On the morning of 24th June 2015 I trudged in through my front door with a sense of despondency after attending the EU referendum count. I had campaigned hard for around six months to try to ensure a future for the UK within the European Union, yet over the course of the night I had seen my work, and that of thousands of others, come to nothing.
I won’t dwell on the subsequent change of government and the mass dumping of manifesto pledges. I won’t linger on the identity crisis that has consumed the Labour Party. What I will explain is why I haven’t given up on our place in the EU.
I was eight years old when the UK joined the European Union. I have vague recollections of my father, a serving police officer, having to seek permission to visit Spain the previous year because it was still a fascist dictatorship.
In the 43 and a bit years since then I have enjoyed unprecedented freedom to travel as I please throughout the EU. Following the untimely death of my father my mother has lived, worked and owned property in the EU. My children have studied at Universities in the EU under the Erasmus scheme and I now have close friends and relatives in five different member states other than the UK.
In the years since 1973, I have lived in a European Union that has seen the end of totalitarian regimes in Spain and Portugal, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Empire. I have watched the growth of an organisation that has fought for workers’ rights, environmental protections, civil liberties, the enforcement of international law, joint scientific research and the creation of a free market place of half a billion people.
Although it has been far from perfect as an organisation I have always believed in the power of representative democracy and negotiated reform, and I have been proud to be a citizen of the EU.
On 24thJune I went home feeling that my citizenship had just been stripped from me. Rather than fighting to reform the organisation from within, building on its strengths and reforming where necessary, the British electorate, (or rather the English electorate) had been convinced to throw in the towel and walk away. I must confess that over the few days following the referendum I too was ready to throw in the towel.
But I didn’t. The benefits of EU membership for my family and I have simply been too great to walk away from. As a man of Cornish and Devonian blood, I know very well how much of the regeneration funding given to the South West is down to the EU taking up the slack where Westminster had shown no interest.
As a parent I know how valuable the educational opportunities given to my children have been in shaping the rest of their lives.
As a person with political convictions I believe that to allow a new government carte blanche in the quest for “Brexit” is anathema.
The EU has been my home and I am not prepared to give it up. I believe that the UK still has a place within the EU. It might be that we come to some accommodation with the EU that encompasses many of the freedoms I have enjoyed. Somehow I doubt this will happen as the EU has a vested interest in maintaining its own integrity and not allowing some form of “pick and mix” membership scheme. I also think that the government’s commitment to “Brexit meaning Brexit” will not allow for this to happen.
My fear is that we will end up with an arrangement which falls far short of our existing membership terms, with reduced rights and freedoms for the many, whilst protecting the earnings of the few. It is for this reason that I believe the British people should have the final say on the terms of any withdrawal from the EU. It is for this reason that I hold to the Liberal Democrat position of the people getting a referendum on the deal that is finally on offer. I am not prepared to give up my citizenship of the EU cheaply, particularly if what replaces it does not serve the best interests of my family and my country. Some might say this is undemocratic as it would be against the “will of the people”. I would respond by saying that there was no “settled will” expressed by the people as Brexit meant so many different things to different people. Democracy would be best served by allowing the electorate their say on the final deal just as they were allowed their say in June. We were permitted to vote for departure, now we should be trusted to vote on the destination.
If, after all the negotiations it transpires that there is no deal that will be good enough for the UK, I believe that we should be pragmatic and, indeed, brave enough to halt the process and return to our seat at the EU table. From that position we should then work alongside reformers such as Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt, in reforming the organisation from within. Already, within the debating chambers of the European Union, calls have been made for wide ranging reforms, for a union that is less restrictive in some areas, and more effective in others. We could well find ourselves pushing at an open door.
If nothing else has been achieved, our Brexit vote has shaken the complacency out of some of the EU’s decision makers and there is a greater willingness to consider these reforms for the sake of saving and enhancing the EU.
I believe that our long term future still lies within the European Union and I have picked up the towel, wiped myself down and I’m now ready to come out and fight another round.
Phil Dunn
Liberal Democrats Parliamentary Spokesman
Bournemouth West.
