Referendum vote until the end of time?

idea of a ‘hard’ or ‘no-deal’ Brexit takes hold – then we will lose the benefits of free trade and it will instantly become much more difficult for goods to travel. Fruit and vegetables will all become more expensive once the UK leaves the EU, no matter what trade deal is struck, city analysts have calculated.

This is all thanks to the Brexit voter, in my view from people who want to stop the free flow of immigrants, and from people who want Britain to be able to take back control, when we have always been in control of our own country via the ballot box, via our so-called democratic vote. Being a member of the EU has benefited us Brits since we joined the Common Market in the 1970s.

‘TOO bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair’.

I think that quote by the late, great George Burns describes perfectly the views expressed in last week’s Herald Express by Dennis Faulkner and Paul Newman.

These armchair experts assert their views that Brexit will be a wonderful thing and that no-one should dare challenge those 17.4 million ‘winning’ voters, especially Dr Sarah Wollaston.

Paul Newman goes a stage further and states this newspaper should be ‘ashamed’ to publish her views. So Mr Newman, who believes in freedom from the shackles of Brussels, as I guess he would put it, doesn’t believe in free speech and the freedom to express a view that is contrary to his own.

The truth of the matter, of course, is that nobody knows what effect leaving the EU will have on the UK. Most of the people who appear to know a bit about it think it will not be good, but they are accused by Brexiteers of scaremongering. Votes cast in a general election mean that a party may govern for perhaps four or five years. If that party does a bad job, they can be voted out. The referendum vote, or ‘the will of the people‘, appears to be forever, the result set in stone until the end of time. it’s worth remembering that 48.1% of those who voted, more than 16 million people, wanted to remain in the EU. I imagine that had the result been reversed, the likes of Nigel Farage and Arron Banks would be clamouring for a second referendum based on the narrow margin of the vote.

For example, back in the mid-1980s, I, along with the late ex-mayor Eileen Salloway, and environmental campaigner Wilf Street (and one other) were the only official objectors to the building of the conference centre, partly on the grounds of anticipated cost to local ratepayers, as none of us were taken in by the Conservative Council’s line of ‘It won’t cost us a penny.’

They were right of course, because since it opened in 1987 it has cost us not pennies but pounds, 25 million of them in subsidies and running costs.

These days it’s the vanity project that is Mayor Oliver’s air show. Again, a lot of money is leaving public coffers but none coming back in until, it has been estimated, we make a ‘profit’ of £9,000 after an outlay of £1 million.

The economics of the madhouse.

And all of this time we have seen more pavements cracked, an alarming increase in the number of potholes, uncut verges, filled in flower beds and closed toilets, not to mention the bins fiasco and other services suffering through cuts and mismanagement.

Also the shameful neglect of the Pavilion and Oldway.

For the sake of Torbay’s long term future I sincerely hope that next May’s local elections deliver a noticeable change in the makeup of the council.

I do not anticipate seeing the Tories being completely swept from office but hope that enough opposition councillors will be elected to at least be able to strongly scrutinise their actions and hold them more to account than is the case today.

Each week we will publish a snapshot of South Devon — can you guess where it is? Our pictorial clue is a photo taken somewhere in the area.

Can you recognise where?

Last week: Blue plaque, Torbay Lifeboat Station, Brixham

Christine Veacock, from Paignton, guessed the August 29 teaser correctly as Babbacombe Corinthean Sailing Club. Well done to you.