New Left Foot Forward polling shows the public have turned against Brexit - a true democracy would give them a second vote.
Even though David Davis and I don’t agree on many things, we do agree on this (which he said in a speech on the EU in 2012):
“If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.”
Davis’ infamous quote now seems more relevant than ever, as the latest poll backs a public vote if the UK secures No Deal with the EU.
The BMG Research poll for Left Foot Forward showed that a majority of the public now backs a referendum on staying in the EU, if the government fails to secure a trade deal.
The majority is even deeper amongst 18-24-year-olds: 74% back a vote and as many as two-thirds believe ‘Brexit should be stopped’.
These results are not surprising as, so far in the negotiations, Theresa May has disregarded the hopes, dreams and aspirations of 16 million citizens, including the people whose lives Brexit will affect the most: the younger generation.
75 percent of younger people voted for a different future – a future in the EU. In the weeks and months ahead, the Government’s exclusive stance needs to change.
What’s become clear is that, as the true implications of Brexit unfold, people are starting to question the Brexit decision.
A decision which will deliver none of the main promises of the ‘Leave’ campaign and cause so much damage to people’s jobs, the NHS, the economic stability of the country and the work, study and retirement opportunities of millions of people.
We now know that there won’t be an extra £350 million per week for the NHS or dozens of Free Trade Agreements ready to be signed when we leave the EU.
We also know that immigration will not be reduced to the tens of thousands, that the Government will continue to be subject to the rulings of the ECJ or other International Courts of Arbitration and that we will not have the same economic benefits outside of the EU as we currently enjoy inside.
There appears to be a growing consensus that, if we cannot stay in the EU (the Liberal Democrats still believe this is the best option for UK families and jobs), we need a deal that keeps us as close to the EU Single Market and Customs Union as possible.
Our children’s futures must not be ruined by the hallucinogenic vision of the Brexit elite who, from the safety of their stately homes or large bank balances, want to leave the EU, regardless of the damage to our economy, the lives of the ‘just about managing’ and our political standing in the world.
If David Davis meant what he said about democracy, he and the rest of the Government would let the public have control over this process.
That is why the Liberal Democrats will continue to push for the Government to give the British people the final say on the deal, with an option to ‘Exit from Brexit’ and to remain in the EU. Anything less will be a kick in the teeth for our democracy.
Tom Brake MP is the Liberal Democrats’ Spokesperson for Exiting the EU. He tweets here.
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12 Responses to “Tom Brake: Attitudes to Brexit have shifted. We need a public vote on the deal”
RobD
Boffy,
But how do you see a “Socialist United States of Europe” ever being created when the economic direction of Europe has always been Centre-right/neo liberal? Liberalisation and privatisation of public services. Look at what the EU forced Greece into when their crash came, having to sell off everything that moved. Not very socialist. Can’t agree with policies like that, sorry, and I’m worried that Greece was just the blue-print for the rest of the EU, only fast-tracked because of the debt.
greg
@Boffy – the Poll Tax and the Iraq war produced a reaction from the people, and they rejected those governments at a later date: the UK people can not remove the imposers of a supranational treaty.
Our representative democracy model is broken, and our politicians seem to represent nobody but themselves; and once the UK has withdrawn from the EU, the UK people must finish the job by reforming our own political class – we need more direct control over our own governments to stop them treating the people of our country as chattels, whose rights can seemingly be bartered and sold.
That you can look at the EU and not see the inequality therein beggars belief; the five star lifestyles, salaries, pensions, limousines with security chauffeurs, the expensive buildings being erected – the now-deceased Labour MP, Tony Benn, described his experience of visiting Brussels as if he “were going as a slave to Rome”.
I’m afraid that you are wilfully blind when it comes to supporting the EU; you are not on the side of democracy – or a fair and just society.
Boffy
@ RobD,
And you think that Britain compared to the EU, during the 18 years of Tory rule of Thatcher and Major, and the continuation of their politics under Blair/Brown was a model of socialism??? You think that May wants Brexit, so as to free Britain from neo-liberalism, so that she can bring about a socialist utopia? You might as well argue that there is no way of creating socialism in Britain, because for the last 40 years – starting under Callaghan – Britain has been at the forefront of a charge in the direction of neo-liberalism. So, what you would have us give up on the prospect of socialism then altogether, or what, we join with the Scottish nationalists, and argue that socialism is only possible in those ghettos where a majority for social-democracy has been maintained. In England, that would mean not just the lunacy of Socialism In One Country, but the fantasy of Socialism in One Borough.
@Greg
“the Poll Tax and the Iraq war produced a reaction from the people, and they rejected those governments at a later date: the UK people can not remove the imposers of a supranational treaty.”
Of course, they can, even bourgeois democracy enables that.
“and once the UK has withdrawn from the EU, the UK people must finish the job by reforming our own political class – we need more direct control over our own governments to stop them treating the people of our country as chattels, whose rights can seemingly be bartered and sold.”
Why do you want to wait until leaving the EU before demanding more control over the Westminster government? What is stopping you doing that now? If you don’t agree with the Treaties those Westminster governments have signed up to, and remember that the Single Market was the project of the British Thatcher government, who chastised DeLors for not being neo-liberal enough, then the answer to that is no a withdrawal from the EU, and solidarity with all of our fellow workers across Europe, but is to change the nature of the British political regime, to win over workers to socialist ideas, and for the election of socialist politicians and governments. What you are doing is escaping from your failure to do the latter, by blaming your failure on foreigners, on the EU. It is the typical last resort of the scoundrel.
“That you can look at the EU and not see the inequality therein beggars belief; the five star lifestyles, salaries, pensions, limousines with security chauffeurs, the expensive buildings being erected – the now-deceased Labour MP, Tony Benn, described his experience of visiting Brussels as if he “were going as a slave to Rome”.”
That you can present my position as being to not see the inequality etc. also beggars belief, given that I have said that I want to sweep away all of that inequality in the EU, standing shoulder to shoulder with other EU workers!
That you can only see that inequality in the EU, and that you apparently see the UK as some bastion of socialist progress by comparison, also beggars belief. Do your xenophobic blinkers prevent you from noticing that we have a Monarchy in Britain; that we have an unelected House of Lords with 1,000 members, being paid large amounts of money, and living the life of Riley; that unlike even the US, we have powerful unelected judges, and similarly unelected military top brass, and permanent civil servants; that 90% of the land in Britain continues to be owned by the same landed aristocracy that owned it in previous centuries, and which receives state subsidies for doing so, whilst withholding it from use for housing developments so as to inflate land and property prices; that we have a capitalist class of coupon clippers, who contribute nothing to the economy, but draw off billions in dividends, whilst using their resources not to invest in productivity raising investment, but to yet more inflate share, and bond, and property prices, and that this class exerts a dominating influence on politics?
That you only see inequality and inequity when it comes to looking at foreigners, whilst say nothing, and thereby give succor to all of those elements within Britain demonstrates that you are indeed a reactionary nationalist and no kind of socialist.
Boffy
@Greg,
And just so its clear, in a reply to you on a previous thread two days ago, I wrote,
“I certainly am not willing to support any EU “aristocracy” – actually across most of Europe they got rid of their aristocracies, and its in Britain where the aristocracy still has a massively entrenched power in the House of Lords, and the Monarchy – but as a socialist rather than a nationalist, I see no reason to put my faith in that British aristocracy, or British ruling class institutions, or British capital, as in any way representing a more progressive alternative!
I want to destroy the EU “aristocracy” as much as the British aristocracy. And, I want to replace capitalism with socialism, but socialism has to be built on a higher level of development than capitalism, and capitalism is already an international system, so any progressive socialist replacement must also be built on a similar international basis, so that any retrenchment to the nation state represents reaction not progress.
I want to stay in the EU, so as to fight alongside my fellow EU workers to replace capitalism across the piece, and to join with my fellow workers across Europe to build socialism on the only credible basis that it can be built, which is at least on the scale of the EU.”
So, for you to say as you did above,
“That you can look at the EU and not see the inequality therein beggars belief; the five star lifestyles, salaries, pensions, limousines with security chauffeurs, the expensive buildings being erected – the now-deceased Labour MP, Tony Benn, described his experience of visiting Brussels as if he “were going as a slave to Rome”.
I’m afraid that you are wilfully blind when it comes to supporting the EU; you are not on the side of democracy – or a fair and just society.”
illustrates the dishonesty of your argument.
NMac
The referendum was the biggest abuse of democracy I have seen in my lifetime. It was called by a weak Tory leader who lacked the guts to tell his extremely unpleasant right-wing MPs to shut up (didn’t Major call them the “bastards”?), and also lacked good judgement – a failing which appears to be inherent in many Tories. It was built on a campaign of deliberate lies which were intended to deceive, and at no time were the dire consequences ever mentioned by the “Leave” camp. To ask the electorate to decide such a complicated and serious change of the country’s constitution was, I would submit, just a Tory way of dragging the whole country and the continent of Europe into a matter which was basically an internal party squabble which had been going on for decades.