictable mess. After a day of blather in Parliament where MP after MP stood up and tried to persuade his/her fellow MPs to back one of 8 alternatives to try to find a way out of the Brexit log-jam. The problem is that the spectra of opinion, not only of how we leave the EU but a sizeable number of MP don't want to leave at all. 

 Our joining the EEC back in 1973 was an economic arrangement of tariff free boarders within Europe and limited to the founding members Germany, France, Holland, Italy Belgium and Luxembourg. Our declining economic health vis-a-vis the EEC propelled us to join but not without misgivings on all sides.

Today those misgivings are still evident not least because our patchy economic success has left many parts of the UK in economic decline. These are the areas which voted to leave on the assumption that the EU was partly responsible for their demise and especially because free movement of labour meant that what little work there was was snapped up by immigrants from the EU. They were blinded to the fact that much of the work had been taken over by the earlier wave of immigrants from The West Indies and especially Pakistan. People coming from parts of the world where the conditions were much more harsh and who were willing to work harder and longer for less money than the local indigenous inhabitants who themselves had only recently absorbed the promises of a Welfare State. 
The real bogyman was a Southern centric economy where urban centres in the north were left to decline as the industries that served these Northern Cities declined and died,  much of the work moving to Asia. These Northern cities have been the seedbed of discontent for decades and the Referendum offered them a chance to rebel. 
The long diatribe of European disharmony sold by the right-wing news papers, the Sun, the Daily Mail, and the Express had convinced the people who's fault it was that they were languishing and to no small effect the Blair government didn't do enough to reverse the ravages of Thatcherism. 
Given the 'Indicative vote' was supposed to pave the way to seeing a path on which parliamentarians could unite, instead it has revealed just how divided individual MPs are on this matter of Brexit. Member after member stood up yesterday and argued either to leave without further ado, to leave under a plethora of economic and political combinations, or not to leave at all and ask the people to vote, again on the assumption that they will vote to remain. Each argument had value and carried weight, is it any wonder that given a preferential voting system, where MPs could select any number of the choices, that when they came to tally them up no clear winner emerged. 
When you allow more than one cross on the ballot sheet the results are muddied. The strength of our winner takes all system is that whilst it ignores the individual voters preference for a consolidated vote, area by area at least it does produce a leader who given a majority can for, five years lead without much meaningful opposition.
Mrs Mays deal, which is shot through with presumptions about future negotiation, rather than a deal actually secured, is the only one on the table which is agreed by the EU. 
The option of 'crashing out' without a deal or the reverse, cancelling Article 50 and reuniting with the EU, (our tail firmly between our legs) will not be palatable to the 17 million who's material condition remains more or less the same and who see no benefit  in the status quo.
If we had the political will to improve the lot of those Northern 'drop out' cities and reinvigorate them with proper investment, perhaps their anger could be assuaged but don't hold your breath, this country has not learnt the benefits of long term investment and is not likely to change its spots soon.