Gib MEPs join ‘stop Brexit’ rallies

Gibraltar MEPs Julie Girling and Molly Scott-Cato joined thousands of anti-Brexit protestors across the UK last weekend in a series of ‘stop Brexit’ rallies.

People took to the streets of London, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Newcastle, York, Nottingham, Cardiff, Reading, Liverpool and Birmingham on Saturday as Gibraltar’s MEPs joined protestors in Bristol.

“I completely refute the idea that we had a referendum therefore that piece of policy uniquely is set in stone,” Ms Girling said.

“I really get fed up with people telling me I’m anti-democratic and that I’m a traitor and all these sorts of things because nothing could be further from the truth.”

“I’m a true patriot, I believe in the UK but I also believe in the European Union,” she added.

Asked why she thinks people voted to leave the European Union, Ms Girling said she thought people had a “very inflated view of what it means financially”, explaining that the total budget of the EU is 130 billion Euros compared with the UK Government’s budget of between 700-800 billion Euros.

“I don’t think it was ever demonstrated what the ordinary person is going to get out of leaving, I still don’t see it, I still don’t see what the advantages are.”

Conservative, Ms Girling said she was not a “great lover” of referenda in representative democracies but asserted that the final deal between the EU and the UK should be put to the public.

“It’s a much more definitive vote if we have a vote on the deal because at least we all fully understand what we’re voting for.”
Ms Girling asked Prime Minister Theresa May to “please think again” about plans to press ahead with a ‘hard Brexit’, and to “think about how we might negotiate a Brexit which would heal divisions”.

She underscored that she was not saying that people did not know what they were doing when they voted to leave but added that “they didn’t have the information”.

Ms Girling recently expressed disappointment in having the Conservative whip withdrawn for supporting a resolution in the European Parliament in Strasbourg to block Brexit talks moving forward.

She described the decision to remove the whip as “totally unnecessary” and cited how she had been a member of the party for 40 years.

“I don’t really know what happens next,” she said.

Ms Scott Cato said the UK’s economy is “totally entwined” with the EU and flagged how “an awful lot of people right across the country” will be damaged in different ways as a result of Brexit.