He thinks he is Churchill... but really he’s Chamberlain

THIS so-called Brexit deal is nothing short of a betrayal of the 17.4million people who voted to leave the EU. What on earth were the staunch Leavers in the Cabinet doing?

Where was Boris Johnson? At Chequers on Friday, we needed him to emulate his hero, Winston Churchill. Instead, he gave us a modern-day version of Neville Chamberlain.

Sadly, the Foreign Secretary was not alone in apparently waving the white flag of appeasement in the direction of Brussels. Other Brexiteer buccaneers and recent Brexit converts also jumped ship.

The door to Mrs May’s country residence was open but they chose not to walk out of it. Perhaps the threat of the withdrawal of the Government limo was just too great.

This is a huge mistake on two grounds. Firstly, all those harbouring leadership hopes have done their ambitions fatal harm. Grassroots party members will have no truck with their perceived treachery. Some will try to keep their leadership hopes alive by claiming it was not the time to quit and they had a duty to stay on to ensure Brexit is not further watered down. But it leaves only one credible contender with the integrity and backbone to follow Mrs May: Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Secondly, Brexiteer Cabinet Ministers are losing their nerve at the wrong time. This is not the end of the battle – it is the start of the real fight for a true Brexit. What Theresa May unveiled last week appears little short of a punishment Brexit, designed by the EU to dissuade any other country from leaving the bloc.

With no incentive to offer nonEU countries free trade deals when we leave, through mutual recognition of standards, the UK will forever remain a captive market for overpriced EU goods. It means going through the pretence of leaving but becoming a non-voting associate member, a vassal state.

We would still be locked into the EU’s suffocating embrace via this ‘common rule book’ while the dead hand of the European Court of Justice will be lurking in the background.

In contrast, we should call Brussels’ bluff and, if necessary, leave without a formal deal. A so-called ‘no deal’ scenario may sound scary but ‘no deal’ does not actually mean no deal. It simply means the UK would trade on WTO terms which we use already to trade with most of the world.

The fight to deliver a proper Brexit starts here and now.