PRESS RELEASE – December 2018
Ref: Seua17
The People’s Vote campaign offers a ladder out of what is increasingly being described by the Brexit-weary as the sordid and rather unedifying pit of Brexit. According to Suffolk E.U. Alliance chair Julia Ewart. “Those who want to remain in the pit until the end of 2020 and very likely for many years afterwards will be free to express their wish to do so”.
“But those who never asked for it in the first instance, and those who have looked over the abyss and don’t like what they see below, think differently. Preferring Great Britain to continue as part of a group of inter-connected and co-operating independent nations, they can express their wish to stay within the EU. It’s all we ask, and especially that we now know from our government that there is no Brexit configuration that offers economic advantage over our current status, only regression”, she added.
To this end a group of SEUA members presented a letter to the editor and staff of the East Anglian Daily Times. The open letter, addressed to all seven Suffolk MPs, is intended to prick their collective conscience and serve as a reminder of their responsibility to put the interest of the nation above party allegiance and personal interest.
“In other words” explained Julia Ewart, “we’re telling them that we expect them to step up from being average politicians to become wise statesmen and women. Whereas the former look only to the next election, the latter look to the next generation”, she said.
The SEUA claims that leaving the EU will lead to a long-term fractious relationship with our close neighbours and it looks likely to turn the British into pariahs in our own backyard. Climbing into bed with leaders like Trump, Putin, the Gulf States and many Third World countries does not look much like Boris Johnson’s ‘sunlit uplands of Brexit’ fantasy. It will be a lot more difficult than dealing with our immediate neighbours with whom we share so much history and heritage. It will also harm the environment due to long trade distances involved. The alliance is at pains to stress that we already trade with non-EU countries. The US is already our largest single nation trading partner. We already export twice as much to the US than we do to, say, Germany.
Ewart: “Taking the ladder out of the interminable quagmire of Brexit leads to a brighter, more optimistic, future through a pro-active role in the reformation of an EU fit for the next 60 years. We know there are many counties within the EU that would like to join us in this challenge. Until the end of March there will be no obstacle to us taking this option. Post Brexit? We’ll be impotent and powerless.”
The SEUA is intensifying its campaign of awareness of the traps of Brexit. It claims that the public has not had it explained how many benefits we are all soon to lose. It also claims that there has been a constant drip-feed of deceptions and misinformation.
Julia Ewart is uncompromising: “If this is allowed to go through, the anger of those who never gave a ‘green light’ for Brexit in the first place – that’s 62% of the electorate, let’s remember – plus the others that will also join when they see what’s been done to them is something parliamentarians should now take very seriously.”
The SEUA claims that the case for Brexit has not been made, and that the government never had a mandate for change in the first instance. “Margaret Thatcher had a mandate for change in her landslide election of 1979, as also did Tony Blair in 1997” claims Ewart. “A tiny 52/49% win is not a mandate for change; it’s a recipe for interminable discord, she added.
“There’s still time and the resources to prevent Brexit but, let’s be under no delusion, come the end of March today’s Remain organisations will morph into watchdogs, bodies that will be holding to account those politicians who have delivered Brexit without a realistic mandate.”
Ewart: “Feet will be held to the fire. For those who force Brexit through on the back of deceptions, misinformation, ‘sweeteners’ like peerages and intolerable party whip pressure, there will be no two year-cut-off – they will take their legacy to the end of their lives. Poor statesmanship comes at a price. Those who were complicit in allowing the handbrake to slip, the momentum to build, the car to gain speed as it hurtles towards an obvious cliff, these politicians must be under no delusion that the burden of responsibility will remain with them always.”
The SEUA points to the fact that if Tony Blair became toxic due one monumental miscalculation, why would today’s Brexit politicians be any different?
Julia Ewart: “Parliamentarians can now no longer pretend that Brexit will lead to greater prosperity – all government and Bank of England studies have reached this conclusion – but they clearly need to be reminded that their problems don’t end in March next year; that’s when they begin. Compound this with a Conservative led Suffolk County Council with its slashed budgets, many supporters will be questioning their allegiance to the Tory party in its present configuration”
(Ends)
(866 words)
Further information: Julia Ewart, julia.ewart@btinternet.com
Press relations contact: Richard Hare c/o suffolkeu@gmail.com
Editor’s note: Details of the Alliances accusations of misinformation and distortions of truth can be found in SEUA18: ‘Brexit – Smoke and Mirrors – Where’s fairyland?’
- SEUA18: ‘Brexit – Smoke and Mirrors – Where’s fairyland?’
- SEUA19.2: ‘Into Uncertainly – For want of a cup of Coffee’.