4 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2019
    1. In November last year, Gordon Brown suggested that an assembly might resolve the Brexit crisis. Last month, Damon Albarn, Rowan Williams and a number of other public figures wrote an open letter to the Guardian in support, and the idea now has this newspaper’s backing.

      Further, a group of Labour MPs tabled amendments to the Brexit deal that included a Citizens' Assembly on Brexit, and a host of other campaigning and civil society organisations have started looking at this as a potential solution. Devolved administrations such as the Scottish government are also increasingly interested in this model of deliberative democracy

  2. May 2019
    1. To win a majority in the country, Labour needs to win seats in the parts of the UK that backed leave. There is no route to 10 Downing Street that doesn’t run through areas that voted heavily to leave and heavily to remain.

      The difference between Labour and the Lib Dems/Brexit Party is that Labour is the only party that can realistically aim for government at the next GE. Given the current state of British politics, this means bridging the Brexit divide.

    2. I am yet to meet more than a handful of people who have changed their minds.

      If People's Vote was intended to change people's minds on Brexit, then there is no doubt that they failed disastrously by repeating the same mistakes on the 2016 Remain campaign. Labour can only succeed if it commits to taking a different, more democratic approach to Brexit

    3. Labour is urged to pick a side in this ongoing tug-of-war. That is a dead end for the party and for a very divided country.

      Labour's split in the 2016 referendum between Leave and Remain mirrors the UK's own split: most constituencies where Remain support was the highest voted Labour in the 2015 general elections, and yet, seven out of ten Labour MPs represent constituencies that voted Leave.