Daniel James, the Chair of the Isle of Wight Green Party, shares this open response to a letter the party received which calls them ‘traitors’ for wanting to stay in the European Union.
The have also sent a reply to the letter writer’s address. Ed
Dear Mr. (redacted),
Thanks for your letter of 14th May, which arrived today. We fully agree that our democratic society only exists because of the sacrifice of previous generations, and that the democratic will of the people should be honoured.
You are quite right that we did have a democratic referendum in 2016 in which just over a quarter of our population voted to leave the European Union, about the same number that voted to stay in Europe during the 1975 referendum when the split was 67% Remain, 33% Leave. If you’re confident that there is still a majority for Leave, shall we make it best of three?
Or would you insist that previous democratic votes cannot be overturned, regardless of any new information that comes to light? If so, that would imply we should stop having elections. I am sure that some of the people who voted for Tony Blair to become our Prime Minister in 1997 regretted that decision, once they got to know him a bit better. Thankfully, we did have further General Elections and we were able to express our democratic preferences again.
We fully agree that the two-party political system does not work, which is why the Green Party has been standing for election for decades. We are confident that our MEP candidates will do well in this election, following our 20-year track record of representing British citizens and ensuring that their voices are heard at international level.
As for being traitors, the Green Party has no corporate backers or foreign billionaire donors who could divert us from defending the interests of the people and the planet they live on. You won’t find us jetting off to Manhattan to party with Donald Trump, as Nigel Farage has done, or taking campaign money from Russia. We utterly condemn the politics of Nazism, and would never endorse racist thugs with convictions including assaulting a police officer, as UKIP has done.
When Winston Churchill sat between Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta conference of 1945, he understood that the world was changing, that the superpowers would pursue their own agenda, and that a bankrupt Britain would not thrive in isolation. This is why Churchill formed the European Movement, to ensure that Britain would take a central role in the direction of our continent.
Yours in hope, Daniel James, Chair, Isle of Wight Green Party
