Opinion: Respecting the Referendum
I recently posted on Facebook that in fact I didn't respect the referendum for the following reasons;
1) The referendum was only "Advisory".
2) The Leave vote did not pass the 40% of electorate threshold a union would have needed to go on strike.
3) "The British People have spoken". And yet almost every opinion poll leading up to the referendum and since the result are in favour of Remaining in the EU.
4) 68% of the youngest age group voted, compared to 90% of the oldest. Had more young people been able to vote, the result would have been different.
5) A recent LSE blog, showed that a poll of those who didn't vote, showed them to be 2 to 1 in favour of Remain.
6) I never believed that anything as important as EU membership should be decided in this manner, especially when brought about by the Tory party's internal bickering.
7) This doesn't even take into account the nature of some of the campaigning on the Leave side, possibly about to become the focus of the Crown Prosecution Service.
In response to this, a fellow Lib Dem referred to me as a "Hard Remainer". I believe that as the Liberal Democrats have been staunchly Pro-EU for 40+ years, there is no obligation for us to change. It is not only our right, but our responsibility in a Representative Democracy to campaign for our beliefs.
But whilst I do not respect the referendum as an exercise in democracy, I do respect the result for different reasons. For many, this actually had very little to do with the EU. Immigration was, and still is, touted as the most important reason to leave the EU. The North-east of England, staunchly in favour of leaving the EU, only has 19,000 Eastern European immigrants living there. No, this was a protest vote against the Government.
However, I do believe there is a solution and a particularly Liberal solution at that. After "Brexit means Brexit", I'm sure the phrase most of us are particularly sick of hearing is "Take Back Control!" My solution would be to "Give Back Control" with "Devolution Plus", aiming to boost the areas of the UK most affected. A good start would be to cancel Heathrow's third runway and grant the expansion to a regional airport such as Birmingham or Manchester. We should then create regional hubs in place like Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle and Bristol supported by ultra-modern and environmentally friendly transport links. At the same time we should vastly improve technological infrastructure (whilst we struggle to rollout 4G, South Korea is moving to 25G). Financial incentives should be offered to help businesses relocate to these areas.
Each of these regions should have its own assembly with a significant devolved powers. Scotland and Wales have shown how successful this can be. Each new assembly should be required to involve the local communities they serve at every opportunity, giving the public the chance to directly influence the community around them. And if that isn't Liberal, I don't know what is!
So I would say to the people of Britain that in fact we do respect the Referendum result and hear that they want to take back control of their country. And there is no better party in Britain to make that happen than the Liberal Democrats. Let's give back control!
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* The opinions expressed here are those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of the Chelmsford Liberal Democrats or those of the national Liberal Democrat party.