Brexit is often sold by its most committed supporters on the right as a constitutional version of the economic doctrine of Thatcherism, a clean break with the failed policies of the past. These fanatics succeeded in convincing David Cameron, who was prone to flattery but supine in the face of aggression, that a popular vote in a referendum was a remedy for the unrepresentative nature of Westminster politics. Once they did away with Mr Cameron, they installed Theresa May and carried on with legislative manoeuvring to enable an irreversible transformation of society. The hard Brexiters are ruthless about the means, and in denial about the fall-out of their desires. Yet now the game is up.
The evidence is that a departure from the European Union on WTO terms would blow up large parts of the British economy. There would be a lot of pain for some far-off gain. As it stands Mrs May’s Brexit plan will not get parliamentary approval. She warns this means we will crash out as the law states the United Kingdom will leave the EU on the 29 March at 11pm. But that can be changed if a minister proposes a new law erasing that time and date and parliament votes for it. The UK has options. It can unilaterally cancel its withdrawal from the EU. The majority of MPs in parliament accept hard Brexit utopias cannot be built. It is now a question of how, not when or if, they will move parliamentary motions to demonstrate their strength. Their aim will be to get ministers to defer or rescind Britain’s departure from the European club. Mrs May, if she is still prime minister, at this point could do the country a favour and stop her car crash of Brexit continuing. If ministers refuse to bow to such a motion then we will enter a constitutional crisis whose size will dwarf anything we have seen so far in the contempt arguments over the failure to publish ministers’ Brexit legal advice.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2SwuPw1
via
0 Comments