Stroud based Molly Scott Cato is the Green Party’s financial spokesman, an economist and an environmental activist who is the current MEP for South West England

LAST weekend I told delegates to the Green Party conference in Harrogate that the historic mistake to leave the EU can and must be reversed.

Barely a day passes without yet another report revealing what an economic, social and environmental disaster Brexit is. Whether we voted Remain or Leave, surely no one wanted Brexit to turn into the shambles it has?

The EU isn’t perfect, and Greens remain committed to reform, believing another Europe is possible. But we cannot reform it from outside.

Neither can we address deep rooted global problems like climate change and corporate tax avoidance in isolation.

We need cooperative working with our European neighbours to tackle the crucial issues of our times. I’ve tried to imagine alternative futures in a post-Brexit Britain, where we grow more of our own food, rebuild strong local economies, take control of the banks and stop corporations avoiding their taxes.

But such a future with the Tories in charge will remain fantasy.

They are using Brexit as an opportunity for a power grab and diminishing our democracy; disfiguring our country beyond recognition.  Many of my Conservative MEP colleagues are equally horrified by what is happening. My counterpart in the South West, Julie Girling, took a principled stand by voting for a European Parliament resolution that declared insufficient progress has been made in the Brexit talks to warrant moving on to discussions about a future trading relationship.

As a result she has had to endure being called a traitor and effectively kicked out of the Conservative Party.

But when we look to Labour we find a party as terminally divided on Brexit as the Conservatives.

They cannot claim to be a government in waiting when they won’t even provide opposition on the dominant political issue of the day.

Greens believe there must be a ratification referendum on the final Brexit deal, with remaining in the EU an option in this referendum.

There is nothing undemocratic about this.

We are asking for more democracy, not less: a democratic choice between two real possible futures at the end of the negotiations.

Such a referendum will enable the people themselves to bring an end to this damaging and dangerous chapter in our county’s history.