Not quite the people's charter! What to do about EU!

Like many people I thought that the outcome of the referendum on Britain's membership of the EU was not the right one. I came up with an idea. There is really no need to rush into things.

1. Pause. First we need to wait for a while. The political parties, torn with internal conflicts, were not in a fit state to address the really difficult questions that have arisen.
2. One of the problems with the referendum was the amount if disinformation flying around- remember how we were supposed to have 350 million to spend on the NHS, then we weren't!
3. Another shocking thing was the division and discontent that the referendum revealed in our society. Whatever else we do, urgent steps need to be taken to address this.
4. Plan. Another problem was that no one really knew what they were voting for. The next step, surely, was for the Government to come up with a clear plan for what Brexit will look like. Will there be freedom of movement? What kind of trade agreements could we have with other countries? Which projects currently funded by the EU will they continue to fund? What about Scientific, cultural and Education links? What will happen at borders such as Northern Ireland and Gibraltar? ....etc
5. Review. Surely on such an important decision the public will need to be consulted again before a final decision is taken on whether to invoke article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. This time 16 and 17 year olds need to be included. This will affect their future and it was a travesty that they were not asked last time.

Anyway, spurred on by the 4 million petition for a second referendum, and several people saying mine was a good idea, I made the gist of it into a parliamentary petition. Well, I don't know what the petitions office were up to, but it took nearly three weeks to get published. By this time a lot of people had forgot about Brexit and were busy catching Pokemon instead. Also, lots of other people had also started petitions so people have got a bit fed up with signing them, and even when they do are reluctant to share them for fear of annoying their Facebook and Twitter friends with yet another petition.

So, I still have fewer than 200 signatures; far fewer than the 4 million I'd hoped! This is a much better idea than the second referendum one. I guess it isn't as instantly appealing as asking for one simple thing straight away, and not easy to put in a campaign slogan. "What do we want? A plan and review. When do we want it? No hurry, take your time."

It's probably also too long. The petitions that have got lots tend to be very simple with only one idea. People are used to getting their news and views in short, snappy sentences and slogans. The people's charter wouldn't have stood a chance these days.

But I still think it's quite a good idea.

 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/151256
Please sign and share if you like.