If Britain Gets A Brexit Revote Can We Get A Presidential Election Revote-- Starting With Wasserman Schultz-Free Primaries?

Yesterday, the NY Times' Stephen Castle raised the question being increasingly discussed in Britain about a 2nd Brxeit vote. Just as the U.S. is filled with lots of buyers' remorse over Trump, Brits are loaded with it over Brexit, In the U.S. it's even worse because Clinton had nearly 3 million more votes than Trump to begin with and then saw a few carefully selected Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan counties targeted by Russian government hackers-- with Trump collusion-- win Trump a vestigial, and,anti-democratic electoral college. "Since a majority of Britons voted narrowly to leave the bloc more than 18 months ago," wrote Castle, "most politicians have treated a withdrawal, known as Brexit, as inviolable. Even amid signs of a slowing economy, few saw signs of a shift in public opinion. Until now." Part of the problem is that Theresa May has been unable to negotiate a departure-- even among ministers in her own cabinet!

As the political stalemate drags on, and with business leaders issuing ever more urgent alarms about the threats to the economy, growing public doubts are beginning to register in some opinion polls. And opponents of Brexit are quietly cultivating what they see as that rising sentiment in their campaign to soften, if not reverse, the whole process.

They even picked up support from an unexpected quarter when Nigel Farage, the former U.K. Independence Party leader and the leading proponent of Brexit, recently suggested that there might be a second referendum.

Prominent “leavers,” as supporters of Brexit are known, dismiss that possibility out of hand, but it may not be as far-fetched as they would have people believe.

Some time later this year Parliament is likely to face a fateful vote on the actual terms of any agreement Mrs. May can reach with the European Union on Britain’s withdrawal. A defeat in Parliament would prompt a political crisis, very likely topple Mrs. May and possibly prompt a general election. Potentially, that could open the way to a rethink, to new Brexit options, or to a second referendum.

That is what people like the local Swansea lawmaker, Geraint Davies, from the opposition Labour Party, are banking on. He believes the tide is turning against Brexit in Wales, where a majority opted to quit, although Wales is a big recipient of European development aid, and has several industries that might lose from Brexit.

“What I am sensing is that people who voted Brexit in good faith are now saying, ‘Hold on, that’s not what I voted for, and I want a final say,’” Mr. Davies said, listing promises made during the 2016 referendum, including one-- later ruled misleading by the country’s statistics authority-- that quitting would free up 350 million pounds a week, or about $486 million, for health spending.

“You should have the right to look again, and say: ‘You ordered a steak and you ended up with a bit of chewed up bacon. Do you want to accept that?’” Mr. Davies added, arguing that Britain faces higher inflation and slower growth, and that, far from getting money back, it has offered around 39 billion pounds, or about $54 billion, in divorce payments to the European Union.

Mr. Davies and others have also pounced on recent reports that the areas in Wales and central and northern England that voted most strongly for Brexit are set to suffer the greatest economic harm from the rupture.

Doesn't that sound familiar? It's like the voters in the industrial Midwest who are getting shafted by Trump's actual policies-- as well as the voters who have noticed that the Swamp he promised to clean up is worse than any time since Andrew Jackson's time, whose portrait Trump suddenly decided to hang in the Oval Office. And like in America, "Hard-line supporters (and opponents) of Brexit remain steadfast in their views, but many of the less committed have yet to fully focus on what it will mean and have been turned off by the stream of complex, sometimes contradictory, reports emerging from the tortuous negotiations... And with signs that public opinion is volatile and could be shifting, the political ice is starting to crack."

Trump narrowly lost the popular vote to Clinton, 65,853,516 (48.2%) to 62,984,825 (46.1%) but Brexit did win, narrowly-- 17,410,742 (51.9%) to 16,141,241 (48.1%), despite losing, overwhelmingly, in London (59.93% to 40.07%) and in Scotland (62% to 38%). The latest polling from YouGov show that 5% more Britons believe the country made a mistake to vote to leave the E.U. than those who think it was the right decision.