The Brexit Deal

At last the House of Commons has passed a Brexit deal, but it has also refused to leave by 31 October. Against the Prime Minister’s will, it seems that our exit will once again be delayed.

The language used to to attack Boris Johnson is increasingly overblown. Critics claimed that he wasn’t serious about wanting a deal and had no chance of getting one. They were wrong.

Their excuses for delaying Brexit have become ever more hollow. It is absurd to claim, more than three years after the referendum, that we have had insufficient time to debate the issues.

They don’t want Brexit, but they don’t want to go to the country, either. Having demanded a general election on countless occasions, the Labour Party voted against one.

At polar ends of the Brexit debate there are campaigners who vociferously demand all or nothing. But in the quiet middle I suspect there are millions of people, some of who voted to leave and some to remain, who just want the issue to be resolved sensibly.

Even though I campaigned to remain, I still believe it is the national and democratic interest to deliver the outcome of the referendum, and that’s why I’ve consistently voted for a deal.

MPs gave the public a say in the referendum and they promised to honour the outcome. Every household received a government leaflet saying that the public decision would be implemented, which is why the claim that the referendum was merely ‘advisory’ is so hollow.

Four fifths of MPs voted to trigger ‘Article 50’, knowing that this would start the clock on our departure. Both major political parties then promised in the election manifestos in 2017 to implement Brexit. Then the backtracking began.

I wonder if the MPs who are subjecting the country to this, holding the nation in limbo, realise the damage they are doing. Uncertainty is exacting an economic toll. Trust in politics is at rock bottom. We simply cannot go on like this.

I still don’t believe a second referendum is the way out. I fear it would perpetuate division and uncertainty, particularly if it produced another narrow result.

That leaves only one option: a general election. Enough of Westminster’s games. If this Parliament won’t pass the legislation to honour the referendum decision as it promised, it must go.