Revoke Article 50? No Way, Says The UK Government

It's rather curious watching the odd goings on in Westminster from faraway Sardinia. Like many other UK migrants living in EU countries, I signed the online petition to revoke Article 50 and allow the UK to remain in the EU. Many remainers were getting very excited about how it was gathering momentum at the time I was writing my previous post What Brexit Could Mean To A Bristolian In Sardinia (Three years On). However, the UK Government have decided not to let some people build up their hopes too much and have sent a most odd email response to all those who signed the petition. Well, actually, the email is from the Department For Exiting The European Union. Here it is in full (or how it should be - haha):-


The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU.”.

Government responded:

This Government will not revoke Article 50. We will honour the result of the 2016 referendum and work with Parliament to deliver a deal, no matter how bad, that ensures we leave the European Union.

It remains the Government’s firm policy not to revoke Article 50. We will honour the outcome of the 2016 referendum and work to deliver an exit which benefits everyone (even though, frankly, that's impossible), whether they voted to Leave or to Remain.

Revoking Article 50, and thereby remaining in the European Union, would undermine both our democracy and the trust that millions of voters have placed in Government and their very close friends, the mainstream media, whose exceptional capacity for objective reporting has alerted us to the dangers of the wrong kind of bananas and the fact that euro banknotes can make men impotent.
The Government acknowledges the considerable number of people who have signed this petition. However, close to three quarters of the electorate, all of whom were very well-informed about the issues involved thanks to the impartiality of newspapers like The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, took part in the 2016 referendum, trusting that the result would be respected. This Government wrote to every household prior to the referendum, promising that the outcome of the referendum would be implemented. And no Government has ever broken a promise. 17.4 million people then voted to leave the European Union, providing the biggest democratic mandate for any course of action ever directed at UK Government. It is true that the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK, many of the 1.3 UK citizens living in the EU and young people under the age of 18 were ineligible to vote. However, we do not need to consider them even if the result of the referendum was likely to have a more adverse effect on them than most other groups.

British people cast their votes once again in the 2017 General Election where over 80% of those who voted, voted for parties, including the Opposition, who committed in their manifestos to upholding the result of the referendum. Please don't say that they had little choice. Had they wanted to leave the EU they would have voted for the Liberal Democrats or the Greens whose parties dwarf the size of Labour and the Conservatives.

This Government stands by this commitment as no Government has ever gone back on any commitment ever before.

Revoking Article 50 would break the promises made by Government to the British people, disrespect the clear instruction from a democratic vote, and in turn, reduce confidence in our democracy. This is despite the present Government's overruling of a democratic decision reached by Lancashire County Council with regard to an application for a fracking site. As the Prime Minister has said, failing to deliver Brexit would cause “potentially irreparable damage to public trust”. It is imperative that we trust the integrity of the Prime Minister as well as such political, social, business and intellectual giants as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Dominic Cummings and Arron Banks. We must maintain a hostile environment at all costs. It is imperative that people can trust their Government to respect their votes and deliver the best outcome for them. If the best outcome means 20 mile traffic jams to and from Dover, food shortages at supermarkets, fruit rotting at harvest time, frustrated car manufacturers suffering excessive waiting time for car parts to be delivered, horribly long delays going through passport control at airports, EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU losing a lot of their rights, young people losing an easy opportunity to work, study and live abroad, then so be it!

As the winning team would say: "Suck it up buttercup!"

Department for Exiting the European Union.