Yahoo News 'We must resist this mess': your views on the People's Vote march
‘A Brexit delivered in this manner will damage our country for generations’
I’m attending the march to help reverse this damaging decision. It has become very clear that when the Brexit referendum was called, no one, including the government or pro-Brexit campaigners, had prepared for a leave result. There is still no cohesive plan in place, and the minority government cannot deliver its own underdeveloped vision for Brexit. We must resist this mess at every turn and opportunity, as a Brexit delivered in this manner (and in my opinion even one well-planned-for and negotiated) will damage our country for generations to come.
My fear is the ruling classes will press on with a hopeless case and commit millions of UK residents to a deal which will lower our living standards, limit travel opportunities and negatively affect every aspect of our lives.
Katie Przybyl, 34, Surbiton, south-west London
‘Another referendum so soon after the last one would make a mockery of our democracy’
I will not be attending: the 2016 referendum was the people’s vote, and another referendum so soon after the last one would make a mockery of our democracy. It would smack of democracy “EU-style” – that is to keep asking the question until you get the answer you wanted in the first place.
I am worried that if the opponents of Brexit achieve their aim and Brexit doesn’t happen, they will be encouraging support for rightwing “populist” parties who will be able to say: “The system is rigged and no one in power is prepared to listen to you.”
John, 65, Sussex
‘Why am I attending? Because I’m bloody cross!’
Why am I attending? Because I’m bloody cross! Leave broke the law, lied and misused data. Russian bots interfered. The position we’re in now, in the EU, is the best position for the economy, the country in general, peace in Europe and Northern Ireland and for my children and grandchildren’s futures.
I hope that as no deal becomes inevitable, May will have the guts and good grace to see that a people’s vote is the right thing to do and it will actually get her off the hook and likely keep Labour out of government for years. Which is I suspect what she would see as in her own best interests.
Richard Smith, 67, Rugby, Warwickshire
‘I would not wish to see remain as an option in a second referendum’
My wife and I are travelling on a National Express coach from Newport in Wales. It has turned out that voting to leave the EU was a vote for an inadequately defined outcome and this problem was compounded by incorrect information about the consequences. I believe the current course of action is both politically and socially destructive for the UK, and that a second referendum is needed to restore fairness by giving people a second chance in the light of the knowledge they have acquired.
With respect to the 2016 result, and for the sake of political and social harmony, I would not wish to see remain as an option in a second referendum, but simply a choice of a Brexit proposal agreed by parliament together with the option to maintain the status quo for as long as is necessary to arrive at a consensus within the UK, which might be declaring the 2016 result void.
David Powell, 71, Monmouthshire, south Wales
‘Going to the march is not only saying no to Brexit, but bursting the Westminster bubble’
I’m going to march in London on 20 October to not only take part in a collective democratic exercise of the people but to amplify the voices of a generation often forgotten in politics. In 2016, many young people not eligible to vote didn’t voice their constitutional right. Today polling suggests most of those people would vote to remain. Going to the march is not only to say no to Brexit but bursting the Westminster bubble who claim that we will be better off.
Mateusz, 16, Hanwell, west London
‘I will be flying in for the day from Toulouse’
I will be flying in for the day from Toulouse to meet up with my sister and dad to take part in the march. None of us have ever done anything like this before but we all feel very strongly that the only way forward is to put it back to the people with an option to remain. I am unable to vote having lived outside the UK for 23 years, so this is the only thing I can do. My family will be directly affected as we live in the EU, but neither my husband nor I got a say and we worry that our kids won’t have the opportunities we had.
My worry is that they bodge something together at the last moment, with most of the details kicked down the road. And that too many MPs won’t vote in the interests of the country but for more political reasons, especially those in the Tory party to whom party seems to come before anything else.
Lucy Hamilton, 51
‘I’m afraid that another referendum will create more divisions in an already extremely divided country’
I’m still not sure whether to attend or not. Though I don’t want Brexit, I’m afraid that another referendum – which is what’s being proposed here – will create more divisions in an already extremely divided country. Also, seeing George Osborne, the architect of the austerity that caused the leave vote, pumping up this march via the Evening Standard makes me sick. I’m not jumping on that bandwagon. On the other hand, defeating Brexit will give the far right a massive blow. And that’s always a good thing.
Carol, 51, London
‘We are 100% behind any MPs who might stand up for the national interest’
I’m coming to the march with my mum, dad, brother and boyfriend. We all have very different views on Brexit and all have come to the same conclusion from different places. I’m going because I fundamentally believe that the Brexit that was promised two years ago isn’t the Brexit being delivered. I think that politicians are putting personal and party loyalty above the national interest.
No party represents me at the moment, no one who I think is looking out for mine, my partners, my little brother’s future. So the march is the people taking that into our own hands, saying we are 100% behind any MPs who might stand up for the national interest, put us ahead of their career in politics, and be brave. And at the end of the day putting the decision back to the people.
Ruth, 24, Guildford, Surrey
‘I see a people’s vote as the most viable route to a just settlement on Brexit’
I am marching because I see a people’s vote as the most viable route to a just settlement on Brexit. From campaigning in my local area, I get a strong sense that very few people like the sound of what the government has cobbled together, and I believe they should have a way to express that in a democratic vote – one that includes EU27 citizens in the UK and Brits in EU27 countries. I am travelling from Sevenoaks in Kent with about 30 people from my local, non party-political campaigning group.
We hope to send the message that we care enough about the communities that we serve to march for a peaceful and prosperous future within the EU.
Heather Styles, 39, Kent
‘A people’s vote isn’t about running it again until you get the right answer’
I’m travelling from North Queensferry (near Edinburgh), by myself. A people’s vote isn’t about running it again till you get the right answer. It’s about checking, before we take this irreversible step, that that’s what we want to do right now. Two years have passed since the referendum, which (with the closeness of the result) is time enough for views to have drifted so that remain might now be the majority preference, and that’s before you even factor in that we now have a much clearer picture than in 2016 of what various kinds of Brexit might look like.
I am hopeful that a people’s vote, in which we rank any deals on the table, no deal and remain, would reveal remain as the best compromise. In 2016, leavers were voting for many different things, some of them not feasible. Now that we see that a soft Brexit is the status quo except with no say in the rules we must follow, I can’t see that appealing to anyone except those for whom the symbolism of “not being in the EU” is all that matters.
Rebecca Pillinger, 36, North Queensferry, Fife
‘I have been getting angrier and angrier at the sheer arrogance of our politicians’
I am travelling from Bristol on one of the many group coaches provided by Bristol for Europe. My parents, both in their late 70s, are also travelling up from Hampshire to march. I could not, in all conscience, look back at this moment and feel that I did not do all that I could to try to stop the madness. I didn’t attend any of the previous marches as I felt the timing wasn’t right, and that there wasn’t the momentum behind them. I felt the truth about the real cost of Brexit needed more time to reveal itself. I have been getting angrier and angrier at the sheer arrogance of our politicians, the absolute tin ear they collectively posses.
I believe the only mandate the referendum result gave was for a “Norway-plus” deal. Though I voted remain, and still believe this is the only way to have any chance at truly ending austerity, I feel this would be something the vast majority of people could live with. No deal should be absolutely unacceptable and not even on any ballot.
Jes, Bristol
‘Explaining why people want to do this is very difficult’
I’m travelling down from Stoke with my 13-year-old son, Josh. I’m not sure about a second vote in itself, especially in that May seems now to be delaying until the next government is in place. However, I think that demonstrating to my son that while the country was in this strange, populist malaise, some of us were able to keep a clear head is important. He doesn’t see borders, his best friend is a Romanian who now lives in the UK. Explaining why people want to do this is very difficult.
The country is so divided now that I’m not sure how things would turn out if Brexit was overturned. I have a sense that the worst almost needs to happen in order to bring us back to the days of the enlightenment and science that went out of the window with Gove years back.
Paul Astley, 44, Stoke-on-Trent
