An expression of time-honoured instincts
The wave of populism we are witnessing across continental Europe is a negative force born of a deep frustration with the unresponsive and undemocratic institutions of the EU.
While the British people were never convinced that giving up our national sovereignty was a ‘price worth paying’ for membership of the EU, most electorates across Europe countries have little experience of the sovereign democratic institutions that here we too often take for granted. In no continental European country is the parliament building an iconic symbol of national identity in the way the Houses of Parliament in Westminster is to ours.
While voters across Europe are losing faith in the EU, they often have just as little faith in their own national institutions. So, in desperation, people turn to those politicians whose only answer to each challenge is to pull everything down.
The EU - and its often conceited supporters - must wake up and listen to those voters across Europe who despair of the chance of genuinely positive change. The recent move to block the appointment to the Italian Government of a finance minister, who had the temerity to criticise the Euro, is just the latest example of just how intolerant to any criticism the EU has become.
The Leave vote was triumphant because a majority of Britons wish to preserve our traditions, our institutions - our very identity. The referendum result wasn’t the product of a popular fad or trend, rather, it was the expression of deep-seated, time-honoured instincts – the manifestation of the people’s will.
This week, the House of Commons has the chance to overturn mischievous amendments - designed to frustrate, delay and disrupt Brexit - concocted in the House of Lords. In doing so, those in the Commons, elected by the people, will act for the people. For me to vote to return political power to our nation from far-off places abroad is a duty and a pleasure.
Countries on the continent face a choice - to stay inside the ever more power-hungry and arrogant EU, or chart their own destiny, as we will here in Britain.
G.K. Chesterton wrote ‘…we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.’ In the referendum, the people, finally, had a chance to speak. With a voice, loud and clear, they said; our future lies outside the EU.
