Bill Carmichael: Brexit '“ Britain is free at last to reclaim our democracy

“The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. This is a historic moment and there is no turning back.”

Well said, Theresa May!

Now the task is to ignore the constant chorus of whingeing from bitter Remoaner doom-mongers and crack on to secure a deal that is in the best interests of both the UK and also our friends and allies in the EU.

Over recent months, I must have been asked dozens of times why I voted to leave the EU in last June’s referendum, and the answer can be summed up in a single word – democracy.

The principle is simple – that the only people with the right to make laws we must obey and levy taxes we must pay are those that we the people have chosen in democratic elections.

And, crucially, we should have the right to get rid of our elected representatives and replace them with somebody else if we don’t like what they are doing.

The EU, despite its many admirable qualities, breaches these fundamental principles. In its current unreformed state it is, therefore, entirely incompatible with democratic self-governance.

This may suit some countries, and if you are emerging from communist or fascist dictatorships – as many of our European friends have done – being told what to do by an unelected bureaucrat in Brussels may seem positively benign.

But in a country like ours, where our ancestors have fought and died for centuries to secure our democratic liberties, it simply isn’t good enough.

And so when we were finally given the choice last summer, 17.4 million of us – the biggest democratic mandate in British history – decided it was time to reclaim our birthright and re-establish our freedom to govern ourselves.

But as Mrs May pointed out, leaving the EU doesn’t mean we are leaving Europe. Historically, culturally and economically we will always be an integral and important part of Europe.

I, for one, adore Europe. I visit its cities and study its languages (unlike most Remain campaigners I have debated with!). I count EU citizens among my closest friends and colleagues and I wish the EU the best of luck.

And there are clear signs of optimism. Despite the gloom mongering of Project Fear, the UK economy is in robust good health and there is absolutely no reason that we cannot secure a mutually beneficial trade deal with our European friends.

Ignore the adolescent sulking from the likes of Jean-Claude Juncker and Guy Verhofstadt in Brussels and their infantile talk of “punishing” Britain for daring to leave. Frankly they matter very little. More than ever before power in the EU is now concentrated in Germany – particularly with Germany’s industrialists and financiers. Think of the bosses behind BMW, VW, Bosch, Siemens and Mercedes Benz.

And if these people want a deal to secure access to the UK – their biggest European export market – you can be pretty sure that is what will happen. In the new EU, what Germany wants, Germany will get.

That’s not to say the negotiations will be easy. For one thing it is not even clear the EU will exist in its current form for very much longer. The debt crisis that has destroyed the Greek economy has not gone away, unemployment is frighteningly high in many EU countries and the Italian banks are teetering on the edge of an abyss.

Terrorism and the problems associated with open doors immigration stalk the continent, and populist parties are on the rise. The life chances of entire generations have been sacrificed to the doomed project that is the euro.

But if – admittedly a big if – these problems can be overcome, a mutually beneficial deal can be done.

As for the Remoaners back in Britain, there are lessons to be learned. Screeching and stamping your feet like an over-tired toddler, as you have been doing for the last nine months, doesn’t work.

Predicting World War Three, economic collapse and genocide doesn’t work either, and neither does screaming that anyone who disagrees with you is a racist, a fascist and “literally Hitler”.

It is time to calm down a bit, accept the inevitable and join with the grown ups to make, in the words of Mrs May, “a stronger, fairer and more global Britain”.