Dear Sir,

Mr John D. Clare wouldn’t know “Democracy” if it sat down next to him and paid for his lunch. From the ancient Greek Democracy is; Demos = People and Kratos = Power, in modern language People Power. Since when have people nationally or locally had the “Power” to influence those supposedly elected to “represent” their wishes? It’s a genuine question people?

Never is the answer.

We had a referendum in 2016 and just in case Mr Clare has forgotten a majority returned a “Leave” result. The question was simple enough; remain or leave, as was the result.

Since that date Parliament and people of Mr Clare’s ilk have done everything in their power to delay frustrate and overturn that mandate. So instead of moaning about Prorogation of Parliament (a common occurrence anyway) perhaps he should be representing the wishes of most of the constituents who voted leave and get on with it. Wherefore then democracy Mr Clare?

This is no longer a debate about the EU or anything in seeking a viable outcome to BREXIT: It is instead a fight to the death over the soul of this country. Are we to exist under a technocracy ruled by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels while our domestic politics is demoted to virtue signalling and banning this or that, or are we going to be a serious self-governing country?

I’d like a managed departure from the EU but that’s not on offer. Instead I’m being forced to choose between two fundamentalist factions I despise in equal measure. I still find the remain camp the more obnoxious of the two given their sense of entitlement, total disregard for a majority vote and total lack of self-awareness but there’s nothing much to like about the Brexit “No Deal” exit blob either.

None of this is as cut and dry as either side would have us believe. Whether remainers like it or not, leave did win the referendum and there is a mandate to leave. And whether leavers like it or not, Parliament’s role is supposedly to steer the process of a smooth and orderly withdrawal and scrutinise the executive in doing so. And instead of doing this, they have sought to frustrate Brexit.

No doubt remain forces in parliament are hoping to stop Brexit but if there’s more than a handful who can be taken at their word when they say that they are simply trying to stop us leaving without a deal only time will tell.

My hope is that parliament can succeed in forcing a delay, for one last roll of the dice. If the withdrawal agreement can be rammed through, then we have the basis for a Brexit with a viable starting point for negotiating an ongoing relationship with our closet trading partner with minimal impact on our trade, jobs and economy. If a no deal occurs due to the infantile behaviour of our MP’s then they will reap what they sow.

Though Parliament has done nothing to deserve the trust I’m lending it, one last vote now before they realise the very real danger of no deal will be the true test of their sincerity. If they get one last chance to avoid no deal and they still don’t pass the agreement, (the only one the EU is willing to offer people! How many times does the EU have to say no further negotiation take it or leave it) then we can say unequivocally that this really is the people versus their parliament.

If we end up staying in the EU because of the MP’s ignoring the referendum then a question needs to be asked. What happens when half the country feels like their vote has been nullified on the say so of a ruling class widely perceived to be out of touch and acting in defiance of their electorates? How do they go about rebuilding trust in democracy?

And here’s the problem. The remainers haven’t thought that far ahead. Stopping Brexit for its own sake is their sole objective with a view to returning to business as usual which just isn’t going to happen. Should they get their way, they won’t even realise that half their country hates their guts or even see the need for reconciliation measures. They’re in a world of their own which is in part why we ended up voting to leave.

The genie does not go back in the bottle. We are looking at years of political instability, violent protest, fragile governments and a divided, fragmenting nation. Remaining brings no closure and is not a remotely sustainable answer to the current dilemma.

The essence of this problem is EU membership does not accommodate the diversity of ideas in the country, how can it when the sole purpose of the EU is to homogenise everything into one size fits all?

Continued membership ensures a large section of the public who have long felt disenfranchised and effectively have been by the social democratic consensus told once again that their votes don’t matter when the establishment doesn’t like the result of a vote, then there are always workarounds to implement and ignore that mandate. At that point you have no hope of a new consensus and the social contract lies in tatters.

Were MPs not blinded by their own respective dogma they would see that Britain needs a solution that brings about closure to this issue? That they have each fought each other to a standstill, each pushing for equally unavailable destinations, is a total failure of our political institutions for which there is no clear way back. Remainers want to remain because they think, or at least hope, everything goes back to the normal of 2010. But we are not that country anymore. That country was gone for good in 2016. Now we have to build a new one. And it can’t be an EU member.

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