Brexit and the state of UK Politics
I’ve been inactive for somewhere in the region of 2 years. So what’s changed? Why have I decided to make a post? Precisely nothing has changed! That’s why I’m making this post! It has been almost 3 years since the EU referendum and the only “progress” that has been made is the invoking of Article 50, which to this very day, has ultimately meant absolutely nothing in terms of the Brexit proceedings. Theresa May has negotiated a deal with the EU which they have claimed they are not willing to renegotiate. She has put said deal to Parliament 4 times and on all 4 occasions, the deal has been rejected (with one of the defeats being the largest in commons history!). At the same time, Parliament has voted numerous times to reject a no-deal Brexit (including today which shockingly yielded a 1 vote difference). This would imply that a no-deal Brexit is very much on the horizon and that we will leave the EU on April 12th and end up completely dead in the water. However, if a no-deal Brexit is rejected once again then we remain at the impasse we have been at for several months with Parliament rejecting a no-deal Brexit whilst rejecting the only deal we have.
The only option is very simple, we revoke Article 50.
Many will claim this to be undemocratic as we “voted for Brexit”. As I stated 2 years ago, only 26.7% of the electorate actually voted for Brexit, hardly a sufficient mandate to institute any form of change. Something else to note, referenda are glorified opinion polls, they are not legal binding and only serve as a way to gauge public opinion without any requirement to enforce the change we could potentially vote for (unlike a general election). It is due to this reason that I am not in favour of a 2nd referendum on the issue as the Theresa May and her government have the power to revoke Article 50.
However I will address those who claim that another referendum is “undemocratic”. It has been 3 years since the vote happened, the opinions of people change in that sort of timeframe, why do you think we have a general election every 5 years? Theresa May called a general election after only 2 years since the previous one and lost her majority whilst Labour gained considerable support because people’s opinion had changed. It was clear at the time that many people’s opinion on the subject had changed some 24 hours after the vote nevermind 3 years on!
The only option is simple and NOT undemocratic, we must revoke Article 50 before we ultimately leave the EU without a deal.
