Dear Prime Minister,
You have tried your best to get an agreement with the EU that you earlier hoped would be acceptable to a broad section of the population. Through no fault of your own, the attempt has failed. The agreement with the EU satisfies hardly anybody. Thank you for demonstrating 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In the national interest, the Article 50 process should be rescinded or at least suspended.
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.
If you carried out the above program, you would have a very fine legacy indeed.
Yours faithfully,
Mr M G Burt
23rd November 2018
cc Dr Coffey, MP for Suffolk Coastal