This nation divided by Brexit CAN be healed...
How People’s Parliaments can help us agree on common ground
Britain is now more divided than at any time in my lifetime. More split down the middle than during the three-day weeks of the 70s.
More at loggerheads than in the miners’ strike of the 80s. More at odds than even during the poll tax fiasco in the early 90s.
Less able to come together than in the arguments around the Iraq war over a decade ago.
Omnishambles became a by-word for Tory budget fiascos. Now we have something even more divisive –the omni-Euroshambles. And as things stand it’s not going to end soon because, deal or no deal, at least two more
Manchester Town Hall years of acrimonious European negotiations still lie ahead.
What we are witnessing is little more than the end of the beginning: the climax to Act One of the European drama – the divorce settlement. Act Two and Act Three – negotiating our future relationship and preparing for the long term – have yet to start.
With years of all this still to go, the people are losing patience.
They’re beginning to turn off from any talk of Brexit and allegations of betrayal are starting to fly on each side. It’s becoming clearer by the day the real exit people urgently crave is not from Europe itself but from an everworsening Tory quagmire.
We cannot afford two more years like the last. That would be a recipe for more division, an even bigger breakdown in trust.
Yet every Brexit option on offer is hated, according to every poll. And no one wants a no-deal.
It’s now becoming clear Parliament cannot break the deadlock it has created. And it is because we dare not have more months of stalemate it is time to consider a better way forward.
For too long, our European future has been played out in Whitehall far from the public eye. We cannot reunite the nation unless we do things differently, so it’s time to break out of the Westminster bubble and make sure the considered voice of the people is heard.
But how? A general election and referendum are options but an election cannot happen with no super-majority in Parliament.
And even though support is growing, the referendum needs the Government to steer a Referendum Bill through Parliament.
In the old days you could turn to political parties in every part of our country to speak up for all us at the grassroots. You might also have thought in 2018 exchanges on social media would also reflect what ordinary citizens are thinking.
But when it comes to Europe, the internet is like a shouting match without an umpire. And our political parties and social media look to many like they are dominated by those with the loudest voices.
We need a way for all the voices of the decent majority to be heard. I propose a different way forward – People’s Parliaments assembled for a day’s deliberation in every region and nation.
Giving people a voice so that at town hall meetings, important issues from immigration and sovereignty to stagnant wages and the state of our towns, can be thrashed out.
I envisage bringing together in each region a panel of 100 citizens. Hope Not Hate is a grassroots organisation that has been doing this for some time with success. Let Britain’s opinionof formers pitch their views to the people and give us what facts they have on control of our borders, our laws and our money.
And let’s hear advocates from both sides of the divide. And then let’s test whether pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit voters can find any common ground.
The process I favour is not too dissimilar from what they do in X Factor. When the powers-thatbe are deadlocked, they call on the general public to decide.
I believe by exploring together the causes and consequences of Brexit, we can learn more about what’s possible and see whether, above the bitter divisions, any consensus can emerge.
I’m not proposing a re-run of the arguments of the last referendum. I want us to examine whether anything of substance has changed since 2016. I think our European neighbours have been rethinking the way “freedom of movement” should work and courts in France, Germany, Italy and Spain have been standing up to the European Court of Justice But let’s hear what the people say.
We may well find that many of the concerns raised by those who voted Brexit cannot be solved by Brexit – and issues such as stagnant wages, manufacturing decline and run-down town centres need new and imaginative policies.
And I’d want to hear what people think should be done on the big issues ahead of us – how we build our future as a manufacturing power, how we hold our Union of four nations together, how we restore influence abroad.
So the People’s Parliaments I propose are assemblies where the people can argue issues in a national conversation. But they must carry authority and be truly representative of the people.
And to ensure they are impartial, I suggest they be organised through a new kind of Royal Commission – an advisory group representative of respected national institutions and reflecting both the Leave and Remain positions.
There are many other ways to escape our European nightmare – by a renegotiation and even by an extension of the withdrawal timetable beyond March, as well as a general election or referendum.
But far more than one single initiative is needed to reunite such a bitterly divided country. I’m certain Britain is better than the divisions poisoning it. I know the people are more than a collection of Leave and Remain supporters forever at odds with one other.
We are a people who have always come together when it matters – because of shared values and common interests.
Perhaps in the People’s Parliaments we will find we are not so divided after all. And that we see the point in working together to build a better country.