Ed – The first letter, by our correspondent Septimus Octavius, was sent with this timeline:

Dateline 10.45 a.m. Monday 28 January 2019 – we, therefore, have not altered the text, changing ‘tomorrow’ to ‘today’:

 

Sir,

WILL THERE BE A COMMONS MAJORITY FOR ANYTHING TOMORROW?

It is not certain yet exactly how the procedure will go in the amendable motion on the withdrawal agreement.  Most of the runners stand no real chance of gaining a majority vote. Those simply seeking to mandate no “no deal” will fail at the first hurdle as they are trumped by Article 50, which as a rule of EU law is superior to anything the UK Parliament can do.

The so-called “Yvette Cooper” amendment is undoubtedly the most detailed one, as it proposes an actual statute, in the form of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 3) Bill.  Of all the proposed amendments, this is the only one which might just get a majority vote, although technically it would still not be legally binding on the Government. What the statute would do, if it ever came into being, is to give the Government until 26 February to conclude a withdrawal agreement, failing which it would have to put up a motion seeking Parliament’s decree as to whether or not to seek an extension of the Article 50 “ 2 years period”.  Such an extension can only occur if all 28 members of the EU unanimously agree. Such unanimity can certainly not be assumed, however, particularly with regard to the complications would arise in connection with all the EU elections happening in May.

Meanwhile, the Article 50 wheels grind on relentlessly…

Dateline 10.45 a.m. Monday 28 January 2019

Respectfully, Septimus Octavius

~~~   OOO ~~~

Sir,

“I won`t go into chapter and verse here, but I cast my mind back to Nigel`s debates with the then leader of the Limpdems – NICK.

Nigel`s most telling accusation was that Nick was saying “We are not good enough”.

I believe that our whole parliamentary approach to the subsequent Brexit negotiations confirm Nigel`s accusation

Our Government and the whole of the elected parliament, with the exception of some honourable Brexiteers, the MSM, much of the establishment including the church and many of our overseas “friends” and would be advisers who profess to have our best interests at heart are infected with this poison.

They believe at base we are just not good enough to go it alone, they also believe the population en masse just do not even have the guts to envisage or picture a life free of the chains of servitude imposed by a malevolent totalitarian set of masters in Brussels.

I`m not going to rehearse all the fudge and waffle that our negotiators and “advisers” have perpetrated in order to prove we are not good enough and as a nation we “don`t deserve” to get out from under the derisory yoke of our friends in the EU and that it is evil even to think that Independent Nationhood is our birthright and indeed our duty not to cede it in the first place and overriding duty to regain full Sovereignty.

17.4 million know the score, they knew who the “enemy” were when they went to the polling stations, and they now understand that the EU has not changed one whit.

17.4 (plus advisedly) million voters are already aware that whatever “deals” are agreed with the EU, there is one overriding demand from the EU that the UK should not be seen to prosper from their release, presently it is being postulated that the Withdrawal agreement will be OK if the backstop is removed or replaced, it won`t be (read the Spectator`s 40 points) we`ll still end up tied to the EU forever and with an even more subservient position of having to take all they throw at us without representation.

Time for the “Boston Tea Party” – throw the deal into the Channel, proceed directly to No Deal WTO and give back the British Nation its self respect.

WE ARE GOOD ENOUGH

Respectfully, Roger Turner

~~~   OOO ~~~

Sir,

Scrap the backstop, keep the full stop?

Boris Johnson says Theresa May ‘wants to get rid of the backstop’ that has become the major sticking point for many MPs reluctant to accept her EU Withdrawal Agreement, and if she succeeds in inserting ‘either a sunset clause or a mechanism for the UK to escape without reference to the EU’, he has ‘no doubt that she will have the whole country full-throatedly behind her’ (‘If Mrs May can scrap the backstop, she’ll have the country behind her’, Telegraph, January 28, 2019).

She may well have ‘the whole country behind her’, but not in the adulatory, pathetically grateful way that he suggests. The Irish border has always been a non-problem, fuelling suspicions that at the very last minute Brussels will agree a solution that could have been agreed at the very beginning, at which point, as the Victorian melodramas put it, ‘with one bound they were free’.

But we would be left with all the other objectionable aspects of the Agreement that Leavers have warned about – not least the fact that Britain has accepted “dynamic alignment” with Brussels on state-aid rules, preventing us from levying an online sales tax to help high street shops. It would be more of a no-withdrawal agreement – but with the added frustration of having no input whatever into EU policy. Accepting this flawed ‘deal’ would be a case of ‘with one bound they were stuck’ – until 20XX, and with no Article 50 to invoke. She would merely succeed in turning a backstop into a full stop.

Respectfully, Ann Farmer

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