I think there are three reasons why my MP should support a People’s Vote and Britain’s continued membership of the European Union.

First, I think there are good reasons to invalidate the 2016 referendum. There was no specific proposal to vote on, so it wasn’t clear exactly what was being proposed and the ‘Leave’ campaign were able to promise different and incompatible things to
different people; Much of the ‘Leave’ campaign was based on xenophobia and even racism. The ‘Remain’ campaign was headed by people who didn’t believe in the cause such as David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn, it was set up to fail and excluded the voices of people who genuinely believe in Britain’s membership of the European Union. It was the cause of the ‘deep divisions’ that concern my MP. 

These divisions will only deepen if there is not a People's Vote. 

Second, the position has changed since June 2016. The political and economic situation in Britain and the world has changed. More information has emerged about the implications of Britain leaving the European Union (although much is still concealed) but it is clearly just a first step to a bonfire of the laws that currently protect workers, consumers and the environment. There is also increasingly more and more evidence that public opinion has changed since 2016 in favour of staying in the European Union because that would protect peace, prosperity, democracy and civil liberties.

Third, it should be the role of political leaders to provide leadership rather than to ‘sway in the wind’. If my MP believes, as he says he does, that it would be in Britain’s interests to stay in the European Union, he should continue to campaign for this. If Labour wins the next election and Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister, I doubt if my Conservative MP would join the Labour Party and serve as a Labour minister. I expect he would campaign for the return of a Conservative government. In my view, those who continue to campaign for Britain to stay in the European Union are behaving democratically while those who serve in a Brexit
government when they know that the policy would damage Britain are unpatriotic, weak and spineless.

I would therefore suggest that my MP should campaign for a ‘People’s Vote’ in which the electorate would decide between leaving the European Union on the terms proposed by the government or staying in the European Union on the existing terms.

Adrian Waite is a member of European Movement and a constituent of a Conservative MP who supported Remain in the 2016 referendum but now supports Brexit.