Maajid Nawaz Calls For Brexit Dispute Resolution That Works For Everyone

15 December 2018, 13:13 | Updated: 15 December 2018, 13:31

Maajid calls for a Brexit dispute resolution that works for both leave and remain supporters: a second referendum.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has called on Theresa May to resign her position as Prime Minister after one-third of parliamentary Conservative MPs voted against her in a no-confidence vote by the 1922 Committee.

But speaking on his LBC show, Maajid Nawaz tells Mr Rees-Mogg that if a 4% margin is good enough for Brexit, that a backing of two-thirds for Theresa May should be good enough for him.

"52% of the electorate is not the nation," he said. "On such a pivotal constitutional and historic course directional change in the history of this country, I would suggest to you that 4% isn't the nation.

"No one has the right to speak on behalf of the nation except the nation in another vote."

But in his passionate monologue, Maajid reaffirmed his call for a second referendum saying that it would be the best 'dispute resolution' to resolve the deadlock, and to vote between Theresa May's deal, no-deal and no-Brexit.

"That leaves three options with a transferable vote to make sure that no one's vote is wasted. So there is a way to do this without splitting the leave vote," he said.

"What a unifying way to bring everyone back together?

"Because currently, Remainers are unhappy with Theresa May's deal, Brexiteers are unhappy with Theresa May's deal, and none of us have a strong enough faction to force through what we want.

"Now when you're in a situation like that, when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force, you've got two options.

"When you're in that scenario when an immovable object is hit by an unstoppable force, you either have a total eruption of chaos or we all put the brakes on and stop that collision happening.

"None of us have a large enough faction, whether it's Theresa May backers, whether it's People's Vote backers, whether it's WTO rules, hard Brexit backers, none of those factions have a strong enough support base in Parliament or even in the nation to force through what they want and times like these, therefore, call for options that allow all of us to say okay, we need a dispute resolution mechanism to decide what we want to do next. What, if not a dispute resolution mechanism, is a vote? That's precisely what voting is.

"Voting isn't an opinion, it's a dispute resolution mechanism. That's why voting was created. That's why democracy is so great because it stops us going to Civil War.

"So all this alarmist talk about another vote will cause a civil war, no! Voting has always stopped war because it's only by voting do we say look, there's a way to resolve this. Let's have a ballot instead of fighting each other.

"That's why democracies are more stable than non-democracies because voting is a dispute resolution mechanism.

"And if anybody can ever give an example of a dispute that cannot be resolved at the moment in this country, it's the dispute over Brexit."