4m nationally and rising ... (Debate)

Mon 25 Mar 2019, 15:41

Some simple facts:

No-one in June 2016 knew what our future relationship with the EU would be if we voted to leave or what trading arrangements we’d have with the rest of the world. 

17.4m voted to leave, 16.1m voted to remain – leaving 13m registered voters who didn’t vote.  So clearly a majority of the British people did not vote to leave – by my calculation the 17.4m comes to about 37% of those registered and would be even less if the unregistered were included.

The electorate will have changed significantly over the last 3 years.

 There will of course be different views about this but another referendum would not be a ‘second bite at the cherry’ simply because it would not be the same cherry even if – absurdly – with 4 days to go we don’t know what sort of cherry it would be!  But how in these circumstances would it be undemocratic or ‘betraying the will of the people’ to ask us if what the government or parliament now wants is what we want?

Leavers – if you’re so sure leaving is what the majority want, what pray are you afraid of?

Personally, I’m still a remainer not because the EU is a perfect set of institutions, far from it, but because imho it continues to offer my children (and theirs if and when!) the best prospect of continuing peace, security, prosperity, opportunities and protection for the environment and human rights.  We already enjoyed a privileged position within it and I cannot for the life of me see how we’d be better off going it alone or being in hock to it but unable to participate in its decisions. 

I would though like to add my voice to Eleanor's and others regretting the deep divisions this has opened up and the sometimes vitriolic tone of the debate.  I was lucky enough to go to the 2012 Olympics a couple of times and felt so proud to be a citizen of such an apparently welcoming and inclusive country - even Londoners began to talk to each other! Can we ever recover that or was I deluded?