Consider voting for amendments

As we both know, you and I voted Remain on June 23 last year. Thanks to Gina Miller’s amazing efforts, you now have an opportunity to scrutinise the terms on which the June 23 decision may be implemented. May I remind you that you are a member of the UK Parliament, constitutionally a representative democracy, which as expressed so tellingly by Ken Clarke recently, allows you to think, speak and vote in accordance with what you think is best for your constituents. The electors of Bexhill and Battle gave you that right in 2015.

I would urge you therefore very carefully to consider voting for a number of the amendments which have been put forward which do at least something to alleviate the social, environmental and economic horrors of a so-called hard Brexit.

In particular I would urge you to consider voting for amendments 5 and 9, which would make it the aim of the government to keep Britain in the European Economic Area (EEA) in the same way that Norway currently is.

This would completely change the course of Brexit – it would mean retaining many of the rights we currently enjoy, and maintaining a much closer relationship with Europe.

And after all the Single Market was in the Tory Party’s 2015 manifesto, a manifesto on which you were elected.

I would also wish you to vote for amendment 41 which would ensure that all environmental protections in EU law passed directly into UK law, and that these protections could not be overturned without a further vote in parliament.

I would also urge you to vote for amendments NC 6 and 8: these would grant permanent residency to all EU nationals living in the UK on the day that Article 50 was triggered. It would bind the government to ensuring that the rights of both British and EU nationals are protected by any final deal.

I am particularly concerned about the status of EU citizens as I believe their futures from day one of triggering Article 50 should not be imperilled, nor should their rights, and implicitly the rights of UK citizens living in the EU be used as a shabby and ethically dubious negotiating tool. Were we generously to make that first move, it would be impossible for the EU to do anything other than reciprocate.

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