On Friday night as part of Any Questions on Radio 4 Gisela Stuart and Stella Creasy both made some interesting comments regarding how and when our nation will depart from the EU. Gisela like Stella admitted that the House of Commons was in a position where they did not have an agreement amongst a majority of their 648 colleagues regarding Brexit and were not confident that one was about to be found. However when challenged as to how they could ensure that a clear plan which could be found that would be acceptable inside and outside of Parliament, their approaches were very different. The discussion revolved around whether the public should participate in the decision making having in effect got us this far, but not been given an opportunity to express what the future should look like. Gisela took the line that if MPs could not come up with a solution amongst themselves, then in effect they would be redundant as decision makers and on that basis she argued that a mechanism for gathering views from the public was not appropriate. On the other hand Stella proposed that a group of individuals from outside of Parliament who together come from a mixed set of backgrounds and represent both leave and remainers (and one assumes people unable to vote for either arrangement) be convened as a citizens assembly to work out the most effective set of questions to be presented to the nation as a method of listening to our views, rather than being obliged to make decisions that are based on ignorance because the questions as they were in 2016 were both based on a misrepresentation of what would happy if we voted in either direction. It seems clear that whatever happens moving forward, that the idea that one vote would can hand control to people who are capable of making decisions on our behalf when the decisions are so hard is redundant. On the other hand as Stella suggested, the Citizens Assembly in Northern Ireland enabled the Irish community to agree a set of questions regarding their future when it came to a toxic issue such as abortion. This does not make Parliament redundant as Gisela stated, but rather it makes them accountable and ensures they are not left to struggle alone over difficult matters. In reality it avoids them losing control which at present appears to be the case simply because on their own they cannot find a way forward. However if MPs like Gisela and Boris and one or two others are unwilling to take part in a process that gives non politicians a chance to contribute to solving this problem, then they can walk away from the process now before they feel that they are out of their comfort zone.