@CalumMillerLD We have deliberately cut off our access to our biggest market the European Union.
— Mike H (@mikoh123) January 16, 2025
Audience claps 👏
The solution to growth is to have a much tighter relationship with the European Union over the next 5 years.#bbcqt pic.twitter.com/Hpm7yumh3N
Calum Miller, MP for Bicester & Woodstock and the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, was one of the panellists on Question Time last night. The show came from Northampton, the largest town in a county that voted solidly for Leave.
Notice the audience applause as he makes the case for much closer relations with the European Union - politicians are at last beginning to state the obvious truth about Brexit and, in particular, the way it was enacted.
I also note that the people who were so angry about the EU before the referendum our no happier today - they've just found new things to be angry about.
Yes.Even Badenoch says 'It was badly handled' My quote.Is it now time to push rejoining on the doorstep?
ReplyDeleteLike many other Lib Dems I sat up all night wading through thousands of messages of support on Twitter from Europhiles using the #FBPE hashtag, admitting they were mistaken and had underestimated our EU policy following Ed's speech and the Lib Dems sponsored Youth Mobility Bill
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed when he said that the Brexit referendum decision "has to be respected". NO IT DOESN'T. Even if it did once, it doesn't anymore. It's a spent mandate. We'll know when the political conversation has moved on from the referendum when a Lib Dem can safely say something like "The referendum was x years and y Parliaments ago. Why should we be bound by an advisory referendum that we wouldn't have run if we'd been in office at the time and which has long since been overtaken by events?"
ReplyDeleteIronically the Brexit referendum would have been much easier to challenge had it been legally binding. First of all the pro-Brexit campaign would have caused the result to be annulled, and second even if it had been allowed it would have been possible and legitimate to seek a fresh mandate to reverse it via another referendum. The 2016 vote to leave the EU must surely be the most sanctified public vote in the democratic world. It was a UK-wide opinion poll, nothing more.