We need a leader who will stand up for Brexit

Our campaign, on the side of the people, urges the next Prime Minister to deliver by October 31

In the past three years, the British government and the UK parliament have successfully turned our country into an international laughing stock, humiliated by the EU’s negotiators. Mrs May and her Cabinet are chiefly responsible for this. They claimed to want to reach a consensus and swore that in taking this approach they were acting in the interests of Britain. Yet after three rejections by Parliament, their strategy failed.

Their search for what they termed consensus ended with the UK bound to pay some £40bn to the EU whilst being locked into an arrangement we couldn’t leave unless the EU let us. As Margaret Thatcher said: “... consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which

no one objects.” Who can argue with the wise words of the Iron Lady?

The country badly needs an inspirational figure and a new team to set it back on the right course. It should be obvious to everyone that what Britain does not need is another prime minister who wastes yet more time trying to fiddle with this miserable deal. It will only cause more political paralysis and economic uncertainty.

MPs who don’t agree with this, do not have the right to stand in the way of democracy. We would remind them that the margin of victory for Brexit in 2016 was 1.25million votes – greater than the population of the city of Birmingham.

The new Conservative leader must be willing to stand up for democracy in the face of the EU and must be able to inject some zest into the country’s collective psyche. Otherwise the consequences could be dire.

That’s why a number of colleagues are today pledging, once again, to “Stand Up 4 Brexit”. Our campaign calls on the next leader and Prime Minister to take us out of the EU by October 31, come what may. Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement is dead and should never be resurrected.

The new Government should instead rightly accelerate the planning for us to leave on October 31 and with vigour and determination. And at the same time we must make an offer to the EU that we should resurrect the Tusk offer of a comprehensive Free Trade deal.

We accept that this cannot be completed before October 31 so we would also agree with the EU to jointly invoke GATT, Article 24 to come into force on October 31. This will enable us to continue with zero tariffs and regulatory standstill for the negotiation.

Alongside, we can also agree to set up an independent body to adjudicate over disputes concerning regulation changes during the period we are negotiating the Free Trade deal.

Only somebody who is utterly single-minded, and who will not be knocked off course by the scores of anti-democrats who currently sit in the House of Commons, can lance the boil. They will need a powerful conviction to recognise that they can succeed where Theresa May and her Cabinet failed. They will require vision to then move Britain towards the successful future it can and should enjoy as a free and independent nation. The people are crying out for these things.

The last three elections have shown that voters have lost patience with the political establishment and MPs need to live up to the promises on which they were elected to public office or risk being given their marching orders at the next general election.

In so doing, it would open the door of No 10 Downing Street to a Venezuelan-loving, Marxist Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell threatening jobs, businesses, pensions and savings and plunging the country into a permanent economic crisis.

Corbyn’s Labour Party seeks to overturn the 2016 result by advocating a second referendum. To defeat that, the new Prime Minister must deliver on the will of the people.

To deliver Brexit we must give confidence to every Brexit voter across the country that Brexit really does mean Brexit. By uniting our voters we can deliver and raise our standing in the world once again.

Every Conservative MP must recognise that if they continue to block or delay Brexit, the tsunami of angry voters, who have turned to the Brexit Party, will destroy us.

The only result will be chaos and Corbyn. Is that to be the political epitaph of the party of Disraeli, Churchill and Thatcher?

We can only avoid that fate if we Stand Up 4 Brexit by October 31.