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‘The age of experts is over’

Richard Burgon warns elite that people will not be dictated to

SHADOW justice secretary Richard Burgon declared that the “age of experts is over” today, telling Andrew Marr that people would not be browbeaten into accepting Theresa May’s loathed Brexit deal just because Establishment bigwigs say there is no alternative.

At a summit in Brussels today, leaders of the remaining 27 EU nations took around 40 minutes to sign off the deal that has barely any backing from either Remain and Leave-supporting MPs.

It will be put to MPs in Parliament to vote on before Christmas and more than 80 Tory MPs have already announced that they will vote it down.

Broadcast journalist Mr Marr said on his BBC show that he doubted the PM would have enough parliamentary support for the deal but suggested to Mr Burgon that Labour’s demand for an election would also prove futile. He argued that around 100 Tory MPs would have to vote for an early general election, a scenario he described as “very unlikely.”

Mr Burgon replied: “A lot of things have seemed unlikely in politics recently and lots of the experts have got it wrong.

“The experts predicted the last EU referendum wrong, the experts said that Trump could never be elected – I wish he hadn’t been.

“The experts said that Labour would be smashed at the last general election – we weren’t. The experts said Jeremy Corbyn would never be elected as prime minister. I think the age of the experts is over.

“The age of political certainty is over. And of course we want to be in government as soon as possible but we want to get the best deal for the country. We think we could do that.”

Mr Burgon called for a “third way” and suggested that a no-deal Brexit could be prevented by a “great political force” tabling motions and amendments to change the government’s course.

He urged Ms May to “ditch this deal and come back with something better.”

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker insists that the Brexit deal drafted by Ms May was “the best deal possible for Britain” and that there would be no chance to negotiate another one.

But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the party would reject this “bad deal for the country” in Parliament and work with other parties to block a no-deal Brexit while calling for a general election.

As EU leaders signed off the package thrashed out by negotiators in Brussels, he said: “It is the result of a miserable failure of negotiation that leaves us with the worst of all worlds.

“It gives us less say over our future, and puts jobs and living standards at risk.”

The Labour right and Liberal Democrats have been trying to press Mr Corbyn into backing a second referendum, though shadow home secretary Diane Abbott warned Remainers at the weekend that it would likely result in a second Leave vote and anger at politicians who had not accepted the first one.

DUP leader Arlene Foster reiterated that her party – which props up Ms May’s minority government in the Commons – would not be voting for the deal because it would result in “a border down the Irish Sea.”

She doubted that Ms May will get enough support for the deal to pass through Parliament and also called for a “third way.”

The confidence and supply pact that her party has with the Tories would have to undergo a “review” if it does pass, she added.

On the same programme, Ms May’s ally Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt did not reject the idea that the government could collapse over the deeply unpopular deal.

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