I’m not a politician, I’m an entrepreneur. I don’t believe in false promises or rigid ideology. I believe in creating opportunities, good deals and looking out for the people who work for me.

I campaigned passionately for the remain side during the Brexit referendum, because the opportunity to live, work, trade and travel anywhere in the EU with zero faff is such a good deal and creates brilliant life and business opportunities, and is especially valued by younger generations.

And I knew that the politicians on the leave side were deliberately selling false promises. They told us we could have all the benefits of being an EU member without any of the perceived costs. That trade would remain totally frictionless even if we voted for Brexit. That Brexit would mean a bonfire of bureaucracy and red tape.

They were selling a fantasy. As the whole Brexit debacle has developed, this fantasy is unravelling. We have had to concede on every single front: timelines, costs, process, regulation. Almost every day we learn about some new complication, some new risk, some previously hidden cost of exiting the best deal this country has ever had.

The latest is the revelation from the chief executive of HMRC that the Brexiters’ preferred customs plan, the so-called “max-fac” solution based on technology, would cost British businesses between £17bn and 20bn a year. To put that into a context even Boris Johnson would understand, that’s a cost of around £350m a week. I don’t remember seeing that on the side of any big red buses.

The basic reality is that many small- and medium-sized companies won’t be able to cope with these kinds of costs, and will simply go bankrupt. Jobs will be lost, supply chains will be disrupted, every sector of our economy will feel the impact. Inevitably, the extra costs will be passed on to consumers. A double hit: jobs down, prices up.

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The government’s other proposal, the “customs partnership”, is equally nonsensical. It has no precedent anywhere in the world, it relies on a level of trust between the UK and the EU that is in pretty short supply thanks to our recent actions, and it would still involve a bombshell of new bureaucracy for British businesses, as companies would need to track all their products to their final destinations and then send invoices to HMRC to claim back the difference between UK and EU tariffs.

The irony of this endless debate over customs is that the EU has already rejected both of the government’s proposals, which makes the whole thing utterly futile. And let’s not forget, the single market and the customs union already exist to keep trade between the UK and the rest of Europe almost entirely frictionless, so we’re wasting a lot of time and money trying to solve a problem that has already been fixed.

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People like me, business people and entrepreneurs who just want to get on with building businesses and creating jobs, are perpetually stunned at the lack of certainty, the lack of planning, the recklessness with which the Brexiters in government are treating other people’s jobs and livelihoods. If a CEO was as disingenuous and disorganised as the main Brexiters, they’d have been thrown out of the boardroom months ago.

We’ve seen our economy go from the fastest growing in the G7 before the referendum to the slowest growing in the developed world today. The value of the pound has collapsed, well-known companies have disappeared, and the Bank of England has calculated that real household income is now £900 lower than predicted before the referendum. The Brexiters are driving our country towards a cliff edge and trying to pretend the brakes don’t work, and that there’s nothing any of us can do about it.

But of course there is something we can do about it. We can give the people a say. A people’s vote on the terms of Brexit is the right thing to do, and it’s the democratic thing to do as well. This isn’t about re-fighting the battles of 2016, this is about giving people the right to check that they are getting what they want.

We’re sick of C-league politicians stitching up deals behind closed doors to save face, when the consequences will have an impact on everyone. We can’t allow the politicians to decide this for us. This Brexit deal is too big and important and affects all of us; we, the people, have to have the final say. That’s why I’m calling for a people’s vote, so that the citizens of the UK can take back control of this process and decide if the Brexit on offer is in the best interests of the country. Whether you are a remainer or a leaver, it makes sense to have the power to affirm that the deal they negotiate is the one you want. Just like in any business negotiation, if the final terms aren’t what was originally promised, you have the right to say “no” and to think again about the future you want for our country.

• Richard Reed is the co-founder of Innocent Drinks and a supporter of the People’s Vote campaign