People’s Vote march will achieve nothing
HIS scenario would be cheered by the vast majority of those protesting today, whose ultimate aim is to see Brexit cancelled altogether.
People’s Vote claims to be neutral on the question of membership of the EU, insisting it wants to take the decision about the future relationship away from Westminster politicians and give it to the electorate.
Yet the organisation is an alliance of pro-EU groups including the European Movement, Britain for Europe and Scientists for the EU.
All the speakers today, including London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, his party colleague Chuka Umunna, Tory MP Anna Soubry and Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable are longstanding Remain campaigners.
The name “People’s Vote” itself is enough to enrage Euro-sceptics.
It suggests the people were absent on June 23, 2016, for the in-or-out poll that recorded the biggest turnout in British electoral history with more than 33 million votes cast.
The democratic credentials of any political construct with the word “people” in the title need to be treated with caution, as the communist tyrannies around the world that style themselves as “people’s republics” have shown.
Even calling the campaign a push for a “second referendum” is technically inaccurate. Britain’s first European referendum was held in 1975, when the country opted to stay in what voters were told was a common market rather than the beginnings of a federalist super-state. There were no calls for a “People’s Vote” rerun of the poll back then.
While the march will be ignored at Number 10, the proceedings will be closely monitored within elite circles in Brussels and other European capitals. “Lots of people in Europe still think we won’t actually leave,” one senior Tory with close links to Downing Street told me.
“It is what they want to believe because they are desperate for Britain to stay in the EU. They want our money and they fear the EU will be even more badly run without us.
“The French say please don’t leave us with the Germans; the Germans say please don’t leave us with the French; everyone else says please don’t leave us with the French and Germans,” the source said.
SENIOR Tories fear the wishful thinking about a British change of heart is having an impact on the Brexit negotiations. Some EU officials are suspected of dragging out the already interminable talks in the hope the process will be reversed.
This week’s EU summit suggests those hopes will be dashed. Diplomats on all sides believe the momentum is heading towards a draft Brexit deal by December.
Today’s “march for the future” looks like a final howl of desperation by those clinging on to a fading past.