BY JACK PEMBERTON

Since 2010 I have worked with a bloke called Dave. We’re good friends and our families know each other well. We’d do anything for each other. But since the summer of 2016 Dave’s been a Remainer and I’ve been a Brexiteer.

We’re still friends. Nothing’s changed. I still work with a bloke called Dave.

We often wonder who are these actors who have taken over our parliaments? What makes leaving the EU such a difficult task? Why the kerfuffle? After all, that is what these actors were ordered to deliver. They are our public servants and we are their masters, who ordered that the UK leave the EU – something we requested back in June 2016. If Dave and I get a demand from our bosses we do what they say. Or we lose our jobs. Are our politicians not scared of losing their jobs? Is that the problem?

Talk of a backlash against those denying Brexit is nothing to do with Dave. He has not prevented Brexit in any way. Dave’s part of the Remain tribe but if the Brexit situation comes down to a fight between the two tribes I am not hurting or blaming Dave. Why would I? I’ll protect Dave. That was what the democratic vote was about – manifesting our differences in a civilised way democratically. Democracy replaced violence in Britain many years ago – we have no need to return to it.

The people frustrating Brexit are the ones who need to be sidelined. They are the ones who have said that Democracy doesn’t cut the mustard anymore. “Let’s be undemocratic” they have decided and they’ve forgotten the history of these islands. They are the Remain politicians in our parliament who live off public money and subsidised food and drink. They are the activists like Gina Miller and Alastair Campbell, whipping up useful idiots. They are the public servants sucking on the public teat. They are the diehard anti-Democrats linking Brexit with “populism”, “nationalism” and “the far right” even though they have Brexiteers in their family and friends who voted out of the EU. These are the people claiming that we’re a divided nation when we’re clearly not.

It is these people who should look in the mirror. And walk now.

Not Dave.

So, the country is unified. It is not broken. Friendships like that between me and Dave go far deeper than Brexit. The two sides of Brexit voters and Remain voters are unified in their disdain for the actors in Parliament with their silly amendments and endless votes. When a client tells us to change something, we sit down and work out how. We don’t vote on it endlessly or faff around like hooligans. We certainly don’t take two years to get nowhere or we’d be out of a job. If we can’t get something done, we tell the client and – yes – we likely have the client walk away or we walk away from them. Our politicians have proven their incompetence and should be ashamed.

Those who voted to delay Brexit yesterday should simply walk away. They are in the wrong job. They do not understand their job. They do not understand democracy nor what it replaced. With their myopia they are dragging my friend Dave into proceedings when he is nothing to do with their inability to act nor related to their bad judgement.

If there’s a civil war over this – I really hope not and that we remember why Democracy replaced such savagery and bloodshed – then I urge all parties to realise who the enemy is.

The 412 who voted to delay Brexit. Not the likes of Dave.

Britain is great because of people like Dave. It’s great because we believe in the rule of law and in respecting the votes of all our people – one man one vote. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Nonetheless let us be aware of who is frustrating the will of our people as they are the ones we should be driving into the sea, not Dave.

Guest Writer Jack Pemberton is a Chartered Civil Engineer from Worcester.