British people to have no say in Brexit talks: Analyst

The European Union has warned that Britain will have less than 18 months to strike a deal to exit the bloc once the Brexit negotiations begin, setting a deadline of October 2018 for London. Meanwhile, there has been a lot of uncertainty about the actual process of leaving the EU, and that has given rise to concerns about the British government's lack of a detailed roadmap for a smooth transition. This has prompted the parliament to demand that the government publish its plan for leaving the bloc before triggering Article 50. Press TV has spoken to Gearóid Ó Colmáin, a political analyst and journalist, as well as Sean O'Grady, finance editor of The Independent, to discuss the issue.

Ó Colmáin believes that there is no “real democracy” in Britain just like in any of the other states that form the European Union, concluding that eventually the British people will not have a say in the talks on withdrawal from the bloc.

He also stated that polices are in fact made by international oligarchs and carried out by the government, adding that the media’s role is to misinform the public and spread propaganda which serve the interests of their paymasters.  

“So theoretically, of course, the British people have the right to know what their government is planning. But the European Union is run by a vast network of lobbyists who serve international finances. They are the people who make the decisions which are then carried out by the institutions of the European Union such as the unelected European Commission,” he said.  

He also opined that the people who rely on corporate press are not capable of solving the complex problems facing Europe today such as the disintegration of the European Union, the mass immigration into the continent, and the vast network of NGOs involved in the foreign wars being waged by NATO in the Middle East.

The analyst is of the opinion that most European states are “formally” democracies, which means people only get a right to vote for the policies of different factions of the oligarchy.

He added that Brexit was to a certain extent a victory for the British people, because of the fact that their voice was heard, pointing out, however, that one must understand that in happened because one section of the oligarchy in Britain was in favor of Brexit.

Ó Colmáin also noted that leaving the European Union will not change the economic policies for the working class in Britain; rather, he said, privatization will continue on a massive scale.

“So you have further erosion of what is left of the gains of the last century since children were working in factories in the 19 century and we will have a return to that,” he stated.

The analyst warned that as the unity of the European Union breaks up with Brexit, there will be further “regionalization” of Europe.

Meanwhile, the other panelist on the program, Sean O'Grady, asserted that there is an “anxiety” on the part of the British people about whether they are going to have a say in the process of Brexit as negotiations between Britain and the European Union proceed.

“There is an enormous amount of uncertainty about it [Brexit]. Because this is not just up to the British [to decide] about what happens. It is up to the Europeans about what eventually gets settled as well. On top of that, there is a lot of change that may happen in Europe politically next year. We have elections in Germany, in France, in the Netherlands and maybe in Italy as well,” he said.

He predicted that big changes could be in the pipeline for next year. “They may change the way the European Union behaves and the Europeans' attitude towards the British. So there is a lot of things that could be happening in the next 12 months or so, that could send the negotiations one way or the other," he said, emphasizing that Britons want to hear from the government what their plan is. 

O'Grady went on to say that a lot of the choices that people make are not the ones that the international finance or any of these shadowy organizations would wish them to make.

In a landmark referendum held on June 23, nearly 52 percent of British voters, amounting to more than 17 million citizens, opted to leave the EU, a decision that sent shockwaves throughout the world.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk