We Are Leaving...At Last!

Fortunately I still have a pretty good memory...in June 2016 we voted to leave the EU. For many people, especially in the North of England,  it was a long-awaited chance to make the powerful elites in London listen. Shamefully, our politicians failed to take on board the simple message given to them by the people and we spent the next three years going round in circles.

After losing her majority in an ill-advised general election in June 2017, Mrs May spent the next year putting together her Chequers Agreement with the assistance of arch-remainers Phil Hammond and Olly Robbins - a deal of sorts which pleased neither remainer or leaver and wasn't really Brexit. The deal could have kept us trapped in the backstop arrangements and undermine our negotiating position with the EU over a future trade deal. Fortunately our remain Parliament rejected this deal - three times, and Mrs May was forced to agree to extend the leaving date from 31st March to 31st October. She then decided to step down and hand over the reins to Boris Johnson who promised to ditch the backstop and renegotiate a better deal. He promised to take us out of the EU 'do or die' by Halloween!

Much to everyone's surprise, his team did manage to negotiate a new deal and actually succeeded where Theresa May had previously failed by getting the new deal approved in Parliament at its second reading with the help of some Labour MPs from leave voting areas. Unfortunately time was tight and the remain Parliament voted for more time to debate the bill which Boris was not prepared to offer and eventually he was forced to apply for a further Brexit extension to 31st January. The opposition then eventually agreed to the PM's demand to dissolve Parliament and call a general election for 12th December to try to resolve the Brexit deadlock.

This would be the Brexit election - the most important general election since 1979 and the first GE in December for almost a century. The lines of demarcation were clear - the Tories wanted a clear majority to complete the 'oven-ready' deal already negotiated and leave the EU by end January 2020 "Let's get Brexit done". Labour's position was less clear - they would renegotiate a further deal with the EU (no certainty the EU would negotiate a third time), then put this new deal to the public in a second referendum with 'remain' on the ballot and Mr Corbyn would remain 'neutral' on the question of whether to leave or remain although many senior figures say they would campaign to remain. The Lib Dems would revoke Article 50 if they won the election and remain in the EU - no second referendum.

So, a weary nation returned once again to the polling stations and guess what...they voted to see the back of Brexit rather than more delay. The Tories won 365 seats (+47), Labour 203 (-59), it's worst result since 1935 and the Lib Dems a paltry 11 seats and their leader lost her own seat. In Scotland the SNP made a little progress on their ticket to avoid Brexit and push for a second independence referendum and raised their seats to 48. 

Therefore a majority of 80 for Boris Johnson and it can now surely be announced that we are, at last, after three long years of delay, uncertainty and frustration, leaving the EU on 31st January 2020!

Brexit clearly played a big part in how people voted but I think the other defining factor was the rejection of a hard left Corbyn government and lots of feedback from Labour canvassing which suggested many voters just did not see him as a credible leader of the country. Mr Corbyn has already announced he will not lead the Party into the next election so it will be interesting to see whether they persist with the same formula which has lost them the last three GEs. They now have five years to get their act together...next GE will be 2024 (December again?).

We had the vote in 2016

So a good night for those who want us to leave the EU and a bad night for those who refuse to accept the referendum. In 2015, we voted for the party which promised us an in/out referendum on the EU. In that referendum of June 2016 we voted to leave the EU. We had another election in 2017 where 85% of the MPs were elected on manifestos promising to respect the referendum result, 500 MPs voted to trigger Article 50 and now we've voted overwhelmingly for the only party promising to deliver Brexit. I'm hoping the liberal graduate remainers from London and Oxford have finally accepted that the majority of the people of this country want to leave the EU...but somehow I doubt it.

I can just see Barry Blimp metaphorically raising the Union Jack up the flagpole and waving a two finger salute to that People's Vote poster on his office wall which he's been using as a dart board! He allows himself a self-satisfied smile at the thought that democracy has finally prevailed - as he always knew it would.

OK it's not all done and dusted - so now we have to move on to the next stage of trade negotiations with Europe and with other nations around the world which could be just as tricky but the log-jam of the past couple of years is released and I really hope our new parliament can move on to address other important issues - especially the climate emergency.

Feel free to leave a comment below with your thoughts on Brexit and the general election.