At last, we have voices to speak for England

EARLIER this month, the Mail asked on our front page: ‘Who will speak for england?’ At last, we’re hearing answers.

First to take up our challenge were six brave and principled Cabinet ministers – notably Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith, men respected across Westminster for their unshakeable integrity.

Now they are dramatically joined by Boris Johnson – and suddenly the stakes for David Cameron have grown even higher.

For with the London Mayor’s declaration yesterday, the Out camp has at last gained the crowd-pleasing figurehead it sorely lacked, while the Tories have a new favourite for the leadership succession.

True, Boris took his time to make his decision, while his lifelong rival offered him increasingly tempting jobs in the hope of winning his support.

Indeed, Mr Cameron’s willingness to barter office for principles raises questions about what may have induced other longstanding Tory eurosceptics to swing to the In camp. All this paper can say is, shame on those who succumbed.

But after the spectacular failure of the PM’s renegotiation, isn’t it hard to see how Mr Johnson could honourably have campaigned to remain?

For make no mistake, failure is the only word to describe the pathetic ‘deal’ brought back from Brussels – an empty hat, without a hint of a rabbit inside.

As for the Prime Minister’s defence of it on yesterday’s Andrew Marr Show, this was frankly as unimpressive as the agreement itself.

he claimed the choice for voters on June 23 would be between staying in ‘a reformed EU’ and taking a ‘leap in the dark’. Wrong on both counts, Prime Minister.

For far from embracing change, the EU last week showed itself institutionally incapable of reform.

Nor is it a leap in the dark. Indeed, there are millions (though perhaps not the PM) old enough to remember when Britain flourished as a fully independent nation before 1973.

Mr Cameron also protested that we’re safer inside the club than out. But isn’t IDS much nearer the mark when he says staying in makes us more vulnerable to a Paris-style attack?

As for the claim that if we pulled out, we’d be automatically denied access to the single market unless we agreed to free movement of people, this is wrong again.

In fact the EU has free trade deals with at least 17 countries, which are not required to accept limitless immigration.

Indeed, the worst aspect of the agreement is that it contains nothing to make one iota of difference to the flood of migrants pouring into Britain, putting intolerable strain on our housing, public services and national identity.

All we are offered instead are modest, temporary and hugely complex changes in child benefit for migrants, which won’t come into force for a year (or five years for existing claimants). Otherwise, Mr Cameron has achieved nothing except a ‘red card’ veto that turns out to be all-but useless, protections for the City that are no more than vague assurances, and a meaningless exemption from the EU’s drive towards ‘ever closer union’.

Oh, and he secured recognition that Britain doesn’t belong to the euro (which we could have told him, saving him the trouble of jetting around europe.)

Nor is the deal even legally binding, as he claimed. Indeed, it appears increasingly possible that it will be ripped up, either in the courts or the european Parliament.

No, after last week’s charade, the choice will be between leaving or remaining in an unreformed EU – as statist, sclerotic, undemocratic and bureaucratic as ever.

For the four months remaining of this vital debate, is it too much to hope that both sides will abandon the half-truths and outright whoppers – and treat voters like adults?