On Churchill, Burke, Representative Parliamentary Democracy and giving MPs a spine.

Churchill on representative democracy and the duty of an MP.

LET'S GET OUT THERE! It's time to challenge our MPs and flush them from cover. The media won't do it. MPs themselves certainly won't do it. The country is in crisis, Brexit is in crisis, the Government is in crisis and local elections are coming up.

As Timothy Garton Ash has written, we've about 6 months before the Government and hard Brexiteers fabricate a fudge to get us out by any means because, even though they're not aligned, it serves both their malign purposes. (A link to Garton Ash's recent article follows this post.)

Feel free to share this to your MP if you wish, and ask him or her:

DO YOU ACCEPT THIS DEFINITION OF BRITISH REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY?

(If they are a Conservative, remind them that this is supposed to be their party's very creed: a principle laid down by their greatest thinker and here asserted by their greatest prime minister.)

Ask them: what are you going to do now?

They'll probably ignore you or fob you off with feeble justifications.

If so, keep at them.

Bring them back to the substance of the representative principle. Will they act in accordance with it or not?

More silence? More weasel words? KEEP AT THEM!

Remember, had MPs followed the principle that underpins our constitution our country wouldn't have got to this crisis. And it has grown worse on account of MPs' neglect of it ever since.

Three wrongs don't make a right. MPs should be brave enough to vote in accordance their consciences now. And if WE don't tell them that, NO ONE will.

I've kicked things off by asking my own MP (Steve Baker, Con, Wycombe) this through Facebook, Twitter and an email:

"Time to ask again. I know - for you told me in person - that you agree with Burke. I presume - for you wouldn't dare not to - that you agree with Churchill. So no need for 'a prolonged philosophical debate'. [Baker's words last time I challenged him on his inconsistency in demanding that Parliament fulfil The Will Of The People] Why do you deny our sovereign Parliament's rights over Brexit?"

I'm also going to write again to my local paper challenging Baker - see attached earlier letter on this theme which was published last year.

Garton Ash's article: https://www.theguardian.com/…/six-months-foil-brexit-vote-p…

Imagining Britain's Lost Glaciers

My take on how some of the British Isles' grand old mountains would look if the glaciers were still there ...

You can see them all here:
https://www.ukhillwalking.com/articles/features/imagining_britain's_lost_glaciers-10207

Two cases against Brexit

Please read, digest, share, use and - if you disagree or have improvements - critically engage with my two sheets in a constructive and polite manner:

1. Why it is not undemocratic to oppose Brexit
2. Why the nation's anger is not the EU's fault.

I hope they will help you challenge the ignorance and complacency that might lead to the greatest disaster this nation has suffered in modern history - and at its own hands.

Ignore the mindless tendency among Leavers! They won't change. Focus on those who are open to rational, evidenced debate and are secure enough to be able to change their opinions as a result of it.

Challenge "soft" Remainers who, for a quiet life (fat chance!) or out of a misguided sense that to oppose Brexit is a slight against democracy, sit on their hands and call it honourable.

Challenge your MP to vote with a view to what he or she genuinely considers to be the national interest, for that is their calling in a representative democracy and they will have failed it and the nation if they dodge it.

Peter