Author Archives: Brian Edmonds

Tim is right – the real housing crisis is in social housing for rent

By Brian Edmonds | Mon 10th August 2020 - 11:45 am

Bravo Tim – at long last a clear and radical Lib Dem message on the scandal of social housing (Press Release 06 08 – ‘Jenrick’s planning reform won’t solve housing crisis’). We must pursue this with all possible force, because it is manifestly right and, in purely political terms, it highlights a massive void in the policies of the other two main parties.

As Tim says in his response to Jenrick’s lamentable proposals, there may be a shortage of affordable property to buy, but the real scandal concerns the least well-off. It is they who are condemned to rent insecure, insanitary, …

We must start to nail the big lie

By Brian Edmonds | Mon 2nd September 2019 - 1:08 pm

As Boris Johnson apparently snakes his way to a General Election in which he will represent himself as the people’s champion, fulfilling their will in the face of Parliamentary treachery, we must confront the central lie of their campaign. For three years Brexiteers have been allowed to establish a massive shield of credibility around the claim that the result of the EU Referendum in 2016 is sacrosanct for all time – an incontrovertible and irrevocable expression of the will of the British people. They have done so simply by repeating at every possible opportunity that to call for a fresh …

It must be Revoke – it’s too late for anything else….

By Brian Edmonds | Fri 23rd August 2019 - 12:33 pm

When Jo Swinson meets Jeremy Corbyn next week there is only one message worth delivering: Article 50 must be revoked before the Brexit deadline. The time is long past for parliamentary jiggery-pokery and procedural sleight of hand, whether it be to bring about a further extension, a second referendum, a General Election, or all three. The country now needs a solution which is honourable, and removes the tyranny of an artificial deadline created only by the ineptitude of the May administration.

The overriding justification for revocation is that it is the only course of action which is neutral in its consequences. Legally we can revoke without any change in our relationship with the EU, and legally there is nothing to stop us restarting the Article 50 process in the future.

Its beauty is that it is blissfully simple, it requires no commitment to a leave or remain agenda, and if it is understood to be temporary, no one is bound or compromised. To be fair to the Leave factions, the Labour Party and others, it is likely to require a commitment by Parliament to a further referendum, and maybe also a General Election, but this would be for later, and with time to do it properly.

Of course, there will be the familiar outcry claiming betrayal of democracy, but such claims are tendentious and above all hypocritical. The leavers will have lost nothing, except the chance to squeeze through a flawed and massively unpopular decision by undemocratic means. There can be no honourable objection to restarting the process. Let the Leavers state their case again and demonstrate that they really do represent the will of the people.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged article 50 and brexit | 45 Comments