AS a retired teacher of European languages, a Christian and a convinced British European, I find it difficult to understand why some people consider it undemocratic three years later to retake the pulse of the British people with respect to Brexit.
It is, I think, accepted that the assumptions underlying the original plebiscite were, for a multiplicity of reasons, ill-founded, and that we are now better informed in this regard not only of the benefits of membership but of the noble ideals underlying the European project to which we have contributed significantly.
What could be more democratic than to seek confirmation or rejection of a decision some at least of us made blindly.
As Newman remarked in a different context: “Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
Our leaders therefore cannot continue to rely on the mantra which proclaims they are “respecting the will of the people”.
As quoted in The Tablet this week, Edmund Burke underlined the primacy of MPs’ conscience when he remarked to his electorate: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Nor can government argue that Brexit being a manifesto pledge, it cannot be re-thought.
Suffice it to say that one need not look far to find other election promises it has chosen to disregard.
These arguments are, I suggest, mere sophistry, and none of them address the point: the purposes of Europe. One of these must be to contribute more effectively towards solving the problems which beset humanity and our planet.
Think again: it’s not too late.
David Cragg-James, Stonegrave, York
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