Can Brexit be stopped

 Progressive European Party

If you have a local group and would like a speaker from pEp please contact us on our website. I was asked to speak at the Suffolk EU alliance meeting this morning but this was not confirmed so I will not now be there. This is the speech that I would have been giving

Can Brexit be stopped Fellow Citizens, firstly thank you for inviting me, you probably would have not heard of my party before now, seeing as we are new and in fact this is our first official engagement so please excuse the nerves. Just to give you some background, the word was on the ether, that a new and eurocentric party was needed in the face of Brexit and the political incompetence of our existing parties. Organising in secret with an invitation only group on Facebook we have based ourselves on the previous progressive party that had some success in local government in the 1990’s. Not a just a mirror image of UKIP, not a party with just one aim, we would sweep aside the existing system and have something new and functional in its place that works for everyone. 
Bringing myself to today's problem, can Brexit be stopped. I don’t necessarily think it should be. It goes without saying that we must never stop putting on the pressure, campaigning, demonstrating and putting our arguments forward. Using the one weapon that they can never use, we can tell the truth. But I think Brexit will still happen. A second referendum is much talked about, I think it is the worse of bad ideas. Because it would not solve the real problem that we have. Supposing we did have another referendum and the leave won once again by a small margin, it would be game over, no turning back, we can put away our EU flags and just go home. And if the opposite happened and remain were the winners the leave campaigners would be up in arms, the country would be even more divided than it is now. And that is our real problem, not Brexit itself but the divide in our society that has us all at each other's throats over this issue. 
This is all our fault, when were we in parliament square waving our EU flags in celebration of our European citizenship before the referendum. Never is the answer. Whereas the EU sceptics have been moaning away in the background for years with very little rebuttal from the rest of us. The EU has become the whipping boy for what is wrong with our society whereas the ones really responsible are getting away with it scot-free. Isn't it suspicious that at the same time as the EU is introducing the Corporate Tax Reform Package that Brexit should happen. The Conservatives used the financial crash as an excuse to bring in austerity measures because public debt was proclaimed as being at the heart of our problems. They were wrong, it is private debt that is the problem and austerity has made that worse, it has increased the use of payday loans and credit cards and rent and mortgage arrears. In addition to austerity they have manipulated the benefits system to force the unemployed and disabled into low wage jobs and cynically pronounce high employment as a great achievement. Ignoring the food banks and the homeless sleeping in doorways which is a direct result of their policies. Who benefits from a high employment low wage society you should ask yourself, the same people who fund their party and UKIP with millions of pounds every year that's who. There is a word for this, it's called “slavery”. In face of such political measures and, because of globalisation the loss of jobs that gave workers a sense of worth, has made the perfect storm when looking for who to blame. Blame the outsiders, blame the EU. Brexit is not the problem, it is the symptom. But it could also be the strong medicine that is needed to cure the sickness that we as a nation are suffering from. 
The real problem is the divide in our society and not one just based on wealth either. Could you imaging that any of the leave voters feel European, they don’t, what they do feel, whether they understand it or not, is that their national identity is being threatened. No one gave a thought to the psychological impact of us joining. In the past we were in a far larger alliance of nations with the British Empire. With our Empire all the other members were subservient to us. This has a long lasting effect on the national psyche. With our EU membership we are being imposed upon by eurocrats who make up little rules that affect our lives over which we have no say in and all those foreigners are coming over here and taking our jobs. Not factual reality but it is how it is perceived by many of our fellow citizens. Long before the EU became the receiver of our projected national shadow I have had conversations where I was told that when foreigners come here they get a council house and benefits prioritising them over the locals. No politicians have ever tried to set the record straight on this urban myth. I suspect because it is so absurd they would not take it seriously. But you need to take it seriously because people actually believe it. And all these people have a vote. This negativity with regards to immigrants was easily transferred to the anti EU vote especially amongst the older voters. We have done little or nothing to give our population any pride in being a part of such a great diverse and successful alliance of nations. Why don’t we have the euro, why don’t our school children learn to sing the EU anthem, why is the EU money that is spent on projects locally not publicized. I tell you, you have to be a real Sherlock Holmes to find that information out. We have never until now tried to celebrate our European identity. Even the farmers, who are the ones who probably get the most benefit from EU subsidies, we are told, mostly voted to leave. So what can we do now to heal the divide, how do we change the EU from being a perceived threat into being seen as the benefactor that it really is. A nation comes together in times of national crisis, when we all have one shared problem one shared advisory. We need to switch the rhetoric so it is Brexit that takes the blame for all the problems that are almost certainly going to emerge from our leaving the EU. When we start to feel the pain we should engage with the other half of our divided nation and try and take them with us advocating the EU as a solution to the many problems that Brexit will surely bring. Let's turn Brexit against the Brexiteer’s and use it as a weapon to change us into not just a EU member state but into true Europeans. Let us show that a continued or renewed membership is the only thing standing in the way of the super rich becoming super super rich while the rest of us have to work long hours for low wages long after retirement age just to survive. Our EU membership is the only thing that would stop the partial privatisation of the health service and police force. Would stop Labour from plunging the country into even greater debt to finance their antiquated policies of the 1940’s. Let us grab victory from the jaws of defeat and use Brexit as a catalyst for change Let us help everyone in our society feel European

Philip Notley