As a war veteran I know the importance of remaining in the EU, which is why I’ve decided to march with the People’s Vote

I am about to turn 96 and am partially sighted, but I am utterly determined to be on the march for a People’s Vote on 23 June.

More than anything else, it is because I served in the British Army during the Second World War that I am resolved to do what I can to protect and defend the peaceful and democratic Europe that so many of my generation, including my friends, paid such a high price to secure.

I fought in Burma in the Arakan and at Imphal, before crossing the Irrawaddy on 14 February 1945. All of these were victories, in fact some of the finest in the long and proud history of the British armed forces. But they were unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.

In fact, on that river crossing I was seriously injured and had to be evacuated by air. I served for another 27 years, including in the Malayan emergency and I completed three tours in northern Germany – where we were always ready for the threat of war from the Soviet Union – all before finishing as a brigadier at the Royal School of Military Engineering. I know soldiering is necessary. But it is equally essential to do all we can to build international institutions that reduce the need to risk the lives of young men and women in the future.

The European Union is just such a body. I have never pretended it is perfect. How could it be? But it has helped maintain peace for more than 70 years and perhaps it is up to those like me, who remember how much blood was once spilled across Europe, to remind people that the EU is a whole lot better than what existed before its creation. My generation was not the first to face continental or even global war, but it has so far, thankfully, proved to be the last.

There is no doubt that the EU, Nato and the other institutions of the Atlantic alliance, founded on democracy and the rule of law, have played their part and we risk them at our peril. When I look at the politicians in Westminster who are now so recklessly seeking to sever some of the ties for their own narrow purposes, I feel a sense of shame and despair.

If my military experience gives me one overwhelming reason to be passionate about the need to stay in Europe, my love of nature and our fragile environment provides me with another. After I left the army I went on to help run the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge. Migratory birds are as ignorant of human imposed frontiers as is the pollution we pump into the sea and air. No political leader can control – or take back control – of the wind or the waves any more than King Canute could order back the tide. I fear that leaving the EU will see future governments walk away from our European wide commitments to protect our environment, habitats and wildlife.

On 23 June, I will be joining tens of thousands of others calling for a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal. I am not looking for a rerun of the June 2016 referendum, but for something very different: a decision about whether the deal negotiated by the government to leave the EU is right for the country. My experience tells me that it will not be.

I may now be an old man but, like the soldier I once was, I am ready to march again for a better future. Please join me.