On 23rd June 2016 17.4 million voters told Parliament we should leave the EU.
Leave voters voted to take back control.
We voted to take back control of our money, our laws and our borders.
We voted to be a sovereign people again.
The overarching aim is to restore our freedoms
To become self governing as we used to be
We wish our Parliaments to frame our laws
To levy and spend out taxes
To make our borders safe
To award the precious gift of citizenship to those we choose to invite
We did not vote in the belief that future Parliaments will always be wise
Nor that they will always get it right
We voted to restore powers to Parliament because it is our Parliament
We can lobby and influence it
We can dismiss it and replace the MPs when they no longer please.
I find it surprising that some find it difficult to understand this overriding wish
For it is based on our long standing pursuit of freedom
It springs from our history
The history of the UK is the story of the long march of every man and every woman to the vote
The story of asserting the rule of law against all, however mighty.
We prize the gift of freedom under the law for all on an equal basis
We share an aversion to slavery
A dislike of military rule
A resistance to arbitrary government
A rejection of the patronising errors of elites
A distaste for overmighty bureaucracies cramping our freedoms
A belief that we should be free to do whatever we please unless the laws prevents it
The signposts to democracy run through Magna Carta to the first Parliaments
From the 1660 settlement to the Glorious Revolution
From the Great Reform Act to the triumph of the suffragettes
We carelessly lost some of these freedoms,
casting away much of the power of our vote and voice
by passing powers to the European Union
We allowed the EU to impose laws we did not want
To levy taxes we disagreed with
And to spend our money as they saw fit
Brexit is designed to recall those lost powers
Follow this news feed: John Redwood MP