EU membership best deal for us
LAST Tuesday night saw the absurd spectacle of Parliament debating amendments to Theresa May’s roundly rejected Brexit deal, the deal we were sold as the best, and indeed the only deal, going.
The “Brady amendment”, a fantasy so-called “compromise” amendment calling for the Northern Ireland backstop to be ditched, passed by 16 votes. This amendment now demands that the backstop, critical in the event of Brexit proceeding for preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland and for ensuring that border arrangements conform to the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, be replaced by nebulous “alternative arrangements”. It took just six minutes for reality to bite, with the EU explaining once again that the “withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation”. How many times has Brussels made this clear? There is simply no possibility of reopening negotiations on the deal.
With Brexit day now arriving within the next two months and there still being no consensus on what Brexit actually looks like, it is genuinely frightening to see MPs indulge in the flights of fantasy we witnessed this week. What’s the solution? Well, it’s not magical deals to somehow fix problems in two months that have thus far evaded solutions after more than two years of negotiations. MPs had the opportunity on Tuesday of also voting for the “Cooper amendment”, which would have helped delay Article 50 and at least created more time to seek a viable way forward. But that amendment was defeated by 23 votes. Wales, and the rest of the UK, is now left staring down the barrel of a no-deal Tory Brexit.
Some MPs are advocating a European Economic Area-based Brexit. This proposal would see the UK as a member of the European Economic Area, and in some form of customs union, a compromise deal commonly dubbed “Norway Plus”. Besides the question of how we would actually agree any such deal in Parliament, far from resolving the Brexit problem, a Norway Plus compromise would inevitably lead to endless further arguments and unavoidably relegate the UK from being a rulemaker to a rule-taker.
It is abundantly clear that the best deal for the people of Wales, be it for jobs and our economy, or for welfare and our society, is the one we have now: membership of the European Union. Labour Party members, voters, supporters and the majority of Labour’s elected representatives in Wales all favour a public vote.
Parliament has had their say and reached deadlock. Now let the people have their say. Daryl Gordon Wales Organiser Labour for a People’s Vote Bridgend