I AM not going to pretend that I was in the least surprised by the outcome of the European elections, or by the magnitude of the bloody nose that was handed out to the two main political parties.

Given the way members of both have been playing fast and loose with democracy in recent months it was all but inevitable that the voters would declare a plague on both our houses.

I am afraid Parliament has allowed the whole Brexit issue to become dominated by factional in-fighting and has permitted the national interest to be swept aside as Brexit has become the platform for plotting, scheming, vendettas, back-stabbing and the undisguised promotion of personal interests over the greater issue of obtaining the best possible terms for our departure from the European Union.

I and many other MPs have been criticised at times for the way we have voted. But this has been the one great issue where I and those many others have had to faithfully represent the clearly-expressed views of our constituents, which after all is what a MP’s job is about.

Over the last few months I have been somewhat bemused by some people’s lack of understanding of what the EU has done for us.

The EU, for all its flaws, has unquestionably stimulated economic growth, brought prosperity to some of the more deprived areas of our country and above all has been a force for unity and peace. (There hasn’t, let us remind ourselves, been a war in Europe for nigh on 75 years, which in a historical context is pretty remarkable.)

But those benefits have been counterbalanced by less attractive aspects of EU membership.

Farmers may now be contemplating somewhat nervously a future without a £3.5 billion annual subsidy cheque from Brussels but I can quite understand them wanting to unlock the EU shackles.

They have had enough of being told what to grow, when to grow and how to grow it under a one-size-fits all policy that takes little account of local conditions and needs. In fact the Common Agricultural Policy has been a shambles for years with the concept of set-aside – actually paying farmers not to grow food – just one of its many, many follies.

Undoubtedly the UK has benefited considerably from EU membership over the last 45 years. But that membership has restricted us, particularly when it comes to our global trading activities – and let’s not forget that we have been a player on the global trading stage for centuries, certainly long before many of the other EU member states were even created.

We need to continue that role, to be free to trade with the US, with the rest of the world, on our terms – and I know precisely how important that ability is for the many companies in my constituency which trade internationally.

The task still lies ahead of us to extricate ourselves – according to the wishes of the majority – from membership of the EU while remaining active and enthusiastic members of the European community (with a small ‘c’).

I am fully aware of the way the Brexit issue has turned people against the two main parties in this country.

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We have seen similar disenchantment voiced by German voters while French voters’ discontent with their government has turned their country into the home of the street riot.

We haven’t seen, in this country, the levels of public unrest that many feared we would and I hope that we shan’t. I hope, equally, that we shall soon be able to identify a Brexit deal that politicians across the board can agree on.

But just as importantly we face another challenge: of restoring the dignity and credibility of an institution regarded (to misquote John Bright’s original assertion) as the ‘mother of parliaments’ but which in recent months has become nothing less than the spoiled brat of parliaments.

IAN LIDDELL-GRAINGER

MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset