Why the Lib Dems were chief architects of Brexit
THE Liberal Democrats announced this week that if they win a general election, they’ll revoke Article 50, thus cancelling Brexit.
The pledge suggests they might be taking liberties with the word “democrats”.
According to party leader Jo Swinson, a general election win for her is as good as a People’s Vote.
All well and good until you consider the reaction across the country if she was ever to attempt such a reckless and undemocratic manoeuvre.
It strikes me as odd how discomforted the Lib Dems are by Brexit. Apparently, leaving the EU will be so bad for our country that they are willing to risk social unrest by preventing it.
Pity they didn’t feel that strongly when they got into bed with David Cameron nearly a decade ago.
Back in 2010, as is the case today, the Lib Dems justified their extreme position using the classic centrist excuse – unless you have power, there isn’t a lot you can change.
There’s certainly a logic to that mantra but only if you do something vaguely useful with the power you seek.
Let’s have a quick recap of how useful the Lib Dems have been in power. We got the 5p plastic bag charge and a referendum about voting that no one voted in. OK.
Anything else? Ah yes, that’s right, the harshest welfare reforms ever seen. A vicious programme of cuts, rolled out to pay for the greed of bankers.
Recent history may have been rewritten but the 2008 crash is the ground zero of where we are now. Don’t you forget it.
The hallowed centre ground of UK politics the Lib Dems wish to reanimate is a barren, ethical wasteland, in part because of them. The idea they can somehow invigorate the same political terrain they sucked the last drop of life from is absurd, vulgar and offensive.
The sight of Nick Clegg holding George Osborne’s coat as he swung the axe of austerity at the homeless and disabled, single mothers and the elderly was the last straw for many in this country, where Liberals are concerned.
You really have to be engaged in the most cynical, wilful self-deception to avert your eyes from that fact – and a spineless coward not to call it out.
If the Lib Dems could stomach taking part in that breathtakingly efficient brutality, why is the prospect of leaving the EU so morally intolerable to them?
If as many Remainers had taken to the streets with witty placards to oppose austerity as have to prevent Brexit, we mightn’t be teetering on this constitutional cliff edge in the first place.
History shows that populism of the sort we now see across the UK gains traction in conditions of economic humiliation.
The Lib Dems were chief architects of Brexit because their fingerprints are all over the events which preceded it. I’d be more inclined to support them if they had a plan for tackling this problem at the root. Instead, they have chosen to create a political diversion. All so they can get into power and advocate the very same economic and political outlook that got us in this mess.
It isn’t so much selling your soul but handing it over free of charge, while passing Satan a barrel of diesel to throw on the bonfire.
The Lib Dems have no plan for the country, no analysis of why we got here, no contrition about the role they played in fertilising the ground for the far-right. Just more juvenile, middle-class p*sh.
We’re told repeatedly these people are the adults in all of this. Grow up.