Dominic Grieve is no fool. He and his followers saved the Government by voting for it on Tuesday night, but the deal was that he would always then decry Theresa May's concession as inadequate after all, thereby compelling her even further towards the true objective of both of them.
That objective is a second referendum, between two options. One option will be to remain in the Single Market and the Customs Union, which is the deal that May is determined to bring back from Brussels. The other will be to remain in the European Union altogether. There will be no Third Way. That she would deliver this referendum, and no other, was why May was made Leader of the Conservative Party without even so much as a contest.
I would have voted against membership of the European Economic Area on Wednesday night, and I congratulate the Labour MPs who did so. But I do not blame Labour for whipping an abstention. Why intrude on private grief?
Since a local by-election at which I voted while wearing my Sixth Form uniform, I have never missed an opportunity to exercise my franchise. But how are we going to be expected to vote when the second referendum comes? That might yet be the first time that I did not vote, although I still find that highly unlikely. That would make me a different person, and not a person whom I would ever wish to be.
Even during the 86 years that propertied women were disenfranchised in parliamentary elections, most or all of my male ancestors also had no vote, as working-class men or as colonial subjects. It is not yet 200 years since some of my ancestors were slaves. I do not believe that voting ought to be compulsory. But while safely upper-middle-class newspaper columnists might feel no moral obligation to vote, I most certainly do.
In any case, one or other of these options is going to prevail whether or not I vote, in the way that someone is going to win an election whether or not I vote. My country will either come out of that wretched referendum as a rule-taker, or it will do so as a rule-maker.
At the moment, I prefer the latter. The only thing worse than staying in the EU would be to stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union even after having left the EU. The only thing worse than the EU would be anything like the EEA. Wouldn't it?
That objective is a second referendum, between two options. One option will be to remain in the Single Market and the Customs Union, which is the deal that May is determined to bring back from Brussels. The other will be to remain in the European Union altogether. There will be no Third Way. That she would deliver this referendum, and no other, was why May was made Leader of the Conservative Party without even so much as a contest.
I would have voted against membership of the European Economic Area on Wednesday night, and I congratulate the Labour MPs who did so. But I do not blame Labour for whipping an abstention. Why intrude on private grief?
Since a local by-election at which I voted while wearing my Sixth Form uniform, I have never missed an opportunity to exercise my franchise. But how are we going to be expected to vote when the second referendum comes? That might yet be the first time that I did not vote, although I still find that highly unlikely. That would make me a different person, and not a person whom I would ever wish to be.
Even during the 86 years that propertied women were disenfranchised in parliamentary elections, most or all of my male ancestors also had no vote, as working-class men or as colonial subjects. It is not yet 200 years since some of my ancestors were slaves. I do not believe that voting ought to be compulsory. But while safely upper-middle-class newspaper columnists might feel no moral obligation to vote, I most certainly do.
In any case, one or other of these options is going to prevail whether or not I vote, in the way that someone is going to win an election whether or not I vote. My country will either come out of that wretched referendum as a rule-taker, or it will do so as a rule-maker.
At the moment, I prefer the latter. The only thing worse than staying in the EU would be to stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union even after having left the EU. The only thing worse than the EU would be anything like the EEA. Wouldn't it?
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