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Scottish Green Party leaders back 'people's vote'

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Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman
Image caption,

The Scottish Green Party conference is taking place in Glasgow

The Scottish Green Party's co-conveners have given their backing to a new vote on the final Brexit deal.

Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman have repeated their support for a "people's vote" on the issue.

At the party's conference in Glasgow, Ms Chapman said was "very much in favour of the principle of a people's vote".

Mr Harvie said a motion to be debated by those attending would give them the chance to back the campaign.

Later, members voted in favour of the motion.

He said: "Like Maggie, I can't stay neutral on that question.

"Even if it is a narrow window of opportunity to bring that vote about, and even if bringing it about gives us no guarantee of the outcome, we've already said as a party that it looks like now being the only way, the only possibility of stopping Brexit."

Freedom of movement

Mr Harvie added that Scottish Greens could "join the chorus of voices saying loudly that the only thing to do is to stop this mess and, if Westminster won't come to its senses, let the public be the ones to cancel Brexit".

He called freedom of movement a "human right" and warned that leaving the EU would harm Scotland, the rest of the UK and Europe as a whole.

"The extreme Brexiteers are already flirting with the sociopaths of the US libertarian right," he said, "the same outfits which have been a force for ill from climate denial to union-busting.

"That's the agenda these people want to impose on us - one in which the social, environmental and workplace rights and protections which were fought for by generations before us are torn to pieces in the pursuit of an already failed economic system."

Mr Harvie went on to mock proposals for a Festival of Brexit, saying: "Can any day out sound less appealing?

"The only reason to call a festival would be if we cancel Brexit and stop this mess."