Star readers: Give us a second Brexit referendum

Those are the findings of the Shropshire Star’s online poll a year to the day since Britain gave notice it would be leaving the European Union.

It is 12 months today since Prime Minister Theresa May activated Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, giving two years’ notice that we will be quitting the EU, and triggering talks.

It is also exactly a year until we finally leave the organisation, following the referendum held in 2016.

More than 2,000 readers voted in our online survey, which asked readers how they felt the negotiations were going, as well as Britain’s prospects outside the EU.

How you voted in our poll:

The findings will not make comfortable reading for the Government, with the overwhelming majority of readers being dissatisfied with the progress made over the past 12 months.

Opinions were sharply divided on what sort of deal readers wanted to see, but a majority said they wanted to remain in the European single market.

Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski, who was a vocal campaigner for Britain to leave the EU, said he was convinced the majority of people in his constituency still wanted to leave the EU.

He said: “I’m confident the overwhelming view of the people of Shrewsbury is that they want the Government to get on with it, and are looking forward to Brexit.”

But Bill McClements, a former councillor who campaigned to remain in the EU, said Britain had given ground in all the negotiations that had taken place so far. And he warned that if Britain sought free-trade deals with other countries industry could suffer cut-price competition from developing nations.

It's not going very smoothly

Today marks the first anniversary of Britain giving notice to leave the European Union – and we are also exactly 12 months away from our final departure date.

After lengthy negotiations, Prime Minister Theresa May and Brexit Secretary David Davis finally agreed to the terms of a transition deal which means that Britain will remain a member of the Single European Market until the end of 2020. Attention will now turn to negotiating a permanent trade deal for when Britain leaves altogether.

Opinions, as ever, remain divided, but one thing does appear to unite the vast majority of people who took part in our online readers’ poll on the subject. The process is not going as well as most people would like.

More than 2,000 people who took part in our poll, and by far the majority are dissatisfied with how the negotiations have progressed. Just 15 per cent of those who responded said they were happy with progress so far, with the same number saying they were satisfied with the way the Government had handled the situation. The other 85 per were both dissatisfied with progress so far, and also with the way the Government had handled it.

This is despite Shropshire and Mid Wales voting overwhelmingly to leave the EU in the referendum in June 2016.

Opinions were much less clear cut, though, on what type of Brexit people wanted to see. In total, 57 per cent said they wanted to see a “soft” Brexit, with Britain remaining in the EU single market, while 43 per cent wanted Britain to leave completely.

Opinions were similarly divided when it came to the prospects of the economy, with 42 per cent thinking Brexit will have a positive effect, and 58 per cent believing it will be harmful.

Perhaps surprisingly, a clear majority – 57 per cent – said they would like to see a second referendum once the details of the final settlement emerged.

The gloomy picture is summed up by the 65 per cent who said they felt less hopeful about Britain’s prospects than they did this time last year. Only 35 per cent said they felt more hopeful.

One man who is confident about Britain’s place in the world after Brexit is Daniel Kawczynski, the MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham who was a vocal campaigner for Brexit in the run-up to the referendum. “I don’t place much store on the polls, all the polls said Remain was going to win the referendum,” he says.

“I tend to go by my correspondence, and virtually all who write to me on the subject support Brexit. I’m confident the overwhelming view of the people of Shrewsbury is that they want the Government to get on with it, and are looking forward to Brexit.”

Mr Kawczynski says the negotiations with the EU are an extremely complicated process, and have probably gone as well as anyone could have expected.

“You’re not just negotiating with the European Commission, you’re also negotiating with the European Parliament, and 27 different governments,” he says. “That is one of the problems of the European Union.”

He says the European Union is clearly diverging into states which are happy to for part of a supra-national body with a single currency, taxation policy and foreign policy, and those such as Britain which wanted to shape their own destiny.

“Nobody has the right to create a monopoly or a cartel,” he says.

“Each country in Europe has to decide in the future what sort of nation it should be.”

Bill McClements, a former Telford councillor who was at the forefront of the campaign to remain in the EU, says he thinks Britain will end up striking a deal with the EU which is very similar to the present arrangement, with “a bit of fudge” to pacify the Brexiteers in the Government.

“A year has passed and we haven’t even started negotiating on any trade deals yet, while on phases one and two we have ended up accepting the European position,” he says.

“A sad thing happened last week when Michel Barnier and David Davies were on television, and on the screen behind was the EU plan for Brexit, with all the different requirements, but nothing from Britain.

“The Europeans have got a detailed plan, but we have never seen the British plan.” Mr McClements says another concern will be the nature of trade deals that Britain strikes with other countries outside the EU.

“After the EU, the next biggest market is the US, and already they sell more to us than we sell to them.

Studies

“If we do a trade deal with the US we will end up with more food coming this way. And if we do a deal with the Commonwealth, we will have the same problem with New Zealand lamb competing with the Welsh sheep farmers.

“And if we do a trade deal with China, we have already just seen their president taking dictatorial powers, and going for a indeterminate length of power, so they can’t get rid of him.

“Already, we spend two-and-a-half times more with them than we supply them with, that means that for every pound we sell to them we spend £2.50 with them.

“How will a low-tariff deal with China benefit our economy? What can we sell to them that they can’t make themselves, cheaper?”

Mr McClements says studies have been carried out to assess the impact of various different scenarios, but they only vary in how much worse off Britain would be.

“If we can strike trade deals elsewhere, we will lose far more in Europe,” he says.“It’s all about how we limit the damage.” Mr McClements says he does believe that Britain will ultimately reach agreement with the European Union, as it is in the interests of both sides to come to a close arrangement.

“I think there will be a deal, jobs are starting to go, companies are already making plans,” he says.

One man who does see a positive future for the area when we leave the EU is Glyn Davies, the Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire who supported Brexit during the 2016 campaign, says the negotiations have gone pretty much as would have been expected, and is optimistic that everybody is now working towards the same ends. “It was very slow to start with, but has been much smoother over the last month,” he says.

“It was initially slow because those who were in favour of Remain refused to accept the result. But over the last three weeks, it seems everyone has now accepted we are leaving the European Union, and they are now just getting on with getting the best possible deal.”

Jill Seymour, a Shropshire-based Ukip MEP, says breaking away from the control of the European Union cannot come soon enough.

But like Mr McClements, she believes the Government is giving a lot of ground to Brussels. In the latest round of European Parliament votes, she called for an end to the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction in the UK after Brexit, and urged tariff-free trade negotiations to begin immediately.

Glyn Davies, the Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire who supported Brexit during the 2016 campaign, says the negotiations have gone pretty much as would have been expected.

“It was initially slow because those who were in favour of Remain refused to accept the result.

“But over the last three weeks, it seems everyone has now accepted we are leaving the European Union, and they are now just getting on with getting the best possible deal.”

Brexit: The half-time report

March 29, 2017:

Just over nine months after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May gave notice of Britain’s intent to leave by activating Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon.

Her letter, which was presented to President of the EU Council Donald Tusk, called for a “deep and special relationship” between the UK and the EU.

She also warned that failure to reach an agreement would result in EU-UK trade under World Trade Organisation terms, and a weakening of the UK’s co-operation in the fight against crime and terrorism.

The letter suggested prioritising an early deal on the rights of EU citizens in the UK and vice-versa, and stated that the UK would not seek to remain within the European Single Market. Instead, Mrs May said the UK would seek a free trade agreement with the EU. Mr Tusk said there was “no reason to pretend this is a happy day”, adding “We already miss you.”

March 30: The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill was published, calling for the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972. It also proposed the transfer of up to 20,000 pieces of EU law onto the UK statute book, and the end of the supremacy of EU law over UK legislation. It also created powers for the Government to make secondary law under statutory instrument procedures.

April 27: The heads of state of the other 27 EU countries agreed to negotiating guidelines prepared by Mr Tusk. The EU took the position that Article 50 permitted a two-phased negotiation, in which the UK first agrees to a financial commitment and to lifelong benefits for EU citizens in Britain, before negotiations on a future relationship could begin.

The “EU27” demanded the UK pay a “divorce bill” – estimated as being anything up to £92 billion to cover existing commitments. A House of Lords report claimed that if a deal could not be agreed, the UK did not need to make any payment.

June 8: UK General Election sees Conservatives returned as the largest single party, but without an overall majority. A confidence-and-supply deal is struck with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

19 June: The talks begin, with Brexit Secretary David Davis meeting EU representative Michel Barnier. The initial focus was on the rights of expatriates, the financial settlement and “other separation issues”.

Discussions aimed at preserving the Good Friday Agreement and common travel area in Ireland also began, although Mr Davis suggested these issues may not be settled until the end of the process, at the same time as the UK’s trade relationship with the EU.

The UK agreed to the timetable proposed by the EU.

July 17: The second round of negotiations began in mid-July 2017. Progress was made on the Northern Irish border question.

David Davis refused to commit to a severance payment, while Michel Barnier would not compromise on his demand for the European Court of Justice to have continuing jurisdiction over the rights of EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit. Mr Barnier rejected a compromise proposal of a new international body made up of British and EU judges.

August 16: The UK government published the first of several papers outlining Britain’s ambitions following Brexit, including trade and customs arrangements. The following week, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that Britain would leave the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice’s direct jurisdiction at the end of the Brexit transition period, but that both the British courts and the EU Court of Justice would also keep “half an eye” on each other’s rulings afterwards as well. One of the UK government’s position papers published in August called for no additional restrictions for goods already on the market in the UK and EU.

December 8: The deadlock is broken on the terms of Britain leaving the European Union, allowing talks to proceed to Britain’s future relationship with the EU, and trade in particular. The UK Government agrees in principle to make a severance payment estimated at being between £35 billion and £39 billion, but Prime Minister Theresa May stresses that this is conditional on an acceptable trade deal being struck.

“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” she said.

March 19, 2018: Britain and the EU agree to the terms of a transition deal, which will see the UK remain in the European Single Market until the end of 2020. During the 21 months that follow Brexit on March 29 next year, Britain will comply with European law. The UK will be consulted, but not vote, on EU policy during this period. It is agreed that detailed trade talks will now be able to begin.