Wednesday 11 September 2019

Another referendum? Supine madness. Just stay in the EU.

I hope there is someone else out there who feels like screaming when a Remainer says we should have another referendum. This morning Tom Watson said Labour should be unequivocally for staying in the EU; but then added this twist of supine madness. There should be another referendum.

Why?

Is there a law somewhere that says Britain's foreign and trading policies have to be decided by referendums? This is the real poison of the Brexit story. It's not just Brexit itself, it's this attack on our parliamentary democracy with this crass stupidity that there is some mythical will of the people out there that can be discerned by a referendum.

Why can't politicians like Tom Watson and Jo Swinson have the courage to say publicly and loudly that referendums are stupid and dangerous. And, as Attlee so famously said, they are used by unpleasant people: 'Dictators and demagogues'.

No hospital in its right mind would allow patients and staff to vote on the best way for a surgeon to conduct a heart operation. It would be madness. But that's the madness that has now infected our political discourse.

The Farage crowd think this is terrible elitism - to say that ordinary people can't answer the simple question, in or out of the EU. But that's the truth. The question is far too complicated for most people. In terms of diplomacy, defense, trade, Northern Ireland, Scotland - this is a question for political heart surgeons.

And we have plenty of them, in the Civil Service and in parliament. And we're paying them a fortune. Let them get on with the job. They have the whole picture. If it is clearly in Britain's national interest to leave the EU then parliament and the Civil Service will come to that conclusion. The heart surgeons will do their job.

Surely it's time to get the kids out of the headmaster's study and let the proper authorities take the decisions.

So - unless they are supine - please Watson and Swinson and any other politician who believes remaining in the EU is the national interest stand up and reject all this referendum talk. Just say if we win power in a General Election we will cancel that cowardly Cameron referendum and we will stay in the EU.

And be encouraged. Farage has never won a seat in parliament - not for lack of trying.

Ah, a final fear - the Brexiteers will come out into the streets. Yes. And then they will go back again and when they sail through the border at Dover they will be grateful. 

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