Brexitwatch: write to Labour's UKIP tendency MPs

Labour supports a 'People's Vote' - a referendum on the terms of Brexit - apparently. The party demonstrated its support this week by refusing to vote in favour of an amendment in parliament to secure, er, a People's Vote!

Most Labour MPs abstained, but 17 of the party's UKIP 5th column actually voted with Theresa May's Tories aginst the motion. They included former shadow ministers Yvonne Fovargue, Emma Lewell-Buck, and Justin Madders, plus former party whip Stephanie Peacock, and Stoke-on-Trent North MP, Ruth Smeeth, former parliamentary aide to deputy leader Tom Watson.

Ms Smeeth said: 'I have a duty to support the will of my constituents. We need to leave, and leave with a deal that works for the Potteries,' thus illustrating her ignorance of both an MP's duty and of the effect Brexit will have on her constituents.

This is what I have written to her:

Dear Ms Smeeth,

There is no Brexit that 'works for the Potteries'. Indeed, the West Midlands will be the hardest hit region in the whole UK, except for the North-East. https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/uktpo/2018/03/26/brexit-will-negatively-affect-all-regions-of-the-uk-but-the-north-east-is-most-vulnerable/

As an MP, your duty is not to 'support the will' of your constituents but to do 1) the best thing for your country then 2) the best thing for your constituents. So it is your duty to now tell your constituents the truth and fight with all your might against the Far Right Brexit coup, which will cause terrible damage to them and the UK. 

Anyway, you have no idea what 'the will' of your consituents is, because the Brexit they voted for is not being, and cannot be delivered. The referendum was advisory. It was won by gerrymandering the electorate, lying, cheating and criminality. It is profoundly undemocratic to 'respect' the result, which is in any case completely irrelevant to the circumstances in which we now find ourselves.

If Labour betrays our young people and the future of our country, it will never be forgiven. If you tell the truth, some of your constituents may be cross, but it is your duty. If you are not prepared to discharge that duty, you must resign.

Yours sincerely,

John Withington

Brexitwatch: a reply from Labour's UKIP tendency

In this blog on 1 February, I posted the email I sent to the 14 Labour MPs who voted for Theresa May and against their own party on the Yvette Cooper amendment to prevent a disastrous no-deal Brexit. They obviously feel it's important we should face the dangers of food and medicine shortages, martial law etc (I wonder if any of them would like to apologise now Theresa May has double-crossed parliament again?)

Here's the reply I got from perhaps the most fanatically pro-UKIP Labour MP, Kate Hoey (London Vauxhall), and below it are my replies to her reply:

Thanks John I was pleased to join with 13 of my Labour  colleagues to help vote down the Cooper amendment which was designed to help thwart Brexit.  The country were told explicitly that there [sic] vote mattered and the result would be implemented. Indeed 8 million pounds spent on a Gov leaflet to every household saying exactly that. Parliament voted for the decision of the referendum to be honoured and also voted overwhelmingly to invoke Articke 50.It was also in our election manifesto that we would implement the referendum

I disagree with your dire warnings about the future outside the EU and look forward to being an independent  country co-operating with the rest of the world including our near neighbours in the EU.

Leave means Leave 

Best wishes 

Kate

'Leave means leave' eh, Kate? especially Honda and all the other companies who are quitting. Are you satisfied yet, or do you want to see more jobs lost and more closures?

I'm not sure how 'Sorry you lost your job and your public services, but it was the will of the people' is going to play. But you'll be pleased your old mate Theresa May has double-crossed parliament again. Expect you'll be supporting her as usual. 

Dear Ms Hoey,

Why is it that when you put arguments to Brexiters, instead of engaging with those arguments, they just respond with the same empty slogans they've been trotting out for years? I suppose it's because they don't have any arguments.

1. You say Yvette Cooper's amendment was designed to 'thwart Brexit'. No. It was designed to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Something that anyone who cares about the UK should have been supporting.

2. It doesn't matter how much David Cameron spent on a leaflet. You Brexiters are dragging us out of the EU under the pretext of strengthening 'parliamentary sovereignty'. So you will know that parliament makes the law in this country, not a Tory Prime Minister. The 2016 referendum was explicitly advisory and non-binding on MPs. It offered bad advice, and it is the duty of all MPs to act in the national interest and reject it.

3. As I said in my email, the referendum result cannot be 'implemented' because the Brexit that you and your UKIP and Tory colleagues promised is not being and cannot be delivered. So the referendum result is of no relevance to the decisions MPs now have to make.

4. They are not my warnings. Virtually everyone who has examined Brexit seriously has concluded that it will make the UK poorer and, disgracefully, rob young people of the opportunities that people of our generation took for granted. Far from being more 'independent' outside the EU, the UK will be weaker and more dependent.

I note you decided to ignore the other points I made. I assume this is because you have no answers to them.

But if you intend to carry on helping Theresa May inflict her Far Right Brexit coup on the UK, I do not see how you can continue as a member of the Labour party.

Yours sincerely,

John Withington 

Brexitwatch: make UKIP honour its promise

On Thursday (6 Sept), the London Assembly votes on whether to throw its weight behind a People's Vote. On Friday (31 Aug) I posted an email I had written to Labour and Conservative members, but if you are a Londoner, you are also represented by two UKIP members, who are elected as 'Londonwide' members. So don't leave them out!

During the referendum campaign, Nigel Farage said that if the margin of victory was as narrow as 52% to 48% there would need to be a further vote. 

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/nigel-farage-52-48_uk_5820dc7ce4b020461a1d5fd9

As we know, it was actually tighter. So let's have that further vote - a People's Vote on the terms of Brexit. This is what I wrote to the two UKIP members, David Kurten and Peter Whittle:

During the Brexit referendum campaign, UKIP promised that in the event of a 52-48% margin there would be another vote, as this would be too narrow to be conclusive.

As you know, the margin was even tighter, and it is also plain that the Brexit that was promised cannot be delivered.

I call on you now, therefore, to throw your weight behind the campaign for a People's Vote and to support it in Thursday's vote.

Brexitwatch: at last - a defeat for the fanatics!

Nigel Farage really hates it. So there must be something good about the deal Theresa May has done to allow the UK to, probably, move on to the real Brexit negotiations.

Of course, all she has actually done is to kick the can down the road. As to what trade deal we can get with the EU, what transition arrangement there will be to stop the UK economy collapsing in March 2019, how the unicorns can be persuaded to fly in formation so that there is no border at the border between the EU and the UK in Ireland – all these issues and many more have simply been deferred.

But at least the head-bangers, the Brexit fanatics, did not get their heart’s desire of a suicidal, no-deal walk-out. And that probably represents the first time Theresa May has stood up to them.

People voted for Brexit for many different reasons – a lot of them contradictory and irreconcilable. Now there is a chance to drive a wedge into perhaps the most important fault-line – the one that divides the fanatics of UKIP and the Tory right who couldn’t care less how much Brexit damages the economy and just want to leave whatever the cost, and the more pragmatic Brexit-ers who believe, wrongly in my view, that leaving the EU will somehow make us more prosperous.  

There is a long way to go, but this is an important setback for the fanatics.

Brexitwatch - another pathetic Labour capitulation

Astonishingly Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, which campaigned to stay in the EU and most of whose supporters want to stay in the EU, ordered its members in the House of Lords, to vote against keeping the UK in the EU's Single Market.

The usual bogus 'will of the people' argument advanced by Labour to justify deserting its supporters does not apply here. Voters in the referendum were given no say on the Single Market, and throughout the campaign, Leave campaigners were falling over themselves to promise we would stay in it. Besides, at the last general election, every Tory MP was elected on a promise to keep us in the Single Market.

And the overwhelming majority of businesses and economists think leaving will do terrible damage to Britain. So even by Labour's standards, this is a bizarre decision. Below is the letter I have sent to Labour's chief whip in the House of Lords, Lord Bassam of Brighton, and to my own Labour MP.

Dear Lord Bassam,

I cannot believe that you whipped Labour peers against an amendment to make Theresa May keep us in the European Single Market.

Is Jeremy Corbyn now so terrified of UKIP that he does not realise that most Labour voters throughout the country are pro-EU? Does he not realise that leaving the Single Market will inflict enormous damage on our country, and that those who suffer most will be Labour voters? And does he not realise that his enthusiastic coalition with the Tories and UKIP ensure that when Brexit all goes horribly wrong, Labour will share the blame? What's the plan? To ensure Labour is now as comprehensively wiped out in England as it was in Scotland?

Your usual 'will of the people excuse' can't be used in this case. People were not asked their view on the Single Market in the (advisory) referendum, but virtually every MP at the last general election was elected on a promise to keep us in it, while Leave campaigners were falling over themselves to promise we would stay in it.

Labour's betrayal of its supporters will not be forgotten. For my part, I will not vote in any election for any politician or party that helps drag us out of the EU.

Yours in sorrow and anger,

John Withington 

Brexitwatch: how Labour justifies its support of Article 50 and my response

My MP happens to be Sir Keir Starmer, Labour's spokesperson on Brexit. I have written to him twice recently (see my posts of Jan 23 and Jan 27).

Below you will find his response of Jan 31 and my reply to it.

Dear Sir Keir,

I wrote to you and emailed you, so should I take your response below as a reply to both my letter and my email?

I find a number of fallacies in your argument.

1. You concede that the referendum was not legally binding, but you say it is still binding. This is to undermine Parliament and deny the rule of law. If Parliament had wanted the referendum to be binding, it would have made it binding. It did not. The law is what the law says, not what some section of the country wishes it had said.

I suspect what you mean is that Labour have decided it would be politically inconvenient to refuse to trigger Article 50 because there are a couple of awkward by-elections coming up.

2. However, even if you decide that you must be bound by the result of a non-binding referendum, you should not have been supporting the triggering of A50 until you had examined the government's promised White Paper to ensure that the Prime Minister has a credible plan for life outside the EU.

Labour made quite a song and dance about getting this White Paper, and yet you joined the Tories and UKIP in supporting the A50 trigger without even seeing it!

3. According to your arguments, and those I have had the misfortune to hear from some of your Labour colleagues, you are bound to support the 'will of the people' however much damage it is going to cause. It is the duty of an MP to act in the interests of the country and his/her constituents, so I am afraid I regard this argument as simply mad.

4. The Brexit that was promised by the Leave Campaign - ending Free Movement while keeping full membership of the Single Market, new riches for the NHS etc - cannot be delivered.

Sooner of later those who voted Leave will have to be told this. Whenever that happens, it will cause a terrible row. So better to do it now before millions of Labour voters have been impoverished, and thousands have lost their jobs or their businesses, the UK has broken up etc.

Sir Keir, you may be prepared to change your principles, but I am not going to change mine. As I have told you before, I will not vote in any election for any party or politician that facilitates our removal from the EU. Indeed, I will do everything I can to ensure their defeat.

There seems a dangerous illusion abroad in the Labour Party that this is all going to blow over. That the Remainers will eventually reconcile themselves to being dragged out of the EU. I believe this is wrong because every day people will be reminded of the rights they have had stolen.

 Labour's behaviour over the last couple of days has been a bitter disappointment. I urge you to get off the present disastrous track while there is still a Labour Party worth saving.

Yours in continuing sorrow and anger,

John Withington

On 31 January 2017 at 17:11 STARMER, Keir wrote:

Thank you for emailing me about the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill now before the House of Commons.

Please forgive the generic reply, but I have had many similar emails. Please also forgive the lengthy email – but none of this is straightforward!

Having campaigned across the country – with many members from Holborn & St Pancras CLP - for a ‘Remain’ vote, I was saddened and frustrated by the outcome of the referendum. For me and for many Labour MPs the Article 50 vote now presents an agonising choice and I have thought long and hard about the right course of action.

Although I am fiercely pro-EU, I am also a democrat. The Labour Party voted in favour of the Referendum Act, which paved the way for the referendum, and everyone who campaigned knew the outcome would be decisive. Some have argued that the referendum was merely advisory. Legally that is true, but the arguments are not just legal – they are deeply political and, politically, the notion that the referendum was merely a consultation exercise to inform Parliament holds no water. Equally the argument the leave vote was only 37% of those eligible to vote loses its strength against the argument that less than 37% voted to remain. Neither side can claim that those who did not vote would have vote either to leave or to remain. We simply do not know.

There is a wider point. Since I was appointed to my current role, I have travelled all over the UK – including to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I have met groups and individuals, held public events, talked to businesses large and small and discussed Brexit with different political parties and leaders.

From this, the evidence is clear: as a society we are more divided now than at any time in my life. The divide is deep and, in some instances, it is bitter. Labour must play its part in healing that divide: it cannot do so if it refuses to accept the outcome of the referendum.

That is why I have repeatedly said that although I wish the outcome of the referendum had been different, I accept and respect the result.

It follows that it would be wrong simply to frustrate the process and to block the Prime Minister from starting the Article 50 negotiations. I will not therefore be voting against the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill this week.

The ballot paper on 23 June last year did not, however, give the Prime Minister power to act as she sees fit or to change our domestic laws or policy. That is why I have tabled a number of Labour amendments that would significantly improve the Bill and ensure Parliament can hold the Prime Minister to account throughout negotiations. I will be taking these amendments through for Labour in the House of Commons next week.

First, these amendments would ensure MPs have a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal – that means the House of Commons has the first say on any proposed deal before it is considered by the European Council and Parliament. This would strengthen the House of Commons’ ability to influence the negotiating process and mean that MPs could send the Government back to the negotiating table if they are unhappy with the proposed final deal.

Second, the Government should report back to Parliament regularly during the negotiations so that progress can be known and checked. Labour has also tabled amendments that establish a number of broad principles the Government must seek to negotiate, including protecting workers’ rights and securing full tariff and impediment free access to the Single Market. We will also try to ensure that the legal status of EU citizens already living in the UK is guaranteed before negotiations begin – a point that is long overdue.

 

It is also important to recognise that the triggering of Article 50 is merely the start of theprocess for leaving the EU, it is not the end.

Any changes the Prime Minister seeks to make to domestic law would need separate legislation to be passed through Parliament, whether through the Great Repeal Bill or more widely. Labour will argue throughout for a Brexit deal that puts jobs and the economy first and protects vital workers’ rights and environmental protections. We also totally reject the Prime Minister’s threat to rip up the economic and social fabric of the country and turn Britain into a tax haven economy if she fails in her negotiations.

As Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the EU I have been very clear that Labour will hold the Government to account every step of the way.

I know that many people have urged me to reflect the 75% Remain vote in Holborn and St Pancras by voting against Article 50 and resigning my post in the Shadow Cabinet.

I see the argument, but that would prevent me pressing Labour’s amendments, it would prevent me questioning the Government relentlessly from the front bench over the coming years and it would prevent me fighting as hard as I can for a Brexit on the right terms.

It would be to walk off the pitch just when we need effective challenge to government. I believe that would be the wrong thing to do.

I know that not everyone will agree with my approach, but I hope that my explanation helps.

All best,

Keir

UK general election - 5 things we learned

1. The Conservatives have managed three surprise election wins in the last half century – 1970, 1992 and now 2015. Labour have achieved none.

2. The British electoral system is as undemocratic as ever. The Tories now get to rule us even though nearly two voters in three were against them. UKIP won nearly three times as many votes as the SNP, but they got 1 MP while the SNP got 56. So far, the Labour-Conservative coalition has blocked any move towards real democracy, but if Labour begin to feel they no longer benefit from the current unfairness, will they abandon the road block?

3. It was refreshing to see Messrs Miliband, Clegg and Farage accept responsibility for their failures and step down (though Farage rather devalued his resignation by saying he might try to get his job back). Wouldn’t it be wonderful if politicians in power took a similar attitude?

4. There is such a thing as a good election to lose. If Labour had lost in 2005, as they should have done after Iraq, they could have held to account the conspirators who created the war, and made a fresh start, while, through serendipity, the Tories would have been landed with the world economic crisis. Today David Cameron is a hero, but with a tiny majority, he could soon find himself the prisoner of the Tory extremists, and by 2020, he may have lost Britain’s place in Europe, and lost Scotland.

5. They say countries get the politicians they deserve. The Liberal Democrats made many mistakes, but when Britain faced a severe economic crisis in 2010, they put the British people before party interests by going into a coalition that many Lib Dems found unpalatable. The British people responded by giving them the worst electoral drubbing in modern political history. It may be a long time before another party puts the national interest before its own selfish interests.