Brexitwatch: this wasn't meant to happen! Part 1

When Prime Minister David Cameron gave in to the Conservative Brexit fanatics and promised to hold a referendum on EU membership if he won the General Election of 2015, he also let them do a lot of other things - e.g. gerrymander the electorate by systematically excluding millions of people who could have been expected to vote Remain.

He never bothered to think about crucial questions - such as what would happen if there was a very small majority, and/or a small turn out? What if some countries in the UK voted for Remain and others for Leave? Should the Leave campaign have to come up with a credible programme for quitting the EU or should they be allowed to be all things to all Brexiters and promise a whole pile of often contradictory things that could never be delivered?

You see none of this mattered, because Cameron knew the Tories were not going to win the election. At best, they'd be back in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and the Libdems would save him from holding the referendum.

Unfortunately, Cameron misjudged the ferocity with which his party would stab their former coalition partners in the back, and so, curses!, he won a majority. That wasn't meant to happen. 

So now he was stuck with the referendum, but still he didn't need to worry about the crazy, negligent basis on which it was being set up, because Remain was going to win. Leave was going to lose, and all but the most fanatical of the Brexiters could be put back in their box for a few more years.

To be continued

Brexitwatch: get your MP to support the real opposition

Labour want a People's Vote on the Brexit terms only if they cannot get a general election. They could try to get a general election by moving a motion of 'no confidence' in Theresa May's government, but this they refuse to do. So hey presto! Labour can avoid supporting a People's Vote.

Is this because Jeremy Corbyn and his circle are as desperate as Theresa May to push Brexit through in the face of mounting opposition from the majority in the country? I do not know, but I do know that the SNP, the LibDems, the Greens, and Plaid Cymru increasingly look like the real opposition.

They have put down a motion of no confidence in the government. Write to your MP and demand they support it. This is what I have sent to mine who happens to be Labour's Brexit spokesperson, Sir Keir Starmer:-

Dear Sir Keir,

Having refused to try to help the British people yourselves, I trust you and all Labour MPs will be supporting the motion of no confidence in the government brought forward by the SNP, LibDems, Plaid Cymru and Greens. Or are you just going to go on sitting on your hands so Jeremy Corbyn can help the Tories push through his beloved Brexit?

I trust also that Labour MPs will NOT be taking their Christmas holidays but will be staying at Westminster, with or without government approval, to explore what you can do to save our country.

I look forward to hearing from you,

John Withington

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.