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MPs have made a passionate plea for a “jury” of the British people to break the Brexit deadlock.

The group explained their plan for a ‘Citizens’ Assembly’ of 250 randomly-selected people to decide the next step.

Writing for Mirror Online (below), the MPs say the idea has been used around the world and is “about enhancing and enabling democracy, not thwarting it!”

They add: "With only 63 days to March 29 and the catastrophic implications of potentially crashing out of the EU with no deal agreed, Parliament is still deadlocked.

"We are calling for a Citizens’ Assembly to be held to get feedback from the British public on their views on the differing options being proposed."

The joint article is by MPs Debbie Abrahams, Stella Creasy, Lisa Nandy, Alison McGovern, Liz Kendall, Jess Philips, who want to put their idea to a vote on Tuesday night.

Their amendment has been backed by cross-party MPs including Tory Sarah Wollaston, Lib Dems and SNP members.

The article in full

(Image: Dan Kitwood)

Last week’s resounding and historic defeat of the Government’s draft Withdrawal Agreement has brought Parliament to the brink.

The Prime Minister’s statement on ‘Plan B’ this week seemed to be more of the same, with vague reassurances for her far right European Research Group MP colleagues and the Democratic Unionist Party on the so-called ‘Irish backstop’, although the EU has said that they will not provide these reassurances themselves.

But Parliament is no further on from agreeing the terms under which we leave membership of the European Union and our future relationship with the largest trading bloc in the world, than we were before Christmas.

With only 63 days to the 29th March and the catastrophic implications of potentially crashing out of the EU with no deal agreed, Parliament is still deadlocked.

Reflecting this deadlock, the Prime Minister’s motion ‘that the House has considered her statement’ on Plan B and which will be voted on Tuesday 29th January, has, to date, no less than 14 amendments to it!

One of the amendments, tabled by myself (Debbie Abrahams), Stella Creasy, Lisa Nandy, Ally McGovern, Liz Kendall and Jess Philips, is trying to break that deadlock.

(Image: Anthony Harvey/REX/Shutterstock)

We are calling for a Citizens’ Assembly (Assembly) to be held to get feedback from the British public on their views on the differing options being proposed.

Citizens’ Assemblies have been used successfully around the world, informing politicians and other decision-makers about the public’s understanding on various contentious or complex issues.

For example, they were used recently in Ireland regarding changing their constitution on the rights of women to seek an abortion.

Assemblies operate similarly to a jury in that people who are eligible to vote are randomly selected to take part in the Assembly.

The Assembly decides the scope or options they want to consider.

For example, in the Brexit scenario, the options could include leaving with no deal, leaving with the current deal, renegotiation of the current deal (e.g., Norway++), or having a people’s vote.

The Assembly is then presented with evidence, including oral evidence from various experts in the field that they can select and ask questions of, and then based on this evidence, they come to decisions about their preference of the various options and what should happen next.

We are suggesting that the Assembly should be made up of 250 British citizens (no politicians or recent politicians), should be broadly representative of the population as a whole, for example, in gender, age, region, and should be randomly selected by an independent marketing or polling company.

Based on other Assembly models they usually take about 10 weeks, and as such we have suggested that we would need to extend Article 50 to allow for this and the report back to Parliament.

The Government would then need to respond in writing to the Assembly saying how they intend to take their recommendations forward.

Citizens’ Assemblies are about enhancing and enabling democracy, not thwarting it!

We ask for your support and urge you to contact your MP to ask them to support our amendment.