Compulsory reading for saboteur MPs
MICHAEL Gove’s impassioned article on these pages should be compulsory reading for every MP tempted to sabotage Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
In it, the Environment Secretary frankly acknowledges the agreement is flawed – and that it fails to deliver 100 per cent of what he and this paper ardently campaigned for during the referendum period, when we urged the public to vote Leave.
He is also candid in admitting the Brexit debate has torn families and friendships apart, not least in his own circle.
But everyone who believes in democracy – Leaver or Remainer, Tory, Labour, Lib Dem or none of the above – must surely understand the force of his argument for backing the deal.
As he points out, it would be a devastating blow to our fundamental principles – causing ‘disillusionment on a scale never seen before’ – if a Westminster conspiracy were to engineer a second referendum that could overturn the result of the first.
He is unarguably correct, too, when he says Britain would be at the EU’s mercy – compelled to accept far more difficult terms than hitherto – if we came crawling back, begging for readmittance to the club.
And make no mistake. If purist Brexiteers and their Opposition allies succeed in scuppering this deal, the chances that Brexit will never happen will multiply overnight.
But if even this fails to convince ideological Leavers that they should abandon thoughts of sabotage, they should study Mr Gove’s analysis of the controversial Irish backstop.
Leave aside that if trade talks go to plan, the backstop will never need to be invoked. Even if it is activated, it will create huge problems for the EU, giving Brussels a powerful incentive to agree a trade deal that will make it unnecessary.
But all this is hypothesis – a row about something that may never happen. All too real is the danger that if the Commons rejects Mrs May’s deal, every sector of the economy will be hammered.
Are MPs really such damned fools that they’re prepared to play Russian roulette with all our livelihoods?