TO Brexit or not to Brexit – that is the question that will go before town hall chiefs at next week’s full council meeting.

Two opposing motions on the UK’s departure from the EU have been tabled for debate, one from the Liberal Democrats and another from the Conservatives.

Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Roger Hayes is calling for councillors to back a “People’s Vote” on any final deal negotiated by the government – including the option to remain in the EU.

But the Tories Cllr Bob Allen wants the result of the 2016 to be honoured. He is calling on the council to write to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urging him to encourage his MPs — including remain-voting Bolton representatives Yasmin Qureshi and Sir David Crausby — not to support a second referendum.

Councillors will have the chance to voted for or against the motions on Wednesday evening, if time allows.

Cllr Hayes believes the electorate was faced with a surfeit of misinformation in the lead up to the Brexit vote and were not fully aware of the implications leaving the EU could entail.

He said: “The public voted for something when they didn’t really know what it meant. As we know, there were a lot of misleading statements made. A lot of people voted on principle but it’s only reasonable that when we see what’s really on offer people should have that choice.”

Brexiteers insist that the referendum was a democratic vote and the result returned by the electorate should be respected by Westminster.

But Cllr Hayes says the electorate is able to change its mind over who governs it time and again and this should be the case with Brexit.

He said: “Everyone laughs now about the £350m a week for the NHS pledge, because it’s been proven that was never going to happen. People need to know what’s on offer and have an informed debate, we need to trust the public to make the decision.

“No one argues we shouldn’t be able to change our minds over who governs us, so who on earth can say we can’t change our minds on a decision that’s going to affect us for a very long time to come? It’s probably the most important decision we have taken as a country.”But for Conservative Brexiteer Cllr Bob Allen the true People’s Vote was in 2016, when Bolton and the UK voted to leave the EU,  and there is no need to hold another.

He said: “My view is quite simply that we’ve already had a people’s vote, and the people voted to leave – there’s not much more to say than that.”

He added: “People might say that it was only by 52 per cent but nevertheless that’s democracy. If we went back to review every decision made in government because it was a close call we would be in a sorry state.”

And  Cllr Allen does not believe people were concerned with the fine details of Brexit when they cast their votes back in 2016.

He said: “When we have a general election people don’t vote for all the details, they vote for the headline statements. People voted to leave the EU because they wanted to leave the EU, I think it’s still a fairly simple concept.

“When I voted to leave I understood that meant leaving the customs union, the single market, the EU Court of Justice, the whole lot, and I firmly believe that’s what people voted for.”