Re: The current plan does not matter
>The best plan I have is for 350 MPs to ignore the current party politics and vote a motion that explicitly forbids the Government from invoking Article 50.
The "Leave Campaign" was always a fringe thing in terms of party politics - the vast majority of the mainstream politicians didn't want it. Those that did want it were Boris (buffoon with no eye on the top job in the Tory party), May (mostly hated), Gove (mostly hated). Farage - UKIPs *only* MP. Hardly a compelling team of winners.
Despite that, most of the electorate did want it, however. What you are suggesting is that politicians ignore the the explicitly declared will of the people, because they (or perhaps you) know better.
Perhaps the fact that UKIP only had one MP despite over half the turnout voting "leave" is an indication of just how strongly the political elite have manipulated the system so that it serves only their purposes. How could all the major parties be so out of touch with the electorate, unless they have an effective way to insulate themselves from them? Perhaps if the parties allowed more "loyal opposition" they might have been able to see where the people are and negotiate for an EU more in line with what people are willing to accept, rather than pressing ahead with their own agendas.
The parties are supposed to represent the people. They've stopped doing that and when one small chink in the armour was spotted, the electorate took a wedge and jammed it in hard. It isn't just Westminster either. If MEPs represented the people and created an EU the people wanted, we wouldn't be in this situation.
Meanwhile Project Fear continues apace. Why try to bury bad news when you can blame it on Brexit? Of course we can't blame "the people" so we'll blame "party politics," "the politicians" or "the campaign." While its true that revolutions are generally ugly, even Obama is lining up Brexit as the cause of worldwide economic disaster. I guess there will be no let-up, with all bad things blamed on it. Obama, Vodaphone and everyone else... all their problems will not stem from years of financial mismanagement, mountains of debt and poor judgment, nope, its because England didn't want to play nice with France. Your racism has doomed us all! How dare you not let other countries write your laws!
There doesn't need to be a conspiracy to cause this situation, I suspect that its merely that politicians and much of society are so focused and dedicated to winning their arguments, that they cannot hear or admit any alternative explanations or plans to the ones they wish to put forward. How can you keep a grip on reality when "what is effective" trumps "what is true"?
My view on the "cheap labour" issue is a little different. Those who want to go for the cheapest things will do so, be it to eastern Europe or India and their products will reflect that quality. More significantly, how did our economy get so out of sync with the rest of the world? If it was due to EU protectionism was that ever a sustainable position or would it require ever more subsidy to maintain? If we go it alone, should we replace EU protectionism with UK protectionism or will that damage us in the long term? Would reducing household debt be a more effective way to raise the standard of living than to prevent some wage competition?