The Will of the People

Mrs May has offered the Brexit MPs what they said they want, what they keep saying the People want, but they have refused it.

Instead of supporting Mrs May's deal to Leave the EU, they are blocking it. Essentially they are hoping to force her - and us - over the cliff edge. If they don't support the deal, they calculate, then we will be forced out with no deal at all.

This is hardly what they promised us three years ago - the easiest deal in history, with us staying in the common market.

Like a predatory loan shark who ups your payments week by week, the ERG faction in the Conservative party has been leveraging the referendum result ever since it delivered us into their hands. They have been steadily repudiating the promises they made in the campaign and replacing them with what they really want. Anyone who dared stand up to them has been vilified as 'enemies of the people' - be they judges, company directors or ordinary concerned citizens.

Mrs May thought that she was doing the right thing giving the job of negotiating a deal to the Brexit brigade, the ones who had wanted it. However, once they had that responsibility they didn't do a thing. Mr Davis was put in charge of the team and then sat on his hands. He attended only four days of negotiations in his entire time in post - and even then he brought no preparation with him. After some months of no progress at all Mrs May got rid of him, replacing him with Mr Raab, who proved equally uninterested in forging an agreement. Even then it should have been clear that the Brextremists were aiming to crash out with no deal. Unforgivably and inexplicably, neither did they make any effective effort to sign trade deals with other countries.

Mrs May finally had to take matters into her own hands, having to give up on developing her policies for the Just About Managing, letting domestic issues slide as her own ministers were not doing their job.

Now that she has a deal on the table - a deal that gives everything the Leave campaign asked for and more - they simply ask for impossible things, refusing whatever she offers.

The referendum only asked 'in' or 'out', the Brextremists use this vagueness now to justify their cry "the will of the people" for each new demand they make, with no reference to what the UK electorate actually want, with no concern for the effect on ordinary people.

What effects?

• A hardship fund is being created for the post-Brexit surge in jobless Brits - and a good thing too. The economists supporting Brexit are quite clear that Brexit is going to destroy a number of UK industries - that is why they want us to Leave (they call it 'creative destruction').
  
• The UK has not a single 'ready to go' trade deal agreed with any country or trade bloc. Leaving on WTO terms will mean price rises. Companies are starting to relocate to Ireland and the Continent to avoid price hikes on their exports - already taking jobs from the UK even before Brexit.
  
• The border checks necessary once we leave will mean delays at ports, causing shortages of goods in shops and industry - already stockpiles are being made.
  
• Teacher recruitment is falling. Attempts to boost teacher numbers by recruiting from overseas have raised little interest. Some schools receive no applications at all for advertised posts and end up relying on staff unqualified for the subject they are teaching. Our children's education is already suffering - our next generation of entrepreneurs and professionals - just when we are attempting to go it alone.

People are starting to wake up to this. 84% of new voters - voters who were too young to vote in the Brexit referendum - would vote Remain in a second referendum.

It is hardly surprising then that the very people who claim "the will of the people" are the very ones who are most strongly against a second referendum. What they are trying to force on us is their own dream - which for many ordinary people will quickly become a nightmare. They are not interested in what we, the British people, want.

The irony is that by trying to force no deal the Brextremists might end up keeping the UK in the EU, as the Tory moderates unite against them and Labour pivots towards supporting another vote.

Like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum, "I don't want that one, I want that one!", by refusing Mrs May's deal the Brextremists may end up 'betraying Brexit' themselves.