Dear Leavers
I’m sorry that David Cameron offered us a referendum and promised to respect the outcome, whatever it was.
Unfortunately, he was fucking with you.
He promised that referendum when he didn’t think he stood a cat’s chance in hell of getting a majority, and never thought he’d actually have to deliver on it. When he got his surprise majority, he made a big show of going to Brussels and pretending to negotiate with the EU to get us a “better deal”. Unfortunately, he already knew perfectly well that the UK already had a better deal than any other country in the EU, and that they were not going to bend over backwards to get us to stay. So he made a big show of negotiating and then tried to pretend that he had done something meaningful. He then went through the motions of holding a referendum, half-heartedly campaigning to remain. He did absolutely no contingency planning, partly because he never believed that leave would actually win, and partly because he already knew that he had no intention of staying to deal with the fallout if they did. That’s why he resigned the day after the referendum and waltzed off, whistling a merry tune.
He played a high risk game of poker with our money, and lost.
I understand that many of you feel defensive about your decision and dislike being labelled “thick” by angry remainers. As a remainer myself, I feel saddened and frustrated that none of you seem able to articulate any benefits that will actually come out of Brexit. But at this stage, I would quite happily accept that there will be no benefits, and settle for damage limitation. Unfortunately none of you seem able to explain how we limit the damage either.
We cannot leave the single market and customs union without there being a hard border in Ireland, which will put people’s lives at risk. We cannot leave the single market and customs union without severely damaging most sectors of the economy, which would cause untold hardship for millions of people living in the UK. I realise that remaining in the single market and customs union would make leaving the EU pointless, but it is the only way to limit the damage.
The government has made almost no progress towards getting a workable deal in place, and time is running out. We don’t have the infrastructure in place to ensure that supply chains of essential food and medicine will not be disrupted after Brexit day. We don’t have a plan to ensure that planes will still be able to take off and land, or that satnav will still work. We do not have any trade deals lined up. We simply do not have time to do any of these things.
Dear leavers, you do not have solutions to any of these problems, and more importantly, neither do Theresa May, Boris Johnson, David Davis, Liam Fox, Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrea Leadsom, Daniel Hannan, Jeremy Corbyn, Kate Hoey or any of the people who claim to think Brexit is the right choice for the UK.
A no-deal Brexit is unthinkable. It is not an option.
I realise that many of you will feel betrayed if we do not get the kind of Brexit you want. But to be honest, you’re going to feel betrayed even if you do get the kind of Brexit you want, because it will be unimaginably shit. This is not "project fear", it is "project reality".
The government has a duty to act in the best interests of the country as a whole. It’s not good enough to lay the blame at David Cameron’s door and say he held the referendum so we have to respect the vote. David Cameron has been out of office for two years. It is now plainer than ever that leaving the EU is a terrible idea, and there is still time to put the brakes on and not go through with it. If the government goes through with this when they could put a stop to it, they cannot continue to blame David Cameron and claim that their hands were tied. They are not.
It is time for Theresa May to do the decent thing and say, “I’m sorry, I know it’s what the people voted for, but it simply can’t be done without causing a totally unacceptable amount of harm to the country. And I have a duty of care towards everyone, not just the 51.8% who voted leave.”