Well, the great ship of state sails on at full speed ahead. The captain is in her chair but her navigators are nowhere to be seen. But she has instructions from her shareholders set a course to an unknown destination known as the promised land. Nobody has worked out where it is. Every now and again a navigator briefly appears on the bridge. ‘What progress Davis?’ she barks.
‘We are so close. Just get there quickly. Have faith.’
By now the sunny skies have turned cloudy and their is something beginning to appear on the horizon. Is it the promised land or the rocks? Dorsal fins are circling the ship. Are they sharks or dolphins? The crew are muttering mutiny and are looking lovingly at the lifeboats.If the shareholders are sending us to certain death shouldn’t we have some say in which course to navigate? If our instructions are flawed don’t we have the right to save the ship and crew from destruction?
It is pretty obvious that Britain is on a collision course with reality. The warnings given to us by business and the financial sector are slowly coming to fruition. Prices are beginning to rise because of a weak pound and inflation will soon gnaw at the rotting bones of our economy. There is talk of us reaching parity with the dollar.
This morning we were warned by Tusk that there will be no special concessions for Britain. ‘There will be no cakes on the table’. We are either in the single market or out of it. No deals. Tariffs will slaughter our exports and food prices will rise. Any fool knows that if we are forced to trade under the WTO rules that in as inevitable as night following day.
But I don’t want another referendum. I want the Brextards to be given every opportunity to deliver their promises. I want them to go right up to the line. I want them to come before parliament and explain what they have achieved and then I want parliament to do what it is paid for. To decide.
I would be amazed if the Supreme Court did not rule in favour of parliament having the right to decide whether to trigger Article 50. It is settled law that referenda are merely advisory. It is settled law that one parliament cannot bind another. It’s called sovereignty. If the government is defeated, if May decided to call an election over it the electorate wouldn’t miss out. They would decide the issue of whom they want running a government.
But would May really want to risk going to the people on something so unpredictably dangerous? When people see their living standards fall, lose their jobs and face a decade of uncertainty they might just vote for change. Surely Corbyn or Farron can’t be as bad as the destruction of our economic base? It would be different if May could give us some evidence based answers. She can’t. It’s not her fault, but there will be a time when people will expect straight answers and not a leap of faith.
Corbyn played a master stroke by making Keir Starmer shadow Brexit minister. He is incisive, charming and bright. He will be in the spotlight and centre stage of the whole debate. He will make a very powerful name for himself. I know this is early day’s fantasy, but a party lead by Starmer would be a serious force to reckon with. I suspect that IDS was so unpleasant towards him shows the true fear Brexiteers have of him. For a genuinely decent guy to gradually turn into an arrogant condescending bully has quite shocked me. His boorish behaviour towards Farron on Marr last week was a disgrace.
So the high priests of Brexit have until March to come up with a workable plan. If they can people like me will support them. If they can’t then May is going to have to be courageous and say that this nonsense must stop and put it to a vote. The stock markets will go through the roof, the pound will recover and she will win a stunning mandate in 2020 as the woman who had the guts to save Britain.
