I have written to my MP Rachael Maskell appealing to her to, at this late stage, vote to accept the deal offered by the EU. Here’s what I wrote:-

Dear Rachael

I am a member of the Labour Party and an enthusiastic supporter and admirer of you as my MP. I voted wholeheartedly to remain in the EU in the referendum. I also think the PMs podium speech last night was totally inadequate. She said nothing new and did nothing to win over her opponents – most of whom are in her own party.

This is a straightforward appeal to you, as my MP, to now back the deal the UK has been offered by the EU, to save the country from further uncertainty.

It may only be the best a set of bad options but the alternatives are much worse.

Doing nothing and crashing out without a deal is unthinkable and unacceptable, but by default it could happen next week.

A delay, if the EU leaders accept it, only kicks the can down the road. A long delay leaves us with so much uncertainty that business and Brits living in the EU, to name just two groups, would be left in an unacceptable position of uncertainty.

The repeal of Article 50 would, in my opinion, lead to civil unrest and a denial of the democratic process.

As a remainer I have reluctantly come to accept that we are leaving and as a believer in democracy have to accept the outcome of this tedious process of leaving the EU. I don’t think I’m the only one. I don’t believe in underhanded or filibustering techniques to make it impossible for us to leave the EU. A deal has been offered, it’s clearly not going to be renegotiated, we should now accept it, so that we can move on to the next stage of negotiation.

The party may say that it will not vote for a deal that threatens Human Rights and jobs – but the alternatives to the deal are a bigger threat. The party may say it would have done things differently. The fact remains that as a party we couldn’t and didn’t do things differently. Our attempts to bring down the government failed and the PM is still in power. I’m not convinced that Labour in power could now change the deal, it’s too late, but we can stop the country crashing out without a deal by voting in parliament to accept it.

I’ve heard too much rhetoric; too many MPs saying the same thing over and over again; too much sarcasm about the ability of one side or the other; too many trite jibes. None of these will now change the predicament we are in.

For the sake of National Unity I appeal to you vote to accept the EUs deal, and in your influential position, persuade the parliamentary party to accept the deal too.

Yours in good faith

All the best

Barrie Stephenson