Remoaners must accept that we will leave the EU, says LEO MCKINSTRY
GETTY David Miliband has called for second Brexit vote
In reality they do all they can to thwart the will of the British electorate, spreading alarmist propaganda and denigrating the cause of Brexit. Filled with contempt for democracy, Tony Blair recently called on Remainers to "rise up in defence of our beliefs". Now Blair's acolyte David Miliband has joined this revolt of the progressive elite against the people.
Yesterday the failed Labour leadership contender, now the £425,000-a-year head of the International Rescue Committee, launched an extraordinary assault on the entire Brexit process, describing it as "a stitch-up" and "unparalleled act of economic self-harm". The Government's implementation of the decision has been so "rash and chaotic" that the public should be given a second referendum on EU membership.
The British people have never shared his grandiose dream
The pro-EU brigade likes to paint the Brexiteers as extreme. But as Miliband's rant demonstrates, the Remoaners are the real extremists. He is so dogmatic on this issue because he fully subscribes to the fashionable globalist orthodoxy of free movement and multicultural diversity, seeing the EU as a prime vehicle to impose this ideology.
GETTY Tony Blair recently called on Remainers to 'rise up in defence of our beliefs'
His worship of Brussels and its imperialist ambitions shone through his spell as foreign secretary during the last Labour government. Not content with his demand that Turkey be made a "full and equal member" of the EU, he urged that the organisation "gradually bring in" North Africa and the Middle East. For him the EU should be "a role model for the world", capable of the deployment of "soft and hard power to promote democracy and tackle conflict beyond its borders". To that end he wanted to see a vast increase in the EU's military capacity. Yet his call yesterday for a second referendum exposes the hollowness of this rhetoric about the promotion of democracy. What he really supports is the ascendancy of the EU's unelected, unaccountable oligarchy. He has nothing but disdain for the rights and freedom of the British people. But the British people have never shared his grandiose dream. The majority of voters want not global posturing but the return of our democratic independence, with control of our own borders, laws and trade.
GETTY Miliband praised Philip Hammond for pushing for a post-Brexit transition deal with the EU
That is precisely what the Conservatives now aim to implement. Like all diehard Remoaners, Miliband pretends that the Government is in the grip of dysfunction over Brexit. But the timing of his outburst could not have been more laughably wrong. At the very moment he issued his diatribe, key ministers had proved their unity. In a joint article Trade Secretary Liam Fox, perhaps the most passionate Brexiteer in the Cabinet, and Chancellor Philip Hammond, often seen as lukewarm about EU withdrawal, pledged that Britain would leave by March 2019. There was, they wrote, no question of remaining in the customs union or the single market. Moreover, if a transition period were agreed, it would be strictly time-limited to smooth the path for businesses. "It cannot be indefinite, it cannot be a back door to staying in the EU".
This article is a significant development. It both confounds the fevered talk about internecine Cabinet quarrels and it puts Brexit firmly back on course. But in any case the problems of withdrawal have been wildly exaggerated by the Remoaners. Britain is a great democratic nation, rich in its heritage, economy and cultural influence. The idea that we cannot survive without governance from Brussels bureaucrats is absurd. Many of the supposed difficulties on the road to Brexit are just inventions. The question of the Irish border, for instance, can be resolved by a return to the Common Travel Area that existed in the British Isles from 1922 before we were sucked into the quagmire of the EU. Similarily we could easily reach a free trade agreement with the EU based on current market arrangements. As former industry secretary Peter Lilley points out, "the EU and the UK start with zero tariffs on each other's goods" so negotiations over a deal should "involve minimal changes to the status quo". But the EU does not seem interested in co-operation, only in punishment.
GETTY Mr Hammond and Liam Fox have claimed that the UK will leave the single market in 2019