The Brexit shambles of David Davis earlier in the week are in no way nullified by today's news -- we're still heading for a disastrous exit from the EU.
Don’t be tempted to think this morning’s news – that negotiations are moving to the next stage – means the Brexit chaos is now over. Events earlier in the week show the Brexit shambles we’re in.
David Davis’s admission on Wednesday that the impact studies – he said were drawn up in ‘excruciating detail’ – don’t exist and the chancellor Philip Hammond’s admission shortly after that the Government has no clue what it wants from a Brexit deal remain this week’s most insightful stories.
Philip Hammond also conceded that Theresa May’s government, which failed to get a majority in the House of Commons after running a robotic and disastrous election campaign, has no mandate to pursue any specific Brexit deal.
To use the chancellor’s own words: “We haven’t had a specific mandating of an end state position.”
It is welcome to see the Government finally recognise that, for all the talk of ‘the will of the people’, the majority of British people neither voted for the Conservatives nor voted for the kind of extreme Brexit cliff edge they appear determined, through incompetence or design, to drive the country off.
The EU referendum was a snapshot that revealed a paper-thin majority of people who voted wanted Britain to leave the European Union. Nothing more, nothing less. The people did not cast a vote on the future relationship between the UK and the EU.
In fact, not only was there no Brexit manifesto on the ballot paper – Brexiteers themselves offered anything but a unifying vision of a post-Brexit Britain.
The one thing upon which a great number of Leave campaigners could agree, as Twitter reminds us, is that Brexit should not mean leaving the Single Market.
At the same time, the only thing the Government has made clear is that Brexit will mean ejecting Britain from the Single Market.
Except for Northern Ireland which, in parallel with David Davis’s Brexit studies that both do and don’t exist, will both stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union while being outside of the Single Market and the Customs Union like the rest of the UK.
Except for Scotland, London, Cornwall, Grimsby and other parts of the UK that want assurances, they will remain in the Single Market and the Customs Union. Confused? No more than the politicians supposedly in charge of the Brexit process.
Did the British people vote for a Brexit shambles? Demonstrably not. Did the British people vote for a coalition of chaos where a party which represents less than 1% of voters has the final say on any Brexit deal?
No. Does the British public think the Government is on course to deliver a good deal? No. Are people changing their mind about Brexit as the reality becomes clear? Yes. Do people want to have the final say on the once-in-a-lifetime decision to define Britain’s future? Yes.
More and more polling has shown that the public is not just disatisfied with the Tory infighting derailing any chance of productive progress on Brexit negotiations but that a majority of Brits now support a referendum on the terms of the final deal; a so-called ratification referendum.
This is something Greens have consistently called for. The EU referendum should have been the start of a democratic process, not the end of one.
The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, after this week’s admission, must take the next logical step and accept that the only way to get the mandate the Government lacks is to offer voters the chance to decide for themselves whether to accept, or not, the deal Ministers have negotiated in their name.
Greens continue to believe that once it is clear what the outcome of the negotiations is people must have the ability to change their minds. Especially as the reality of the impact Brexit will have on our economy and our environment is made transparent.
Hammond knows that the Government has no licence to drive Britain off a Brexit cliff edge – it’s time to give the public the chance to slam on the brakes.
Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.
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