UK politicians have ignored people’s vote to take back sovereignty
Re: “In Brexit, a cautionary tale for politicians”, Editorial, February 2-3.
Your editorial was a refreshing change to the usual anti-Brexit rants that infest The Nation, but please permit me one nitpick. “Brexit, at root an economic issue…”, you say. It is not. Brexit is an issue of sovereignty; an issue of who makes British law. Economic and other issues flow from there.
Turning to the thrust of your argument, which highlights the pitfalls when the views of an elected leader are out of synch with those of the electorate, I refer readers to the grilling of Steve Baker MP, former Brexit minister, by the European Scrutiny Committee on January 30 (video available at parliamentlive.tv website). The skeletons tumbling from the cupboard reveal the jaw-dropping abuses of state power which Theresa May and her coterie of advisers resorted to in pursuing her wretched EU withdrawal deal, famously referred to as a “turd” by former foreign secretary Boris Johnson. The electorate was deceived, parliament was misled, and even her own Brexit ministers were sidelined. This pig-headed woman managed to convert a straightforward administrative task into an unmitigated disaster and has no precedent in British governance or politics.
A cautionary tale indeed!
Nigel Pike
Phang Nga
