Dear Brexiteer. What we need you to do now.
So well done, first of all. You listened to the arguments, the same ones I listened to. You heard all the same information I did, you listened to the same debates that I did, but you voted to leave. And you won. I take that – it was a democratic process and sometimes in the democratic process you lose, as I have done.
The referendum has activated the political energies of people who haven’t been interested in politics for some time, so we are told, and many of them are like you, who voted to leave. So here’s the plea of the losing side to you now.
Firstly, don’t stop – don’t stop with your political passion and activism, because we need you now. We need you to be active, we need you to keep talking to the people who you trusted with this vote, and we need you to hold their feet to the fire. There will be a General election in 2020, if not before, and by then, you will know whether their promises are good or not. So make it clear to them that you are watching to see if they were telling the truth or not.
If you voted leave because of all the money which will now go to the NHS, make sure it does. If it doesn’t vote them out, because they lied to you.
If you voted leave because of all the immigration, and it turns out that the deals that they do mean immigration will not go down, then vote them out, because they lied to you.
If you voted leave because of all the Brussels Bureaucracy, and it turns our companies still have to conform with all brussels bureaucracy in order to be part of a trade agreement, then vote them out, because they lied to you.
If you voted leave because you were reassured that the economy would be as good as or better than it is now, and it turns out that the pound has fallen, and businesses have left, and people have lost their jobs, then vote them out, because they lied to you.
If you find your rights – maternity and paternity leave, breaks at work, sick pay, health and social benefits – are taken away, when we were told they would not, then vote them out, because they lied to you.
My feeling is that the issues will remain. Immigration will not go down, mainly because we don’t train people in this country, we import them, which creates an underclass of white working class and second and third generation immigrants who aren’t trained or educated for work. With fewer workers rights, that’s only going to increase, rather than diminish.
So please, if you find that they lied to you, vote them out. And vote for the people who will tell you uncomfortable, complicated truths, rather than easy, simple lies.
