Dr Joanna Williams, tells the BfB podcast series why she thinks the education system has acted as a “bubble making factory” and allowed younger voters to adopt a follow-my-leader Remain approach to Brexit rather than encouraging them to think independently about the concept of a nation state.
Dr Williams also takes issue with the Conservative rebels in the UK parliament who are looking to defeat their own government on some of the 15 Lords’ amendments including allowing MPs to have a “meaningful” vote on Brexit. She believes that real sovereignty belongs with the electorate who voted in 2016 to Leave the EU and that Parliament should respect the wishes of the people.
Dr Williams said: “You get somebody like the minister who has resigned today, Phillip Lee, and who don’t resign under a cloud, as people might have done in the past, but as if they are taking the moral high ground in their resignation, as if they are resigning for the greater good. As if the defence of the EU is more important than defending either their political party or even the interests of the nation. I think it is very strange people are claiming a love of parliamentary sovereignty when in the previous three decades they have not shown any love for parliamentary sovereignty and have handed over control to EU decision makers. Parliamentary sovereignty rests upon the power of the people, we are lending them our sovereignty. They are exercising sovereignty on our behalf, and so to me the Referendum that was held overrides parliamentary sovereignty. To argue the case for parliamentary sovereignty as a means to overturn the Referendum result is not the democratic manoeuvre it is presented as being.”
