The EU wants to break our national will — Brexit victory would be like winning the Falklands War

THE past seven days have been some of the most tumultuous in ­politics.

It started with the Chequers Cabinet meeting, where the Prime Minister told her Brexit ministers to accept the new policy or resign.

Within a few days, both David Davis and Boris Johnson resigned. Others ­followed. On our 2017 Brexit manifesto, Conservative MPs were mostly united.

This change of policy has shattered that unity.

After Monday’s resignations, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said: “It will be crystal clear at the end of this negotiation that the best situation will be to remain a member of the EU.”

He means that the EU will force the UK to accept a punishment Brexit, or to retreat from Brexit altogether.

Conservative MPs must now answer a simple question: Will we back the majority who voted for national independence, or just give in to Brussels?

There is no middle way.

The Chequers plan looks dead. Either the EU overloads it with yet more demands. Or the Commons rejects it.

This halfway house Brexit is beloved by neither Remainers nor Leavers.

We might be technically “out”, but it would not be an equal partnership. It would leave the UK effectively bound to the EU and their rules. So what next?

The Stop Brexit campaign think they are winning.

Of course, their main ally is the EU itself.

The EU wants to break the UK’s national will. This, not Brexit, would be the true disaster for our country.

The EU always does this — grinding down people’s aspirations for freedom.

Denmark rejected Maastricht in 1992 but was made to vote again. Ireland rejected the Nice Treaty in 2001, but, like Denmark, was forced to vote again. Both France and Holland rejected the EU Constitution in 2005. That was replaced by the almost identical Lisbon Treaty in 2008.

Neither French nor Dutch voters were allowed to vote on Lisbon. Ireland did reject Lisbon but, of course, the Irish people were made to vote again.

This time, the EU and Remainers back here hope MPs will give in to the Brussels bullying. They think enough Conservatives will lose heart and force the Government to abandon Brexit or accept a very bad deal.

How right Mrs May has always been to insist: “No deal is better than a bad deal.” She must stick to that.

The best solution, for both the EU and the UK, is to agree a free trade deal, like the one between the EU and Canada.

The EU insists we must accept that Northern Ireland would not be part of it, but it is absurd for us to take seriously the empty threats that the EU would impose a hard border there.

Every sensible person agrees that the tiny amount of EU trade which crosses that border can be policed without a hard border.

But if the EU will not negotiate a free trade deal with the whole of the UK, then we must still leave, come what may.

­Nor can we let the EU bully us into submitting to their punishment Brexit. The politicians in London cannot just abandon the referendum result, as though voters outside London don’t really count.

As Mrs May said on her first day as PM, these are the left-behind voters Conservatives should most want to represent.

A referendum is the ultimate expression of our national democratic will.

A referendum, backed by Parliament both before and after the result, is the final expression of the sovereignty of the people. There can be no turning back.

A decision by Parliament to dilute or to stop Brexit would be like deciding to abandon the Falkland Islands in 1982 without a fight.

Winning back the Falklands transformed our national confidence and standing in the world. Brexit will do this too. Surrendering the Falklands would have finished Margaret Thatcher and left Britain looking cowed and washed up — no longer a great power.

Some of my colleagues are saying that we must go soft on Brexit, accept “the parliamentary arithmetic” of the present House of Commons or risk collapse and a Corbyn government.

In fact, the reverse is true. Surrender would destroy the Conservative Party.

Leaving the EU requires determination.

If the Commons votes to stop Brexit, then we would have to call another General Election. Nobody wants that, but the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

We cannot allow the EU to defeat the British people. The British people are calm, but they expect us to insist upon regaining national independence as instructed, or they will have no respect for us.

Last year, we Conservatives won the largest share of the vote in decades on a clear Brexit manifesto. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act means that there cannot be a General Election unless we vote to have one.

But if the Commons will not let us deliver the ­people’s policy, we must face down the Remainers.

We should let the people decide in a General Election – and we would win.

• Sir Bernard Jenkin is MP for Harwich and North Essex and chairs the Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee and the European Research Group’s Steering Committee.