It sometimes feels as if Brexit is being treated by our politicians as a game in which they all jostle for the best possible position to be able to launch a bid for No 10 when the time comes. Yet the changes Brexit will make to our lives and our country will be far-reaching, costly, and long-lasting – perhaps permanent.

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Looking back, it is extraordinary that a decision of such importance for the future of the United Kingdom was taken by a single poll requiring only a simple majority of votes cast. As a result, 38% of the electorate are changing our national destiny on the basis of a referendum campaign that is now widely regarded as dishonest, and that called for us to leave the European Union without beginning to address the question of what we do next.

In foreign policy terms, it’s a bit like invading Iraq without any plan for the day after Saddam Hussein has fallen. Look where that landed us – and the people of Iraq.

In both houses of parliament there are majorities that would prefer us not to leave the EU. Three-quarters of the cabinet voted remain. Yet few MPs dare stray from party lines for fear of being labelled enemies of the people. The national interest hardly gets a look-in.

One of the more important amendments tabled to the EU withdrawal bill now working its way through parliament would allow the “meaningful vote” the government has promised at the end of the Brexit negotiations to be on all viable options for the future of our country, not just a take-it-or-leave-it vote on whatever deal the government has managed to negotiate. That could include the option of not leaving the EU should the British people decide, on the basis of facts that were so absent during the referendum campaign, that it’s not in our national interest to do so.

It is hugely important that this amendment is carried, and that ministers are not able to fob off MPs with a vague agreement in principle to sort out the details later, when it’s too late to change our mind. As the Brexit negotiations drag on, the country is becoming increasingly aware of what leaving actually means, and how misplaced Theresa May’s early bravado was.

Red lines on the sequencing of negotiations, the payment of a large divorce settlement, the jurisdiction of the European court of justice and “passporting” in financial services have all been painted over. Growth has stalled, as the chancellor, Philip Hammond, said in his budget speech last week. The pound is down 18%, inflation is rising, holidays abroad are more expensive, foreign investment has virtually dried up, and – while it is good to see the prime minister in the Middle East this week, trying to raise our profile – the reality is that Britain’s voice on the big foreign policy issues has become inaudible.

New homes abroad have been found for the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency, both of which are based – and employ hundreds of people – in Britain. Thousands of EU citizens essential to the functioning of the NHS, our agriculture and our financial services industry have already gone.

Airbus is warning that it may prove impossible in a post-Brexit world to keep building the wings for its aircraft at Broughton and Filton. And it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is no sweetheart free trade agreement with America ready to sign just weeks after Brexit takes effect.

This is not Project Fear, but Cold Reality – a reality that’s worse than it might have been had the government not made such a hash of the negotiations so far.

It may be that, at the end of the negotiating process, a majority will still want to leave the EU. If so, the rest of us will have to live with that decision, and make the best of it. But the country should be given the opportunity to confirm its wishes once we know the true implications of Brexit in, say, a year. We have the option of de-activating article 50 – as Lord Kerr, who drafted it, and others have confirmed – at any point before its two-year deadline expires in March 2019.

There is much the EU could do better in terms of transparency, accountability, wastefulness, regulation and connecting with people. That is the view of voters in many other member states. A surprising number would welcome the chance to engage with us on root-and-branch reform – if we decided to stay and fix, rather than cut and run.

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One of the arguments against a second referendum – as dishonest as it is specious – is the claim that the people have spoken and it would be undemocratic to give them the chance to think again. As David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has himself said, a democracy that cannot change its mind ceases to be a democracy. The availability of so much more pertinent information now, compared with what was understood on referendum day, only reinforces the point.

In the meantime, that information must be made as widely available as possible. Voters need to be told the truth. Political groups with the common aim of ensuring that the reality of Brexit is fully understood must come together.

If public opinion begins to change, perhaps our elected representatives will find the courage to defy the tabloids, the fanatics and their party whips. Future leaders need to come forward and say what they really think, laying aside traditional loyalties and putting the country first. This is the most momentous issue facing our country since the second world war. There is far too much at stake for politics as usual.

• Peter Westmacott is a former British ambassador to France and the US