Opinion : Have the Brexiteers rushed in where fools fear to tread?

Leaving the EU will be one of the biggest changes to the UK in recent times.

Indeed Brexit poses tremendous challenges especially since the UK has been entangled with the EEC since 1973.

However my good self has been left shocked at the way events have unfolded since that fateful day in June 2016 when the referendum result was announced.

The Government thought it could trigger Article 50 on its own and just ignore parliament, however an ordinary citizen took the matter to the Supreme Court and bought the Government down a peg or two. Just imagine if the matter had not been taken to court, the Government would potentially have been acting illegally.

Yesterday evening the House of Lords voted for an amendment to the Bill that gives the Government the ability to trigger Article 50. The amendment is aimed at guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens residing in the UK after Article 50 is triggered.

However the Government does not seem to want to guarantee these rights before Brexit. Instead the people from the EU will be used potentially as ‘bargaining chips’ to guarantee the rights of the British citizens who reside in the EU.

Is that anyway to treat innocent people who just happen to find themselves in the UK at the wrong time?

On top of all that all sorts of ‘leaks’, ‘tit-bits’ and other ‘nuggets’ are appearing in the national press detailing what could, may or might happen during the Brexit negotiations.

In my opinion the way our Country is going about Brexit is shameful indeed I fear the Brexiteers are rushing in where fools fear to tread.

Let’s take a look at what actually happened back in June 2016. Oh, and by the way my analysis that follows it that of a bystander without political affiliation.

A Conservative Government gave the people a chance to relay their opinion on Britain staying in the EU through an ‘advisory’ referendum. The result was not legally binding and the people had no reason to believe that the Government would rush ahead to implement the outcome of the ‘advisory’ referendum.

While the voters in mainly Conservative controlled constituencies in the South of the country voted to remain the mainly Labour controlled constituencies in the North tended to vote to leave.

Once the referendum result was announced the incumbent Conservative Prime Minister resigned. Effectively the voters in Labour controlled constituencies had swung the balance. Given the chance to unseat a Conservative Prime Minister it would appear the Labour voters took the opportunity to do so.

The Conservative Party elected a new leader who got on with the job of implementing the Brexit, in fact they go on so fast the Supreme Court had to make a ruling to make the Government follow legal procedure.

When the Brexit Bill was put before parliament the Conservative MP’s all (well mostly all of them) sided with the Government even if a majority of the voters in their respective constituencies had voted to remain.

In our part of the world both the Wycombe and Chiltern constituencies voted to ‘remain’ while Aylesbury and South Bucks voted to ‘leave’ the EU.

Take Wycombe for example, in the June 2016 referendum, of the votes cast, 52.0% (49,261 votes) of people wanted to ‘remain’ while just 48.0% (45,529 votes) were to ‘leave’. A total of 94,790 voters took park in the referendum.

In the 2015 General Election, in the Wycombe constituency, the turnout was only 51,439. Of course MP’s are supposed to represent their constituents so suppose all those who voted to ‘remain’ decide to turn out in 2020 are they likely to vote for Parliamentary candidates who want to leave the EU?

Could it be the case that when the 2020 election comes an awful lot of sitting MP’s will lose their seats? As the case of Wycombe and Chiltern constituencies show there are enough ‘remain’ votes out there to make it happen.

By the time the 2020 election comes the 3,000,000 (or so) EU nationals currently in the UK will have had the opportunity to become British Citizens and hence they will be able to vote in UK elections. Do you think they will vote for MP’s who instigated the ‘leaving’ process and divided their homelands in the EU from the UK? Of course not!

With 3,000,000 extra votes added to the UK electoral system from the EU nationals it’s more than enough to overturn the 1,269,501 majority that ‘leave’ achieved in the June 2016 referendum.

So what will happen to Brexit? In my opinion it will never happen and if it does it will only be temporary.

My prediction (*and I stress the word ‘prediction‘) is that either :

1) The ‘men in grey suits’ will pay a visit to the resident of a house in the SW1A postal area close to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster and advise the occupant to ‘leave’ themselves. A new tenant more supportive of ‘remaining’ will sort out the ‘Brexitmess’.

2) The Brexit negotiations will be bungled and by the time 2019 comes a second referendum will be proposed so the people can ‘have their say’ on the deal that has been reached with the EU thus giving the Government a ‘get out’ opportunity to ‘save their face’ by hoping that the people of the UK decide to ‘remain’ in the EU thus negating the bungled negotiations.

3) Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will all hold their own Independence referendums resulting in the breakup of the United Kingdom.

4) The Labour Party will win the 2020 General Election (aided by the 3,000,000 new votes from the EU nationals whom the Conservatives turned into UK citizens) and take us back into the European Union a year after we left. The seeds were set by Labour voters who put the Conservative Government on a ‘Brexitcourse’ for self destruction in June 2016.

In my opinion Brexit was a good idea, however the implementation is being bungled.

Let’s see what happens – remember where you read it first!

What do you think?

*Please accept my apologies for a longer than usual blog today and one not directly connected with High Wycombe but yours truly felt that I wanted to say the above.

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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