No.82 - Hold on Tight! Brace for Impact!

Dear James,
The charabanc is already out of control, the driver’s frenzied grip on the wheel, his maddened eyes focussed on the brick wall ahead. Under the bonnet, of course, there is the supercharged boy racer, one Mr Dominic Cummings. At any moment now he will collide with the wall of reality behind which lie the wonderful sunlit uplands beyond. For a few days, we have been in slow motion. Today we hit the wall!

Last week I got a mail from a good friend who revealed himself to be a Leaver. He said that it is democratically required for us to respect the will of 17.4m people. Thanks for your honesty my friend and let me tell you immediately that you’re right, the 2016 Referendum with its small majority for leaving delivered a clear result by 3.78% of the total vote. I get that but I also question it. At the risk of boring you ad infinitum, I shall say it again. Our democracy is a parliamentary democracy and in a parliamentary democracy, parliament is sovereign. No one is above parliament, not the Queen, not the government, not any kind of referendum. The referendum did not deliver an act of law. It was an opinion delivered to parliament for them to decide how to act. And my friend is right again. The 2016 Parliament decided that it should act and deliver Brexit. This is where we have to ask the question ‘Why has it taken three years and more for Brexit still not to have been delivered? My answer is that parliament has had ever increasing doubts which means that it is doing its incredibly difficult job of balancing costs and benefits. The MP’s role is therefore crucial in this debate.  

In a parliamentary democracy, an MP is not a delegate but a representative of the people. Every four years each voter ‘lends’ their vote to an MP who applies their political judgment to that vote. The actions of MPs are governed by their determination of the best interests of their constituency, their party and the country as a whole. The MP is therefore a filter to popular opinion delivering their wisdom to the impulses of the people. Parliament’s role was to put the 2016 result into the context of the wisdom and integrity of parliament. That is what it did in 2016. In 2017 it began to change its mind.  

In that year a new parliament was elected which robbed Mrs May’s government of a majority. The 2017 election told parliament something and that something was that they were not so sure of things. Even though the 2017 Parliament was chosen on manifestos which largely supported Brexit, the mood of parliament had changed. And this is where the role of a referendum must be examined. A referendum is a one-off snapshot of opinion at a particular time. Its opinion is therefore static whereas the real world is highly mobile. Here is a fundamental clash with representative democracy. Parliamentary democracy is designed to reflect changes in opinion.  As David Davies said in 2012, ‘A democracy is not a democracy if people cannot change their minds.’ The key to parliamentary democracy is flexibility and fluidity. A referendum is always in danger of being out dated before it is enacted and, to prove it, today we have an unelected hoodlum in control of Downing Street trying to enact an out of date opinion.  

Today the IFS, a very reputable independent think tank, said that a no-deal Brexit would cost £100bn and push up our borrowing to 90% of GDP to give us the biggest budget deficit for fifty years. Simultaneously the FT announced that customs paperwork in a no-deal Brexit would cost businesses £15bn p.a. and, just to top things up, the Chief Economist of Citibank announced that our economy has already shrunk by £60bn since 2016, that overall business investment is down 20% and that there would be no growth at all for two years after a no-deal Brexit. But Mr Cummings is desperate. His whole strategy is based on the kamikaze notion of all or nothing and Mr Johnson’s tribe of sorry warriors, of which you are one, does not have the guts to stop him.

Last night Mr Cummings briefed the press threatening every kind of retribution upon the EU and naysayers at home. Robert Peston described it as “the most explosive Downing Street briefing in modern times”. The man is in a corner and is lashing out. He can see the cliff edge ahead and he knows that he’ll be the first over. Which is where parliament comes back into play. We need again their wisdom to intervene and show that they are in charge.

So where does my MP stand at this moment of crisis James? Are you content to sit helplessly in the back of Neo-Brexit Party charabanc as it careers over the cliff? If so, prepare for impact. 

And for the blame that will follow!

Kind regards, 

BH - Your Concerned Constituent.