Ex-PM Gordon Brown believes that a second referendum will happen and the people need a final say. He also wants Britain to leave the door open to rejoining the EU if it leaves as planned.
Speaking at London’s Institute for Government, Mr Brown claimed May’s deal is nothing more a ‘temporary, short-term fix,’ and her divided party could damage Britain in the long-term.
He said: “Even with a deal our end-point – Canada or Norway – is unresolved. Our long-term relationship to the customs union is unresolved, our long-term relationship to the single market is unresolved and the scope to sign trade deals is unresolved.
”We will have, at best, a short-term fix in the absence of an agreed end point – a short-term fix because the Cabinet cannot agree on an end point.”
He continued: “There is a further worry: If the next two years of negotiation involve a process as inward looking, divisive and partisan – as dominated and driven by internal Conservative politics as the past two years we will become an even more divided country.
“More divided than in the 70’s during the three-day week, than in the 80’s during the miners’ strike and than in the early 90s because of poll tax.
“Indeed we have to look back to the angry debates on the corn laws in the 1840s and on Ireland in the 1880s – but these were before the advent of a full democracy.”
He went on to say: “I fear a sense of betrayal will increasingly take root on all sides. Millions of young people who want to remain, feeling betrayed that their future is being mortgaged by an older generation.
“Remain voters feeling betrayed because the European referendum was won, in their view, on the basis of dishonest propaganda and in the view of the Electoral Commission by corrupt electoral practises.
“Leave voters feeling that pledges made at the referendum are not being delivered; for example the promises of being better off, of more money for the NHS, of absolute freedom for the fishing industry and of how easy a clean break would be.
“Most of all, Leave voters feeling that the promise that their voices would finally be listened to – one of the main reasons why they rebelled against the advice of their leaders – is not being honoured.”
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/kier-starmer-insists-labour-policy-includes-option-of-peoples-vote-and-brexit-can-be-stopped/12/11/