Brighton & Hove City Council calls for second Brexit vote

He proposed a motion asking the council to write to the government calling for a second vote on Brexit – Britain’s departure from the European Union – at a meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council.

He also called on officials to spell out the impact of Brexit in each policy report to council committees.

Related stories: We must be told how Brexit will hit our city

Cllr Sykes said that it was ‘important for this country and this city’ as he also asked officials for a specific report on the strategic impacts that might arise from Brexit.

He said: “How did we get into this mess? In 2016 this country’s leadership was served a pig in a poke.

“People had no idea what Brexit they were buying and how difficult it would be.

“Two years down the line the chorus against Brexit gets louder and louder.”

He cited Conservative politicians calling for a People’s Vote, quoting Sir John Major saying this week how no form of Brexit would match up to the ‘fantasies’ of the Leave campaign.

Fellow Green councillor Lizzie Deane said: “Plunging the NHS into crisis has seen a 94 per cent drop in nursing recruitment in one year.

“With a ‘no deal’ Brexit increasingly likely, what we will probably get is an end to holiday health insurance and an end to free movement which applies to us as well as our neighbours.”

She described Prime Minister Theresa May as sending the nation to bed without any supper or a bedtime story as punishment for voting Brexit.

The Labour council leader Daniel Yates said: “This is the defining political matter for our generation. This is the single biggest political change.

“This should be of concern to all groups as guardians and custodians of this city.”

Conservative opposition leader Tony Janio said that he would not support the motion as it would require offering the people a multiple choice question rather than a yes or no.

He said: “No one knows what will happen until the Prime Minister does the deal.

“We have the most stoic people in the universe who will got on with their lives.”

Councillors voted 24 to 19 in support of the motion in a free vote, with two abstentions.

Ten months ago the council wrote to government minister Sajid Javid when he was the Communities and Local Government Secretary asking for a second referendum on the final details of Brexit.

A new letter will go to his replacement James Brokenshire.

At the same meeting at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (October 18), Green councillor Louise Greenbaum also submitted a 1,399-signature petition asking for a ‘ratification referendum’ with an option to remain in the EU.

Sarah Booker-Lewis is the Local Democracy Reporter for Brighton & Hove.

For more of her stories, click here.