Real Eurosceptics must oppose backstop

It is amazing how easily prone to manipulation British negotiators have turned out to be. The point of the referendum was to liberate Britain from the legal stranglehold of the EU, and seeing this, Brussels invented a whole new concept to keep us trapped indefinitely within its clutches: a Hotel California of a Brexit, with the United Kingdom stuck in the customs union by default and with no fixed date to leave, until a new trade deal is agreed. That is what is meant by the “backstop”.

As you can imagine, there will be little pressure on the EU to sign such a deal, and especially not from a British establishment desperate to undo the result of the referendum. Being parked in an indefinite backstop – and by definition there cannot be one of any other kind – clearly breaches all of the Tory party’s manifesto commitments and everything Theresa May has promised until now. It ought to be self-evidently unacceptable to any Brexiteer in Cabinet or on the backbenches and to any politician who believes in democracy. There isn’t and has never been a eurosceptic anywhere who supports staying in the customs union; Norway, of course, isn’t part of it.

We would be unable to implement new trade deals with non-EU countries: in fact, we would be forced to match trade conditions with third party nations but they would not be obliged to reciprocate. It turns out that the backstop part of the proposed “deal” is even worse than the Chequers component, which is where the country would supposedly end up once we extricated ourselves from the backstop morass.

There are many kinds of compromises that can be acceptable. But a so-called Brexit of this nature would blatantly fail to respect the spirit of the referendum and would devastate faith in our democratic institutions and in the Conservative Party. Now is the moment for all of those parliamentarians and members of the Government who truly believe in Brexit, rather than merely pay lip service to it, to make their voices heard. They need to share their concerns with the Prime Minister and ask her to change course. Time is fast running out. If Brexiteers do nothing, they will end up sharing responsibility for the coming debacle.