Letter published in Frome Standard 4th October 2018

Dear Editor, Frome Standard,

In your last issue Colin McNamee makes his case for a ‘Leave Means Leave’ Brexit.

He reassures us that warnings of a ‘no deal’ Brexit damaging the UK are ‘Project Fear’, and farmers will not be affected. However, the President of the National Farmers Union disagrees – she said the Government’s technical notices confirm that “a no deal scenario would be catastrophic for British agriculture” because of the substantial disruption to farming exports. This is clearly worrying.

I accept people voted to leave the EU because they believed it was a good idea. But two years on from the referendum we know so much more about the problems it will cause, the costs it will have, we know that the Leave campaigns misled voters and cheated, and that the Brexit that people voted for in 2016 is just not possible. Over two years on the Brexit campaigners have completely failed to come up with workable and realistic plan.

Mr McNamee says the European Movement and the Lib Dems are undemocratic for campaigning against Brexit. I do not accept this. In May 2016, then-UKIP and Leave.EU leader Nigel Farage told the press he would campaign hard for a second referendum if Remain won narrowly as, “In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way.”. The 2016 EU referendum was that close – 51.9% for Leave and 48.1% Remain. So it was OK for Nigel.

The Vote Leave promise on their big red bus that Brexit would save £350 million a week, which we could spend on our NHS instead, was ‘an overestimate’ and is not going to happen – there will be no ‘Brexit dividend’, the Chancellor and economists agree. Nigel Farage quickly disowned it and Boris Johnson voted against it. Voltaire could have been thinking of this when he wrote “The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom”. The Centre for European Reform estimate Brexit is already costing public finances £500 million a week and we have not even left yet. The Government will have spent £2 billion on Brexit preparations by March 2019, with more to come. We need to invest that in our NHS, housebuilding and our overstretched public services instead.

Leave voters like Mr McNamee are not going to get the Brexit they voted for, because the Government’s ‘Chequers’ deal was not on the EU referendum ballot paper, and neither was a ‘no deal’. Former Prime Minister John Major said the public should be allowed to vote again because Leave presented a “fantasy case” in 2016. The Leave campaigners never specified what their terms for leaving would be, so we were sold a load of fantasies. No one has found a solution yet for the Irish border issue, apart from technology that has not yet been invented.

Anything but continued free and frictionless trade with the 500 million people of the EU27 will clearly affect business, our national income, public services, jobs and livelihoods. This is only possible under EU rules if we accept free movement of people as well as goods and services, and accept EU trade rules but have no say in making them – like Norway. Now we have warnings of stockpiling food and medicines, miles of tailbacks and traffic chaos at our main ports when we ‘take back control’ – none of this was on the ballot paper in 2016.

Vote Leave also cheated – it was found by the Electoral Commission to have exceeded the legal campaign spending limit by 10%. Breaking the rules in sport gets you disqualified and the result annulled, but not in an advisory referendum.

If you agreed to buy a car and put down a deposit, but on inspection it needs a lot of work and will cost more to run, and those special offers you were led to believe in never existed, you would think again and demand your money back.

Whatever ‘deal’ Theresa May manages to agree with her Cabinet, her party, Parliament, the European Parliament, and the 27 other EU leaders, will change our country for generations – our rights as citizens, our trading arrangements, our status in the world, and our opportunities for travel, study and work overseas, particularly for young people. But the Government and the Leave Means Leave campaign are refusing to give the British people the chance to have any say on it. That is hardly democratic.

More and more people are realising that the only democratic way forward is for a public vote on the terms of the Government’s proposed Brexit deal, with an option to remain. The Liberal Democrats are joined in calling for this by the People’s Vote campaign, the Green Party, Labour supporters, most members of the major unions, an increasing number of Conservative and Labour MPs, and 58% of the public in a recent opinion poll.

We want to give the people a vote on our futures. It is only democratic. There has to be a way out of this madness. Please get in touch to find out more at adam4somertonandfrome@gmail.com if you want to get involved.

Adam Boyden, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Somerton & Frome, and Mendip District Councillor, Frome College ward

Dr. Joe Ryan, People’s Vote Campaigner, Frome

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