Letter: Anne Milton Is Right – We Need a Confirmatory Referendum

Published on: 21 Oct, 2019
Updated on: 21 Oct, 2019

From John Schluter

In response to: Guildford’s MP Abstains in Commons Debate and Repeats Call for ‘Confirmatory’ Referendum

I agree with Anne Milton and over the past few years am pleased that she concurs that a decision on the final deal needs ratification from the British public.

I suggest that Mr Holliday checks what his leader Boris Johnson and his ally Michael Gove said during the referendum campaign before he states that “a clean break Brexit is what we voted for originally three long years ago”. Both Messrs Johnson and Gove promised continued involvement in the single market and customs union, amongst other wild claims.

Michael Gove said before the referendum vote: “There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU. After we vote to leave we will remain in this zone.

“The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and Ukraine would stay part of this free trade area – and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus – is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker joining UKIP.

“Agreeing to maintain this continental free trade zone is the simple course and emphatically in everyone’s interests.”

And here’s a 2016 quote from another Tory, Daniel Hannan: “Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.”

This is Prime Minister Johnson speaking before the referendum: “I would vote to stay in the single market. I’m in favour of the single market.”

Surely, if this proposal from the government is so, so much better than the deal we have at present, then Mr Johnson should have no qualms whatsoever in proposing a confirmatory vote on what he has actually agreed this time rather than the pipe dreams of his campaign three and a half years ago.

Democracy is a fluid business, just ask the former Brexit Secretary David Davis MP who said: “If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.”

Thank you to Anne Milton and to Zoe Franklin for their unstinting efforts towards resolving this Tory induced crisis.

Responses to Letter: Anne Milton Is Right – We Need a Confirmatory Referendum

Steve Page Reply

October 22, 2019 at 1:44 pm

A “confirmatory referendum” attempts to pervert the democratic principle. Even my remain-supporting parents are deeply shocked that any person calling themselves British would seek to undo the cornerstone of our most cherished political principle.

Further, it is my strong belief that no-one should ever allow themselves to be corrupted by such an under-handed machination. To undermine the democratic principle after the largest ever UK vote (irrespective of the issue), in the UK of all places, is reflective not of a modern, outward-looking western society but a third world republic.