“I WILL never support a referendum on anything again,” David Drew told an audience in Nailsworth on Saturday.

The Labour MP for Stroud, who opposes a second referendum on Brexit for fear of a divisive campaign, made the remarks at a public question time in the town organised by church groups.

“The misbehaviour which we saw during the referendum in 2016 will be worse a second time around,” he told the audience at Christ Church.

“Referendums have never done anything other than divide people further.”

Siobhan Baillie, the Conservative candidate to be Stroud MP, said she opposes a second referendum on Brexit earlier this month.

During the October 6 discussion hosted by Churches Together, Mr Drew outlined his position on issues ranging from international to national to local.

He spoke on the need for cleaner air, criticising projects like the waste incinerator being built by the county council near Stonehouse.

“Air-quality levels are unacceptable and in some areas life expectancy has been cut by ten or fifteen years,” he said.

“People will die because they live in the wrong area.”

On climate change, Mr Drew hit out at US President Donald Trump, describing him as a “disaster” with a “Neanderthal” outlook.

Though insisting he is not a “unilateralist” when it comes nuclear weapons, Mr Drew described Trident as “morally indefensible”.

He also said he did not support the Severn Barrage, though underlined he would like to see smalled schemes like underwater turbines.

When it came to the impact of Brexit, Mr Drew focused on the impact for agriculture. He warned post-Brexit deals with the US and Australia would “wipe out “ the UK's farmers. 

More generally, he expressed concern about education funding and the provision of public services.

“We have a lot of schools in difficult circumstances and we have to raise that money by having a fairer tax system and having a proper debate about the way we fund our services.

“We’ve had a long period of austerity and we are seeing the effects across public services, such as police cuts, and we are seeing problems in Stroud because of the dramatic cut in police officers.

“We see issues in child protection and children’s services, which both received bad inspection reports in recent years, so children are going unprotected.”

“I'm very worried about children's mental health. If we had proper investment in the early years, maybe we wouldn't have such serious issues."