Justine Greening's Brexit Solution

James Forsyth says, depressingly, “what’s done is done, and Brexiteers need to accept this. The talks have been terribly mishandled, the basic rules of negotiation have not been followed, a Tory majority has been blown in a needless election, and the Prime Minister is now at the mercy of the EU and parliament. In short, Britain is in a hole. What matters now is finding a way out.”  Sadly, even Denis Healey’s advice to “stop digging” will, in the present circumstances, be inadequate.

Justine Greening reckons that the only solution is to “take the final Brexit decision out of the hands of deadlocked politicians, away from the backroom deals, and give it back to the people.  This, we remember, would be the situation before Gina Miller and her allies began their campaign of destruction post referendum.  This time, M* Greening foresees a “unique chance to settle the European question for a generation.”  The best we could say about M* Greening’s optimism is that history is not on her side - didn’t Dodgy Dave say something similar during his project fear? Most importantly, what would there be to stop Parliament grabbing hold of the whole process, once again, if they didn’t like what the people decided?  Remember, it was Parliament 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 now they have made a hash of that, a pathetic band of ditherers seek to slope their shoulders and off- load the whole can of worms to the people in the guise of a “meaningful” second referendum!  M* Greening, today, proposes a new referendum with three choices:

• Accepting the PM’s negotiated deal
• Staying in the EU
• Leaving with no deal

Her choices for the ballot paper are deceptively simple and would, clearly, suit the banal level of debate to which politics has recently sunk.  But the options contain so many unanswered questions that they are almost meaningless.  Does anyone really understand what the PM seeks?  What would staying in the EU entail, joining the Euro, for example and is it even practicable?  What does no-deal on WTO terms look like (not so bad, actually)?  Most importantly, there is one significant option that has been overlooked, namely, leaving with a negotiated free trade deal with EU (which should have been the starting point for negotiations all along)?  How many more options might there be?

M* Greening believes that her referendum proposal, derived by means of first and second preference votes, would deliver a decisive consensus.  You may agree that this is unlikely?  Quite apart from the poisonous aftertaste of democratic betrayal that any result would generate, the simple difficulty of defining a question upon which both sides would feel comfortable to be bound, would be highly unlikely.

Some may remember Mushroom's previous message to parliament – “you got us into this mess, so you get us out.” Don't come to us now wringing your hands and complaining that it has all become too difficult.  Look in the mirror and repeat after me:

• Governments do not trade – they only get in the way!

• The Brexit terms I advocate will allow the UK to:

• Trade freely and make whatever international deals are in the national interest
• Make and enforce our own laws
• Control who comes into our country