Dear Mr Corbyn,
I’ve just joined the Labour party because I want to stop Brexit.
Brexit in all its forms, hard, soft or even slightly runny, will hit the poorest and most disadvantaged the hardest. How can anyone with a heart or any social conscience stand back and let this happen? Haven’t they suffered enough already?
I think your message to your core vote in your heartlands should be : It’s all a Tory Trap! The Brexitmongers, got you to vote Leave as a protest against austerity etc. Ha! Ha! They say, you are really going to get austerity now and we can just said you voted for it! No wonder one of the New European Christmas cards has a picture of Jacob “ Crackers” Rees Mogg, in full morning dress with the speech bubble “ Merry Christmas Peasants!”.
Do you really want to help such people destroy what social progress that we have made just because you think the EU might get in the way of some of your more radical social policies. I doubt if the EU would if we are seriously engaged with them. They have much bigger fish to fry.
I regard the creation of the NHS as the finest political achievement during my and your lifetime. It was, is and will be, forever known as a Labour achievement. The Tories do not have anything like it as an object of national pride. They would love to weaken it further, and Brexit is just the excuse they need. Is it not worth sacrificing any ambivalence you have towards the EU to save that inheritance?
The government has tried to get an agreement with the EU that they hope would be acceptable to a broad section of the population. The attempt has failed. The agreement with the EU satisfies hardly anybody. It has now been demonstrated that a negotiated leave agreement with the EU that is acceptable to a broad section of the population is not possible.
The way forward is as follows.
In retrospect, the 2016 referendum result should not have been given the prominence it has received. The result should now be annulled in accordance with our treaty obligations within The Council of Europe ( Venice Commision) because of the associated law breaking. The small majority makes any irregularity significant.
In the national interest, the Article 50 process should be rescinded or at least suspended. Do not believe the nonsense saying this cannot be done. Article is not a statute. It is an agreement between 28 parties. If all parties agree to suspend a clause in their agreement, then suspended it can be.
Those who support leave, in particular the European Research Group, should be told to draw up a most detailed plan as to how they would leave with a completely clean break from the EU. They should list and examine all the treaties/agreements that would become void on leaving and examine exactly what the consequences would be. And then they should explain how they would replace these treaties/agreements and explain how they are going to get at least as good or better ones than those we have got already; and from an abysmally weak bargaining position to boot. In short they should put up ( i.e. actually do some real research) or shut up.
If the Leave camp were to produce such a plan, we could have a vote in Parliament between remaining in the EU and leaving with the European Besmirch ( sorry Research) Group’s clean break. Failing any detailed plan from the Leave campaign the status quo should be maintained i.e. we remain in the EU.
If, as I suspect, MPs would vote to remain, the issue does not stop there. We really need to find out why people are against the EU. We need a national campaign of education to make it clear what is good and what is bad about the EU, and change national policy where appropriate and get really engaged with the EU to fight for appropriate reforms. The EU is so large that we will always have to abide by it’s rules whatever happens, so we might as well be in there and at the decision making table.
If you supported the above program, you would really have served the national interest, saved the poor and disadvantaged yet more suffering, saved the NHS and have a legacy to be proud of.
Yours sincerely,
Mr M G Burt
25th November 2018
cc Mr K Starmer