We need integrity

News that voters are changing their minds over Brexit should surprise no one. The promises of the referendum were always likely to end in ridicule or industrial vandalism. “It will be easy to get a deal”, Brexiteers told us. The misinformation on custom duties was another bubble which needs revisiting. Brexiteers told us duties with Europe are all inconsequential.

Really! Farmers pay 25 per cent tariffs if no deal. Car makers worry that 10-15 per cent duties on top of disruption of supply chains and impediments from regulations and transport delays will keep investment away, so gradually diminishing the car industry. Many other industries also fear a similar slow decline. Those who were most strongly for Brexit, such as fishermen and farmers, seem purblind due to blind trust in the leading Brexiteers. It worries me that fishermen are not shouting about the effect of long queues at the ports due to customs and regulations in the likely event of a hard Bexit. Europeans will only buy fresh fish!

Now that Boris Johnson has told us that the government plan can only lead to servitude, perhaps the shrewder Brexiteers will join the rising tide of demands for a referendum on the final deal. After all, the referendum debates never mentioned the concern that the Brexit path could lead to servitude. Only an outbreak of integrity can heal the disunity that has been the product of austerity and propagandabased politics. You can win the next referendum but at least the win will be fair.

ANDREW VASS Corbiehill Place, Edinburgh