5 Jul 2016

Letter to Cotswold MP following Cotswold Vote to Remain

Dear Geoffrey Clifton Brown MP,

Please note that, as your constituent, I request that, following the results of the EU Referendum, you should vote against Britain leaving the EU in any vote in the House of Commons.

My reasons for this are as follows:

    Since the result was announced, some of the main reasons that were put forward to support leaving have been revealed as fraudulent. Firstly, there is no possibility of £350 million extra per week being spend on the NHS, despite this being displayed in giant letters on the side of the Vote Leave Campaign “Battle Bus”.  Secondly, it has been acknowledged by the Conservative MEP, Daniel Hannan, in a television interview, that there is no scenario under which the UK will be able to stay inside the European Single Market without allowing freedom of entry to the UK to EU citizens.

     While the members of the Vote Leave campaign may repudiate these claims now, they certainly did not deny them during the campaign and these same promises were touted by tabloid newspapers such the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, leading to a general perception that these were on offer. The content of these newspapers was so misleading and biased that the general public could not be expected to understand the issues and problems raised by exit from the EU.

    The turnout was only 72.2% and the results were only 48% In, 52% Leave, a very slender margin upon which to make such a momentous decision, much narrower than that of the Scottish Independence referendum and the vote which brought the current government to power.  The future of our country cannot be jeopardised on such a poor mandate, which was only achieved by misleading the electorate.

    The Referendum result is not legally binding on the Government and as the legal processes required to extract the UK from the Union are complex, disruptive and expensive to the point of being unfeasible, then the Government should be able to ignore the result. As the exit of the UK is also likely to trigger a second referendum on independence for Scotland and even calls for the incorporation of Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic, which will cause the break up of the United Kingdom, this is also grounds for ignoring the result.

    Since you yourself were unable to persuade your own constituency to vote in favour of leaving the EU, I therefore call upon you vote against UK’s leaving the EU in any House of Commons vote.


Yours sincerely,
Bob Irving

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