Transcript
SPEAKER_01
0:03
This is a strategist episode 580. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's up? Well, Zain, we're not really with
Corey
0:12
with you today. It feels weird.
SPEAKER_01
0:14
Well, with us is a relative term because first time, long time, we're recording remotely. And
SPEAKER_01
0:19
And there's a reason.
SPEAKER_01
0:21
It's an emergency episode, isn't it, Corey? Emergency Brexit episode.
SPEAKER_02
0:25
Yeah, it's called by the Corey Hogan. This is a big day. Well, this
SPEAKER_01
0:29
this is also known as the Corey Hogan Vanity Project episode, getting us together at 11.30 at night saying, we need to do this. I've got something to say.
SPEAKER_01
0:39
It's pretty much the
Corey
0:42
You know, I mean, by the way, guys, thank you very much for your congratulations about the birth of my second child. But I've got a lot of power in my hands right now.
SPEAKER_01
0:53
Listen, even cockroaches have kids. Okay. I'm over it.
SPEAKER_01
0:59
really don't care because
SPEAKER_01
1:01
because we've apparently got bigger things to talk about and cory how about you start us off okay so we're only going to do your guys's hot takes on brexit we'll do a more fulsome episode later this week potentially in the weekend but we want to talk about this right now because it is literally happening right
SPEAKER_01
1:17
right now cory before we get there how did we get here
Corey
1:21
well i think a lot of britains are asking themselves that today uh brexit was supposed It was supposed to be a referendum that
Corey
1:29
that wasn't really a big deal. So when Cameron, the Prime Minister of England, was running, he promised that he would hold a referendum on being in or out of the European Union, sort
Corey
1:43
sort of as a sop to the far right, UKIP, the UK Independence Party, and the right of the Conservative Party, who
Corey
1:51
who were becoming increasingly Eurosceptic, shall we say. Now, when he made that promise, Europe
Corey
1:56
Europe wasn't the shit show that we know today with Greece and Italy and Spain and all of that. And it's safe to say Britain's became increasingly
Corey
2:06
increasingly skeptical. And I think around 2013, people started thinking, well, we might have a real problem here. I'm playing a bit fast and loose with the dates. But fast forward to the past month or so, and it was starting to look like an increasingly tight race. So for most of the year, it looked like Leave side, so the two sides are known as Remain and Leave. It looked like Leave was put to bed. It looked like Remain had a healthy Leave.
Corey
2:33
But then they started to see a real tightening of the pulse. Then Leave pulled ahead. Now, in the past week, Leave sort of, it looked like the tide had sort of hit its high watermark and it was pulling back. And everybody says, hey, you know, when you have a referendum like this, status quo, People break status quo at the last minute. So
Corey
2:52
So I think it's safe to say, and certainly the markets and the betting shops that the UK is famous for, all of them sort of thought that they were going to vote narrowly to stay in the European Union.
Corey
3:04
That didn't fucking happen. They just called it in the past bit officially, although it's been clear for most of the night now. Leave has won. The UK is leaving the European Union. Now, it
Corey
3:15
it is not really like if we voted to leave NAFTA. I think people know that, but let's just state it clear. To many Britons, this is
Corey
3:22
is sort of like voting
Corey
3:24
voting to break up a nascent nation. Like the European project, as it's widely known, just walking away from it is a big fucking deal. And the last time the UK had an opportunity to sort of give its opinion broadly through a referendum, it
Corey
3:40
it was in 75. And it was very different then, of course. There was no European anthem. There was no European flag. all
Corey
3:48
all of those trappings that I think we'll probably have to talk about, if not today, in days to come.
Corey
3:52
But they voted overwhelmingly to be on board.
Corey
3:56
Today, they are not on board. And this
Corey
3:59
this is all happening in real time. We don't know what people will wake up to in the morning, but it is 11.42 p.m. Mountain Time,
Corey
4:08
and the pound is down 11% against the dollar.
Corey
4:14
to put that in context, Corey,
SPEAKER_01
4:14
Corey, the pound fluctuating a percentage or two is a huge deal. 11% is unbelievable,
Corey
4:22
is it not? Yeah, this is the lowest
Corey
4:25
lowest point the pound has been since the 80s right now. And there's been some rough rides through the financial crisis and what have you. In many ways, London being used as sort of a metonym for the financial industry in the UK was more exposed than the United States even to some of that stuff. But the pound did not hit these lows. It is hitting these lows today.
Corey
4:50
The UK is the fifth largest economy in the world, and their currency has lost 11% in a matter of hours.
SPEAKER_01
4:57
That is ridiculous. Ridiculous. Stephen Carter, OK, before I get your take on the specifics, I actually want to touch upon what Corey's mentioned a few times here, which is that term referendum.
SPEAKER_01
5:06
referendum. So not only how did we get here, but how did we get to the point of a referendum? Explain to us what
SPEAKER_01
5:13
what the instrument of a referendum is and how it's effectively chosen in
SPEAKER_01
5:19
in this case where people go and vote on an issue.
SPEAKER_01
5:22
When is a referendum used, Stephen?
SPEAKER_02
5:25
Well, I think you use a referendum when you think that you are on the right side of it. So you
SPEAKER_02
5:30
you promise the people their opportunity to have a direct say. So a referendum is just a simple form of direct democracy where everybody gets to vote. We traditionally use representative democracy. And there's
SPEAKER_02
5:42
there's a question as to why we use representative democracy versus using direct democracy. And one of the big reasons that we use representative
SPEAKER_02
5:50
representative democracy is that we demand that the representatives learn more about
SPEAKER_02
5:55
about a specific issue than
SPEAKER_02
5:57
than citizens are perhaps willing to learn for
SPEAKER_02
6:01
for an issue or for all the issues. Now,
SPEAKER_02
6:05
Now, there's a lot more direct democracy in Switzerland, for example. They tend
SPEAKER_02
6:09
tend to learn about the issues. They know about the issues. They're willing to carry forward and
SPEAKER_02
6:13
and take a position. I
SPEAKER_02
6:16
would argue that one of the reasons that we don't use democratic democracy in
SPEAKER_02
6:19
in North America and why it's not used on big, important issues like, hey,
SPEAKER_02
6:24
hey, should Great Britain remain in the EU, is
SPEAKER_02
6:30
the consequences are very difficult to explain. The issues are far-reaching and have multi-facets in terms of how your outcome is going to be. And I'm not saying that the average person can't learn and
SPEAKER_02
6:46
and can't have, you know, a well-considered and well-thought-through position. What I'm saying is that the average person has proven not to learn and has proven not to have.
SPEAKER_02
6:59
They are – we don't
SPEAKER_02
7:02
don't care enough. I've talked a lot about the idea of the less engaged and the hyper-engaged.
SPEAKER_02
7:08
When you're a representative, when David Cameron gets his government elected,
SPEAKER_02
7:12
his representatives are hyper-engaged. They are learning every day. They know about the issues backwards and forwards. When
SPEAKER_02
7:18
When a politician says we should do a referendum on this, it's
SPEAKER_02
7:22
it's a methodology of trying
SPEAKER_02
7:24
trying to bring along everybody with you. And
SPEAKER_02
7:28
And when it goes against you like this,
SPEAKER_02
7:30
it is a significant defeat. that we
SPEAKER_02
7:33
we we've seen this in canada in the quebec referendum most recently uh
SPEAKER_02
7:38
uh and and losing or
SPEAKER_02
7:41
or winning by a few points like this is almost the worst possible scenario and that's what's
SPEAKER_02
7:47
what's so interesting about this this brexit issue
SPEAKER_02
7:50
issue right now is that it
SPEAKER_02
7:52
it really is a very small number
SPEAKER_02
7:57
which the the consequences are going to be rather staggering the
SPEAKER_02
8:01
the other thing that's staggering for me is
SPEAKER_02
8:04
is that this isn't a universal referendum where everybody voted and basically 50 percent of all the demographics voted to
SPEAKER_02
8:11
to uh to leave one way yeah or
SPEAKER_02
8:14
this is this is a referendum we're really getting off of the worst case scenario from direct democracy democracy.
SPEAKER_02
8:21
Massive swings between different demographic groups. Bottom line, if you were young, you voted to stay in. If you were old, you voted to leave.
SPEAKER_02
8:30
And it wasn't you voted to leave because the economic arguments were strong. It
SPEAKER_02
8:35
It wasn't you voted to leave because you wanted a stronger national identity. You voted to leave because you were being xenophobic and
SPEAKER_02
8:42
and you didn't like the fact that the person serving your fish and chips spoke to you with an accent. Well,
Corey
8:47
Well, and it was like a fusion fish and chips with curry and all sorts of crazy things that made you uncomfortable. Listen, the one thing I got to throw on there before Carter goes too far down the road, the other time people usually use referenda is when
Corey
9:02
when they're too gutless to make the decision themselves, right? They're like, oh, my God, this is no win. Let me throw it to the people.
Corey
9:08
people. This is not the case. And it's really important to note that while it was 52-48 of the public at large, labor, the conservatives, like every essential piece of the establishment in the UK, financial sector, media, all of them, all lined up against what Brexit, as it's called, the British exit from the EU.
Corey
9:32
All of them lined up, right? Right. And of course, yeah, there were facets of all of the parties that said, no, I'm in favor of leaving for different reasons. Right. The right had different reasons for wanting to leave the xenophobia that Carter alluded to than the left who had problems with the Democratic aspects of it. Right.
Corey
9:51
it. Like the public just threw the board up and said, no, we're not doing that anymore. And that and I think that is very interesting and could be quite telling about some of these other Democratic contests we have going on across the Western world in the next year or two.
SPEAKER_01
10:05
Corey, I'm going to go back to you on this. Carter mentioned a huge defeat for
SPEAKER_01
10:09
for David Cameron and
SPEAKER_01
10:10
and effectively the guy, the prime minister saying that he was behind, you know, remaining and saying, what
SPEAKER_01
10:20
what does he do from here? And is this actually a defeat? And is this, you know, him
SPEAKER_01
10:25
him hobbled going forward? I
Corey
10:26
I mean, there is no going forward for him. If you turn on BBC World right now, the one universal of people who are not in the Conservative Party, who are still talking the line, you have to keep in mind it's very early there in the morning, is, no, he's still our leader, is what the Conservatives say. Everybody else is like, oh, he's got to go. There's no way. I mean, it's almost a given that Boris Johnson, who ran the Leave campaign and is the former mayor of London, will
Corey
10:52
will be the next prime minister of England. Now, there's a lot of permutations around that, when Cameron steps down, if he's just going to make signals. But the basic feeling is he campaigned so hard to remain, he can't be the guy who leads negotiations to leave. And the markets just will not put up with any kind of uncertainty. So that question could be answered by the time anybody is listening to this podcast. It might be answered right now, frankly. You know, it's 11.49, and I know he was scheduled to talk any minute.
SPEAKER_01
11:19
Carter, before we get into where the stay or remain side went wrong,
SPEAKER_01
11:24
tell me about David Cameron. What are your thoughts on him? You
SPEAKER_01
11:27
You mentioned that he threw this to the people, ultimately knowing that support was on his side.
SPEAKER_01
11:32
Where did he go wrong, in your opinion?
SPEAKER_02
11:35
I think he went wrong by offering the referendum in general.
SPEAKER_02
11:41
Yeah. I mean, this was not what
SPEAKER_02
11:44
what were you trying to get right? Were you trying to get in or were you trying to get out? You're already in.
SPEAKER_02
11:50
So you were you were pandering.
SPEAKER_02
11:52
You go to the people and say, no, no, I'll let you have your say as to whether or not you should stay. We should stay in the union.
SPEAKER_02
11:59
people are like, yeah, good. We finally get our say. But he didn't want to leave. He doesn't want to be outside of it. So he offers up a question that he doesn't want to hear the answer to. And this is like, you
SPEAKER_02
12:09
you can't do that in politics. You can't go to the people and say, we spent our entire political careers trying to make the question about something we can win on.
SPEAKER_02
12:22
made the question about something he cannot win on and did not win on. And now he's done. And not only is he done, he's done in such a fashion that there are going to be ramifications that we're going to see for quite some time. This is the equivalent. I mean, when this would be like Jean Chrétien saying, you know what, we're going to hold a referendum on Quebec separation. It wasn't him. It was Perizot who said we're going to do that and started the process.
SPEAKER_02
12:49
No one in their right mind calls this question if they don't know the answer. And Cameron clearly didn't know the answer.
SPEAKER_01
12:57
Corey, if you're advising Cameron right now, you were saying it's nearly 5 a.m. in the U.K. right now. He may be about to speak. Is it all but over? Is there any advice to salvage, maybe not even the political career, but
SPEAKER_01
13:11
but the reputation going forward? Because this is the start of a potential one-year or longer negotiation about where Britain ends up or what their relationship ends up being with the EU. What's the advice you offer to Cameron right now? Well, it's
Corey
13:26
it's a two-year process at its smallest, right? But it's expected that from there, there'll be a further decoupling. This could last a long time. My advice to David Cameron's staff, Zane, and if I would be one of them in this scenario, is to use a British political, you know, a famous saying is, will the last one out of the office please turn out the lights? Get away from this man. He's now toxic. Now, if you're David Cameron, you are putting a brave face on it. You're saying, look, I always said this would be up to the people. Yes, I had my opinions and I led one side, but I knew this was a contentious issue that Britons would have to decide for themselves. And that's it. That's really all you've sort of got going on. And that is essentially what all of the conservative MPs, regardless of what side they were on, that's the line they've been taking through the night in the UK. okay they've they've been saying you
Corey
14:16
you know no david cameron said he put this to a vote and he did and the people spoke and you're allowed to lose votes and that's fine but this is so foundational uh
Corey
14:25
that there is just nobody right now who who truly believes that he's got a good chance to hang on now he could maybe
Corey
14:32
maybe he will i mean maybe he'll try to but i think if the markets get roiled by the notion like oh he's sticking around is that actually going to work he's going to fake us or face a caucus revolt in no time at all no time at all carter
SPEAKER_01
14:45
carter let's we've talked about when a referendum is used let's talk about the strategy of a referendum as we dovetail into the conversation of where the
SPEAKER_01
14:53
the remain side went wrong because as cory alluded to you know in the initial part of this campaign they were leading quite significantly and
SPEAKER_01
15:03
and it's only within the last little bit that the leave side came up and really won this thing.
SPEAKER_01
15:09
But let's talk about that before we get into the specifics. Tell me in your in your mind, Carter, what is or what are some of the nuances of strategy as it relates to a referendum campaign? What's something you should be aware of that maybe isn't necessarily the dynamic of a general election campaign that we are used to?
SPEAKER_02
15:28
Well, a referendum campaign is generally about, you know, kind of really emotional issues. I mean, we don't ever go to a referendum campaign i mean i guess there's there's two really big standout referendums that jump to mind uh one is on taxes and
SPEAKER_02
15:44
and the second would be on separation or joining something like this i
SPEAKER_02
15:49
i guess um we
SPEAKER_02
15:50
we also see that in the states they do some social policy and things like that on referendums they're
SPEAKER_02
15:57
they're always one on emotion so so are they any different really than what we do in a general election probably not it's just that you
SPEAKER_02
16:04
you don't get to change the channel right
SPEAKER_02
16:07
let's say that we're losing an election we're not doing as well as we'd like to do um
SPEAKER_02
16:12
um we change the channel we talk about a different issue something else is what we're going to talk about you
SPEAKER_01
16:16
don't have that option here no
SPEAKER_02
16:18
no you have one thing you know one thing and you can't you
SPEAKER_02
16:22
you can't go and say well i you know oh well i'm going to try and change this is to that this
SPEAKER_02
16:27
this is it this is all you've got now you can try and change the emotional argument but
SPEAKER_02
16:32
but when when the leave side was
SPEAKER_02
16:34
was doing i mean obviously just a better job of
SPEAKER_02
16:38
of doing the emotional argument especially with uh
SPEAKER_02
16:41
uh groups of people who tend to vote more and those people um i
SPEAKER_02
16:45
mean those people are uh older folks and they just nailed it and there was no tying back to i mean some of the the questions i've seen on social
SPEAKER_02
16:54
social media today like why
SPEAKER_02
16:55
why didn't older folks remember why the european union was started well i don't think that that was actually a part of the campaign
SPEAKER_02
17:03
uh you know there were there was no there
SPEAKER_02
17:06
there are some topics that are just hard to do and referendums are
SPEAKER_02
17:11
uh on difficult topics i mean how do you win a taxation referendum california went
SPEAKER_02
17:16
correct i can't remember right off the top of my head but how many referenda on taxation in California going. Every proposition
SPEAKER_02
17:22
proposition was defeated on new taxes for quite some time. They've reversed it recently. Yeah, they had
Corey
17:28
had to do ultimately like a huge omnibus one to fix it because they put themselves in such a horrible box. But I mean, your point is well taken.
SPEAKER_02
17:37
Yeah, I mean, they were bankrupt. They were bankrupt. And they went to the people and basically said, we can't continue doing this. And
SPEAKER_02
17:44
And it was only at that stage, once the recognition They were completely screwed.
SPEAKER_02
17:49
Did they finally get forward movement in the right direction?
SPEAKER_01
17:53
Corey, any other nuances you want to add to the strategy of referendum before we get into what happened here? I
Corey
17:59
I mean, most broadly speaking, Zane, a lot of it is just so dependent. You
Corey
18:06
You know, they're very funny. They're very interesting. And every country, every jurisdiction that has them has different ways to kind of determine who's leading each side. sometimes they're given budgets sometimes they're allowed to fundraise all this stuff those rules matter a lot and the rule that matters the most is the question now i will give uh the uk huge props especially as a canadian who's had to deal with you want to have sovereignty association to renegotiate blah blah blah blah right their questions are very clear they're to the point and they are entirely unambiguous like this was not a yes or no it was leave or remain main those are your choices right i really like how they do that but my big big problem and i actually guys i'm i'm here we're on the spot we're going to do something outrageous here we are going to run a poll or we're going to tax them onto an omnibus in the next bit i want to prove this point make this point the
Corey
18:59
the way you ask the question has such a dramatic impact on it and the way you frame the campaign right so in the canadians i guess right now we're all talking about um we're
Corey
19:08
we're talking about electoral reform so we're going to put our three heads together we
Corey
19:12
we are each going to come up with a different phrasing of that question and we are going to run actual polls on all three to kind of show that point i love it i mentioned this because to carter's point about you elect representatives in a representative democracy to talk about that no
Corey
19:26
no matter how justin trudeau phrases the question in the house of commons the vote is going to end up the same or or so close to the same that the point is the point remains right referenda
Corey
19:36
referenda are so much more manipulable like that i mean ultimately someone has to make those decisions and there's this notion and we've talked about in the past that like this is a pure or better form of democracy in my opinion this is one of the most gameable forms of democracy that's a general thing about referenda i'm not really saying that's what happened at this point but
Corey
19:55
but man alive did did all sorts of other stuff so i'll
SPEAKER_02
19:59
i'll be honest i mean yeah i
SPEAKER_02
20:01
i when i'm running a general
SPEAKER_02
20:04
oftentimes i think to myself if i had if i had a referenda i
SPEAKER_02
20:07
could win this general easier
SPEAKER_02
20:11
right right because i i think that it
SPEAKER_02
20:19
um that if you choose the right referenda you
SPEAKER_02
20:22
you are dealing with something that you
SPEAKER_02
20:25
can control and in the case of a
SPEAKER_02
20:28
a three-party system uh
SPEAKER_02
20:30
uh where you need 42 percent of the vote to win you
SPEAKER_02
20:32
you can still win and lose your referendum right
SPEAKER_02
20:35
right and right that's that's fine as long as you don't literally
SPEAKER_02
20:39
literally tie your head to the anchor and throw it overboard as david cameron did yeah
SPEAKER_01
20:44
carter let's let's let's talk about the side that david cameron was leading uh
SPEAKER_01
20:48
uh so much to parse out i know both of you want to get into this so let's dissect some of that strategy how does a campaign that is up by double digits ultimately lose on on on election night so to speak um particularly in your opinion what went wrong here carter you
SPEAKER_01
21:08
you know i i don't even know because
SPEAKER_02
21:10
because it was i
SPEAKER_02
21:12
i mean i think is it can
SPEAKER_02
21:14
can i rephrase the question to answer it the way i want to have
SPEAKER_01
21:18
my questions ever stopped you yeah
SPEAKER_02
21:21
yeah i mean i think that it's i think frankly it was boris johnson i
SPEAKER_02
21:26
i think that the
SPEAKER_02
21:27
the that man for whatever reason has a certain power of personality
SPEAKER_02
21:33
and has a way of connecting with the people it's like it's like the old ralph klein when ralph klein was at his peak you know a man of the every the every man who spoke the truth and
SPEAKER_02
21:43
and it didn't matter if it was racist and maybe or or a little xenophobic i
SPEAKER_02
21:49
know maybe he's trump and
SPEAKER_02
21:52
and maybe trump and maybe this this
SPEAKER_02
21:54
this everyman populism is just it's so freaking overwhelming right now it
SPEAKER_02
22:00
could be i don't know yeah
Corey
22:04
in your mind what what was I mean, this Remain vote, in
Corey
22:10
in my opinion, and people will dissect, and it's easy to do sort of that Monday morning quarterbacking, but it
Corey
22:19
so the wrong campaign. I mean, their entire argument was one that was based on this. Somehow, the idea that you would join this commonwealth of countries and be open and build something together became the fear campaign. Right. And they started saying, oh, my God, well, we're not going to say nice things about Europe because God knows Europe has its troubles. But can you imagine the economic chaos that, you know, the GDP will drop and and what what have you will happen to all of these companies that are that are headquartered in London? They're going to start decamping to different places.
Corey
22:56
know what? This is just too abstract. You know what? It's not even too abstract. People are not idiots, but people are not idiots. it zane and don't don't don't ask carter that by the way i think he has a very different response well for fuck's sake i mean since the 90s people have been sold the most outrageous bills of goods do you know what i have learned in my life more than anything else i've learned in my life as i go on a smart person can make a very very bad idea sound compelling and
Corey
23:23
and since the 90s we have been told that hey you
Corey
23:27
you know what it'll all work out if you just put your faith in us and those of us who are very clever and can bring these ideas forward and is too clever by hat and not to go like on a full like social democrat rant here guys but you
Corey
23:41
you know this is somehow
Corey
23:43
somehow along the way in you know in the 80s 90s and whatnot they even managed to convince people like hey it's better for you if we ship your job overseas you'll get a better job out of this like that is just the height of bullshit. And unfortunately, for the past 25 years, people have not been seeing their standard of living get better. In the United States, real income of the bottom 90%, 9-0%, fell 14% between 2007 and 2012. But the GDP rose almost 12 points.
Corey
24:18
when you start talking about things like GDP numbers, I think we've all had enough. They
Corey
24:22
They just don't mean anything to me. And you know know what fool me once shame on you fool me twice you can't get fooled again you know the old george w bush line we're
Corey
24:31
we're not fooled anymore you know it's just such a bullshit argument and unfortunately remain put all of their eggs in that basket just as people were hitting like the ultimate peak of not being interested in it anymore talk
SPEAKER_01
24:44
talk to me about the other side carter mentioned it cory and you did as well when you said you know smart people can make a bad idea sound very good uh
SPEAKER_01
24:52
explain to me the framing that the uh that the leave side or and boris johnson ultimately uh put on this to to snatch this victory in in
Corey
25:03
in the 11th hour i mean they were masters or you know they
Corey
25:06
they went into the dark arts a lot right and i think we need to talk about
Corey
25:11
how they they played on people's fears of immigrants of change and all of this uh but i will say before we even get into any of that they were so much better at retail politics they talked about the eu costs uh uk i think it was either 275 or 375 million pounds a week and
Corey
25:33
and what could we do what could that do for our national health care service right oh yeah do for nhs that is fucking brilliant that
Corey
25:41
is just like taking one basket of money and moving it to to another place, entirely ignoring what Europe puts back into the U.K., doesn't matter. I mean, that was just such a very clever approach, and Boris Johnson's very good at that kind of stuff. The
Corey
25:54
The other thing they did, Zane, is, and, you know, we've all done a lot of strategic counsel for corporate clients, and one of the things that I think is fair to say is sometimes it's useful to have multiple voices, right?
Corey
26:08
We'd all agree to that.
Corey
26:09
Well, there was the official campaigns for both sides, And there were other campaigns for either sides, but the Leave side did a much better job of taking those unofficial guys and wrapping them up better than the others. So there was Leave, the
Corey
26:23
the official campaign, and
Corey
26:25
and then there was Leave EU, like the unofficial campaign that really played on that sole fear of immigration and whatnot. And whenever they went too far, you could have guys like Boris Johnson being like, tut, tut, tut, no, I think we should control immigration, but I wouldn't say things like that, right? Right. They right. They managed to have their cake and eat it to have multiple messages out there, disavow them with the people they needed to disavow them with, run
Corey
26:47
run with them with the people they needed to run with them. Meanwhile, remain is sitting there talking
Corey
26:52
talking about, you know, what it might mean to the IMF. Who
Corey
26:56
Who cares about the shit? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
26:59
Stephen, Stephen Carter, I ask you these questions because you are the dark arts to fight the dark arts. So tell me, you Corey has has very articulately painted what the leave side was doing there, their narrative, their framing. What
SPEAKER_01
27:15
What would you have done if you and you've got a pretty good line of sight into this? Let's see. You see this happening. What's the pivot you would have suggested to David Cameron and the remain side to make so that they could they could, you know, tried it to have been successful in the situation? holy
SPEAKER_02
27:32
yeah is that is that a big question for uh for five
SPEAKER_01
27:36
five past midnight carter i just wanted to ask you that as
SPEAKER_02
27:38
as well yeah i
SPEAKER_02
27:40
yeah sitting here on your chair come up with a solution uh to a culture that you're not a part of yeah i mean you're asking a fairly uh in
SPEAKER_02
27:52
in-depth question what i what i would have done so let me let me generalize rather than give you a specific Because I literally
SPEAKER_02
28:02
that out of my ass at 12.06 in the evening.
SPEAKER_02
28:08
start off by figuring out what it is that people are afraid of or what they hope for. And
SPEAKER_02
28:15
And then you try and figure out which one is stronger.
SPEAKER_02
28:19
I think that I would have played a different game on the economics of it. You
SPEAKER_02
28:23
You can't have Mark Carney, our former governor of Canada, going
SPEAKER_02
28:27
going out and saying that it's going to be bad for business
SPEAKER_02
28:32
business and bad for Great Britain
SPEAKER_02
28:36
Britain and for the economics of Great Britain. You
SPEAKER_02
28:40
You need to find a way to make that really small, right?
SPEAKER_02
28:43
right? You're going to lose money. How are you going to lose money? You
SPEAKER_02
28:46
You know, if you're
SPEAKER_02
28:48
you're talking about $375 million a week going out of Great Britain, then
SPEAKER_02
28:53
then you need to be able to talk about $28
SPEAKER_02
28:55
$28 going every week into someone's pocket. You've got to change it up so that people have a sense of how this actually impacts them or how they would actually benefit
SPEAKER_02
29:07
from having this happen. Now, everything's
SPEAKER_02
29:09
everything's going to become crystal clear in hindsight of
SPEAKER_02
29:12
of what will happen, but
SPEAKER_02
29:17
needed to be some sort of a mechanism to tell people about the
SPEAKER_02
29:21
the dark days that are ahead of us in
SPEAKER_02
29:26
terms that they understood, not Mark Carney talking about it from the governor of the Bank of England's point of view. Yeah, Mark Carney, a
Corey
29:33
a foreigner no less.
SPEAKER_02
29:37
with a crazy, you know, a Canadian accent, for God's sake.
Corey
29:42
even Canadian. In general terms, for you
SPEAKER_01
29:50
any additions to what Carter said in terms of the pivot that Cameron and his team should have made? Yeah,
Corey
29:54
Yeah, I mean, for me, I think it would have been almost one of, like, a generational responsibility. Possibility. Or at least I would have played with that, polled on that scene where that was. I share Stephen's reticence
Corey
30:05
reticence with trying to create an entire campaign while sitting in my basement at 12.08 a.m. now. But look,
Corey
30:14
look, you shared something on social media earlier today, Zane, that was polling from YouGov based on age group. Now, this was a poll that actually showed remain winning as well, you should keep in mind. So if anything, it's underestimating the leave percents. And it showed a very strong correlation between age and leave, right? You're at 65 plus, 58% were
Corey
30:39
on the leave side, 33% remained. That's a huge gap, right? And it was likely larger in real life.
Corey
30:48
pretty easy to do 65 plus i pick on for a reason these people are retired they have their pensions they're not worried about employment opportunities frankly most of them are old enough that they're getting defined benefit pensions too they
Corey
31:00
they just they're not in the game in the same way and so it's very easy for them just to sit back on their fears of immigrants and and how europe is changing britain and how britain just generally is changing and and say like oh i want out there are no consequences economically to these people
Corey
31:18
at least not any that are that are so writ large it's not like you're just getting out of university and you're like well i was going to go work in germany for a few years and then i was going to come back home that's not your problem right but
Corey
31:30
but you have kids and your kids have kids okay before i let you jump on there and i think a case could have been made that it's like i hear Syria, but ultimately, this is not your decision that you're going to have to live with. This is your kids and your kids' kids' decision, and you've got to listen to them. They want to embrace Europe.
Corey
31:48
I just think that there could have been an optimistic message there that was just totally left. And I'll tell you one more thing. A friend of mine said today, and I just have to throw it there because I thought it was just a perfectly
Corey
31:57
perfectly brilliant quote. He said he felt like the baby boomers are just trying to trash the place on the way out, right?
Corey
32:03
I mean, it's just this sentiment like, fuck
Corey
32:06
fuck it. It doesn't matter to me. and it's it's kind of a long-term problem right like my dad went to med school he spent three hundred dollars a semester right what's
Corey
32:15
what's university cost a semester now i'll let people out there sit there and think about their student loans uh they
Corey
32:22
they benefited from all this stuff and then they want to unravel it when it's no longer useful to them and the things that they like are
Corey
32:29
are now in their mind and the baby boomers have the numbers but frankly i
Corey
32:33
think that there could have been a case that was made that was a moral case about your kids and your kids kids carter
SPEAKER_01
32:38
carter broadly what's next though what goes what goes beyond this right like i'm
SPEAKER_01
32:43
i'm talking about both in britain but in europe at large you know what what's in your in your estimation what's gonna what's gonna come
SPEAKER_02
32:51
i think the very very the first thing is that you've opened the door to referendums uh
SPEAKER_02
32:56
uh and there's other referendums that are gonna happen right away i mean every they're signaling Ireland
SPEAKER_02
33:01
and Scotland and some sort of, you
SPEAKER_02
33:04
you know, various referendums, Scotland to join the EU and leave Great Britain, Ireland
SPEAKER_02
33:10
Ireland to unify. I mean, there's all kinds of referendums
SPEAKER_02
33:14
referendums that are open and the door is open and you've kind of got Pandora's box.
SPEAKER_02
33:21
had a referendum to whether or not you should stay in the EU, why wouldn't you have a referendum on the future of scotland and
SPEAKER_02
33:31
you know the fact that this has been asked and answered before isn't going to matter uh this is a different time and now there's a different sense of circumstances so
SPEAKER_02
33:39
so you're going to see instability there and
SPEAKER_02
33:41
and i think that the second big thing is the instability in the economy we are seeing i
SPEAKER_02
33:47
i mean and someone's tweeting at me yeah everybody expected that there'd be uh
SPEAKER_02
33:51
uh immediate instability, well,
SPEAKER_02
33:53
well, I guess, but it was that clear, and is this the immediate instability that people were talking about?
SPEAKER_02
34:02
An 11% drop in the pound, hey,
SPEAKER_02
34:04
hey, that's not just a little flash in the pan.
SPEAKER_02
34:06
Both Corey and I were in England in the last month, and both
SPEAKER_02
34:11
both of us would have really loved to have bought our pounds at that price.
SPEAKER_02
34:16
This is a big thing. I still have some, and now I'm screwed because I'm going to be selling them.
SPEAKER_02
34:21
But this is kind of
SPEAKER_02
34:24
of the bigger question is, what is the economic fallout going to be worldwide? And it is going to be worldwide. You're talking about a huge economy that
SPEAKER_02
34:34
that is extremely important, both the EU, which took a blow today, and
SPEAKER_02
34:38
and Great Britain, which
SPEAKER_02
34:40
which threw the first punch.
SPEAKER_01
34:44
Corey Carter says increased proclivity of referendum and the economic instability. Anything that you want to add in terms of the broad implications going forward? No,
Corey
34:52
No, I mean, I'll just flesh those out a tiny bit. The First Minister of Scotland has already said, yeah, this looks like this is grounds for another referendum. In fact, when the SNP was re-elected, the Scottish Nationalist Party, they said
Corey
35:09
said they'll only hold a referendum if the conditions fundamentally change, right? The deal changes, and they specifically pointed to leaving the EU as something that might be that. Scotland, when I last checked, 32 out of 32 councils
Corey
35:24
councils voted that they wanted to remain in the EU. 32
Corey
35:29
32 out of 32,
Corey
35:30
32, that's better than London did
Corey
35:31
as far as a percent, and London was very pro-EU.
Corey
35:37
That is a big kind of existential problem that the UK has. There is also, on
Corey
35:42
on Stephen's point about North Ireland,
Corey
35:45
there is a special arrangement constitutionally for North Ireland. There's open borders with Ireland.
Corey
35:50
Ireland. Ireland does a billion pound, I think, or euro, I'm
Corey
35:54
I'm not sure which one, of trade with
Corey
35:57
with the UK every week. I mean, everything is so, like, there's a lot going on and it's going to have a lot of impacts. Now, who
Corey
36:05
who knows? You know, you might wake up and you might find the British pound has rebounded because some things have given them more confidence or whatnot. but the fact of the matter is this roller coaster ride has just begun even if somehow this
Corey
36:17
this pound or the pound would get back up to where it was at the start of the night like go back up 11 points to
Corey
36:23
to move 11 down and back in a day is fundamentally unhealthy and fundamentally dangerous to an economy we
Corey
36:29
we have got to strap ourselves in kids because this could get outrageous now
SPEAKER_01
36:34
yeah car you've got you've got one more thing yeah
Corey
36:37
mean also we just have to talk about whales uh People thought Wales would vote remain. Wales voted leave outside of the cities, I think, although overall it did vote remain.
Corey
36:48
That's also kind of like one of these bubbling questions. And frankly, if Scotland leaves, if North Ireland leaves, Wales is going to leave.
Corey
36:57
some ways and this is being very skies falling and i got to tell you this is not it's not as remote as it was it is now a real possibility that the united kingdom itself unravels and i have to say carter
Corey
37:10
carter you keep talking about great britain great britain's one island this is a very diverse area you know it's it's got the
Corey
37:16
the island of ireland it's got great britain it there's so like gibraltar got the vote on this there are so many things going on in
Corey
37:23
in this country and it's not a country in the sense that we think of Canada or the United States or whatnot. There are so many special arrangements. They think of themselves as separate nations who have come together.
Corey
37:33
This is really not that
Corey
37:36
positive for this sense of Britishness. And I really wonder where this is going to go from there.
SPEAKER_01
37:44
Let's take it from Britain back to here in Canada. And I want to talk about a guy that's, in my mind, getting way too much press coverage. But in
SPEAKER_01
37:53
in this sense, he's been going a little bit nuts. Jason Kenney, Stephen
SPEAKER_01
37:56
Stephen Carter, what is what is Kenney doing by
SPEAKER_01
38:00
by congratulating Britain for making this move? Dangerous precedent. You know that the pound is down. You know that there's,
SPEAKER_01
38:09
there's, you know, volatility in the economic markets. And to hear, you
SPEAKER_01
38:13
you know, a representative here and say that, what is Jason Kenney thinking? What do you think he's thinking?
SPEAKER_02
38:19
I don't, honest to God, do not have a clue. I mean, he is supposed to be a financial right winger who wants to see, you know, growth in our in the economies. The very first thing he did, you know, on congratulating them for leaving this great free trade zone was
SPEAKER_02
38:36
proposed that we create a free trade agreement between the between England
SPEAKER_02
38:47
it's in. I have no idea what he's thinking. He looks like a hypocrite.
SPEAKER_02
38:53
this all boils down to Jason Krenny is an ideologue.
SPEAKER_02
39:01
also has taken very strong positions on immigration.
SPEAKER_02
39:06
And he has not campaigned for immigration. And
SPEAKER_02
39:10
And I suspect that this has more to do with this than
SPEAKER_02
39:13
than it does with economics.
SPEAKER_02
39:15
Because the economics are all screwed up. and
SPEAKER_02
39:17
the only thing that's happening is immigration is curtailed.
SPEAKER_02
39:21
So I think that it has more to do with immigration
SPEAKER_02
39:24
immigration than it has with anything else.
SPEAKER_01
39:26
Corey, your quick take on Jason Kenney.
Corey
39:31
I don't know. I mean, I think it's so funny. So he congratulates the British people on choosing hope over fear, one tweet. Seconds later, he tweets, Justin Trudeau was wrong to interfere in the British people's internal democratic decisions. Who the fuck is this guy? and uh and
Corey
39:46
and especially as a canadian politician should
Corey
39:49
should he not be a little more sensitive about referendum a
Corey
39:52
a referendum about leaving and it's just it's crazy to me well
SPEAKER_02
39:57
well i mean it made me want to ask the question would he support a referendum uh in alberta or a referendum in in quebec on separation and the answer has to be yes he
SPEAKER_02
40:10
he would support it and he'd be uh very keen on finding out what the people have to say.
SPEAKER_01
40:15
Guys, wrap it up to me in 30 seconds each with
SPEAKER_01
40:18
with this final question.
SPEAKER_01
40:20
What should Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say in the coming days when he's asked about this decision?
SPEAKER_01
40:25
Is there a key message he should avoid? Is there a key message he should certainly grab onto?
SPEAKER_01
40:30
If you were advising him right now and saying, hey, listen, Mr. Prime Minister, this is what happened,
SPEAKER_01
40:34
what are you kind of putting in his head as you frame this going forward? I'll go with you, Corey, first.
Corey
40:39
Well, I think you have to say that it was their decision to make uh both britain and europe have been very resilient and they will find a way to move forward together just not in the way that they have previously and this is not the
Corey
40:52
beginning of the end but it might be the end of the beginning that kind of talk right europe
Corey
40:56
europe is probably my in
Corey
40:59
in some ways i'm very concerned about europe i didn't talk much about europe and i'm sure i'll unpack it a bit more in the days to come but this
Corey
41:06
this this could start something there that as much as jason kenney thinks you're wrong to interfere in those kind of things there is a global economy that as you know we talk about britain being the fifth largest economy but you know canada is i think the seventh or eighth i mean we're a big country uh
Corey
41:26
we we've got some responsibility to the world as well to try to keep this thing together and uh and we cannot have europe unravel at this moment europe
Corey
41:34
europe is kind of a
Corey
41:36
a troublesome thing to support and it's why the Remain team had such difficulty with it. There are bureaucrats who act in an undemocratic fashion. There are all sorts of edicts that come from on high. I mean, frankly, because
Corey
41:50
because he was not a good economic manager, the
Corey
41:53
the European central government effectively replaced the prime minister of Italy with a technocrat.
Corey
42:00
That's crazy and that should not be allowed and there are all sorts of reasons you should be mad about that, whether you're left or you're right. but
Corey
42:08
we've got to find a way to make europe work and there's got to be changes to it but a total unraveling of it at this moment when demagoguery is on the rise when populist politics are getting so out of hand i
Corey
42:19
said we reaping what we're sowing here guys it's
Corey
42:23
it's we got to fix this mess we got it we got to fundamentally tackle these issues because brexit trudeau
Corey
42:28
trudeau or sir trudeau brexit trump brexit
Corey
42:32
brexit and trump are symptoms they're not causes and they're coming coming from a serious and legitimate unease that people have with the way the world is acting around them.
Corey
42:42
We've got to fix
SPEAKER_01
42:43
Stephen Carter, Corey clearly took his 30 seconds and extended them.
SPEAKER_01
42:48
Fifteen seconds for you, because I know you can do this.
SPEAKER_01
42:51
Fifteen seconds. You're Prime Minister Trudeau. You're advising him on key messages. What are they? Last word for you.
SPEAKER_02
42:57
Canada is going to stand strong and build a world community. We are not looking to exit anything. anything we're
SPEAKER_02
43:04
we're looking to enter into agreements we'll enter into agreements with great britain we'll
SPEAKER_02
43:08
we'll enter into agreements with the european union we'll
SPEAKER_02
43:10
we'll enter into agreements with anybody who wants to to to work with canada to
SPEAKER_02
43:15
to build stable economic and uh geopolitical relationships the
SPEAKER_01
43:20
the word play on exit to enter i like that at all a lot we'll leave it there that's a wrap on episode 580 of the strategist my name is zane velgey with me as always cory hogan steven carter and we'll see you next time
Corey
43:36
hey thanks for listening make sure you leave a review and subscribe on itunes like it and share it on facebook and twitter it being this episode and follow us at strategist pod or individually carter underscore ab cory hogan zane velgey