Democracy dictates Brexit isn’t inevitable
New leader of Plaid Cymru Adam Price explains why he will today call for the Senedd to back a so-called People’s Vote on any – or no – final Brexit deal...
Brexit will cost our NHS valuable members of staff, our economy vital trade links, and our communities essential structural funding.
This is not, by any stretch, what anyone signed up for. So why should we have to simply put up and shut up?
In 2016, the Westminster Government gave the responsibility to the people to decide whether or not they were happy with our mismanaged, misinformed and misrepresented relationship with the EU.
The Westminster Government asked, and the people answered.
Unfortunately, the question that was asked was overshadowed by buses boasting bogus benefits, and little else.
Since the vote to leave the European Union, the Westminster Government has charged forward under its colonialist cape, promising a paradise of the past filled with folly, free trade deals and freedom from the supposed ‘shackles’ of the EU. By now, it is abundantly clear that these are nothing more than fallacies.
The land of milk and honey promised by Brexiteers now looks more like it contains Spam and rations. The lies told by Boris Johnson and his cronies are unravelling and Leave campaigners seem to face new allegations of breaking election rules every day.
One could possibly argue that this is something the Tory Westminster Government has to do: it asked a difficult question, received a difficult answer, and now has the impossible task of making 52% of people’s fanciful Brexit dreams a reality.
It has no choice but to promise a post-Brexit utopia, whilst holding its fingers crossed, hoping no one will notice when no such ‘£350m-a-week-for-the-NHS’ BoJo Brexit comes to fruition. But there is a better way. Today, Plaid Cymru will present the Senedd with the opportunity to support a People’s Vote on the final terms of any (or no) deal.
To give the people of Wales a say – this time with the facts at hand.
I always find the idea that a People’s Vote ‘anti-democratic’ as counter-intuitive.
How can more voting, more democracy and a greater say for the people be ‘anti-democratic’?
After an election we don’t just accept that’s the way things are.
When the ideas are implemented, when the facts are revealed, we challenge debate and change our minds – that is the best thing about democracy.
For it to pass Labour will need to break their habit of voting with the Tories and UKIP when it comes to Brexit and back Plaid Cymru’s call for a People’s Vote.
Is it not the purpose of the Labour Party – the supposed “Official Opposition” in Westminster, to question, to hold to account, and to oppose the car crash the Conservatives are hellbent on causing? Yet, time and time again, they stand aside and let the Brexit car crash continue.
All the while, Carwyn Jones, the leader of the only Labour government in the UK, simply follows orders – accepting he is nothing more than Labour’s regional representative.
Knowing full well that even leaving the European Single Market and Customs Union – the least destructive Brexit – will wipe £5bn off the Welsh economy, Wales’ Labour Government not only fails to stand up and protect jobs and wages across Wales, it refuses to even ask Jeremy Corbyn to do it for them.
In simple terms, the Labour Party is telling us that even though it knows Brexit will lead to manufacturing workers having to hand in their P45s, supermarkets having to close up due to empty shelves, and air travel between the UK and the EU grinding to a halt, we should put up and shut up.
That is why when it comes down to it in the Assembly today, Labour will not support a People’s Vote.
Instead, they would prefer to hold yet another Westminster General Election, wishing to repeat last year’s unnecessary, uncalled for and unwanted vote.
To what ends no-one seems to know.
As even in power, Labour’s Brexit policy is almost indistinguishable from the Tories. It will be the same problems and the same lack of solutions.
People deserve the chance to make an informed decision on the final deal which will have an unprecedented impact not only on themselves, but on generations to come.
Politics is being driven by hate and malaise.
A People’s Vote would allow the politics of positivity to coalesce around a sense of hope and optimism; a vision of a better future – a future favoured by the generation that will have to live in it.
In 1979 a referendum to establish a Welsh national Parliament was lost.
It took almost 20 years for that mistake to be overturned with another referendum.
Let’s not wait 20 years before we realise this one was a mistake.