Forty-eight per cent of the country voted to remain. Their voices need to be listened to, their hopes incorporated in our plan for the future. That doesn’t mean giving in to the much smaller number who want to overturn the decision and frustrate Brexit.
But it must mean that none of us Leavers should try to make our perfect Brexit the enemy of the common good.
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But we didn’t vote to leave without a deal. That wasn’t the message of the campaign I helped lead. During that campaign, we said we should do a deal with the EU and be part of the network of free trade deals that covers all Europe, from Iceland to Turkey.
Leaving without a deal on March 29 would not honour that commitment. It would undoubtedly cause economic turbulence. Almost everyone in this debate accepts that.
EU tariffs on food would hit farmers; new trade frictions would harm manufacturers. We would get through it, of course — we’re a great and resilient country. But jobs would be lost in the short term and none of us can be blasé about the damage leaving without a deal would cause.
We would also be open to criticism from those many Remain voters who are prepared to compromise and leave with a deal, but don’t want to depart without a deal, that we’d preferred our perfect to their good. They could argue we’d preferred ideology to inclusivity. Given the fragility of faith in our politics at the moment, it’s not a course I’d want to take.