Pro-Brexiteers claiming fresh backing in port

Members of Change Britain, the successor to a previous campaign called Vote Leave, placed a stand outside the Lord Street office of Lancaster and Fleetwood MP cat Smith, and asked residents to sign cards calling on the MP to back its exit campaign.

The group says more than 500 signed cards were posted through the Lord Street office letter box – some collected from Lancaster but most of them from Fleetwood.

Change Britain is urging Labour MP Ms Smith, who voted to remain in the EU referendum vote in June 2016, to continue to support the on-going process by which

Britain will leave the EU by triggering Article 50 as soon as possible.

Article 50 is the means by which Britain will formally leave the EU. Although a Remain supporter, Ms Smith was one of 461 MPs who on December 7 backed Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to start Britain’s two-year EU exit in March. She also voted in favour of a Labour motion saying the Prime Minister must publish her Brexit plan before that happens.

A Change Britain spokesman said: “This is part of a national campaign across Britain and is targeted towards all of our MPs irrespective of their party. Change Britain wants MPs like Cat Smith to support the constituents of Fleetwood, who voted for Brexit.”

Voters in Wyre backed Brexit by 63.8 per cent back last June, with the specific Fleetwood vote higher still - 70 per cent, fuelled by anger and the strong belief that the town’s fishermen got a raw deal from Brussels.

Cat Smith says she will continue to back the Labour view on Brexit that if Britain is to leave the EU, it must be done on the right terms.

In response to the latest campaign by Change Britain, she said: “The Government’s appeal is currently before Supreme Court, therefore much remains unclear and it is far from certain whether there will be a vote on Article 50 in the House of Commons or not. However, I believe that following the referendum result the Government has a mandate to commence negotiations to leave the European Union - but I do not believe it has one to negotiate a deal which puts jobs, businesses and our economy at risk.

“I, along with Labour colleagues, am therefore calling on the Government to publish the basic terms of their Brexit negotiations and to put these terms to a vote in Parliament. Labour is demanding that the government set out its plans before triggering Article 50.

In response, the government was forced to accept our calls to set out its plans before March 31, and allow Parliament and the public to scrutinise them properly.”