Your say / stephen williams
‘A vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to derail Brexit’
Bristol voted very clearly to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Unfortunately our example was not followed by the rest of England, with a narrow majority for leaving the EU.
We’ve now had three years of the Conservative government making a total mess of delivering Brexit. Theresa May should have used the close result in the referendum as a reason for working across Parliament to find a compromise solution. She should have negotiated a soft Brexit that kept Britain in the Single Market and Customs Union, outside the political structures of the EU but inside the ‘common market’ that many Brexiters claimed to support.
Such a compromise would have minimised the economic damage to Bristol and the wider region, which is so closely integrated into European supply chains and relies on the movement of staff across countries. Our aerospace manufacturing and design companies rely on the Single Market for the free movement of components and highly skilled staff. Bristol is a world class hub for digital media and virtual reality companies. I’ve visited many of these companies over the years and one of the strong memories is of the multi-national nature of their staff. Engineers from France and Germany, designers from Finland and Estonia together make Bristol an economic success story. This ecosystem of talent will face severe disruption if Britain leaves behind every aspect of the EU.
is needed now More than ever
Such are the risks of the hard Brexit – can they be averted? Liberal Democrats have fought Brexit from day one and we were the first party to call for a peoples vote. I’m pleased that the Nationalist and Green parties have joined us in this demand. But we know that the Tories are dead set against another referendum, fearing that a reversal of the 2016 decision would tear their party to pieces. Their desire for self-preservation is clear. There’s no such clear position from Labour. Some of their MPs support a people’s vote. But they’ve been obstructed by Jeremy Corbyn and his core team. Instead of stopping Brexit, the Labour leadership merely wants to negotiate their own version. It is crystal clear that Labour should not be trusted by Remainers.
So how do we jolt Westminster into realising that people want to call a halt to the national humiliation of the last few years? We may not yet have agreement for another clarifying peoples vote but we do have elections for the European Parliament on May 23. Bristol Remainers gave Labour the benefit of the doubt in the 2017 general election. They should not trust them again. Liberals have supported Britain’s place in Europe for six decades. We have been consistent when all other parties have veered from tepid support to outright hostility. Liberal Democrats are the largest hard Remain party in the South West European Parliament region. A vote for us is a vote to derail Brexit, telling Westminster that it must give the people the chance to stop it for good.
Stephen Williams
Stephen Williams was a Bristol councillor and the MP for Bristol West. He is one of the Liberal Democrat candidates for the South West England region in the European Parliament elections.
Main image courtesy of Wikipedia
Read more: Encouraging students to vote in the European election
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