Over the last two years, the UK has been embarrassed, beaten down and bruised. Citizens have become confused, despondent and feel left in the dark. My hope now is that what we see in the near distance is the slightest glimpse of light at the end of the long, twisted and terrifying tunnel that the UK has been lost in since 2016.
Nobody can argue that the decision to leave the EU has already been made. Brexiters lost the right to use this argument when they made false promises to the millions of people who were misled during the Leave campaign. They lost the right to use this argument when they created the conditions which require the stockpiling of medications, risk a 17-mile queue of lorries on the M20 and triggered warnings on fresh food stocks and the loss of businesses and trade deals alike. They lost the right to use this argument when this government stopped putting the lives of citizens first, as a proper government should.
The opinions of people in 2016 are not the opinions of people now. The government’s feigned promises from 2016 have not been met and the Prime Minister is now attempting to deliver a completely inadequate Brexit that nobody voted for. Every day, more and more people realise that remaining in the EU is the most promising foreseeable end to Brexit, the end that would not leave citizens poorer and worse off, and the end that the people want.
It is no secret that the Prime Minister has made an absolute mess of Brexit. Three MPs of her own party broke away because of the disarray she has caused, joining the eight MPs who left Labour because of both the party’s divisive Brexit rift and abhorrent failure to address anti-Semitism. The Tory government has lost any mandate given to it by the Tory party, which is now so dysfunctional and divided that it is merely a party in name and name only. Practically an extremist party within the Conservatives, the ERGs are puppeteering the government to fulfil its wishes, and the Prime Minister is allowing it. This is not a leadership equipped to make such a drastic and lasting agreement, especially considering it can’t even keep its own MPs’ support.
In a final attempt to save some Brexit dignity, the Prime Minister announced a series of votes that will take place this week. By the end of today, MPs will finally have the chance to vote down the unacceptable deal that the Tories have been sitting on for far too long. Today should be the end of that deal forever.
With the valid assumption that the deal will fail, a vote by the end of Wednesday will allow Parliament to eliminate the possibility of a no-deal Brexit once and for all. Not a moment too soon – a no-deal Brexit would be the most catastrophic ending to this drawn-out nightmare and must be avoided at all costs.
As long as the government’s Brexit deal and no-deal are both dismissed, the third and final vote in the provided timeline, which will be held by Thursday, will be to extend Article 50. This is the slight glimmer that I spoke of earlier. An extension to Article 50 can help to dig us out of this wretched hole, but only in the event that it is to make time for a People’s Vote with an option to stay in the EU.
I am sure that the government will seek to sell any extension as further time to negotiate with the EU, to make some sort of new deal – but this is preposterous. The EU has made it undeniably clear that they will not accept another deal, so there is no point in the government kicking the can even further down the road. An extension of Article 50 should result in one thing and one thing only: giving the final say in what happens to the future of our people back to the people themselves.
Imagine Brexit as a train with no final destination, on a track that leads off a cliff. The Brexit train is nearing that cliff, and there is only one more stop to get off before it plunges to its inevitable doom. That last stop — that final chance to make it out alive — is a People’s Vote, and it’s fast approaching. The only question now is if the government will open the doors to let us off the train, or if Parliament will grab control from the driver asleep at the wheel, and put on the brakes before we reach the cliff edge.
Tom Brake is the Lib Dem MP for Carshalton and Wallington