Monday 6 June 2016

Band of Bloggers


Thanks to Roland "White Wednesday" Smith, our comprehensive Brexit plan made a bit of a splash these evening having been announced on Newsnight as the plan under consideration by the civil service. As ever Newsnight managed to make a pigs ear of it without expanding on the critical details but it's free publicity.

There are however, still hardliners out there spitting their dummies out, saying that this simply will not do. It's the freedom of movement complaint again. The news that MPs would force us to remain in the single market has also been met with similar incredulity.

Leading Labour MP Stephen Kinnock though has also suggested that Parliament could push for a Norway-style relationship with the bloc - meaning continued financial contributions and freedom of movement. "If the British people voted to leave the EU that's one thing,” he said. “But can we really say that they voted for the devastation and destruction of the entire exporting sector of our economy?

And that's actually a fair evaluation of the situation. Parliament will have an instruction to leave the EU but it does not have a gun to its head on how to do it. Immigration is not on the ballot paper and this never has been a referendum on immigration. More to the point, parliament doesn't have a choice in the matter. It will likely be the only offer on the table and given how bad the alternative is the argument is pretty much settled.

This still prompts outrage from Dominic Cummings and Vote Leave saying it would be a betrayal, but really if they wanted a different path then the onus was on them to produce a detailed and credible plan based on something more tangible than what Mr Cummings plucks out of the air.

As it happens, I rather suspect we few bloggers pushing Flexcit have only got as far as we have because of the ideas vacuum left by Vote Leave and co.

But this rather demonstrates a more potent point. For all the millions pumped into the campaign by Arron Banks, he was unable to set the agenda as we have. In terms of setting the agenda in the media sphere we are even giving Vote Leave a run for their money. All you need is a plan and a few good men.

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