I imagine this is what it is like living through a coup d’état. From the Independents’ bench of the House of Commons this week, I watched a new Tory government assemble, led by a new Tory prime minister, with a new policy on Brexit, and all without the inconvenience of an election. The faces who last week ran the show were gone, victims of the purge. The faces on the Labour front bench, by contrast, resembled the “scream” emoji — shocked, confused, bewildered — and unable to articulate a coherent response.
Evidence of this inability to adapt to the radically changed circumstances of a Johnson-led government was provided on Thursday evening when the Labour party organised a rally in Parliament Square to demand a general election. This has, of course, been the Labour leadership’s default position in the face of any tricky situation: stand outside and shout. It wasn’t well attended. Perhaps Labour activists realised that organising a rally to demand a general election outside the Commons was a poor substitute for organising a vote of confidence against the government inside it.
It is beyond comprehension that the official opposition has not called a vote of confidence, something that only they can do. It was all the more urgent this week; the clock has now run down.
I added my name to the no confidence motion sponsored by new Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, which also rejects a no-deal Brexit and a prorogation (suspension) of parliament. It is firmly in the national interest to prevent both. However, procedural experts tell us that if parliament wanted to ensure that we don’t crash out without a deal by October 31, Friday was the last day to hold that vote.
We have just 14 weeks left until the UK is due to leave the EU, and for eight of them parliament is not sitting. This is why I asked Jacob Rees-Mogg, in his new role as Leader of the House, to consider recalling parliament. He replied that he currently has no plans to do so.
Boris Johnson, who has no mandate from the country and lacks popular support, is pursuing the most dangerous of all courses. The UK is careering towards a hard Brexit, with a hard deadline, and hard luck to all the businesses and their employees who will suffer. This is not what anyone was sold during the referendum in 2016.
The health and social care select committee, on which I sit, knows what a disaster a no-deal Brexit would be for the NHS, for the supply of life-preserving drugs, and for our medical sciences. I know from Liverpool what a catastrophe it would be for jobs and businesses — not just in large-scale manufacturing such as steel and automotive — but also in the tech sector, which currently employs skilled jobs in my constituency and across the UK.
The promise made by Mr Johnson of £39bn of “lubrication” for the economy will ring hollow when a no-deal Brexit tips it into recession, and the tax receipts for public services diminish. According to the Institute for Government, the cost of new civil servants and the new department created to handle Brexit would have been £2bn by the original date when Article 50 expired at the end of March. But this is dwarfed by the cost to the economy in lost investment and stalled growth — even before we’ve even left the EU. According to Standard and Poor’s, we have lost around 3 per cent of our GDP — £6.6bn every quarter — since the vote to leave in 2016. The new prime minister’s sweetener doesn’t even cover the bill for what we have already racked up — let alone what’s coming down the track.
Mr Johnson has finally got the job he’s always wanted. Now he must guarantee the job security of millions of British people faced with the looming catastrophe of the no-deal Brexit he is threatening.
The writer is the Independent MP for Liverpool, Wavertree
