But this whinging (especially from the likes of Farron and Clegg) is seeking to conjoin the act of starting to leave with the details of leaving..
The 114 MPs who voted against the motion yesterday were voting against giving the PM authority to trigger A50. Some (like Kenneth Clarke) simply on the basis that they did not want the UK to leave. But others, such as the LibDems and many Labour Members, on the basis (so we are told) that since they didn’t have the details of the likely outcome of exit talks they couldn’t give the PM what they saw as carte blanche. So I won’t step forward to what happens if they don’t like the eventual outcome of those discussions. That’s for another day. But these members seem to believe that there is some connection between a successful outcome and actually leaving when there is not (for the same question continually rears its head – “what happens if the deal is ‘unacceptable’”). Leaving aside the fact that negotiations cannot begin and so they cannot have details until A50 is triggered, there seems no satisfactory answer to that question and in fact I don’t believe anybody in Parliament has even posed it when the dissenters put their point.
I don’t have much faith in any politicians. But Parliament needs to be prepared for the fact that it might be necessary to simply walk away from any deal that is not suitable – and that is any deal which leaves the UK enthralled to the EU or any of its subsidiary institutions. Should the EU (which, as far as I know, has not yet published any of its plans how it might approach the negotiations) remain as beligerent as some of its senior officials have seemed to indicate it might, there will be no other option. Personally I simply want to see the UK revert to the same status as any other normal country outside the EU. Anything must be infinitely better than the utter shambolic madhouse that is currently the EU.