Revoke Article 50 - open letter to MPs

I'm trying not to make this blog one long despairing howl of Brexit pain, but life comes at you fast and we're now in national crisis territory, as the Operation Yellowhammer/Redfold civil emergency plans & explosive growth in numbers signing the petition to revoke Article 50 show us.

That's why this post is just an adaptation of a letter I've written to my MP, hopefully as a rough template/inspiration for others who've already written asking their representaives in Parliament to back a referedum on the final deal and been brushed off with a bland boilerplate reply and the asserion that the UK is leaving the EU on the 29th of March and we must all "unite" to make the mess we've been presented with work.

Please feel free to copy n' paste use, adapt, critique, write a better letter, whatever. But please try to do something. It may be more in hope than expectation of changing minds, but this shit is getting real now:

Dear *****

On **/**/**, you responded to my [email//letter] regarding the proposal for UK to withdrawal from the European Union and concluded by saying that we are leaving on the 29th March and that we need to unite to make it a success. As you will be aware, this will not be happening on this date, so I am writing to you again to urge you to think seriously about the choices you are about to make and their effect on your constituents and the country.

Firstly, I would remind you that, having done nothing to meet the demands of myself and other constituents for a vote on the final deal, when the details became available, you have had the privilege of being able to consider the deal and vote on it twice in Parliament already, with another vote to come.

The agreement has twice been rejected decisively by the House. All available polling evidence shows that it is at least as unpopular among voters as it is among MPs, satisfying neither those of us who wish to remain in the European Union, or those who wish to leave. The government has negotiated for two years and has come back with a deal which does not preserve the advantages we enjoy as a member of the largest free market on the planet, or meet the promises of the leave campaigns to somehow replace this great deal with a better one. It is, by any reasonable standards, a failure.

The unpopularity of the deal aside, it also puts the UK in a materially weaker bargaining position in international trade negotiations, subjecting this country to pressures which endanger our National Health Service, food standards and employment rights.

What are the alternatives?

The UK could leave the EU without a deal, an outcome so catastrophic that contingency plans for what would amount to a state of civil emergency are being prepared (Operation Yellowhammer/Redfold) and the House of Commons have rightly rejected this as an option, although if no deal is agreed this is the default position.

Voters could have, and should have, been granted a referendum on the final deal, but the Government have failed to seek our informed consent on the terms of exit  and, having run down the clock, it is hard to see how this can now happen.

The only alternative which remains, if you are not to harm your constituents, is for Parliament to press for Article 50 to be revoked. This is not my preferred option, but we are left with no good choices, only damage limitation. You will be aware of the petition to revoke article 50, which is being signed at an unprecedented rate. Do not underestimate the anger and frustration of those who have been driven to add their names to it, having been denied a final say in the most important decision affecting their future, as the result of a marginal result in an advisory referendum, so tainted by disinformation, foreign interference, gerrymandering and criminal electoral fraud, that the result would have been voided, if the referendum had been binding.

Unlike some of the more vocal leave advocates, I am not threatening violence or civil unrest, but be assured, if the UK is taken out of the EU, either under the terms of the Prime Minister’s terrible deal, or a catastrophic no deal, millions like me will not rest until every politician who facilitated this avoidable national crisis, in defiance of clear evidence and explicit warnings, is voted out of office.

Please do not act under the mistaken belief that your constituents or the nation will ever to unite to make this botched deal a success.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely

****