Politicians must respect the referendum result

By the time this is published, the parliamentary vote on the EU withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU should have taken place with the outcome known. ?By far the best outcome for the country would be for MPs to back the deal. ?This would respect the democratic verdict delivered in the referendum and provide for an orderly exit from the EU. Prolonged uncertainty is not good for our economy and it is worth noting that the business community are very keen for the deal to pass. ?The planned vote on Tuesday is widely expected to be lost. If so, this will unleash an uncontrollable chain of events which I believe are likely to be extremely bad for both our country and for the public’s trust in our democracy. ?The Prime Minister Theresa May has done her job and secured a good deal that works for both the UK and the EU. The problem, quite simply, is a large number of our nation’s MPs. ?I can respect the view of those MPs who feel the deal is not a strong enough Brexit because that is still consistent with the democratic verdict of the referendum, and I can also respect the view of MPs from Northern Ireland who have specific concerns about the backstop and the border. ?However, I cannot respect at all those MPs whose motivation is to overturn the referendum result by any means possible. I say this regardless of my own views on Brexit because first and foremost I am a democrat. ?The people had a once in a generation vote and this must be honoured. The vast majority of these shameless MPs who want to overturn our democratic verdict are Labour MPs, with their ranks added to by SNP and Liberal ‘Democrat’ MPs, plus a small number of Conservative MPs such as Anna Soubry. ?Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party are deliberating engineering chaos to try and bring down the government. The truth is that the national interest is a very poor third in Labour’s priorities, with seizing power being first and delaying and ultimately stopping Brexit second.