There is now a force to disrupt Brexit. MPs, it’s time to act

There is now a force to disrupt Brexit. MPs, it’s time to act | Matthew d’Ancona

The Independent Group has made old certainties around the 2016 referendum look weaker than ever

One of the great lessons of the 20th century is that history has no direction: as Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper argued, and as the transformative upheavals of 1989 showed to thrilling effect, there is no secular version of providence, no ideological script to follow. So it has been alarming, in the past few years, to watch the two main parties surrendering to different versions of the teleological delusion.

The Conservative party has embraced Brexit as a mythic nativist destiny towards which we must all march loyally. Labour, meanwhile, is in thrall to the old left determinism, in which all the core debates have long since been settled, devotion to the leadership must be absolute, and all that remains is for those who are foolish enough to think otherwise to be stripped of their false consciousness. For those of us who believe in pluralist politics, it has been a depressing spectacle, a battle between desperate certainties that slide pointlessly over the gritty, unpredictable reality of 21st-century life. Which is the principal reason why the foundation of the 11-strong Independent Group of formerly Labour and Tory MPs has been so refreshing.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2T6xmkz

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