Paddy Ashdown: Brexit is a monumental act of self-harm which will bewilder historians

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As a memorial to Paddy, read an article he wrote for the Independent in March 2017:

Few in Britain voted to leave the single market; remaining in it was proposed by many Brexiteers and promised in the Conservative election manifesto. Estimates put the cost to Britain of this kind of “hard Brexit” as high as £200bn over 15 years. 

Already companies are leaving, taking with them livelihoods, expertise and the futures of many citizens. We are now embarked on a course that will bewilder future historians as the most remarkable example in modern history of a country committing an act of monumental self-harm while still in full possession of its faculties. 

So why has May moved her party onto policies indistinguishable from those of Ukip? For the same reason that Mr Cameron insisted on the Referendum in the first place: the best interests of the nation are once again being held hostage to the internal management of the Conservative Party. 

The article begins with a quotation from Hazlitt and ends with the words:

If you feel depressed today, don’t be. Be fighting mad. There’s still everything still to fight for.