REDDITCH MP Rachel Maclean is among 62 MPs who have signed a letter to Prime Minister Theresa May listing a number of hard Brexit demands.
The MP, who admits she voted Remain in the referendum two years ago but has since changed her mind, said she put her name to the letter from the European Reform Group (ERG) after experiencing the reality of Brussels itself and “the barrage of stuff mainly coming from the business community”.
“I was a Remainer and I voted for Remain but I wasn’t in politics then and I since being in Parliament I have changed by views,” she said.
“I was shocked at the result of the vote, but I have always been a democrat, we’d had a vote and having a second referendum on this strikes me as being massively wrong.
“Watching how the debate unfolded and in particular going to Brussels and seeing the behaviour of the European Union made me reconsider my position.”
And she has little time for paid lobbyists pleading the soft Brexit case of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
“Eight, ten years ago my business went bust but we picked ourselves up and carried on and I compare that to the sort of people in power at the CBI, people who have never started a business, people who have never had to think about how you are going to pay the mortgage let alone the staff,” she said.
The demands made by the ERG include the UK being free to start its own trade negotiations immediately after Brexit – despite widespread calls for a long ‘transition’ period; the UK being given complete freedom to change is laws and rules on leaving the EU and a call for Brexit talks to dovetail into a global trade strategy.
However there is a growing chorus of opposition to a hard Brexit with leaders car industry the latest to warn of looming disaster and former PM Sir John Major calling for another referendum on the Brexit deal.
“Ultimately what the motor industry leaders have to realise is that the people who work for them in those car plants voted for Brexit and they have to find a way to make it work – and I am perfectly confident that they will,” said Mrs Maclean.
“I have a lot of respect for Sir John Major but on this issue I do not agree with him and I believe that is the majority view.”
