‘Second vote would divide UK at a time we need to bring unity’
●Prime Minister’s warning to MPS as pressure for People’s Vote increases
A second referendum on EU membership “would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics”, Theresa May will warn MPS today as calls for a vote to reverse Brexit grow.
It follows denials from senior figures in government after reports that plans for a second referendum are already under way in preparation for parliament’s rejection of the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal.
Updating MPS on difficult talks with EU leaders last week, Mrs May will ask parliamentarians not to “break faith with the British people” by trying to reverse Brexit.
It would be “another vote which would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics, because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy that our democracy does not deliver,” she is expected to say.
“Another vote which would likely leave us no further forward than the last. And another vote which would further divide our country at the very moment we should be working to unite it.”
Allies of Mrs May were forced to distance themselves at the weekend from reports they were involved in secret discussions about a new referendum on Brexit.
The Prime Minister’s de facto deputy, David Lidington, and her chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, made clear they are not in favour of a new EU withdrawal vote.
Mr Lidington was reported to have held talks with Labour MPS last week aimed at getting cross-party consensus for a new referendum.
In response, the Cabinet Office minister posted a link on social media to a parliamentary debate in which he said a second referendum would be “divisive not decisive”.
Education Secretary Damian Hinds insisted the Cabinet had not discussed a second EU referendum. Mr Hinds said in a TV interview: “No. Government policy couldn’t be clearer. We are here to act on the will of the British people clearly expressed in the referendum.”
But the former universities minister Samgyimah, whore signed from government earlier this month to oppose
the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, said “there are conversations happening about a second referendum and a number of other options”.
He said senior figures in Downing Street were speaking to MPS to “find out what the lay of the land is” when Mrs May’s deal is defeated.
The issue of a second referendum provoked an unprecedented row between a current and former prime minister, after Mrs May said Tony Blair’s calls for a second referendum were an “insult to the office he once held”.
Mrs May accused him of “undermining” Brexit negotiations and insisted MPS could not “abdicate responsibility” to deliver Brexit.
Mr Blair hit back, labelling the Prime Minister “irresponsible” for trying to force her deal through in the face of overwhelming opposition and the threat of a no deal Brexit.
He said: “To describe such a course as an insult is a strange description of what would be the opportunity for them to instruct Parliament as to how to proceed.
“Far from being antidemocratic, it would be the opposite – as indeed many senior figures in her party from past and present have been saying.
“What is irresponsible however is to try to steamroller MPS into accepting a deal they genuinely think is a bad one with the threat that if they do not fall into line, the government will have the country crash out without a deal.”
Mr Blair said it was “perfectly
LIAM FOX
clear neither the British people nor their Parliament will unite behind the Prime Minister’s deal”.
He added: “I have always said, and did again in my speech on Friday in London, that I personally sympathise with the PM’S heavy burden in doing her job. I do not disrespect her at all. I understand her frustration.
“But I profoundly believe that the course she is pursuing will not work and is emphatically not in the national interest. And that’s the reason I am speaking out and shall continue to do so.”
In a sign of the chaos within the government as it struggles to find a Brexit outcome that will satisfy all sides, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox indicated he could support a free vote of MPS on competing Brexit options.
Dr Fox told the BBC’S Andrew Marr Show yesterday: “That’s not something we have considered. I have to say, personally, I wouldn’t have a huge problem with Parliament as a whole having a say on what the options were.”
And Mr Hinds also said “there is a value in flushing out what these various different options are” through Commons votes.
With tensions inside the Conservative Party growing in spite of last week’s confidence vote in the Prime Minister, Tory grandee Lord Chris Patten compared hardline Brexit supporters in the party to “rodents”, “bullying fanatics” and “Maoists”.
He said: “It is impossible to get a deal on the European Union and our relationship with it which is both in the national interest and satisfies the Maoists in the Conservative Party.
“They have been working away like rodents in the basement for years trying to nibble away at the foundations of our relationship with Europe.”
Meanwhile, Irish foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney said Brexit could be delayed if the UK came up with a significantly different proposal.
He said: “If there is an entirely new proposal coming from the UK, then I think undoubtedly you would need a lot more time for that to be considered on the EU side and that would probably involve an extensionofarticle50,orpulling Article 50 for the moment, but I think that would be a big decision for Britain to make and Theresa May has said that she does not want to do that.”
Labour MP Dame Margaret Beckett, a former foreign secretary and a leading supporter of the People’s Vote campaign, said it was “highly significant … because officials know the prospect of a People’s Vote is being discussed not just in Westminster but in the corridors of Whitehall too.”
Ms Beckett said: “The case for the public being giventhefinalsayisbecoming so overwhelming that people from all parties and of none now recognise that this is the best way forward for our country.
“There is no deal that can meet all the promises made for it – or one that is as good as the deal we already have in the EU.
“Any effort to force Brexit over the line without checking that it has the continued consent of the British people will only reinforce divisions.”
“I have to say, personally, I wouldn’t have a huge problem with Parliament as a whole having a say on what the options were”
When the ancient Chinese created the curse, “may you live in interesting times”, they knew exactly what they were talking about.
It has possibly never been more apt than during this past week in British politics.
Decades from now, academics will probably dissect every decision, every statement, every nuance of how the fault line in the Conservative Party split apart and threatened to engulf us all.
When I got on my flight for London at 11am last Monday, I was going down to speak in what was supposed to be the defining debate on our future relationship with the EU.
By the time I landed both it, and the vote on the deal, had been “postponed”. What followed instead has been chaos.
Unprecedented is an overused word, but at the moment it is the only one that we have which even begins to explain the magnitude of the screw-up this Conservative Government has perpetrated.
They are not alone of course. The Labour Party is equally chaotic and divided, while the SNP is intent on squeezing every smidgen of advantage possible out of this for their never-ending independence crusade, regardless of the bigger picture or implications for us all.
Individually there are politicians in each of those parties, and my own, who are putting the national interest first and looking for a solution.
But, taken in the round, the impression this debacle is creating not just in the world’s media, but among the electorate to whom we are answerable, is incredibly damaging.
For me, it’s time to think about doing things differently before we run out of time and crash out of the EU, without a deal, and into economic disaster. We need to find consensus. Common ground.
In reality, it is there already. Every day, politicians from each party talk to each other about how we get out of this mess. How we fix it. Be in no doubt, most of us know it needs fixed. And quickly.
Increasingly, Labour, SNP and even some Conservatives are coming around to the Liberal Democrat view that we need to give this back to the people for the final say. A People’s Vote on the deal.
But first, there is an enormous roadblock to get past. We need to find a proposal that Parliament can agree and give the people an option to vote on. And, for me, that must include the word ‘remain’.
The only deal we’ve had so far won’t cut it. It has many flaws, but chief among them is the backstop.
This year marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. For two decades, the violence which shook so many families during the Troubles has largely been kept at bay.
The efforts made in the peace process by all communities should be applauded, not undermined. But that is exactly what the ham-fisted, chaotic tactics of this Government threaten to do. I am happy to accept that was not their intention. But sadly it may be the impact.
The Prime Minister’s “cake and eat it” style of Brexit negotiation was always going to lead us up this particular proverbial creek without a paddle. On the one hand, the Government committed itself to avoiding a hard border, yet, on the other, they were adamant on departing from both the customs union and the single market.
And so we are left with the bizarre half-in/half-out arrangement known as the backstop, which would mean Northern Ireland staying in the customs union for an indefinite period of time if an appropriate customs agreement cannot be agreed with Brussels by the end of the transition period in 2020.
And, as it was revealed once the Government was forced to publish legal advice put together by the Attorney General, this arrangement could last indefinitely.
Unsurprisingly, Unionists in Northern Ireland don’t like it. The people of Northern Ireland, like those in Scotland and London, voted overwhelmingly to remain.
And they and the rest of the UK did not vote for separating off Northern Ireland while the rest of the country is torn from the single market and customs union.
The reality is that there is currently no version of Brexit that will work for Northern Ireland, or for the rest of us for that matter.
The most optimistic of Theresa May’s supporters did see a glimmer of hope in the European Council this weekend, with reassurances from the other countries that, of course, they would look for a quick solution. But that was quickly extinguished.
Instead we are left with an unfinished debate on withdrawal, a deal on which parliament has not voted and will not approve, the potential of a no-confidence vote this week and just three months to find and implement a decision.
The time is long past when there was room to indulge the no-deal fantasies of the European Research Group. It’s also too late for the determined Brexiteers in the Tory party to find another deal, or another leader.
It’s time to admit they got it wrong. They led the people up the garden path with the promise of a smooth, easy, economically booming Brexit which simply doesn’t exist.
Do I want to stay in the EU? Yes. But more importantly I want us all to have the choice, now that we know what Brexit really means. Today I’ll get on another flight at Edinburgh Airport and head back to Westminster for another week of, well, who can really be sure?
The Labour Party might finally table that vote of confidence. This weekend’s gossip and speculation might mean we have even more chaos. Or maybe, just maybe, the more sensible voices will prevail, and we will find a way to reach the consensus that the country needs. Interesting times.