MPs serving us badly

That the "token debate" on the trade deal was described as "a farce" by the Hansard society`s senior researcher comes, as your editorial states, as "no surprise" (This deeply flawed unscrutinised deal is a bad start to a new era, 31/12/20). Parliament has been guilty of abdicating its constitutional responsibilities over Europe for decades, and the result was seen in 2016. Voters weren`t told fully of the details involving membership of the EU prior to the referendum by their MPs, or of the problems everyone would face if the Leave vote was successful. Instead, blatant untruths were allowed to go unchallenged, and obvious questions unanswered, with MPs` ignorance of the details often as much to blame as adherence to biased ideology. With the "derisory level of scrutiny" given to this deal, ignorance of its details will again be a factor in future "national conversations". It reminds me of how the then chief secretary to the Treasury, days before becoming chancellor in February, 2020, claimed that as free ports were not allowed in the EU, Brexit enabled the UK "to unleash this potential in our ports" (EU cracks down on free ports for role in corruption and crime, 11/02/20). Unfortunately for Sunak, on the same day the European Commission announced that the EU`s free ports all 82 of them, were "aiding the financing of terrorism, money-laundering and crime"! Inevitably, such misleading of the public by our leaders is set to continue, a fact made even more definite by MPs, and their Speaker, again failing to stand up to what is so obviously a power-grab by Johnson.