The Clueless 'Brexit' Leaders Hiding Behind Patriotism

We have to leave the EU - but we don't actually have to do it in such a damaging way as these people appear to want. It will all be about how we negotiate our exit - what the new relationship with the EU will be.
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So this was the Brexit leadership campaign plan. We are going to keep repeating some promises which we will disown after the campaign - but it's OK because we don't know if we will be in a position to deliver on these promises anyway.

Now that we are surprised to find ourselves in Government we realise that we still don't really know what to do but we will resist Parliament or the public or the press or anyone else being able to have a say on what we eventually do. In addition we will accuse anyone who disagrees with us of being unpatriotic - especially those who dare to point out any problems with anything we say or do. So far - so bad.

The likes of David Davies, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox are intent on following their hard-Brexit ideology and that may damage the future prosperity of the UK.

These are the same people who appeared to promise that leaving the EU would provide £350 million per week for the NHS and that leaving the EU would help stop uncontrolled immigration - promises they appear to have disowned as soon as the last vote was counted.

There is no evidence that these people have any coherent plan that would enable us to leave the EU without causing this country real harm. All we hear from them is that we can't carry on with free movement and to them that matters more than the future prosperity of this country.

So where are we now?

This country voted to leave the EU by a legitimate democratic process and we must now leave the EU. We have to leave because not to do so would undermine the meaning and value of asking or consulting with the people of this country on anything else.

We must leave the EU even though it may cause some of our poorest citizens real financial hardship The price of food and other essentials have already started to increase because of a fall in the value of the pound - a fall that started immediately after the Brexit vote. Because the pound is worth less against other currencies this country will have to pay more for food and other goods produced abroad. This is even before we have actually left the EU and all the problems that might cause.

We have to leave even though we face economic uncertainty for years to come because we might not be able to have access to massive European single market which has help keep this country prosperous. It seems likely that we won't be allowed access to that market without continuing to accept some form of free movement of workers - which these hard-line Brexit politicians in Government are so against.

The point is - we have to leave the EU - but we don't actually have to do it in such a damaging way as these people appear to want. It will all be about how we negotiate our exit - what the new relationship with the EU will be.

The UK can prosper if we can trade with other countries without trade barriers being put in the way. Like all things in life this will mean accepting a cost to gain trade advantages with other countries - they don't owe us a living.

We may have to accept things something like free movement of people in order to be able to trade with all those EU countries so that we can prosper.

The Brexit leaders boasted about how we would easily negotiate new trade deals with the rest of the world but their attitude towards our nearest and largest market - the EU - does not suggest that their main interest is this country's future prosperity.

They said new deals with numerous countries around the world would be made quickly and easily - but like other promises they made it doesn't look like they can deliver this either - look at the deal between Canada and the EU - seven years in the making and still not signed.

There has been plenty of talk about patriotism - that the moaning 'remainers' (like me) are not patriotic if we suggest that our leaving the EU us anything other than a positive thing.

I hope that this country prospers outside the EU - I hope we can somehow thrive economically and protect our democracy and freedoms and remain an open and accepting society - but it is far from certain that we can have all this and we should not ignore the challenges ahead.

I think it is patriotic to want the best outcome for the UK from what is a difficult situation - we have democratically decided to leave the EU - but we don't have to do it in the most damaging way just because the clueless bunch of politicians who led us into this situation say so.

There are politicians and parts of the media with a vested interest in covering up problems that are being caused by Brexit because they campaigned for it. The danger of this is that we don't have the open and healthy debate about this countries future and that is more important than ever.