When Peter Mandelson was in the Labour Government and later a highly paid EU Commissioner, I was struggling running the small family business my late father had started in 1946. We just about survived the recession of the early nineties caused by the folly of the UK joining the EU exchange rate mechanism, which bankrupted a large number of small businesses at the cost of thousands of jobs.
Later we had to comply with increased EU inspired bureaucracy, making it harder to make a profit. In the end I gave up, as it seemed the EU and our own Government were against those of us running small businesses. They talked about helping, but the EU rules on just about everything made life impossible. It was no wonder I joined the Referendum Party when the late Sir James Goldsmith came along and was selected as a candidate. I was a 'Leave' voter in waiting for twenty five years due to seeing, at first-hand, the damage EU membership does to small businesses, who ironically, collectively employ far more people in the UK than the large multinationals to whom the EU panders.
I am now retired, living on a state pension and my small personal pension, which is small due to struggling to keep a business I was immensely proud of afloat. Like most owners of small businesses, I sacrificed a lot to keep our business going and to save the jobs of those we employed.
On the other hand, Lord Mandelson has a very nice fat EU pension, paid for by the taxpayers of this country, and lives in style with his wealthy friends around the world. No wonder he voted 'Remain'. He now has the audacity to call those of us who voted 'Leave' "Brextremists" as well as other ludicrous assertions. According to him, those of us who have given our lives working, worrying and struggling to cope with EU bureaucracy, are 'extremists' who have the temerity to threaten his grand EU created lifestyle.