I keep hearing over and over again from Remainers and yesterday from Huw Edwards on the BBC, that the Leave Campaign did not have a plan, which is not true but irrelevant anyway.

The referendum only asked the binary question REMAIN or LEAVE. When the Government were shocked by the result, the plan to leave became their responsibility, no one else's. Both groups had accepted we would leave the EEA, the Single Market, and the Customs Union.

It is like a two sided coin, and melding the two together makes the result unrecognisable.

Article 50 was invoked

The problem for MPs at Westminster began with Article 50, which they voted to invoke, as being the defined method in the Lisbon Treaty of leaving the EU and the necessary notification.

If anyone had read Article 50 at that stage they would all have gleaned :-

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218 (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

At that stage the Withdrawal Agreement had not been written by the EU and the Political Declaration did not exist.

“No deal” was the default

Mrs May and her Government therefore stepped into the unknown.

She had no plans to leave without an agreement, but this is provided for in Article 50 after two years. She did of course keep repeating “No deal is better than a bad deal”.

Thursday’s elections

Both major parties are rattled by Thursday’s local elections, and Hilary Benn MP and others keep talking about compromise and a confirmatory referendum for any CON/LAB agreement which might be struck.

Having rejected the Withdrawal Agreement three times, can Labour now compromise and vote for it, whilst insisting they must hold the referendum? All a bit of a conundrum.

Isn’t it all very simple?

It is a chicken and the egg situation: the referendum must come first before signing up to the Withdrawal Agreement, otherwise it is too late.

I just voted to leave, and I knew what I was voting for. We should be out now.