Patrick O’Flynn
Mr Hammond is said to be pushing behind the scenes for three or four years – raising the prospect of us still being under the thumb of Brussels at the time of the next scheduled general election in 2022.
Were that to happen then both major parties could unveil new manifestos to supersede their commitments of 2017. In other words the “transition” could become permanent and we would risk ending up stuck in a Norway-type arrangement.
If the period from the 2010 general election until our stunning referendum victory taught us anything, it is that the UK political establishment will never willingly break free of a stale status quo. It has to be cajoled into doing so. If it had not been for Nigel Farage and Ukip – and indeed for the Daily Express campaign to get us out of the EU – there would never have been a referendum at all. David Cameron had specifically ruled one out. It was only the combined pressure that Ukip and the Daily Express brought to bear that forced him to change his mind.
It very much looks as if we are now at a similar juncture. Brexit supporters need a way of bringing added pressure to bear to stop the establishment parties selling out our dream of the UK returning to the ranks of self-governing, independent nations. Fortunately, Ukip is ready to step up and provide
YOU can find out more about how to support it by logging on to www.ukip.org and Ukip representatives will be promoting it in public meetings and on stalls in town and village squares and leafleting drives in the weeks ahead.
If both main parties come to see that inching away from Brexit depresses their poll ratings by boosting Ukip – especially at a time when they are neck and neck and when the next election is expected to be close – then it will effectively eliminate the scope for Brexit to be betrayed.
If the pressure that Nigel unleashed to such devastating effect when Cameron was Tory leader and Ed Miliband at the helm of Labour can be replicated by Henry, then not only will we be leaving the EU formally in March 2019, but there will be no question of keeping us in the customs union or the single market, or under the jurisdiction of the ECJ or obliged to continue with skyhigh immigration levels. And the idea of continuing to pay multibillion-pound contributions to the EU will be kicked into touch too.
The constant attempts to undermine or even block Brexit by foes such as Tony Blair and George Osborne should alert us all to the fact that the battle is not over. As a previous Henry with an even more glittering military CV than Ukip’s Bolton might have put it: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
As they have admitted, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and his pals would lock us into a superstate with an EU-wide army and compulsory euro membership if they could. But circumstance and our own efforts have given us a chance to get out now. For the sake of our children and for the future of our great country we must take it.
‘Eliminate the scope to betray Brexit’