Richard Lutz tries to persuade his MP to turn his back on No Deal come October.
My MP is Bill Grant. He represents Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock in South Ayrshire. The local area voted 59% to stay in the EU. Mr Grant, a Conservative who swept aside the Scottish Nationalists in the 2017 election, also voted Remain. But times have changed. So I wrote him this letter which includes one or two grammatical improvements.
Dear Mr Grant,
Thank you for spending time with my wife and me during your recent surgery in Ayr. You made your stance on Brexit clear – and we appreciate this gesture as our MP.
As I remember our discussion, you were a remainer up to the referendum. You voted remain. Then you changed your mind to follow public opinion to leave the EU. Now that the Conservative leader and Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that we may leave with no deal, your are still unsure what your next step will be.
If that is still the present case, please remember what we agreed as our talk ended: No Deal does not really mean no deal simply because on 1st November, if there is no deal, Britain will have to deal and negotiate over trade, security and other main issues.
No deal will lead to dealing and negotiating. To wit, the US diplomat Mr John Bolton said as much when he said his country is ready to talk trade once no deal takes place; ie, negotiations will begin, ergo, deal making will begin.
No deal, Mr Grant, is a cul de sac and a basic misnomer. Hard fought deals will follow it. I accept that your loyalty to a political party takes precedence over your initial principle to remain. But please don’t back a No deal when it comes before our democratic institution, the Commons. It would a retrograde, useless and harmful gesture to leave without an agreement. And with your acknowledged enlightened views on Northern Ireland (and by inference its border with Eire) that you articulated in a previous chat with us when you first entered the House, it would jeopardise hard won peace in Ulster.
Richard Lutz
Footnote: Mr Grant’s office in Westminster acknowledged receipt of my letter and said, due to increased volume of emails, he will not personally reply to correspondence regarding government policy, but his stance on main issues will appear on his website. This, the response, says, is in line with ‘current practice’.
Oh the possibilities……………
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/world/europe/brexit-constitution-johnson-queen.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=World%20News
Why do you not start a campaign for all those who oppose “no deal” to write to their MPs? Then the delusion that there was some mandate for such a course would be well and exposed as such.
I like the point about no deal being an impossibility in so far as deals must always be done.
That’s encouraging.
Our political system has been in spasm since the referendum. Few expected the result but the reaction of the losing side has been the truly alarming feature of the subsequent 3 years. When I have been on the losing side in an election I hold that those on the other side have erred but I do not start campaigning for another immediate election on the basis that the winners are misled ignoramuses of dubious moral standing much as I may think that. Why wouldn’t I?
Everyone holds that their view is the right one!
An alarming aspect this issue is the way the debate seems to have become polarised along class and geographical lines.
If the result is not enacted, beware the backlash. 17.4 million voters could swing behind nationalist parties like Brexit.
Although remainders hold that the slim majority in the referendum is inadequate to legitimate such a far reaching consequence remember that if the referendum vote is analysed as a general election it gives leavers the same number of seats in parliament as Labour won in 1997. That was called a ‘landslide’.
The whole mess is pretty unpalatable but if I was a betting man I’d say Cummings has got it right. A no confidence vote in September. Total disarray among opposition parties. Some Tory blood in the water pour encourager les autres, parliament stood down for a few weeks prior to an election in November. Out of the EU on Halloween and a big Conservative majority.
Hey ho.
60% of Labour constituencies voted to leave. Those 72+MPs know they won’t have a future if Labour becomes a party of remain.
Nancy Pelosi and Richard Neal have a very different view of what might happen to any proposed US/UK trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement is undermined or damaged by Brexit.
I will use part of this to send to Roger Godsiff my MP