This is why I created the petition to revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit

I didn’t expect much when I first created it but now the petition has 5.8 million signatures and counting I’m determined to keep the momentum going

The genesis of the petition lay in a screamingly frustrated anger at parliament’s dismissal of roughly half the electorate. A silent scream if you like, since those holding views counter to those in government were labelled traitors and enemies of the people.

No one in government concerned themselves with Remainers. We were polite, we went on peaceful marches, we were reasonable, and we wouldn’t riot. So Leavers and Remainers were left to fight between themselves, in a tactic otherwise known as divide and rule, all encouraged to blame the EU for our government-inflicted woes.

I waited for somebody to effectively challenge the lie that Brexit was “the will of the people”, but that someone didn’t arrive. So I decided to try to be that somebody.

I didn’t expect much when I first created the petition that now has 5.8 million signatures and counting. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll reach 10,000 signatures, I thought. But at least I would have tried. There had been many such petitions in the past, all with varying degrees of success. But the timing for this one, though I didn’t know it at the time, would set mine apart from the others.

The public mood had shifted; we had reached the “last chance saloon”. Moreover, the opportunity to state a view publicly on a government-validated petition site gave a voice to Remainers (and some Leavers), and the dam wall burst. Ironically, May herself helped considerably. It seemed every time she opened her mouth, the petition count increased dramatically.

Brexit is, in May’s linguistics, defined as merely “meaning Brexit”, as inscrutable a definition as May herself, and decidedly unhelpful to a curious citizen, though possibly helpful to a politician who hasn’t yet got much of a clue.

Since the early days, Brexit has morphed from a simple “leave the EU” proposition, thence through various possibilities, each with their own camp of followers, to reach the disastrous extreme of a no-deal crash out. How did we get here? How can politicians sit about calmly and blithely discussing how we all jump off a cliff?

How is it possible that such self-harm can even be considered, on the claimed basis that this is what the people want now, some three years after the referendum?

Which of the by now many versions were folk voting for all those years ago?

Politicians need to answer these questions. And in the meantime, May continues regardless, on the way “up the Khyber” claiming the will of the people must be delivered.

It is interesting to compare two quotations in this context. On 13 June 2018, May said: “I am absolutely clear that I cannot countenance parliament being able to overturn the will of the British people.” On 28 December 1933 Joseph Goebbels said: “There is no possibility for parliamentary interference to obliterate and render ineffective the execution of the nation’s will.”

As to why we must stop Brexit, there are economic, social and political reasons, many of which have been discussed in great detail in the press, so I will consider some only briefly here.

The EU has recently signed a trade treaty with China, and with Japan. It has the combined strength and market opportunities of 27 countries. We are a small island, lacking the industrial strength of the EU. Within it, we can share in this strength. Alone in the WTO, we have little power and nothing like the industrial exporting power of the EU. We will move from Premier League to third division.

Politically, there are forces in the world that seek to weaken democracy and turn populations into biddable serfs. There are the über-wealthy who believe the individual (themselves) to be sovereign, and “sod society”, or as I believe Margaret Thatcher said: “There is no such thing as society.”

There are those who seek to create confusion and chaos through pernicious soundbites and fake news, to blind us to the truth so we do not know who to trust, who to believe. And in the country of the blinded, wolves are often mistaken for guide dogs.

To defeat these forces, we have to stop Brexit and remain in the EU to fight together against them.