WE’RE IN A NEW
YESTERDAY will live as a moment of infamy in the long annals of Parliament. MPS had a golden opportunity to end the Brexit crisis and honour the verdict of the 2016 referendum by supporting the Prime Minister’s hardfought EU withdrawal deal.
Instead, with the self-indulgent obstinacy that has become their hallmark, they decided to plungewestminster into more turmoil by refusing to approve the agreement.
Yet again, the House of Cowards showed that it prefers irresponsible procrastination to decisive action.
The euphoria that Boris Johnson generated onthursday with his heroic diplomatic triumph at the Brussels summit has now evaporated, replaced by a mood of uncertainty and despair. By their failure to back him, our foolish politicians have demonstrated their contempt for democracy and the national interest.
Yesterday was meant to be a historic occasion, one that could herald a new era for our country and pave the way to national independence.
Instead, the first weekend sitting of the Commons since Argentina’s invasion of the Falklands in 1982 descended into a miserable anti-climax as the depressing stalemate continues.
In 1936Winston Churchill condemned the feeble National Government as “decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.” That is a perfect description of the current paralysed House of Commons, which, as the Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay put it yesterday, “says no to everything”.
The public, already exasperated by these antics, will only feel fury at this new twist in the Brexit saga.yesterday’s vote was just the latest in a lengthening catalogue of cynical manoeuvres designed to thwart the will of the people.
Rather than breaking the present deadlock, the majority of MPS decided to embark on a new period of chaos by backing an amendment put forward by the mavericktory turned Independent MP Sir Oliver Letwin. His destructive proposal required that the House should withhold its approval for the new deal until all the necessary related legislation – which could be amended – has been passed.
In practice, that almost certainly means more delays, with the Prime Minister legally forced to ask Brussels for a further extension in Article 50, the process which governs a member state’s departure.
The step was typical of Letwin, who has developed a reputation as an energetic but bumbling plotter, infused with his own self-importance and his belief in his own unorthodox cleverness.
“A golden rule of politics,” wrote one leading commentator yesterday, “is that anything involving Oliver Letwin is a total mess.”the twin justifications for his move were both to allow more Parliamentary scrutiny of Johnson’s deal and to prevent Britain “crashing out” of the EU if the Commons were to reject the legislation that gives effect to his agreement.
But these look like thin excuses.
The real impulse of most MPS who voted for the Letwin amendment is stop Brexit altogether. Their rhetoric is a sham, their motivation dishonest.
As the former prime minister Theresa May pointed out in a powerful intervention yesterday,westminster had declared its willingness to accept the referendum result by voting for Article 50. “If Parliament did not mean it, then it is guilty of the most egregious con trick on the British people.”
‘The House is like a stuck gramophone record, repeatedly playing the same tune’