Why the PM should forget about March

You’re going to let Parliament have a vote on the EU but the only thing it will achieve is divert blame from yourself to the MPs and peers. Parliament won’t be able to change a thing.

The logic goes like this: Article 50 is irreversible. Once we, or rather you, press the button by invoking it, we are out of the EU in exactly two years regardless of what happens in the meantime, and whether or not Parliament likes the deal you hammer out.

If things go right after Brexit, you get the kudos for leading the country.

But if things go wrong, well, then you can blame Parliament.

If they reject your deal, you can say that your plan would have led this country into the promised land, but Parliament got in the way.

If they support your deal, then you can say that you let Parliament have the last word, so it’s their fault.

The only way you will lose is if Parliament rejects your deal and the country finds itself in Paradise without the deal.

But that’s highly unlikely to happen because you will do your best to get a good deal.

You have the “interests of the people” at heart and are carrying out the “will of the people”, as you will say on numerous occasions in the next few years.

But do you?

You are so scared of having any kind of vote on the subject that you are delaying one until it is too late to change anything.

The “will of the people” as shown in the referendum is that the people in principle want to leave the EU, or rather a bare majority of the ones that voted want to leave.

There is no “will of the people” regarding the kind of life outside the EU. On that issue, the country is split several different ways.

If we are to make a success of life outside the EU we have to be a united country.

You’re doing nothing to unite the country – instead everything you do seems designed to continue the splits.

What you should be doing is finding out in detail the kind of country the people want post-Brexit.

That means going out and talking to the man in the street, businesses, organisations, the NHS, farmers, fishermen, everyone you can think of.

What do they dislike about the EU and what therefore they want to get rid of.

What do they like about our current life and culture and would like to retain in some form, even if not via the European Union.

What future do they want for Britain?

In short, what you should be doing is making sure we have the detailed lengthy debate we should have had before the referendum, and didn’t.

Once we are out of the EU, we are out for at least a generation and probably for ever.

Even if we change our mind the moment we leave and go on bended knees to Brussels begging to be allowed back in, we won’t succeed.

It took more than ten years the last time, it will take considerably longer next time because Europe has had 40 years of experience of how lukewarm we can be about the great European project and will want plenty of proof that we have changed our ways before letting us back in the club.

We’ve got to get this right. The next couple of years will set this country’s course for decades to come.

It is not a process that should be hurried. There is no deadline, only your self-imposed one of March this year.

So forget about March, Mrs May, and give Parliament a vote or rather a series of votes that mean something.

Put each of the areas that will need to be part of the deal to the vote and find out the “will of the people” and the “interests of the people” before you press the button and blow our current economy and culture sky high.