Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 59

It’s time for common sense on Brexit – a customs union must prevail | Simon Jenkins

The Westminster bubble must burst, and Theresa May will have to rely on cross-party agreement in any more EU talks

MPs can vote today to honour both the referendum and common sense. They can vote to leave the EU and stay in the European customs union. That they are faced with much the same range of options as last week is inexcusable. Why could they not get together over the weekend, and agree a soft Brexit compromise?

Now they must redeem themselves. The votes should be free and unwhipped. The...

Parliament may look chaotic. But it is inching towards a resolution | Simon Jenkins

It’s easy to criticise politicians for the Brexit mess, but with more indicative votes planned, a sensible outcome is in sight

The news may yet be good. There is a way ahead. If we can just keep our nerve for one last push on Monday, a sensible outcome to the Brexit saga is in sight. It is what it always has been: Brexit within a customs union. It is “leave” without lunacy. But first Theresa May is to make one last despairing attempt to get her twice-rejected “red lines” deal through the Commo...

Deciding how to end one’s life should be the ultimate human right | Simon Jenkins

The debate on assisted dying has been nudged towards common sense by the Royal College of Physicians’ vote

What is the principal cause of death in Britain? The answer is premeditated killing. And who are the killers? The answer is doctors. It’s said that over half of all deaths result from a specific medical decision, either to administer a knowingly lethal drug dose or to withdraw life-saving treatment. The better we get at keeping ourselves alive, the more cunning we must be in getting to di...

For all our sakes: Theresa May’s Brexit deal must be voted down | Simon Jenkins

The country will not get the sensible bipartisan Commons compromise it needs until May’s rigid plan is defeated

Theresa May must fail. Her first two attempts to get her Brexit deal through the Commons deserved support. They forestalled “crashing out” of the EU with no deal next month – and they took the referendum process forward.

She failed twice to persuade the Commons of this. As a result, last week her “least worst Brexit” strategy lost legitimacy. When the Commons voted to debate other opt...

With Brexit now on hold, there’s only one option left: compromise | Simon Jenkins

The referendum vote must be honoured, but Theresa May’s red lines will have to fade. It’s time to reach out to Labour

The Brexit chasm has seemed unbridgeable. No path has appeared through the impasse. Tonight a glimmer of a route came into view. Parliament decided to ask the EU to postpone Brexit day and extend the negotiating phase, probably for three months. It did so, shamelessly, because it could not agree on what on earth to do next.

The EU, reasonably, asks why. If the UK could not decid...

If May loses Tuesday’s Brexit vote, she must back a customs union or go | Simon Jenkins

A soft Brexit is the only option left for the prime minister. If she won’t back it, she should step aside

Theresa May has only one way forward tomorrow. If she loses yet another Brexit vote, she must immediately offer one she can win. She knows well what that is, as Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn has left her in no doubt. It would propose leaving the EU on 29 March, in accordance with the referendum result, but remain in Europe’s customs union. If doing so requires a suspension of article 50 of the EU...

Would you like your Brexit vanilla or Marmite? It’s time to choose | Simon Jenkins

There can be no ducking the choice facing the country

This is it. Next week sees the end of the beginning of Brexit – and the beginning of the end. Theresa May is determined to offer herself for ritual lynching by her mob of free-trade anarchists, having spent two years failing to face them down. Parliament will then liberate itself from her torture, and seek a new way forward. The plan is for May’s defeat on Tuesday to be followed by a vote against no deal, and then by its only sane consequen...

May’s Brexit bung to the north is pathetic. It changes nothing | Simon Jenkins

The £1.6bn the PM has promised to secure Labour support for her deal is no match for years of systematic neglect

Theresa May’s bung is like Donald Trump’s wall. You give me my Northern Ireland border deal, she says to Labour, and I will give your people oodles of cash. Except that May has blown it. She has promised Labour MPs in the Midlands and north £1.6bn, but they have not promised her the deal. She is apparently relying on the kindness of their hearts. How stupid is that? She is even offe...

Sex education is not a matter for ministers | Simon Jenkins

It should be for individual schools to decide how and what they teach their children about relationships

Who should teach children about sex? The education secretary, Damian Hinds, must be desperate for attention. This week of all weeks, he has taken the government into battle with Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups, probably half the Conservative party and 100,000 petitioners to parliament. Hinds wants instruction in LGBT “sensitivity and inclusiveness” to be “integral throughout the program...

Brexit is too important to be rushed. Let’s calm down and press ‘pause’ | Simon Jenkins

The UK’s future depends on a sensible compromise being reached. To achieve it, we will have to delay our departure date

Delay, delay, delay. Today’s parliament well mirrors the nation. It is implacably split. It cannot make up its mind on how to leave the EU next month. So it should just stop, calm down and think.

There is a sensible way forward into the two-year transition period, and it is called Theresa May’s deal with the EU. But since some 80 Tory fundamentalists will not have it and hold...