No. 13 - Shouting at Mrs May oh & Happy Christmas!

Dear James, 

May I wish you and your family a happy Christmas and New Year. I have no doubt that you will need this short-lived respite following the disastrous events in parliament this week.

I have an admission to make. I am ashamed to say that I have suddenly become a shouter in front of the television screen. Now I am not a natural shouter; I am usually calm and reflective, taking what I hear and see with a large grain of salt. That changed last Tuesday as I watched Mrs May confirm that she was postponing the ‘Meaningful Vote’ on her withdrawal deal until the middle of next January. Against all evidence that her deal is dead, against the demands from all sides in parliament that she should put it to the vote immediately, the lady persisted in her delusion that she could wring further concessions from the EU. The country has been thrown into the chaos of extended uncertainty, businesses are in despair and parliament itself has become a shameful charade, laughed at by the rest of the world which wonders how this once noble institution has become such a shambles. The sight of Tory whips stirring up mock outrage against Mr Corbyn’s foolhardy mouthings and the Speaker’s attempts to calm the situation only added to the chaos. That day, parliament shamed us all! That’s why I shouted.

So we are now condemned to four more weeks of frozen government as precious time ticks away towards March 29th 2019. On January 15th the vote will take place and already your hopelessly split cabinet is putting down markers for their leadership bids.

Much of the current situation can be laid at the door of the Tory party itself. We have been brought low firstly by Cameron’s austerity programme, secondly by your party’s very own civil war, thirdly by the forlorn attempts of Mrs May to keep your party together and, finally, by her desperate stand against the reality that she cannot have her cake and eat it.

Britain is in a profound crisis. The attempt to take us out of the EU is essentially a last ditch attempt at Little England-isolationism. Mrs May may speak of global Britain but this is, in effect, another of her illusions. We would be no more than a small, self-obsessed island vying against the giants of international commerce. This public schoolboy nostalgia for a lost significance combines with the Corbyn illusion of a 1980s socialist utopia to create this massive policy logjam.

We need real change, from top to bottom, and that change must be based upon the common sense for which we were once proud. And, surely, the only way to start that process is by putting the vote back to the people?  

Happy Christmas. Genuinely!

Kind regards, 

BH - Your Concerned Constituent