No.67 - Boris Goes for Broke - Will you Follow Him, James?
Dear James,
Crunch time is fast approaching. Boris is proroguing parliament to avoid its scrutiny and the Tory split is here for all to see. At the moment, as an MP, your choice consists of one of two ‘Tory extremes’. On the populist right is the Johnsonian government acting on behalf of the ERG dogmatists, determined to accept a no-deal and thus to expose the nation to the ruin of such a deal. On the right of centre of your party you have the Theresa May stalwarts who want to leave with an agreement but are not willing to put a pistol to our nation’s head through a no-deal. There is, of course, a third version to which you yourself once belonged i.e. the sensible and practical One Nation Tory Remainers who have demonstrated again and again that any exit from the EU will leave our nation poorer for many years. Unfortunately that group of Tories have long since been shouted down by the fanatical ERG. Between the two remaining extremes there are many Tory MPs stuck stranded in-between. You, in my view are one of these.
Very soon however you will be tested either by a vote of No Confidence or by a general election. In the case of a No Confidence vote, you will be forced to show your colours one way or the other. In the case of an election, your government will have to put forward a manifesto. Assuming that the election is prior to October 31st, that manifesto will be a Johnsonian manifesto and therefore include the exposure of our nation to no-deal. If you back that manifesto then you will have revealed your connivance with the no-deal doctrine.
In the last three years James you have travelled from being a 2016 Remainer, to an accepter of Mrs May’s negotiated Withdrawal Agreement, to a supporter of Jeremy Hunt’s renegotiation of an agreement with an anti-no deal approach. Now you come to the end of your journey. Your final decision is nigh. Will you finally back the no-deal Tory Party?
Incredibly, your round robin of yesterday shows that you are still trying to sit on the fence. Like so many Tories you continue to attempt to go with the wind which only reveals that your only certain principle has been party loyalty. How you can travel so far in such a short time is beyond my ken, but that is what you have done. The claim by these ‘Remainers-turned-Leavers’ is that they are fulfilling to referendum of 2016. Against this claim I would say the following.
We are a parliamentary Democracy. Parliament is supreme. No one – not the monarch, not a referendum, not a government is above parliament. A parliamentary democracy delivers the ’wisdom of our representatives’ which should modify or mollify the impulses, angers and misguided enthusiasms of individuals or groups. As an MP it is your responsibility to deliver such ‘wisdom’. I am afraid at the moment and given your track record, I don’t have much hope for you. You will continue to adhere to your party and not the national interest. And not only that. You will also have supported a government that has deliberately excluded parliament from its duty to scrutinize policy. That is not just sad. It is a dereliction of your duty as an MP.
However you still have a little time.
Please use it well. Explore your conscience for one. But more practically imagine how you might be blamed if or when the outcome of this Tory debacle leaves Britain at best a vassal of Trump’s America or at worst an isolated island in a world of large groups and destined to a long, slow decline into stagnation and global irrelevance.
Is that why you became a Tory?
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent