WITH scores of Scotland’s most high-profile academics and politicians signing a letter calling for last year’s Brexit vote to be overturned as “its disastrous consequences become clearer every day”, the campaign to stop Brexit is gathering pace.

A narrow majority in the UK voted to leave the EU, but the disastrous consequences are becoming clearer by the day as we face falling living standards, rising inflation, slower growth and lower productivity. And we have not even left yet!

It is also clear the promises of Brexit, such as an extra £350 million a week for the National Health Service, will not be delivered.

The circumstances have changed and it is time to do the patriotic thing, to open up a UK-wide debate about calling a halt to the Brexit process and affording the opportunity for the holding of another referendum. As the evidence mounts that Brexit is going to be bad news for the economy, Leavers fall back on one main argument: “the people have spoken”.

Whatever the economic costs may be, however hard people will be hit, Brexit must progress they cry from the rooftops. To not do so would be an insult to democracy.

As the contradictions in the Brexit project become evident, it is increasingly easy to find a response to the democracy argument – what has been promised cannot and will not be delivered. As John Maynard Keynes is reputed to have said “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

The 52 per cent majority of voters who chose Brexit did so because they were told that Britain could have the best of both worlds, frictionless trade with Europe, while ending free movement of people and stopping payments to the EU. It is now obvious that this vision of a pain-free Brexit was an illusion.

The view that once a decision has been taken by referendum, it cannot be revoked, is simply untrue. Brexit is happening because a referendum on membership held in 1975 of what was then known as the EEC, has been reversed by a second referendum held in 2016.

The Brexiteers argue that a new vote on EU membership was justified because the EU has changed fundamentally since 1975. This is a fair argument. But the Brexit that is to be delivered to the British people is very different from the one that many people were promised. If new information justified a second vote on EU membership, new information validates a second vote on Brexit.

In a democracy, it is always possible to think again and to choose a different direction. We need to do this about Brexit and to have a UK-wide debate about calling a halt to it.

It is clear that the facts have changed and at a certain stage it will become clear that the Brexiteers have had their chance and failed. Are we brave enough to change our minds before it is too late?

:: Alex Orr is a board member of The European Movement in Scotland