Don't Let the Dog Decide

As young student pilots training at RAF Acklington in 1964, we were naturally concerned about what the future would hold in operational opportunities.  The type of aircraft to which we would be posted depended upon how well we did on the course as pilots.  Do well and a glamourous fighter pilots’ life on Hunters or Lightnings beckoned.  On the other hand, four-engine transports might be seen as the other end of the scale of excitement.  My Flight Commander had a very clever dog who could make the posting decision in an instant.  Just say, “do you want to join the V-Bomber Force or be a dead dog,” and, faced with the binary choice, the dog would roll over on its back and wave its paws in the air.

Brexit means Brexit! Remember that? If you were in any doubt, we are leaving the Single Market and we are leaving the Customs Union. So says the mouth music that comes from what we understand to be our government. Of course, that’s not really what the government thinks. Spearheaded by that ghastly Guyanese, Gina Miller, and cheered on relentlessly by the BBC, parliament, having surrendered the Brexit decision to the people through a referendum, has now nobly reclaimed control of the exit process. Of course, that does not deter our honourable members from continuing to mouth the Brexit mouth music. Meantime, difficulties, real and perceived, mount and Brexit, quite obviously, cannot mean Brexit anymore.  So, when negotiations with the EU conclude, parliament will decide, on our behalf, whether to accept the deal or not.

At this point we should remind ourselves of another piece of mouth music, “no deal is better than a bad deal.” But does anyone, honestly, expect our EU friends to have offered (and agreed amongst them sovereign selves) an attractive deal to the UK? Let us be in no doubt, the prospects of parliament considering a worthwhile deal in due course are negligible. The likelihood is that parliament will debate the merits of the recently negotiated thoroughly bad deal versus no deal at all. Of course, having voted overwhelmingly in favour of triggering Article 50 to leave, parliament would have no other principled choice but to vote for one option or the other. What a bind! But what an opportunity to honourably kill off the whole embarrassing process – offer yet another referendum? This time, we may be sure, we should not be offered a simple choice – leave under these terms of leave under these terms (but leave, nevertheless)? Much more likely is the offer of a choice to leave (whatever “leave” actually means) the EU under intolerably unfavourable terms or abandon the whole project and stay in? The Parliamentary hope would be that the electorate, faced with a rigged binary choice, would behave like my Flight Commander’s dog.

All this would be the considered recommendation of the venerable democratic institution that could not decide, in the first place, whether to leave the EU or stay in.  Spinelessly, they had asked the electorate to decide in a referendum and promised to be bound, as a parliament, by the decision. This wasn’t just a simple majority of members, by the way, the vote was effectively unanimous. Now they fight, with every constitutional device at their disposal, to frustrate and reverse the process by seizing back control of the implementation of the decision. And when they have made a hash of that, they would seek to slope their shoulders and off- load the whole can of worms to the people in the guise of a “meaningful” second referendum! Well, Mushroom’s message to parliament is simple, you got us into this mess, so you get us out. Don't come to me now wringing your hands and complaining that it has all become too dificult.  Interestingly, this is a constitutional standpoint that could be supported by both camps in the Brexit divide. And by the way, should my MP vote, with his conscience, for a second referendum, he should not expect to receive my vote at the following general election.