Theresa May is offering a peace deal to EU with her soft Brexit plan at Chequers and it betrays voters
If the Tories don't care about the 17.4million voters who want Brexit then we could see Marxist Jezza as our next PM, says Trevor Kavanagh
SO Theresa May did have a plan. It was to steer Brexit up a well-known creek and leave us without a paddle.
The crew are too scared to desert. The shore is lined with hostile Remainers. As for the voters — the 17.4million “thick and ignorant racists” who backed Brexit in 2016 — who cares about them?
Britain is now offering a peace deal to Brussels which, however we gloss it over, stinks of surrender.
To quote Boris Johnson, who backed it: “You can’t polish a turd.”
This is not a White Paper. It is a White Flag.
We will have a “Common Rule Book” — written by the EU and imposed by the European Court of Justice.
These rules will torpedo any trade deal outside the EU. Immigration continues under a scheme which by any other name means free movement.
This is not even Brexit In Name Only. It is zombie EU membership — and the UK is the zombie with no say in rule-making and paying through the nose for rule-taking.
Of course, we need to be realistic. Compromises are inevitable since we made no plans for No Deal.
Thanks to Mrs May’s election horror, the sums do not add up for Brexit. Remainers rule in the Tory Party, the House of Commons and the Lords.
Without a heavyweight leader, Brexit Tories know they cannot raise the numbers to oust Mrs May. A failed challenge would only boost her new-found confidence and authority.
Michael Gove and others argue a future Brexit Prime Minister — Mr Gove, for instance — could finish the job once we are legally Out.
In fact, Britain tends to keep its treaty promises.
We can’t even count on EU bully Michel Barnier to stir up a revolt. He and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will probably accept Mrs May’s deal, with a few tweaks, because they are effectively its co-authors.
The Rule Book will keep us in line — no separate trade deals, no sovereign control over our borders, no escaping the ECJ.
Brexit Cabinet ministers must accept some of the blame. They failed to force Mrs May when they had a chance to prepare for a No Deal Brexit. That failure instantly handed victory to the Remainers and to Brussels.
Should we one day choose to make a clean break, we will face harsh “consequences” — what Boris vividly calls “punishment beatings”.
But the biggest punishment beating will come from voters.
If the Tories don’t care about the 17.4million who want Brexit, they will be made to care.
Constitutional lawyer Martin Howe, a Tory QC, warns we are entering “a worst-of-all-worlds black hole Brexit where Britain is stuck permanently as a vassal state.”
The fragile Tory lead over Labour has just evaporated. Almost 40 per cent of voters think the PM has betrayed the 2016 referendum result.
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Tories might not switch directly to Labour, but they won’t forget. If only a small percentage sit out the next Election, Jezza will be our first Marxist PM.
Michael Gove and Home Secretary Sajid Javid tried to put a shine on a deal they claim is the “best available”.
And they didn’t even have the decency to hold their noses.
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