We have to embrace leaving without a deal

Plans to renegotiate the backstop are a waste of time. Brexit means a clean break on October 31

No government that I lead will ever seek an extension beyond October 31. It’s time for the Conservative Party to wake up, listen to the voters and embrace Brexit as a magnificent opportunity, not as a problem to be managed, mitigated and ultimately reversed. Otherwise Jeremy Corbyn will become the prime minister of the United Kingdom.

As we deliver Brexit, there’s another vital ingredient we’ve got to bring back into the way we do politics: trust. Trust in politics has been stretched to breaking point by our failure to deliver Brexit and it will irretrievably shatter if we do not manage it soon. Political suicide lies in failing to secure a clean break from the EU on October 31, not

in anything else. This is the only viable and acceptable Brexit option now left on the table. The public’s view has hardened, the Prime Minister’s attempts at negotiating a deal with the EU have ended in three humiliating defeats in Parliament, and Brussels has made it abundantly clear that the deal cannot be reopened. We need to stop wasting time having artificial debates about renegotiating backstops or resurrecting botched deals. The only way to deliver the referendum result is to actively embrace leaving the EU without a deal.

As soon as I read the Withdrawal Agreement last November, I resigned from the Cabinet. It sought to frustrate Brexit at every turn, and I couldn’t possibly continue to serve while it remained government policy.

That agreement was in effect our message at these European elections and we have been rewarded with a pitiful 9 per cent of the vote. Anyone who played a part in the Government, which presided over that monstrous set of terms, has helped to cause this election catastrophe and cannot credibly claim today that they’ve now seen the light.

This country must be led towards our optimistic future outside the EU by someone who believes in Brexit and by someone who has been bold enough to stand up for it, not by anybody who’s been a member of a government that has been bullied and outmanoeuvred by Brussels.

What we all want is the smoothest transition from EU membership to our future trading relationship. Leaving on October 31 and then entering into negotiations with the EU and other countries from a position of strength, with our £39 billion in our coffers rather than theirs, is the best way now of making that happen.

Messing about with this inadequate Withdrawal Agreement will just prolong the agony and cause yet more disruption and uncertainty for British business. Anyone who pretends that they will achieve in three months what Theresa May failed to do in three years simply through the force of their personality is not being straight.

When people voted to leave in 2016, it was the biggest act of democracy we’ve seen in our history. Most people just want us to get on with delivering the result, however they voted, so that we can shift attention to what matters to them and their families.

We desperately need to start showing people that we are on their side, taking action on the issues that matter to them. That’s why I have called for the immediate redirection of money from our bloated international aid budget to police and schools. We must also address the housing shortage, while protecting the Green Belt, and look at how we can help people to keep more of their own money. But we can’t focus on any of this until we deliver Brexit.

It’s time to remind ourselves why we’re all Conservatives, to recapture that sense of promise that brought about the referendum result, to set a clear direction and support the ingenuity of British business. Businesses are ready to leave the EU at the end of October, as are the public, and politicians must be, too.

People saying that we now need to compromise to deliver a Brexit that all Conservative MPS support are misreading the situation. That is not possible, and we must be honest about that. Our only option is to deliver the referendum result with a clean break, and then bring people together by how we govern the country outside the EU. We need to put aside the battles of the past and unite to defeat the most toxic and dangerous Labour leader we have ever faced.

Esther Mcvey is Conservative MP for Tatton