Please respect others’ opinions of Brexit

ON February 20, 2016, our then Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced the historic “in or out” referendum on our membership of the EU.

He went to great pains to stress that it was not possible to “partleave” as this was impossible. The choice was simple and if you doubt this, his speech can be found from many sources on the internet.

This was the basis of the referendum and certainly, of my own vote.

What I do not understand is that somehow our politicians and media have twisted all of this into a “fudge”- “soft Brexit”, “hard Brexit” etc, none of which are workable, just as Mr Cameron stressed. This has now dragged on for so long that it has completely compromised the whole process.

We surely all knew that short term, leaving an organisation with which we have been (debatably undemocratically) integrated over a 40-year period, would have negative economic consequences, but the people had had enough of the meddling in all sorts of ways by the EU and the fact that only two countries in the whole of the EU actually made a net contribution, the UK and Germany.

By using their vote, the public clearly just wanted to “get on with it”, take the hit and then start rebuilding our trade with the rest of the world, where 90% of economic growth lies.

I am tired and irritated by being told that I did not understand what I was voting for, that I was influenced by lies from Russia, from Boris Johnson etc.

Like everyone else in the UK, I do have a brain of my own and I can make inquiries from all sources to arrive at an informed decision. Please do not tell me that I am stupid or uneducated,

I simply have my own informed opinion. Just because you do not agree with it, does not make me an

idiot or indeed stupid, my opinion is just as valid as yours.

Our politicians have let us down badly, they have used a simple mandate to score political points over each other, they have turned black and white into grey, they have ignored our democratic right and encouraged a monumental bun fight.

The EU, from being in a position of weakness, has looked on in disbelief as we have manoeuvred ourselves from a position of strength into a position of weakness.

The Irish border was as much a problem for the EU as the UK, however, we have contrived to make this an issue which has worked against us and taken the whole burden on board as the EU has sat back and said “nothing to do with us”.

Our politicians have caused all of this and should be ashamed of themselves as they now try to make out that it was the fault of the voting public.

Just to demonstrate the madness and duplicity:

It was reported that the EU had signed a momentous free trade deal with Japan. This begs the question as to why it will not sign a similar deal with the UK?

I can think of 40 billion reasons.