It is the duty of
MPs to act in the interests of the UK. Many, perhaps most, regarded this duty
as suspended after the Brexit referendum. Though the vast majority knew leaving
the EU would damage the UK, they decided to obey the result of
the referendum, even though it was explicitly advisory and non-binding, and
even though it was set up and conducted in a thoroughly undemocratic way.
Readers of this
blog will know I disagreed profoundly with this analysis. But if you agreed
with it, the referendum result committed the government to one thing only: that
we should ‘leave the EU’. That was the only thing we voted on. That duty has
been discharged. We left on January 31, and MPs, therefore, no longer have any
excuse for ignoring the national interest.
Any version of
Brexit makes us poorer than we would have been if we had stayed in the EU, but the
most damaging way to leave is ‘no deal’ – without any agreement. (No doubt
worried that people were beginning to realise this, Johnson and Cummings have
rebadged ‘no deal’ as an ‘Australia-style deal’. Australia has no trade deal
with the EU.)
A no-deal Brexit,
according to the government’s own figures, will cost us around £30bn a year.
That’s equivalent to about three-quarters of what we spend on schools. How
disappointing then that our MPs have shown so little interest in the
Conservative government’s dilatory non-negotiations with the EU, characterised
by shouting slogans designed to appeal to the worst instincts of the most extreme
Brexiters.
Come on MPs! This
is not good enough. You can’t go on hiding behind the referendum result. It is
your duty to your country to prevent a no-deal exit and to ensure the damage
from Brexit is minimised as much as it can be.
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