The Brexit drama is hotting up and reaching a moment when something will happen which will change the nature and identity as well as the future prospects of the United Kingdom. But nobody knows what or how. The EU is now describing the situation in our country as a fiasco. This blog agrees.
To reiterate for new readers, I am a Remainer who believes passionately in the EU as the greatest political achievement since the fall of the Roman Empire. I see myself as first European, then British and finally English. I value my European citizenship above all others. I see the European Union as a project for peace, built on national integration, open borders and trade. The political union is the core, the economic union is the structure within which all can together prosper and within which individuals can enjoy personal freedom and shared sovereignty without equal in history. I regard nationalism as racism in another form; it is bad, dangerous and even, yes, evil. So now you know.
But the crisis now engulfing our country goes beyond all this. We are engaged in a nightmare sequel of national self harm, of which we are ourselves the authors. We are already damaged but if we do not act now to stave of the lunacy of a crash Brexit, an unhappy misfortune will become a frightening catastrophe. So we have to unite around a course of action which puts the jobs, welfare, livelihood, health and wellbeing of ordinary people at its heart and preserves the integrity of the United Kingdom, itself now in danger of busting apart.
So Labour has come forward with proposals which the EU cautiously acknowledges could form the basis of a sensible way forward, acceptable to the majority in the Commons as well as the EU.
But it will never satisfy the so called European Research Group made up of Tory nationalists of the very worst kind, neither will it please the DUP. These two minority political groupings, not the EU, are the intransigent problem in our midst and it is against them that action must now be taken to isolate them in the minority corner which they actually occupy. A cross party consensus in the Commons will do that very well.
Labour has made an historic move in the right direction. May must now reach out and find a viable accord which parliament will back. This is very much not a moment to run away barefoot into a cornfield.