This is not the Brexit I expected when I voted Leave, which is why I want a Final Say

I really don’t like to admit this in polite company – well, you wouldn’t – but I voted Leave in 2016 and now I feel more than a bit gutted.

To say I haven’t got the Brexit I voted for is a bit of an understatement. The Brexit I voted for was one with some marginal alterations to the existing package, to give Britain a bit more economic freedom, in turn to try and build a more competitive economy. The EU isn’t perfect, as we know.

My vote, at least, wasn’t about migration. Nor was it necessarily about the customs union or single market, as such.

I simply thought Britain could get a (slightly) better deal by agitating for it, and the prime minister, David Cameron (who promised to stay in office but didn’t) would have that mandate to bully the European Commission with.

So I’ve got my alibis.

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It was a marginal decision. I thought that maybe we’d extract those concessions (and Cameron did get a few minor ones), have a swift second vote and all would be well – standard procedure for the EU in the past when it got “the answer it didn’t want” from a referendum in a member state. Perhaps we’d get a really good “cake” deal – keep all the benefits but stop sending the money. Something like that.

It didn’t quite work out.

I decided some time ago that Brexit wasn’t worth it, and should, with the express and informed consent of the British people in a suitable referendum, be binned. Embarrassing, but the right thing to do for the long term.

What we have on the table now is, as we’ve seen, something that no one apart from Theresa May would feel much enthusiasm voting for. And to be truthful, she has got about the best Brexit available realistically. No one could have done better. Not the Archangel Gabriel himself. Not a team of negotiators headed by Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, with William Shakespeare drafting the scripts, Wellington providing the muscle and John Maynard Keynes doing the sums.

So it is what it is, and the other options – and there are some, to be fair – are a bit worse or a bit better. They are all inferior to the present deal: ie EU membership with the opt-outs on the single currency and other things.

I don’t blame anyone for this. There will be more than enough of that, whatever happens.

The “stab in the back” conspiracists on all sides are hard at work concocting myths, or semi-myths about the Russians, the BBC (both sides can do that one), the “mainstream media” more generally, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s investment activities, Tory donors, Seamus Milne, the European Commission (of course), Mossad (just wait), Trump, Olly Robbins, Arron Banks, George Soros, Airbus, Nissan, May as a double agent... There will be an awful lot of guilty men and women, either way. Mostly rubbish.

It is just in the nature of the beast that we’d come off worst, probably. The EU is 10 times bigger than the UK, and it used its bargaining power as ruthlessly as we tried, and failed, to use ours. We’d do the same to the Faroe Islands.

Populations, markets, economies, money – these are the realties behind the diplomacy. We might have got lucky. We didn’t. The EU decided that the UK wasn’t going to be better off out than in. Maybe they were bullies; maybe they were harsh; maybe they were unfair. Up to them, though, and we have no referee or court of appeal to complain to, and no clout to punish them in return.

So, yes, I want another vote. Even if I was still a Leaver, I hope I would accept that everyone should have a say on what is about to be done in our names. It is so momentous that it demands one. It is a decision where the practicalities and actual consequences are clearer than they were in 2016. Whatever Brexit you might have wanted, you now have one that you can vote on, for or against.

Judging by the opinion polls, there has been a small but significant swing from Leave to Remain since 2016. Some of that – surprisingly little – is folk changing their minds. More of it seems to be about people who didn’t vote in 2016 now saying that they would do so, and those voters being disproportionately pro-Remain. I accept that the vote might go Leave once again.

If the vote does go for Leave again, I will be content with that. I will know it was a fair campaign when people had as much knowledge at their disposal as they could possibly want. The UK is probably the world’s most politically aware nation. We know more about international trade than anyone else, which is good when you earn so much of your living from it.

And, if people really do want to leave the EU for purely political reasons, because they find immigration from the EU so objectionable, because they just don’t like foreigners or they prefer parliament to be truly sovereign, then OK. I can live in peace with my fellow countrymen and women, even if I don’t happen to agree with them.

It might not prove to be the catastrophe that many say it will be – on any model of Brexit. Ideally, I would prefer a vote on the whole deal, rather than just the divorce settlement, the UK-EU withdrawal agreement.

In other words we should have the opportunity to vote on the more significant half of the deal – the future relationship. The political declaration around this sounds nice, but it has no legal force, and we are about to chuck away what little bargaining power we have by signing the divorce bill. Remember that slogan of David Davis – “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”? Well, everything isn’t agreed, so nothing should be.

I will respect the result of a Final Say referendum, which will come because parliament cannot and should not decide, and the people can and will. It will be an example of democratic engagement unparalleled in human history. Final Say is the logical climax of our two year debates.

Be honest: it is quite difficult to respect the result of the 2016 version. The Leave battle bus with the lies about the NHS on the side; the “neutral” government leaflet paid for by taxpayers that was in fact Remain propaganda; the fines levied on both campaigns – it was flawed.

We can learn from our mistakes, as I am trying do to.

For more details about the Put It To The People march – and to sign up – please visit https://www.peoples-vote.uk/march

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