Britain needs Ukip to keep Tories on track

Since the Brexit vote, the PM has stolen some good Ukip policies but we can’t rely on her to deliver them

It’s been 100 days since the British people voted to leave the European Union, despite having the combined might of the political establishment, the global elites and the multinational banking corporations arrayed against them. And my goodness, we’ve learnt a great deal in those 100 days.

The sky has not fallen in; all the doom-laden forecasts churned out by the Bank of England, the IMF, the OECD and the rest of the so-called experts have been revised upwards. Companies like Amazon, Apple and Honda have committed to new jobs, new headquarters and new factories in the UK, with the country climbing up the global rankings for competitiveness and manufacturing.

Nor have we seen the emergency, punishment Budget, which George Osborne promised would be the price of a Leave vote, full of swingeing tax rises and savage NHS cuts. What we have seen, happily, is the removal vans brought to Downing Street for Mr Osborne.

I’m afraid that the poor old Remainiacs – as I have been asked not to call them – have taken all of this rather hard. Indeed, they seem to have passed through something which looks very much like the four stages of grief. First there was denial, with Labour’s David Lammy insisting that the Leave vote was merely advisory and could be ignored. Then we had anger, with Diane Abbott denouncing Leave voters as racist and irrational, while privileged, middle-class students and their superannuated Jean Monnet professors organised extraordinary marches against democracy in London.

Then, of course, we came to bargaining, with Owen Smith exclaiming “we should have the courage to say to the British people, we think you should think again,” and campaigning for the Labour leadership on a platform of holding a second referendum. Only now, finally, are we coming to acceptance.

I fear we’re not quite there yet, although the first green shoots might just be poking through: the Prime Minister claims she will respect the vote; some Labour politicians are admitting that the public’s desire to bring immigration under control should be respected; even a few SNP renegades have piped up to say that, actually, Brexit could be an opportunity to revive fishing communities which have been shattered by decades of EU mismanagement.

But where does Ukip fit into this post-referendum landscape? Will the party still matter in Brexit Britain? Looking at our new Prime Minister, I would say yes, absolutely.

Theresa May says she’s going to take us out of the European Union – though she campaigned to keep us in. Mrs May says she’s finally going to cut immigration – though, as Home Secretary, she presided over the biggest rises in immigration in our country’s history. She even says she’s going to rebuild our destroyed grammar schools – though she served for years under a prime minister who said that supporting Tony Blair’s ban on the schools was a “key test” of the Tories’ fitness for government.

I’m not angry at the PM for pinching our policies. They’re good policies, and they’ll be good for the British people, whoever brings them in. My worry is that she won’t deliver them. So to voters who look at the Tories now and, seeing them disguised in Ukip purple, are tempted to give them another chance, I would say simply this: You can’t beat the real McCoy.

The Tories are not, and never have been, a “Eurosceptic” party – on the contrary, they are the party of “More Europe”. It was the Tories who took us into the old EEC and it was the Tories who rammed through the Maastricht treaty which transformed it into the power-hungry, dysfunctional union we see today.

Now more than ever, the country needs Ukip to hold their feet to the fire. Goodness knows the official opposition can’t: they don’t actually want to leave the EU, or cut immigration, or revive a school system which provided opportunity to all on the basis of merit, not money.

So don’t let Magpie May distract you with a few stolen ideas. Back Ukip for a strong, credible opposition which will hold her to her promises.