Country before party
Our tribes are dysfunctional, but they won’t break down before Brexit. MPs must work across them
Dominic Grieve
OPINIONS
PROSPECT SEPTEMBER 2018
A second referendum is beginning to look like Britain’s only way out of the maze
REX SHUTTERSTOCK
As a Conservative Remainer MP I have spent the last two years hoping that the process of Brexit might come to change my opinions on the risks I saw it bringing to our economic wellbeing, our national security and our quality of life. But despite my best efforts to try to see silver linings to clouds, I find myself today even more strongly of the view that we are heading for a deeply dangerous outcome, even a calamitous “no deal,” which would constitute the biggest peacetime crisis in our modern history. I believe that MPs from all parties must work together to prevent a damaging hard exit.
But I am also mindful that some Conservative Party members do not share this view. It is a feature of the debate that I receive emails from those who insist to me that Brexit must take one form only. Invariably, this is followed by the demand that we must leave the single market and the European Economic Area, not engage in any customs union with the European Union and ensure that any role for the European Court of Justice is eliminated. They then insist that they knew exactly what they were voting for in 2016 and demand that I carry out their instructions from which no deviation can be tolerated.