Anti-Brexit campaigners are planning a protest in Harrogate to coincide with former Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to the town on Thursday.
Supporters of North Yorkshire for Europe will stage a demonstration outside the Crown Hotel where Mr Cameron is due to appear tomorrow evening for the launch of his new book – and they will be demanding an apology from Mr Cameron for calling the 2016 referendum.
Demonstrators will be backed by singers and musicians from the Yorkshire Remain Voice Choir with a conductor and brass and stringed instruments.
The group’s chair, Richard Sadler, said it was nonsense for Mr Cameron to claim that he had no choice in the matter – and that a referendum was inevitable.
Richard Sadler said:
We know from opinion polls that in December 2015 – just six months before the EU referendum – the EU was way down on people’s list of priorities, with less than five per cent citing this as an issue of importance.
Of course, all that changed when anti-EU feeling was whipped up during the referendum campaign – and all the division, bitterness and hatred that we’ve seen since then is a direct consequence.
Mr Cameron took a gamble with the future of our country to try to sort out divisions in the Tory party. He lost, we’re all suffering the consequences – and he should apologise to the nation.
The group is also asking Mr Cameron to donate proceeds from his book to the European Movement, a pro EU group founded by Winston Churchill whose current president is Lord Heseltine. North Yorkshire for Europe is a branch of the European Movement.
Mr Cameron was met by scores of protesters when he arrived in Cheltenham to promote his book , For the Record, earlier this month. ii
The former Prime Minister, who resigned shortly after the result of the 2016 referendum was announced, has said he is “deeply sorry about all that’s happened” since. Cameron has said “a referendum had become inevitable.”
Utterly pathetic.
Well, that is not only an opinion on David Cameron’s decision but also on that of the majority who voted to leave the EU in 2016.I was one of those and have not changed my mind.I made a well informed,well-researched decision and strongly resent the implication that it is the Leavers who cause hatred and division
in the UK when actually it can be attributed more fairly to the Remainers who would not, and still refuse to, accept the democratic outcome of the Referendum. Much bitterness and resentment has been caused by the constant sniping about Leave voters being racist,uneducated and not knowing what we voted for.I and many others have had deep reservations about our membership of the EU for many years and obviously we were not alone as otherwise David Cameron would not have felt the need to instigate a referendum in 2016.
The machinations that have gone on in Parliament to try and stop the democratic outcome of the vote being put into practice have been shocking!
I see no need to have demonstrations such as the proposed one.It will achieve nothing except to add to the ” throwing toys out of the pram”culture which has dominated the anti-Brexit campaigns.
The UK took part in a democratic vote in 2016 and therefore the outcome should be respected.
If the leaving process had been accepted and had started straight away we would be in a much better position now.
Instead we have had politicians,journalists and certain biased broadcasters all attempting to thwart our exit from the EU,therefore wasting those three years which could have been so productive.
Well said Jane Andrews. Isn’t it sad that these stupid people have to throw their dummies out, because they didn’t get their own way. I too voted leave and I still stand by my decision 100%. These protesters have nothing better to do with their time than cause trouble, I wish this was all I had to worry about. They’re juvenile.
I totally agree with your comments. The majority of our MPs have and are still acting in a disgraceful way. A democratic vote was taken in 2016 and MPs voted to uphold the result of that referendum – they lied. They should now try and regain the public’s respect and vote for Boris’s deal and allow this great country get on with the future.
What a bunch of cranks