Leaving the EU

The Conservatives fought the 2015 general election on a promise to hold a referendum on Britain's EU membership and honour the result, and were elected having made that promise.

Parliament then voted by a huge majority to put the question of whether Britain should remain a member state of the EU to a referendum.

That referendum was duly held in June 2016 and it is worth reminding ourselves what question the British people were asked: here is a picture of the ballot paper.

It didn't mention a "WTO" or "No Deal" Brexit or a customs union or ask anything about whether there should be a trade deal with the other countries of the EU (though leading Leave campaigners said during the referendum campaign that they were confident it would be easy to get a trade deal which gave Britain easy access to EU markets and vice versa.)

The referendum ballot paper asked about the broad strategic question - Remain or Leave - and the assumption was that parliament would then sort out what a Remain or Leave vote meant. With 20:20 hindsight more thought should have been given to this and there should probably have been a second question on the referendum ballot paper about what sort of relationship Britain should try to negotiate with the EU in the event of a vote to leave. But that is water under the bridge.

In the referendum there were 17,410,742 votes to leave (51.9%) and 16,141,241 votes to Remain (48.1%)

That is not an overwhelming majority but the majority of 1,269,501 was large enough to make it almost certain that neither some tweets from Russian bots or the net effect of the misbehaviour by both sides in the campaign changed the result.

Campaigners for a second referendum often make a big fuss about the fact that Leave campaigners were fined for breaking the rules but mysteriously fail to mention that Remain campaigners including the official Remain campaign, the Liberal Democrats, the pro-remain campaign group "Best for our Future" and the Unison and GMB Trade Unions, and the European Movement, were all also fined for breaches of campaign spending rules.

Somehow I doubt that in an alternative reality in which Remain had won the referendum by a narrow but clear margin, the Leave campaign had been squeaky clean, and former leave campaigners were therefore now arguing for a fresh "People's vote" on the grounds of the financial irregularities on the Remain campaign side, that any of those who are making a similar argument for a new referendum in this reality would be doing do in that one. Or vice versa,

Following on from that referendum both the Conservative and Labour parties fought the 2017 election on a platform of honouring the referendum result and secured between them well over 80% of the vote.

Put this together and although there is no overwhelming mandate for any particular form of Brexit, it is quite clear that there is a triple mandate to leave the EU which combines the results of the 2015 election, the 2016 referendum and the 2017 election.

I understand the position of those who have different views on how to do this, but it really is high time that those who accept the democratic decision of the British electorate sat down together and found a way to agree on how to implement it, and to do that somebody is going to compromise instead of insisting that everyone else do so. And those who refuse to compromise have only themselves to blame if a compromise is reached which they don't like.

Anyone who has read more than one or two posts on this blog cannot have failed to pick up that I am not exactly a fan of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. I understand why many people - some in the Conservative party, one or two that I have met on the doorstep in the last few days while campaigning - are surprised that the Prime Minister held talks with him. 

I really don't think she had any choice. 

• She believes she is under orders from the voters of Britain to deliver Brexit (and I agree with her on that point.) 
• She has to get that through parliament. 
• We have reached the stage where she has to explore every option which might enable parliament to pass Brexit and implement the decision of the electorate.

The above is my opinion. Here is the latest official statement of "the line" on the subject.

"The Prime Minister’s top priority is to deliver Brexit and deliver what people voted for – and to do this, we need to get a deal over the line. 

Key facts:

• Because Parliament has made clear it will stop the UK leaving without a deal, we now have a stark choice: leave the European Union with a deal or do not leave at all. 
• The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have different opinions on a number of issues, but the fact is that on Brexit there are areas where the two main parties agree: we both want to end free movement, we both want to leave with a good deal, and we both want to protect jobs. 
• That is the basis for a compromise that can win a majority in Parliament and winning that majority is the only way to deliver Brexit. 
• The longer this takes, the greater the risk of the UK never leaving at all. It would mean letting the Brexit the British people voted for slip through our fingers. It is essential we deliver what people voted for and to do that we need to get a deal over the line. 
• To achieve this the Prime Minister will go to Brussels this week to seek a short extension to Article 50. The intention is to reach an agreement with fellow EU leaders that will mean if we can agree a deal here at home we can leave the EU in just six weeks. 

Why this matters: 

We must deliver Brexit and to do so we must agree a deal – so we can then get on with building a new relationship with our nearest neighbours that will unlock the full potential of Brexit and deliver the brighter future that the British people voted for."