Sir,
Here is my Open Letter to my MP, Liz Truss. You have my permission to publish my letter in INDEPENDENCE Daily:
“Dear Elizabeth Truss MP,
There is a debate scheduled for 14 January 2019 and I along with nearly a thousand of your constituents have supported Government Petition 229963 “Leave the EU without a Deal in March 2019”.
This is the most signed Government petition ever. I urge you to remember that you are elected to represent our wishes and therefore to give your wholehearted and unreserved support to the aims of this petition.
As we are fast approaching the presentation of a so-called deal with the EU to the UK parliament it has become a matter of critical importance that we come together to urge you to reject the calamitous Chequers betrayal.
It has become patently clear that walking away from negotiations and pursuing a no deal Brexit is now in the UK’s best interests. Contrary to the decidedly and deliberately negative rhetoric surrounding a no deal departure, using terms such as “chaotic” and “cliff edge”, abandoning talks in Brussels actually places the destiny of the UK entirely and firmly in the UK’s hands.
Nothing could provide a nation with more certainty than being the master of its own future. It would mean opening the nation up to truly global trade, initially based upon World Trade Organisation schedules that the UK helped to co-author. WTO Article XXIV provides for a negotiation period of at least 10 years for parties to conclude a free trade agreement, during which there can be no changes in tariffs or duties by either party towards the other, so there is no “cliff edge” risk, it is a pure political mirage of warrantless fear. Negotiations can take place after we have left the EU, our law has been aligned with EU law, and our standards and certification agreed to remain in force already. The United Kingdom awaits the certainty of this action as soon as possible.
A clean, no deal Brexit would also mean restoring full and unadulterated sovereignty in all areas of governance back to the directly elected UK Parliament. It would mean keeping hold of £39 billion thus far promised to Brussels as part of a divorce agreement and retaining the billions of pounds we currently pass to Brussels to effectively rule us for their own ends.
It is a fact that 92% of UK businesses do no trade with the EU at all. Tying the UK into a EU-centric stranglehold is sacrificing the best interests and independence of the vast majority of UK companies at the altar of the vested interests of a few highly vocal and largely foreign run multinationals. Allowing Brussels to dictate operations to the 92% of businesses that have zero dependence on the EU’s Single Market means placing the 87% of the UK economy these companies represent and the millions of their employees whose livelihoods depend upon their success in severe jeopardy, at the mercy of an unaccountable foreign power that likely wishes harm upon our nation’s interests in order to defend the integrity of their own.
From the EU’s merciless treatment of the debt-ridden Eurozone nations following the 2008 financial crisis, to the flagrant disregard of democratic decisions taken by member states in previous referenda, to the arrogant and undiplomatic charade that has been the Brexit negotiations so far, it should be abundantly clear that our best interests do not, and never will, lie in Brussels.
This is the most critical moment in recent UK history and the responsibility to ensure the delivery of what the majority of British people voted for in 2016 lies in your hands. Remember who it is that you have been elected to represent and the historic responsibility placed upon you as guardian of our great nation’s future.
In the year before the referendum, the then Prime Minister went to Brussels and tried to negotiate a deal for Britain. What the EU offered was a pittance and the deal was rejected. It was on that basis that the British people were asked whether we should stay in the EU or leave. The British people voted to leave “WITHOUT a deal”. There was no other deal on the table at that time yet the British people were still happy to leave knowing that was the case. They had the confidence in our country’s ability to stand on its own two feet and it is your duty to uphold the vote of the British people.
Chequers is not what people voted for. Leaving without a deal is. If a free trade deal is negotiated at some future point then this will be a bonus, but it’s not a condition of leaving. Now is the time to enact what the country called for in the largest democratic vote taken by the people of this country.”
Respectfully, Guy Jarvis
~~~ OOO ~~~
Sir,
I sent the letter copied below to the Daily Telegraph. As they may well not publish it, here it is for your readers:
“Sir,
May I through the auspices of your Letters’ page address directly the heads of state of the other 27 members of the European Union.
If the UK requests an extension to the Article 50 process, please bear this in mind. The British government has a legal, moral and democratic duty to take the UK out of the EU on 29 March 2019, and not a day later. If the EU was to accede to any request by the British government to delay the UK’s departure from the Union, it would affirm the British people’s worst fears about the EU’s democratic credentials. The British government has had over 2 years to negotiate an acceptable Withdrawal Agreement and failed. The EU is under no obligation to prop up British political incompetence. Nothing would be achieved by extending the Article 50 process. It is in the best interests of all parties that the UK should now leave the EU post-haste enabling us all to get on with our lives under a new European order.
For information, separately I have copied this letter directly to the Prime Minister on the assumption that she is unlikely to be a Daily Telegraph reader.
Yours etc”
Respectfully, Moraymint Chatter
I think that what the Brexit debate has principally done is to open the public’s eyes. We are aware now who governs and it is not the electorate. The Conservatives govern for the benefit of Big Business and Labour for the benefit of the unions; you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. If voting ever changed anything they would have banned it years ago.
P.S. I’d better go now and find out what I can about what has happened today in Parliament !
It is an excellent and reasoned letter. One thing that strikes me though:- According to this interpretation of WTO rules, After leaving E.U. with No Deal, U.K. may not impose Tariffs on imports from the E.U. for 10 years. At least I think that is what you are saying.
Now, I am not wanting to start an outright Trade War with the E.U. (errr well . . . much as I’d like to it would not be in our interests) but I would hope that we will impose tariffs on food that we can produce ourselves, i.e. temperate foodstuffs, while at the same time, since CAP will have ended, we should financially encourage our farmers and food processors to produce more of these foodstuffs for home consumption and maybe export. I’m confident that leaving with No Deal WILL enable us to do that.
On the Constitutional matters:- Normally our M.P.s ARE OUR REPRESENTATIVES – not our Delegates. I think that means that having voted them into the Commons we then let them do what they think best – they are not normally expected to poll all their constituents on every matter they vote on in the Chamber. Well, there are many things which affect how it actually works. So far as BREXIT is concerned though, we had a referendum and so I think in this case M.P.s are far more like delegates. Also Conservative and Labour M.P.s were voted in on manifestos undertaking to take us out of the E.U. That is what SHOULD happen. We should leave E.U. Full stop. Whatever fallout that causes to Parties and to the Commons – let it be. Let’s not start messing about with our Constitution too soon. IT IS THE BEST CONSTITUTION IN EUROPE and I think the world.
Pauline, as regards our constitution, its biggest weakness is that it is unwritten and therefore subject to the vagaries of John “bollox to brexit” bercow to give a current example.
MPs were appointed as representatives back in days long gone when there were no effective means of live communication over distance, hence why they meet up in the talking shop called parliament too.
In the modern age there is no reason why each MP couldn’t effectively discharge their duties to us as voters from their respective local constituencies (instead of being subverted or co-opted by the Westminster bubble) and also take instruction from us as voters, so long as a majority is of a particular view on any given matter.
Parliament likes to think of itself as sovereign but it is us voters from whom they derive any legitimate power and not the other way around.
What really matter right now is that if we do not leave the EU then both our constitution and parliament simply cease to have meaning.
For the above reason, all remain supporters are committing treason against current and all future generations, it is simply that serious.
I suspect that Liz Truss, along with the vast majority of other MPs, will reply that they are not elected to carry out our wishes but that they are elected to govern on our behalf in what they consider to be our best interests (and of course the best interests of those vast international concerns who have much more sway over governments’ actions and directions than public opinion does). It is high time we had a change of government method whereby firstly, we have a representative make up of the commons and then, that we have far more influence over what the government does – along with a much simpler (but regulated) way to remove MPs who are nor acting in accordance with our wishes. Technology exists which makes this both simple and secure.
As Brexit referendum showed – the only way to achieve the your goal is more direct democracy to take the power from “representatives” and empower public.
Very true Stan and making manifesto commitments legally binding on both parties and their elected MPs, subject to the same kind of financial penalties for transgressions as are trades unions and incurring automatic recall by-elections, would help to at least make a positive start towards healing the breach of trust that exists today between voters and parliament.
The petition to Government on 329,000 plus. Please help make ti past 330k before today’s debate and tomorrow’s vote.
https://petition.parliament.uk
It works much better if you send copies to all the newspapers. They at least think about it.
P S
However an excellent and reasoned Letter.
Thank you 🙂
335680 and still growing – The debate was laughable, a dozen MPs at most but the petition remains open until April so please vote if you haven’t and keep spreading the word, to show that we will not be fobbed off!
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/229963/signatures/new