Burnham-On-Sea’s former Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt has this week hit out at the government for its “completely mad” handling of Brexit.
Appearing on ITV News West Country Debate, Tessa Munt, former Liberal Democrat MP and now a Somerset County Councillor, was featured alongside Luke Pollard, Labour’s MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, and Conservative MP for Cheltenham, Alex Chalk.
Tessa said: “Both of the major parties are completely divided – we at least have a very clear position which I think everyone can truly understand and there are a number of others coming to join us.”
“We’ve got to the point where we are effectively 40 weeks from signing this whole thing off and no-one has a clue what it is going to look like. It is completely mad that we are at this stage two years down the road where people haven’t got an idea of what it’s all about.”
“The government has just introduced a withdrawal bill in the House of Lords. There are 114 amendments – 14 that my party are involved in admittedly – but there are 100 of them which have been put in by the government.”
“The government doesn’t even know what the government is doing! So God help us all. When it comes to Somerset, people just want it settled and sorted out.”
She added: “The Lib Dems feel that people should have a chance to decide on the deal – it is a democratic right of people to have a look at what both the major parties don’t have a blinking clue on.”
Tory MP for Cheltenham, Alex Chalk, responded on the TV show: “The idea that the Lib Dems are clear about this is slightly ‘for the birds’ because their own leader said at their party conference that having a second referendum was counter-productive and seriously disrespectful so you don’t know what the Lib Dem stance is going to be from one week to the next.”
But Tessa hit back: “We don’t want a second referendum, we want a first referendum on the deal. This will be the first chance that people will get to see what the Tories have come up with.”
