WTO is still better option than Chequers

PERHAPS the most enthusiastic cheering at the Tory Party conference last week was at Boris Johnson’s ‘chuck Chequers’ fringe meeting.

Johnson hammered away at what he described as the total folly of Mrs May’s flagship programme, underlining the fact that her plan would not reflect the EU Referendum and leave us subject to the European Court and countless new laws on which we would have no say.

If nothing else it must make Mrs May realise that her Chequers proposals, as they stand, have little chance of getting Parliamentary approval, for a considerable number of her own MPs have stated that they will not vote for them. I cannot, therefore, understand why she does not pause and listen to some of the advice proffered by her colleagues.

Johnson has created for himself a character which many do not find attractive. He seems to portray himself as a bumbling eccentric.

However, make no mistake, he is a clever man with a sharp brain, and a burning ambition to get to the top of the tree.

It is entirely possible that if Mr Gove had not stuck a knife in his back at the last Tory leadership election, he could have been Prime Minister today.

The policies that he outlined in Birmingham will find a lot of support among many in the business community. There is currently a lot of scaremongering going on by people with vested interests on what will befall this country if there is no deal.

I have never had any worries whatsoever about trading with the world under WTO rules and would much prefer this to being half in and half out of the EU, still subject to the dictats of unelected bureaucrats, and even worse, still having to take notice of the European Courts of Justice.

By no stretch of the imagination does this remotely reflect the wishes of the majority of the electorate as recorded in the referendum. Johnson underlined this fact and I sincerely trust that present members of the cabinet have the nerve to persuade Mrs May to listen and change course. Russell Luckock is chairman of Birmingham pressings firm

AE Harris