Article 50 and the Labour Party – A Status Report

A tweet-storm about Labour fleeing the pitch

One day into the Parliamentary debate on Theresa May’s rushed Article 50 Bill, which will hand her the right to start the Brexit process, it is now starting to become clear just how little control we are going to have over the whole process.

The Supreme Court ruling has handed Parliament the ball. Instead of doing their duty and playing that ball, Parliament is now going to drop it in panic and flee the pitch.

There is only one opportunity for anybody in the UK apart from the Prime Minister to have any say in Brexit, and it is now. After this point, it is out of our hands. Then, once she triggers Article 50, it will be out of her hands as well, and it will be the other 27 EU nations who are in charge. Unfortunately, apart from the SNP, the Lib Dems and Greens, and a few principled individuals in both the Tory and Labour parties, nobody is standing up to say this is the wrong way to go about it.

This is an abandonment by MPs of their duty. It’s particularly galling to see this from the Labour party, and it prompted a tweet-storm from me last night directed at the @UKLabour Twitter account and at Labour MPs. This has received quite a lot of interest, so I reproduce the text of those tweets in full here now as a handy reference.

The tweets

1/ A #Brexit status report for all the @UKLabour MPs who  me. All none of them.
So, how’s this Article 50 thing going so far, peeps?

2/ I appreciate you’re in a quandary, @UKLabour. Majority of your voters wanted to remain, but not a majority of constituencies.

3/ Most @UKLabour MPs campaigned remain, you probably still have your hearts that way. But you feel railroaded into supporting the govt plan

4/ Respecting the mandate and all that, @UKLabour. But you know and we know that’s bollocks, for so many reasons.

5/ Because it feels a bit like the reason you’re not opposing #Brexit isn’t that you fear you will lose. You’re more afraid you might win.

6/ The real reason you’re voting leave is because you think that if you don’t you’re going to get destroyed at the next election @UKLabour

7/ But consider how that’s going to play out @UKLabour. You know the #Brexit shit’s going to hit the fan, probably before the election.

8/ So who do you want to be? The party who helped the Tories burn everything? It’s not easy to come back from that, just ask the Lib Dems.

9/ What are you going to say to your constituents in poverty because their bills are through the roof and their wages are through the floor?

10/ When the car manufacturers and the steelworks close or relocate to the EU, their employees are going to know why, @UKLabour.

11/ You can’t just turn round and go “Oh yeah, we knew all along it would all go to pieces”. You’re not coming back from that, @UKLabour.

12/ So the 2/3 of your voters who are pro-EU will probably flee, and won’t trust you again (cf the Lib Dems again), @UKLabour

13/ And, as with the Lib Dems, the Tories and RW press will find a way to hang any Brexit problems on you, their enablers, losing the rest.

14/ Either way, you’re not luring voters away from the Tories by cosying up to their agenda. The Tories are way better bastards than you are

“15/ Or…
Or you could stand up right now, as some of you already have, and say “”we’re not allowing the government to dictate terms here.”””

16/ It’s Parliament’s job to invoke Article 50, not May’s. It’s also your job to serve country first, constituents second, party third.

17/ You understand how damaging Brexit will be, and if you don’t you definitely mustn’t invoke Article 50 until you do understand, @UKLabour

18/ Maybe, just maybe, your voters will remember when #Brexit goes to shit, as you know it will, that you opposed it. You told the truth.

19/ The alternative is you lie to your voters & get decimated when #Brexit goes to shit, because you helped make that shit happen, @UKLabour

20/ I appreciate some of you have received threats, and there’s genuine reason to be concerned about this. I haven’t forgotten last year.

21/ But the violent people? They’re not going to go away because you appease them. They’ll just be back with more and more demands.

22/ And they’re not going to be any happier when they have no money, no jobs, no benefits, no NHS, no employee protections.

23/ So force the government to produce their #Brexit white paper before you’ll support. Make single market membership a condition.

24/ Make #Art50 revocability a condition. We must know we can back out – it’s a fundamental of negotiating that you give yourself an out.

25/ You know the EU *cannot* give Theresa May what she’s demanding. The only alternative is crash out of the EU and go cap in hand to the US

26/ This is one of those crossroads in history, @UKLabour. If we’re lucky, this week’s events will be taught in future history classes.

27/ If we’re very lucky, and means you doing your part @UKLabour, this week could be taught as a positive lesson in future history classes.

28/ If we’re unlucky, our radioactive wasp overlords will be harvesting our brains. Or something post-apocalyptic like that.

29/ You think we’re not in very deep trouble? Just spend ten minutes looking at the news about Trump. And at May cosying up to him.

30/ If you fail this test, @UKLabour, the best end point of #Brexit is that we end up as Trump’s tiny hand puppet.

31/ This is your last chance to have any control at all of the #Brexit process, or preferably to prevent it, @UKLabour. Last chance.

The UK left the EU at 23:00 GMT onFriday 31 January 2020
As of 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a third country with respect to the European Union.