Second quote of the day 19th May 2019
"Not leaving EU provides Farage with an historic grievance which will deform our politics for years. The economic cost is worth paying to avoid horrible ruinous paralysing extremism. Democrats have to abide by the ballot box."
Tweet from Charlie Falconer - yes. that's right, Tony Blair's old flatmate Lord Falconer - getting spectacularly right what his former boss has been getting so egregiously wrong, in response to an article by Phil Collins in the Times
That article, which can be read here, begins as follows:
"Nigel Farage was always destined to be the winner in the great Brexit fiasco. Either Britain leaves the European Union, in which case his political mission is fulfilled, or we do not, in which case his political career is revived. His best and most dangerous days might now be ahead of him."
But it's not just Farage. If we don't deliver what the British people voted for, every conspiracy theorist, everyone who has ever said "If voting changed anything they'd abolish it" and that the establishment would never let the ordinary people make a real change won't just feel vindicated, they will have a point. Every extremist group will be boosted. The result will poison our politics for decades to come.
And to all the individuals and parties, many of them highly intelligent, many of them people whose views on other issues I greatly respect, who think that now we have seen how difficult negotiating Brexit has proved there should be another vote, I say this.
Imagine that the party you support won a general election, attempted to carry out the programme on which is had been elected, and all the people who had supported other political parties were screaming that now we could see what that programme really meant in practice there should be a "People's vote" e.g. a new election to give voters a chance to change their minds.
Would you give the arguments now being advanced for another referendum any consideration if they were put forward to try to overturn a general election which your party had won?
I think we all know that in the vast majority of cases the answer is no.
Even Charlie Falconer can see that we need to leave. It is time for our MPs to find a way to do so.
Tweet from Charlie Falconer - yes. that's right, Tony Blair's old flatmate Lord Falconer - getting spectacularly right what his former boss has been getting so egregiously wrong, in response to an article by Phil Collins in the Times
That article, which can be read here, begins as follows:
"Nigel Farage was always destined to be the winner in the great Brexit fiasco. Either Britain leaves the European Union, in which case his political mission is fulfilled, or we do not, in which case his political career is revived. His best and most dangerous days might now be ahead of him."
But it's not just Farage. If we don't deliver what the British people voted for, every conspiracy theorist, everyone who has ever said "If voting changed anything they'd abolish it" and that the establishment would never let the ordinary people make a real change won't just feel vindicated, they will have a point. Every extremist group will be boosted. The result will poison our politics for decades to come.
And to all the individuals and parties, many of them highly intelligent, many of them people whose views on other issues I greatly respect, who think that now we have seen how difficult negotiating Brexit has proved there should be another vote, I say this.
Imagine that the party you support won a general election, attempted to carry out the programme on which is had been elected, and all the people who had supported other political parties were screaming that now we could see what that programme really meant in practice there should be a "People's vote" e.g. a new election to give voters a chance to change their minds.
Would you give the arguments now being advanced for another referendum any consideration if they were put forward to try to overturn a general election which your party had won?
I think we all know that in the vast majority of cases the answer is no.
Even Charlie Falconer can see that we need to leave. It is time for our MPs to find a way to do so.
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