Time to hand Brexit back to the people

At the time of writing it seems the most likely outcome of this week’s Brexit votes in the United Kingdom Parliament will be to postpone the March 29 deadline for leaving the European Union.

It is futile simply to kick the Brexit can down the road. This hugely damaging debate is tearing the nation apart — town against country, young against old, families have turned on each other.

Among my friends are two brothers, once close, who have not spoken to each other for more than two years because they are on opposite sides of this issue.

It is easy to look back at the events of July 2016 and see how things could have been handled better.

Had then Prime Minister David Cameron decided that such a crucial move as leaving the EU should be decided only by near consensus — a three fifths or two thirds majority in favour rather than the simple majority that divided the nation almost down the middle.

It was Cameron’s hubris; his belief that the vote to Remain would be overwhelming, that has led to the current disaster. That and the fact he was succeeded by Theresa May, who believes blinkered stubbornness to see ‘her’ Brexit succeed is a virtue.     

It should be remembered that the Conservatives were one very firmly ‘the party of Europe’ at a time when its senior members either fought in or had vivid memories of the chaos of a World War II brought about by rampant nationalism running out of control.

The change began when leaders like Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath left the scene to be replaced by those who believed that the peace and prosperity created by the Treaty of Rome was no big deal and would have happened anyway.

Jacob Rees Mogg and his cronies in the European Research Group have even gone so far as to liken the EU to 19^th and 20^th century dictators who tried to unite the continent by force of arms.

They disregard, or do not care, that their beloved Brexit has the potential to succeed where Napoleon and Hitler failed — to bring about the end of the United Kingdom.

A ‘disorderly” or ‘hard’ Brexit will surely lead to Scottish demands for a second referendum on independence, which has a much better chance of success as the pro-EU Scots feel they are being dragged out of union by the English.

And how long before there is a majority in Northern Ireland that realises they have a better European future by joining the Irish Republic?     

The debate over Brexit itself has gone on too long. If Parliament cannot decide this issue, they must hand it back to the people in a second referendum.

If a majority decides after all this they still want to leave, then so be it. History will take its course.

If Remain is the victor, it will result in ardent Brexiteers complaining that Leave has been ‘stolen’, but at least it would be their fellow citizens who stole it.