LONDON (Dispatches) -- David Miliband has issued a call for politicians on all sides to fight back against the "worst consequences” of last year’s vote for Britain to leave the EU.
The former Labor Foreign Secretary described the outcome of the 2016 referendum as an "unparalleled act of economic self-harm.”
Writing in The Observer, he said the country should have the chance to vote on any Brexit deal in a second referendum, with a straight choice between remaining in the EU and the negotiated alternative.
"People say we must respect the referendum. We should. But democracy did not end on 23 June, 2016. The referendum will be no excuse if the country is driven off a cliff,” he wrote.
"MPs are there to exercise judgment. Delegating to Theresa May and David Davis, never mind Boris Johnson and Liam Fox, the settlement of a workable alternative to EU membership is a delusion, not just an abdication.”
His intervention came as Chancellor Philip Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox came together to declare that a post-Brexit transition would not be a "back door” to Britain remaining in the EU.
After a summer of cabinet feuding, Hammond, who favors a "softer” pro-business Brexit, and Fox, a hardline Brexiteer, said that they agreed there should not be "cliff-edge” break when Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.
In a joint article for The Sunday Telegraph, they said any transition would be "time limited” and that Brexit would mean the UK pulling out of both the EU single market and the customs union.