This is no time for a destructive fight
MEMBERS of Parliament have escaped the Commons and now have a period of recess to tend to their constituencies, recharge and think.
Nobody will begrudge MPs some time away from the pandemonium of Westminster during this extraordinary year. In fact, stepping out of this inferno of leadership battles and post-referendum frenzy could be just the thing our democracy needs – the equivalent of taking your car for a service.
Welsh MPs tumbled straight from the Assembly election campaign into the Brexit battle and leadership dramas. Epic changes are afoot in the country and they have had to jump between debates and debacles with Tarzan-like aplomb.
In an age of Twitter notifications, the ping of emails and rolling news, taking a moment to step away from the reach of distractions and think hard about the future requires discipline.
Labour MPs, of course, are still in the throes of their leadership election, but everyone in politics would do well to consider what is best for citizens.
Ahead of the referendum, David Cameron gave the impression that the formal process of leaving the European Union would start “straightaway” if the country voted to leave. We now know that won’t happen at least until 2017, and the battle lines are being drawn for an epic confrontation over the deal the UK pursues.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, staunchly eurosceptic Conservative MP Edward Leigh asked Theresa May to make his day “special by saying that she is prepared to reject staying in the single regulated market and to offer instead to our friends in Europe a free trade deal”.
He gave the new PM a broad smile but for Westminster watchers this was the equivalent of seeing a very public troops manoeuvre. MPs who long for a clean break with Brussels do not want to see the UK attempt to cobble together a halfway house in the aftermath of the referendum.
Nor do they want the UK to plead with EU power-brokers to be allowed to stay in the single market. Norway is not technically an EU member but to gain access to the market it contributes great dollops of cash and accepts free movement of people.
Staunch eurosceptics would see such a compromise as a betrayal of those who voted for Brexit. They could even denounce it as a worse fix than the status quo with the UK left with even less sovereignty than it has now because it would have to abide by regulations it had no say in writing.
It is too easy to imagine a furious battle erupting between those with different visions of Brexit. But this is not what Wales or the rest of the UK needs.
Our steel industry must not lose unfettered access to the single market. Manufacturers and farmers cannot afford to face punitive tariffs; this should be obvious.
MPs should not spend the recess preparing for indulgent ideological battles. Rather, we need them to return with a fresh commitment to champion prosperity and protect a fragile recovery.