DANIEL HANNAN blasts MPs who claim they only want to avoid No Deal

It is not their dishonesty that rankles. It is the insult to our intelligence. 

For three years, Labour and Lib Dem MPs have twisted and turned, seeking to wriggle out of the promises they had given in advance to accept the referendum result.

In the process, they have smashed up our constitution. They have ignored the norms on which our democracy rests. They have torn precedent to shreds. 

They have politicised the Speaker’s chair. They have turned us against one another. They have made our country a laughing stock abroad.

So how did Opposition MPs respond to Mr Johnson securing the thing they had said they wanted? By immediately moving the goalposts. Determined to force him into a delay, they passed an amendment to prevent him from meeting the October 19 deadline

Yet still they carry on, telling us their unconstitutional schemes are somehow all about upholding our constitution, claiming that their contempt for democracy is about trusting the people.

On Saturday, they reached their lowest point yet. Having gone to court to demand that MPs have a ‘meaningful vote’ on the Brexit terms, they chose, when the moment came, to avoid that vote. 

Having spent two years claiming that their chief aim was to avoid a ‘no deal’ Brexit, they rejected the one certain mechanism to prevent such an outcome, namely to vote for a deal. Do they really imagine that voters can’t see what is going on?

At the beginning of September, Opposition MPs passed a measure that required the Prime Minister to ask the EU to extend Britain’s membership unless an agreement had been reached by October 19.

They have ignored the norms on which our democracy rests. They have torn precedent to shreds. They have politicised the Speaker¿s chair. They have turned us against one another. They have made our country a laughing stock abroad.  Speaker John Bercow is seen above

They have ignored the norms on which our democracy rests. They have torn precedent to shreds. They have politicised the Speaker’s chair. They have turned us against one another. They have made our country a laughing stock abroad.  Speaker John Bercow is seen above

The MPs who passed that act – they get cross when Boris Johnson calls it the Surrender Act, so let’s instead go with Abject National Capitulation Act – plainly expected the PM to fail. 

Why, after all, should the EU have granted Britain any concessions once such a law was on the books?

Instead, to general astonishment, Mr Johnson came back with a deal. And not just any deal: a deal which met the supposed concerns of his domestic opponents. 

Under the terms he secured, Britain would recover its sovereignty, taking back control of its laws, taxes, farming and fishing, its industrial and regional policy, its immigration rules and criminal justice system and, not least, its ability to sign trade deals.

It would do all these things with the approval of the EU, paving the way for a close and cordial relationship after Brexit.

So how did Opposition MPs respond to Mr Johnson securing the thing they had said they wanted? By immediately moving the goalposts. 

The MPs who passed that act ¿ they get cross when Boris Johnson calls it the Surrender Act, so let¿s instead go with Abject National Capitulation Act ¿ plainly expected the PM to fail. Sir Oliver Letwin is pictured above

The MPs who passed that act – they get cross when Boris Johnson calls it the Surrender Act, so let’s instead go with Abject National Capitulation Act – plainly expected the PM to fail. Sir Oliver Letwin is pictured above

Determined to force him into a delay, they passed an amendment to prevent him from meeting the October 19 deadline.

As Caroline Flint, the Labour MP for Don Valley, put it: ‘This was a panic measure to reinsert the three-month delay for one reason only, to thwart a deal. The public want an orderly Brexit. This doesn’t help.’

It is worth noting that Miss Flint is one of the few Labour MPs to have stuck to her party’s 2017 general election manifesto. 

Like most of her Labour colleagues, she voted Remain, but fought the subsequent election on a promise to implement the referendum result.

She is now being fiercely criticised by her own side because she is sticking to the promise that they also made.

It would have been less damaging to our democracy if Opposition MPs had at least been upfront. 

Labour and Lib Dem MPs demand a general election while constantly voting to prevent one. They demand a ¿people¿s vote¿ while overtly working to overturn the actual people¿s vote. Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson is pictured above

Labour and Lib Dem MPs demand a general election while constantly voting to prevent one. They demand a ‘people’s vote’ while overtly working to overturn the actual people’s vote. Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson is pictured above

If, in the aftermath of the referendum, they had simply rejected the outcome and refused to trigger the withdrawal process, there would have been an almighty row but at least the legitimacy of our democratic institutions would not have been wrecked.

Instead, they treated voters like idiots. Again and again, they sought to prevent Brexit while pretending that their only real purpose was to allow parliamentary scrutiny.

Their claim to be defending the rules is beyond absurd. 

As Vernon Bogdanor, arguably the country’s leading constitutional expert, puts it, this latest manoeuvre is unconstitutional twice over, violating both the convention that government business must have priority in the Commons and the rule, dating from 1713, that only the government can authorise spending.

In Professor Bogdanor’s words: ‘If MPs disagree with a flagship policy of the government, their right course, instead of hiding behind procedural devices, is to replace the government, either through a vote of no confidence or a general election.’

Quite. But the Opposition parties are now democracy dodgers twice over. They refuse to implement the referendum result as promised and, at the same time, they also refuse to let the country vote in a general election. 

Do they think we can’t see through them? Labour and Lib Dem MPs demand a general election while constantly voting to prevent one. 

They demand a ‘people’s vote’ while overtly working to overturn the actual people’s vote.

And to what end? Suppose that they somehow got their way and cancelled Brexit. What would that achieve? Britain would be kept in the EU as a snarling, subjugated member.

Look at what these repeated postponements have already done to us: MPs needed to be escorted from Parliament by the police on Saturday.

Opposition MPs had plainly hoped that, if they strung things out, people would blame the Government. But Leave voters are not the elderly, working-class thickos that Europhile MPs take them for.

As Caroline Flint, the Labour MP for Don Valley, put it: ¿This was a panic measure to reinsert the three-month delay for one reason only, to thwart a deal. The public want an orderly Brexit. This doesn¿t help

As Caroline Flint, the Labour MP for Don Valley, put it: ‘This was a panic measure to reinsert the three-month delay for one reason only, to thwart a deal. The public want an orderly Brexit. This doesn’t help

They don’t blame the PM for sending a photocopy of the letter mandated by Parliament; they blame the MPs who voted to keep Britain in.

Polls show a growing Conservative lead – a lead that will surely stretch as Brexit Party voters digest the U-turn by Nigel Farage, who last week lined up with the Remain parties to demand an extension.

Pushing the exit date further into the future would mean that a general election was likelier to take place while we are still in the process of leaving – which, contrary to what Remainers had originally hoped, would make Mr Johnson’s majority even larger.

As for the hope that a second referendum might overturn the first, that now looks utterly absurd. Given a choice between cancelling the referendum and leaving on these terms, people would vote to leave.

The war is almost over. The only question for our MPs is how much more damage they do to Parliament on their way out.

Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP.

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