Our own government has been no better and has stumbled from pillar to post until finally, backed into a corner, our Prime Minister gave us some idea of how she - not her government note - wanted the negotiations to go. Having said she did not want to give away her negotiating position she promptly did so, showing the weakness of her hand.
Then we had the Trump/May visit when our PM walked along hand in hand with a man she had only just met: a serial philanderer and well-known sexual denigrator of women. Had a junior member of staff done the same in business they would have expected to be disciplined but no doubt there is a different rule for the rich and powerful.
A wave of protest has echoed around the world after Trump's inauguration - if that is not 'alternative facts' - and people have written in protest at the idea of welcoming him to the UK for a state visit.
Others of us felt that a line had been crossed and needed to express themselves more fully. Here is a copy of the letter I have sent to my MP who I previously regarded as something of a business friend/acquaintance.
To Sarah Newton MP for Truro and Falmouth
Dear Sarah
It is with great sadness that I have to write to you but enough is enough and I need to let you know where I stand on the key issues of the day. In what follows you will see a number of underlying themes:
- That this government is failing to lead the country effectively, is taking no practical steps to bring together a deeply divided country, and is not setting set out a vision for the future
- That this government is being dictatorial in its approach and is attempting to circumvent and ignore parliament for which it will be held accountable
- That the whole Brexit process is so flawed that it should be halted immediately and that you should vote against triggering Article 50
The vote in June split the country and a new government with a new Prime Minister emerged. Taking over at a time of crisis, the government has stumbled as it has sought to establish its policies, none of which have been tested with the public. It was inevitable that there would be a hesitant start but progress has been poor. We have had to endure a series of damp squib announcements of an increasingly objectionable nature, playing to a populist gallery, many of which have often been withdrawn shortly afterwards.
Our Prime Minister has talked about helping the ‘just about managing’ and encouraged us all to ‘come together’. Good talk and yet her government has done nothing, in all those announcements, to walk the walk. On the contrary, its announcements have seemed to bear down on precisely those about whom it professes to care.
On the major issue of Brexit, there has been no attempt to reach out to the 48% who voted to remain in Europe, let alone to those who did not vote at all and very little has been done to prevent the wave of racist and thuggish behaviour that has seemingly been sanctioned by the vote.
Nothing has been done to reassure our friends from the EU who are living here quite legally that they are not about to be deported. Instead they have been told they are ‘bargaining chips’ in a future negotiation.
And nothing has been done to reign in the quite despicable media who have stoked much of this hatred.
The biggest mistake of all has been the contempt for parliament. We have heard much about ‘democracy’ in recent months and everyone has become a barrack-room expert on the subject but history reminds us that governments that ignore parliament come to grief; usually with shattering consequences.
The referendum vote presaged the biggest shake-up of the UK for years and yet, since the vote, this government has attempted to shut down any discussion of what the future might look like. When it became clear that the leaders of the Leave Campaign had absolutely no coherent plan for our future after the vote, this government made no attempt to start a national conversation or debate in parliament as to what the vote actually meant in practice.
We were simply told that there was a deadline of the end of March: a purely arbitrary timescale. Eventually, after 5 months of silence and after much pressure, the people have been allowed to hear what the Prime Minister is thinking - in a speech lead by the word ‘I’ and not ‘we’ – a mere two months before the arrival of that deadline. There allowed no opportunity for mature reflection and discussion. Although that speech offered some involvement of parliament in the process, it was clear that the decision of the House would be forced through by three-line whip and would not be respected if it failed to support the government. That is the way of tyranny.
It is hard to conceive of a more misguided and less open method of decision-making and this government will be judged by it.
We should be openly discussing the future of the country: whether it is really wise to prioritise control of immigration over economic stability. Whether there really is a future – beyond the wildest fantasies of some of the protagonists – as a Singapore on Speed: a description which is laughable for anyone who knows anything about the two countries. What the actual costs are going to be and how it is going to affect the man in the street. What the impact on the massive national debt might be and on the consequences for public services: yes, some of us still believe in them and do not wish to see them sold off to Jack-the-lads and foreign investors.
In short, in the absence of any plan from the Brexiters, the government had a golden opportunity to re-open the debate of options for the future of this country in a responsible, business-like and consultative way. This might have brought people together. This might have encouraged those derided experts to examine and comment on a variety of models. This could have shown just how inconsistent were the promises made by the Brexiters. It might have resulted in a compromise which could have commanded general acceptance.
But no: we were presented with silence and platitudes. People have talked about empowerment and yet the government has ignored the wishes of pockets of the country who voted to Remain and appears deaf to the views of the constituent assemblies. Take back control indeed!
Parliament is now facing a vote on triggering Article 50. I think you have four possible approaches:
The first is to recognise your responsibility as an MP to vote with your conscience. This is Walter Bagehot’s long-standing principle which has not yet been formally overturned even in an age of mass communications and opinion polls.
You were an avowed Remainer during the campaign and I therefore give you the benefit of the doubt that that is where your heart lies. I shall not insult you by digging out your own statements on why it is the right thing to do.
If your conscience still supports remaining then I would ask you to consider whether you believe that what is proposed is actually in the country’s best interest. Is it economically sound? Is it thought through? Has it been properly costed? Have the consequences been clearly explained to the public: and not just on the side of a bus, through Twitter, on the Andrew Marr show or in a speech at Lancaster House? Is it for the best for the maximum number of people without being the tyranny of a vocal minority?
Or you could consider what the voters in your own constituency voted for. They voted to Remain. I do not need to rehearse the arguments as to why Cornwall should have favoured remaining: Cornwall Council’s letter the week after the vote asking for confirmation that it would receive as much money after Brexit as it had received from the EU said it all. You have every right to vote as your constituents did and to argue against triggering Article 50.
Or you could join the legion of barrack-room democrats and say that ‘the country voted to leave so we should leave’. To do so would be to spit in the face of the 48% and the many who did not vote whose views you cannot know. As is now pretty universally acknowledged, the previous government completely messed up the nature of the referendum. It did not require a super-majority and disenfranchised groups in a quite arbitrary manner, over-confident at the likely outcome.
What seems so incredible is that no one has had the honesty or guts to stand up and say this publicly. Two wrongs do not make a right as we were all taught in the nursery.
Another, and fundamental reason for treating the result with great caution is the appalling nature of the pre-vote conversation. There was no meaningful manifesto by Brexiters who made a series of conflicting and contradictory promises. It is no good saying ‘people are grown up enough to know that politicians don’t mean what they say when they are after your vote’. That is simply immoral. The rowing back on the promise of £350m per week on the NHS and inclusion in the Single Market are cases in point.
We know the vote was emotional. We also know it was built on lies. That is why it is the responsibility of government to regard it as advisory, as originally intended, and re-start the conversation with a fuller picture. The way to do this is to vote to delay the triggering of Article 50.
We considered impeaching Tony Blair for taking us to war in Iraq on the basis of a pack of lies. Are you satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that we are not about to leave the EU based on a similar pack of lies?
Your last option would be simply to follow the instructions of the party whips. This will make you complicit in the tyranny and is precisely the behaviour that brings Westminster into contempt.
So, where does this take us?
I, like others, have been appalled to see our Prime Minister cosying up to repressive regimes in an attempt to build bridges with potential trading partners. To think that we are in danger of rejecting the neighbours who are a mere 20 miles away from us in favour of regimes like Turkey which appears to be becoming more authoritarian and whose candidature to the EU was major issue for Brexiters during the campaign; or Australia, a country we love but which is rather more carbon miles away than could possibly be sensible; or Saudi Arabia who barely seem to believe that women exist as equal citizens. And as for holding hands with the most divisive president of the USA ever, who is intent on prioritising ‘America First’, actively pursuing discriminatory policies, preventing the entry of people from countries he does not like on distinctly dubious grounds, and advocating the break up the EU: the mind boggles. And inviting President Trump for a state visit puts HM the Queen in an impossible position. Is she supposed to hold hands too?
It is hard not to be stunned by the naivety and delusional nature of the thinking.
Has parliament had a say in any of this? No. Despite the promises that ‘Parliament will have an important role in making sure we find the best way forward’ (David Jones MP).
And that brings me full circle to the purpose of this letter.
Enough is enough. I can no longer countenance support for this government in any form. It has already made us a laughing stock around the world. It is betraying the core British values of mature reason, debate and fair dealing. It is riding roughshod over the fragile flower of democracy. In collusion with the media, it is attempting to browbeat the judiciary. It is enabling a repressive narrative of discrimination on the basis of religion, race and nationality. It is openly seeking to circumvent proper debate in both houses of parliament; and it is gulling the people by not allowing an open, reasoned and informed debate or telling them the likely economic and social impact of the decision to leave the EU.
A criminal found guilty in a trial is given leave to appeal so that there can be a second check on the evidence. Some of the people may have spoken in June last year but it seems that there is to be no chance for appeal or rational informed debate on what is surely going to be the most important decision this country will take this century. The current Brexit proposals are tantamount to summary execution without appeal: by being thrown off a cliff.
What this government, and that of the USA do not understand is that making Britain or America ‘great’ again does not mean making them the most physically or economically strong: neither of which is actually possible. Nor does it mean a return to some imagined glory days of the past: which is not possible given globalisation and the nature of our changed economies. Being ‘great’ again means being respected for our calm, mature, rational, human, open-mindedness and willingness to engage; for our respect for parliamentary democracy and not the voice of the rabble: for our soft power not our hard. The governments of both countries are hell bent on what they see as ‘greatness’ and I see as narrow, selfish, nationalism in precisely the opposite direction: a route to ‘littleness’.
I hope when you and I meet again we will be able to discuss some of these issues rationally but please be aware that if you vote for triggering Article 50 in March, I shall be working as hard as I can both to bring down the current administration and to unseat you as our MP at the next election.
I hope you vote with your conscience against triggering Article 50 at the end of March so that you and I can at least claim to be on the side of reason, not of the mob and not of dictatorship.
Best wishes
