Beware the BLANCMANGE

Trust Corbyn with Brexit? You must be joking, says a typically rumbustious Boris – he’d have all the authority of a wobbly pudding

GET on with it! they shout from across the road. Just do it, they chorus, l i ke some advertisement for expensive gym shoes. Everywhere I go in Britain, I get the same message: sometimes whispered in supermarkets, sometimes accompanied by honking and the slapping of the side of a van.

As this campaign heats up, I am finding an increasing singleness of purpose – as though the nation knows that Brexit has embarked us all on a new course and there is no turning back. I am finding a spirit of collective determination, and I don’t detect it merely among those who voted Leave.

I find that after all the divisions of 2016 the people of this country are subtly recoalescing – Remainers and Leavers – determined to put aside their differences, and get the best possible deal, for the UK and for our European friends. We can see how it can be done.

All we want is a steady hand on the tiller, a firm and expert navigator to guide us in our new adventure. And though it is, of course, early days in this Election campaign – and there is certainly no case for complacency – I find that more and more people understand that there is only one potential Prime Minister at this Election who has the energy and clarity to get the right Brexit deal for Britain – and that is Theresa May.

As the PM set out in her speech on Thursday, she has a plan: to take back control of our laws; to take back control of the vast sums that we currently entrust to Brussels; and to take back control of our immigration system.

She set out once again her vision – a vision that should be attractive to so many sensible people on both sides of the Channel. At its heart is a great Free Trade Agreement between the UK and our partners, something profoundly in the interests of the whole of Europe.

Then, of course, there are many other important ways in which we will continue to co-operate with our European friends – on counter-terrorism, foreign and defence policy, intelligence sharing and in tackling the scourges we face together, from illegal immigration to modern slavery.

We want to call it a deep and special partnership, a new way of committing to our European friends, but which also reflects the truth – that we have never, in our hearts, signed up for the federal programme entailed by EU ideology. If we get it right, we can have a better and more honest relationship – and that means leaving the EU, but emphatically not leaving Europe. That is the prize.

BUT we can only achieve our negotiating objectives if we are clear what we want. We will only get the right Brexit deal if we refuse to be taken for a ride. And that is why we need Theresa May.

I look at the only possible alternative – Jeremy Corbyn, propped up by a coalition of the SNP and the Liberal Democrats, both of them resolved to frustrate Brexit altogether – and I shudder to think what would happen. I don’t think even Jeremy Corbyn knows what would happen, because he doesn’t know what he wants.

Sometimes he seems to want to be in the single market, and sometimes out; sometimes he wants to remain in the customs union, sometimes out. In January, he said he was ‘not wedded’ to the principle of free movement, and in the next breath he added that he didn’t ‘rule it out’. In-out, in-out, shake it all about. How on earth is Corbyn the hokey-cokey artist going to take back control of immigration?

The answer is that he would fail – not just because he would have Nicola Sturgeon and Tim Farron perched like monkeys on his back, one demanding another EU referendum and the other trying to destroy our fantastic United Kingdom. He would fail because he is on record as saying that he doesn’t even believe in reducing immigration.

This is the man – and it really could happen if the Tories lose only six seats – who would have to represent us; this is the man who would be sent to go eyeball to eyeball with Jean- Claude Juncker and Angela Merkel. It would be a disaster. He would go into the negotiating chamber with all the authority of a smacked blancmange.

How would our partners respond to the Corbyn approach? At first they would be puzzled. Then they would probe the defences of the blancmange. The final passage would be too distressing to watch, as Britain’s negotiating position and interests were engulfed.

We cannot allow it to happen. It is a recipe for uncertainty and infuriation and confusion – on both sides of the Channel. We need this process to be accomplished sensibly and well, and in accordance with the principles set out in the PM’s Lancaster House speech of January 17.

We need to look after the interests of EU nationals in the UK, and UK nationals in the rest of the EU, and at the same time we can get on with the exciting work, led by Liam Fox, of sketching out new free trade deals. We have so many reasons to be confident about the UK. If current demographic and economic projections are correct, then we are set to match Germany – by the middle of this century – as the economic powerhouse of this Continent. We lead the field in so many of the 21st Century industrial sectors: in tech, in bioscience, in finance, law and accountancy.

WE HAVE superb universities, we have an extraordinary creative, culture and media s ector, while London is the world’s greatest global magnet for international tourists – with more people going to the British Museum every year than go to nine whole EU countries which I would not dream of naming.

As for manufacturing – we have long ago shrugged off the British disease. On Thursday, I was in Wolverhampton listening to motor manufacturers who are exporting sophisticated drive-trains to the US, with demand growing so that they can hardly keep pace.

Think how much more these UK businesses could do once we have that US-UK free trade deal. Think what a calamity it would be if we were to be so remiss as to let Corbyn take the wheel. He would whack up taxes, bring back the unions and take us back to the 1970s.

The risk may seem small to some – but the polls have been wrong before, and consequences would be dire.

Now is not the time to take Britain backwards, but to turbo-charge our current success, investing in skills, in young people and infrastructure that has been neglected for decades and promoting a British lead in critical new technology such as batteries.

All these ideas, and more, can be found in the Conservative manifesto. But to maximise our chances of success, we must get Brexit right. And a sensible, dynamic and optimistic Brexit is something only the Conservatives can conceivably deliver.

Now is not the time to take Britain backwards