#Brexit: 'I will not collude in a pretence that Brexit is good for Britain'

In a letter to supporters of the European Movement in the UK, Stephen Dorrell (pictured), former Conservative minister, says that in a healthy democracy those who oppose Brexit have the right to continue to make their case.

“Today (29 March) the prime minister has formally begun our withdrawal from the European Union in triggering Article 50.

"Theresa May says that the referendum result means we should all come together and collude in a pretence that Brexit is good for Britain.

"I profoundly disagree.

"Too often I hear an argument which begins 'The referendum result must be accepted; I regret the outcome, but we have to make the best of it.'

"That is not a sound basis for policy in a representative democracy. It is what we normally call 'trimming'. 'Telling the voters what they want to hear'. 'Putting convenience before principle.'

"It is obviously right that those who lose elections lose power. That is what happened last year.

"But it doesn’t follow that those who lose power must change their minds.

"I was a member of the Cabinet which lost power to Labour in 1997. Our parties disagreed on a number of issues, but after the result nobody expected me to declare that everything I’d fought for was a mistake, and I didn’t.

"That is how representative democracy works. Those involved in public life seek support for their point of view and when they win, they have a mandate to follow through their policy for as long as they can sustain that support.

"But those who disagree with them have not merely the right, but the obligation, to argue their case, not out of a misplaced commitment to consistency, but because our society benefits from noisy debate between those with different points of view.

"So it is with the European issue.

"When Churchill spoke at our inaugural meeting in 1948 he did not make it sound like a contract negotiation; he supported European integration because he believed that all countries in post war Europe depended on the success of their neighbours.

"Success in one country was an implausible basis for policy. If that was true in 1948, how much more true is it in the age of globalization?

"The European Movement is opposed to Brexit because we believe it represents an attempt to insulate Britain from the modern world. The case has been built on a series of undeliverable promises which threaten not merely our living standards but the system of values, friendships and alliances which Britain has built in the post-colonial era.

"In a healthy democracy those who take this view not only have the right to make our case; we have an inescapable obligation to do so."

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