For Remainers: Why the H of C Should Sit On Its Hands

I forget his name but a Tory strategist said he would have preferred a coalition, even loose one, with the Liberal Democrats than rely on the Democratic Unionist Party with its cultural backwards stance.

Of course, it’s hard luck. It could even be payback time, in the sense that the Tory reward for the Liberal Democrat prop from 2010 to 2015 was to massacre the Liberal Democrats in the pursuit of a majority. Had the Liberal Democrats been considered for such an offer and accepted, they would have lost my vote and a great many more forever. However, we know from Theresa May’s past that her values, in so much as she has shown them, are more in keeping with the DUP than the Lib Dems.

It is time for Theresa May and the Conservatives to stew in their own juice. Theirs is the worst of all worlds now, because they have to continue to govern, but have lost authority to do it and will stagger on in weakness.

I don’t wish to be unkind to Labour, but the fact is that in conditions of a two party system the Labour Party has to be fantastically popular to win a majority. Whereas the Conservatives need about 317 to govern (no Sinn Fein plus usual DUP support), Labour needs 322. Labour also needs to get these seats in England, which is tougher for them than the Tories.

Labour will get a majority if it holds and builds its support, gets the young out again (crucial), and yet sees a return to a three party system where the Liberal Democrats can take fed-up Tory voters. it will be the decay of the Tories and Liberal Democrats taking Tory votes that will let Labour in.

Now the Remain in the EU strategy WAS to wait for the negotiations to start to fail (cost, complication, arguing about lack of representation reducing sovereignty) and then persuade people to change their minds via a General Election or Referendum. The Tory factions either side would have undermined any result for negotiating, but the assumption was some result to withdraw.

Then Theresa May pulled a fast one, so that the Liberal Democrats failed to make traction (but also the leadership was rubbish). The prospect was that the remain side was stuffed by this clever General Election call by Theresa May’s two advisors. Her majority would have overcome various Tory factions.

Now that their/ her gamble has failed, and the position is worse than ever. I am not a remainer seeking a soft exit; I am a remainer seeking to stay in the EU.

The strategy should now be different and work in two directions.

First is the argument that we could now be heading for the rights and costs of being in the EU – even in the single market and customs union – but we won’t be able to affect policy. We therefore need to retain sovereignty by staying in, that is in the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and providing personnel into the Commission. To leave the EU is to lose sovereignty, because others will make decisions without us. Staying in is the simplest and most cost-effective option.

Secondly, do not help the Tories. There is the idea that the House of Commons should be ‘responsible’ and ‘constructive’. No it should not. Let the leavers and the turncoats (Remainers actively taking us out, like May) own the policy and carry it through. If they can. Let them and no one else pass The Great European Communities Repeal Bill

They do not possess the intellectual or person-power resources to do it. They are also politically tired: the body politic was not refreshed by this general election (as it usually is). They will have fifteen months of a lame duck leader and factions both sides working on this leave project.

The clock ticks to the point that Article 50 will be invoked. When that comes, it is a cliff edge. We will have to appeal to a unanimity of the twenty seven to stop the clock for a period. The 27, or one or more of them, may well decide that, yes, they will pause the clock but that the negotiations are so tiresome, so troublesome, so muddled, that the clock can only be stopped for good.

In other words, the choice will be the cliff edge or staying in. And then the EU may offer a looser outer circle membership, that requires adjustment and little more. All the complication of extraction will be avoided. And then the people who voted to stay in, and some more, and who realise the benefits of sharing politically and economically with others, will be happy.

Meanwhile, do not underestimate UKIP and Farage. But they will do it with a threat to take Tory votes again (from a low base) but more importantly via Tory MPs of their persuasion. There will be UK Independence Tories. No problem. They will just add to the chaos in a House of Commons more sympathetic to a softer exit or none, and which will hopefully sit on its hands and watch the Tories sink in their own juices.

A General Election in two or three years will be one that finishes all this and we carry on as before, hopefully with a socially progressive Labour government or progressive alliance.

Liberal and Thoughtful Website creator; critical examiner of social sciences and theology, religious liberal, ‘terror blogger’.