Why #Brexiteers are right to feel a sense of betrayal

In 100 years, when we read the history books about the UK, my belief is that there will be one man that stands out as  the destroyer of the United Kingdom. That person won't be Kaiser Bill, the man who my Grandfather fought in the trenches in The Somme. It won't be Adolf Hitler who my father flew Wellington Bombers for the RAF, to halt in its tracks. Perversely, both Kaiser Bill and Hitler brought us together as a nation. Englishmen, Welshmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen stood together. They were joined by men from the Commonwealth, such as my Father, an Aussie, prepared to die for King and Country. My Father who's squadron (40 Squadron) was filled with brave men from all around the world, once told me that the extraordinary strength of the English speaking world was that when there was a crisis, we set aside our differences. We pull together and we come through, in adversity.

But here we are in 2019 and there is a very real prospect that the UK will break up. I have been amazed to hear Brexiteers stating that Northern Ireland departing the Union to save Brexit is a price worth paying to deliver their goal. It seems that the concept of Britishness is alien to Brexiteers. As anyone who understood the Irish situation knew before the referendum, Ireland would always be an insurmountable problem. This was one of the many things summarily dismissed by the likes of Nigel Farage in the campaign.  I can see no way that Scotland has a long term future as part of Great Britain once we leave. The country voted remain and it has a devolved government committed to remaining, who see #Brexit as the key. Why are we in this situation? Who is the villain of the piece? The answer is quite simple. The man who the history books will pin the blame on is David Cameron. 

Why did Cameron call the referendum? It wasn't out of any sense of democratic duty to the British people. It was to fix a difficult issue in the Conservative party. It is rather ironic that his attempt to "fix the Europe problem" looks likely to destroy the party for once and for all. Cameron made three mistakes when he came up with his cunning plan. The first was that he failed to recognise that there was a massive sense of anger in the country. This was looking for an outlet. The second was he failed to recognise that no one really trusted him or his deputy George Osborne (who he put in charge of the Remain campaign).  The third was that the referendum process he set up was fundamentally flawed. 

My guess is that most readers will understand the reasons for the first two of these. What some may  understand less, is why the referendum process was flawed. Cameron's arrogance was the root cause of this. Cameron being a rather shifty sort of character made the referendum an 'advisory referendum'm with no legally binding power. This sleight of hand was his backstop, a statement of complete contempt for the UK electorate. I believe that Cameron should have posed a very different question and made it legally binding. 

The question should have been Please choose one of the following two options which would be legally binding. 

Do you want to:

1. Remain in the EU on the current terms and conditions

2. Leave the EU, Customs Union, ECJ and all other institutions of the European Union on or before the 23rd June 2021. 

That way, everyone would have had a clear understanding of exactly what it meant and there would not be a period of drift. There would have been a proper debate, rather than the one where all sorts of dishonest claims were made by both sides. I happen to believe if the the truth of what the #Leave campaign was asking for was debated had been set out, the result would have been different. If it hadn't, there would have been a set period to properly manage the process. As it is, we are three years into the process and still no one knows the likely future relationship between the EU and the UK. 

Leave's campaign was based on fantasy and outright lies - and now we're all paying the cost #LeaveLies pic.twitter.com/VJEA8jsdpZ

— Derby for Europe (@Derby4Europe) August 31, 2016

I have many leave supporting friends, who feel let down. They are right to. They were mislead about the true nature of the referendum.

Have you no shame? #LeaveLies have created chaos, will Change Britain also have a big red bus? pic.twitter.com/Q7E1OBr6Wp

— MARTIN BRENT (@martinbrent) September 11, 2016

Oddly, they state that the lies such as the £350 million a week don't bother them and that despite the referendum having no legal standing, they believe it should be set in stone. Constitutionally, they have two options. The first is to accept that Parliament can do what it likes or ask for a second, legally binding referendum. The #Leave campaign's main argument was that Parliament should be sovereign, but this is then rejected in the matter of the referendum. 

Due to Cameron, we are now faced with a situation where the country is divided, two of the parts of the Union are likely to leave and our two party system is likely to fall apart. People like my son., who turned 19 yesterday, had no vote. the #Brexit vote was largely won by older voters. When my son is my age in 2050, I wonder what him and his peers will think of what we've done.

In a couple of weeks time, we have elections to the European parliament. This is the nearest thing we are likely to get to a referendum. The Parliament is elected by proportional representation. If you care about sorting this mess out, please voter for a party with a clear manifesto commitment to remain in the EU. This means The Lib Dems, The Greens, Change, The SNP,  or Plaid Cymru. If you are a #Leave voter, I strongly urge you not to vote for the #Brexit party. They have not published a manifesto and so you are writing Nigel Farage a blank cheque. To stand in an election without saying what you stand for should be illegal. Farage is no friend of the working class. He is no friend of the NHS. If you give him your vote, you may well find that you have enabled a very dangerous man. No intelligent person can possibly believe that his refusal to publish a manifesto is anything other than exceptionally dodgy. 

Nigel Farage: 'I will never, ever use the word manifesto' https://t.co/x7JnexlMcE

— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) May 13, 2019

The bottom line is that whilst the people who voted #Brexit feel a sense of betrayal and are probably right about the way they were mislead as to what the result would mean, the people who have really been betrayed are those who were too young to vote, but who will have to live with the fall out. I asked a #Leave friend, during a heated conversation a couple of weeks ago, what his opinion was of people like my son, who had no vote and who had to live with the consequence. He replied "F*** them". 

That is the world that David Cameron built. History will be his judge. Sadly I suspect that by the time my son is reading those history books, he will be an English rather than a British citizen.