The Brexit Party is right to assist a Boris Johnson victory for the greater cause

The Brexit Party is right to assist a Boris Johnson victory for the greater cause

The stakes in this election are incredibly high for all of us who have fought long and hard for Brexit.

We have resurgent Liberal Democrats who think nothing of simply cancelling the result of the largest ever vote for any single issue ever held in this country. Didn’t happen, just ignore it and carry on with the EU Superstate as if nothing happened. They are neither liberal nor democratic. The Greens are now in league with them.

We have a Labour Party with a leader in Jeremy Corbyn who has failed to back a single war the country has fought recently and is a regular friend and comforter to our nation’s enemies. Four decent former Labour MPs cannot recommend Labour members vote for him.

His party wants to cancel the Referendum result too, but to try to do so without being seen to do so. Hence this farcical and devious policy of wasting another six months at least ‘renegotiating’ the deal with the EU then actually campaigning against that deal by backing Remain in a Second Referendum.

If Corbyn wins, the people of Scotland will be plunged into two further Referendums with a second unnecessary and damaging Independence Referendum forced by the anti-Brexit SNP, when 2014 and its two years of debate was meant to be a once-in-a-generation choice. What kind of independence is it for the SNP to hand back to Brussels powers over trade, fishing, farming, the environment etc? A bogus one.

What a nightmare then a Labour/Lib Dem/SNP/Green government would be. Make no mistake: Brexit would be lost, democracy overturned, the country and our Union put in serious danger.

Only the Conservatives under Boris Johnson can now deliver Brexit. But we need a majority to get Brexit done. We cannot return to a rotten Parliament full of snakes that twist and turn laws and conventions to frustrate and deny us Brexit. Parliament versus the People.

So I commend Nigel Farage – whom I served as Deputy Leader for four years and then Party Chairman of UKIP – for pulling the new Brexit Party candidates out of Conservative-held seats. It was not an easy decision, it took real leadership and strength of purpose, as candidates will have been expectant and fired up. But it was very much in the national interest and in the interests of achieving Brexit.

We can argue relentlessly about all the legalistic ins and outs of the new Boris deal. As Brexiteers, none of us would have wanted to start from here. I personally recommended the GATT Article XXIV approach as a strong option and I know it was credible.

But let’s be pragmatic. Let’s look at the realities and consider how we would feel if we lost Brexit having got this close and became for sure a mere region of the EU Superstate. I wouldn’t put it past a future pro-EU government cancelling referendums altogether – as has been done in the Netherlands.

So whatever our reservations – such as Ben Habib’s claims on the role of the ECJ on BrexitCentral today which are technically possible but in reality overturnable – if the UK doesn’t want transition extended, legally it can’t be. Please let’s see the bigger picture. If you read your travel insurance policy too closely, you would never travel. Yes there is always risk, but better to handle those risks as a sovereign independent nation again.

We are not going to get anything better than this, but this is a good and respectable Brexit and it is incredible we are here at all.

Take that from someone who sat as an MEP for year after year seeing how we were constantly outvoted, who was at the heart of Vote Leave with my Contact Group of allies, and co-founder of Conservatives for Britain with Steve Baker.

What Boris has achieved is remarkable. He has replaced slavery within the EU Customs Union (‘Single customs territory’) and signing up to EU Single Market regulations without a voice with a free trade agreement without the political control.

I am the creator of the ‘SuperCanada’ Free Trade Agreement concept based on ten years working on the European Parliament’s international trade committee on deals like Canada’s CETA. I can tell you this is what we are now getting. It is what the Prime Minister has committed to and it gave sufficient reassurance of change to Nigel Farage to pull out of Conservative seats. It is a real and meaningful change.

What I would have liked to have seen would be the Brexit Party going the extra mile and withdrawing today from the 50 or so marginal Labour seats in which Conservative gains would give us a Brexit majority and focusing on hard Labour seats that where the Tory brand is negative and where we will expend little effort or resource.

Let’s give it one last push for Brexit. This would ensure Brexit is delivered rather than leaving open the horrendous possibility of a disastrous and Brexit-destroying alternative government taking its place.

Let’s all, together, united, get Brexit done.