The Telegraph, May 17, Owen Paterson
For five years and in five national polls, the British people have voted clearly and consistently in favour of leaving the European Union.
The chronology of events is well known. In 2015, the Conservatives pledged to hold a decisive referendum on the UK’s EU membership. The Party was returned to Government with more votes and MPs. The EU Referendum Act was passed by a ratio of six to one in the Commons.
In 2016, more people than have ever voted for anything in British history voted to leave the EU. In 2017, the Conservatives stood on a manifesto pledging that “we will no longer be members of the single market or customs union” and won more votes than any party for 25 years.
At that time, though not since, Labour promised to uphold the referendum result, so more than 85 per cent of the total votes cast were for parties advocating leaving the EU.
In the 2019 European Parliament elections, the Brexit Party topped the polls on an explicitly “no deal” platform, winning in Wales and every English region outside London. Finally, when Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to the polls pledging to “Get Brexit Done” having secured a new Withdrawal Agreement, he won an 80-seat majority.
The UK formally left the European Union at 11 pm on January 31 2020. All that might seem a lifetime ago, before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the dire health and economic crises which it has entailed. But as well as demanding unprecedented Government action, the pandemic has also served to reignite the Brexit debates of the last paralysed parliament and, in particular, those that we should extend the transition period beyond the end of 2020.
Many of these tired old arguments are simply superficially reheated versions of the same ones which Remain used to extend the Article 50 period. Even in the later stages of 2019, the orthodox Remain view was that a new Withdrawal Agreement could not be achieved without a substantial extension.
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