The day after: Tory MPs look at the cliff-edge

There is one thing which I think is true of most MPs across party lines: they do, by and large, care about their constituents.

They do so as a matter of practical politics: even a constituent who is not eligible to vote in a Westminster Parliamentary election can influence the vote in one direction or another (“oh yes so-and-so, well, he’s Wrong Party but he’s a nice chap: my neighbours were in trouble, no fault of their own, and he was really helpful”)

But to be fair: MPs are human*, and even the poshest and most privileged MP, come face-to-face with human tragedy, as they may be required to do with their constituents, is likely to have some kind of human feeling towards them.

Brexit, the four directions: nadir

EU Referendum Results Map

Last week, I wrote and posted a series about the four possible directions the UK can go from where we are.

• First, hard Brexit, which is catastrophic;
• second, soft Brexit, which is several different flavours of disaster;
• third, re-running the EU referendum, which would be expensive, time-consuming, and wouldn’t necessarily stop Brexit;
• fourth, Parliament voting to revoke the invocation of Article 50, which means an unprecedented rebellion of MPs in both Opposition and Government with unpredictable consequences.

From a worm’s-eye perspective, the fourth option is least-worst: but the people most likely to face negative consequences for carrying it out and saving the UK from catastrophe or disaster, are the same MPs who would have to vote for it.

And regardless of how bad it is for us in the lower income bands, MPs are all in the top ten percent by income just from their salary: they have a generous expenses system, heavily subsidised food and drink at work, complete job security until the next general election, and a nice golden parachute even if they lose their seats then: they will not directly suffer from the economic disaster of soft Brexit, and though the catastrophe of hard Brexit might hit them, they’re better insulated against it than most.