Let’s end Brexit betrayal and break the chain of Tory leaders who make same broken promises
IF ever you expected events to bring the Conservative Party to its senses, it should be now.
We have just experienced the worst national election results in our long and successful electoral history after a cataclysmic series of polls since Theresa May and her entire Cabinet broke their promise - which they made on over one hundred occasions - to leave the EU on 29th March.
Voters in the country are rightly angry at broken promises by the Conservative leadership about leaving on time, about leaving the single market, and about leaving the customs union.
They witnessed with disbelief as the Cabinet supported Theresa May negotiating with the most left-wing leader of the Labour Party in its history in a bizarre attempt to agree a sordid deal which would have betrayed the country’s vote for a genuine Brexit.
Conservative Party members have witnessed first-hand the level of public distrust and anger during the recent local government elections.
Hard working Councillors and candidates lost seats because of the failings of this Cabinet and through no fault of their own.
Now they rightly expect their Conservative MPs to get their act together and elect a Leader who will break the mould of the same old broken politics of the Westminster blob and take us out of the EU and make the Conservative Party Conservative again.
ONE COMMON DENOMINATOR
There is a common denominator in the above examples of bad faith and incompetence. That is the Cabinet.
It is not only Theresa May who let down Conservative Party voters, members and supporters.
She was abetted and supported by her Cabinet. In this country we operate a system of collective responsibility and it is not good enough for Cabinet members now to claim they held a different view or would have done things differently.
How can it be right that Cabinet Ministers, who were complicit with the failed Brexit polices of Chequers, the Withdrawal Agreement and the subsequent betrayal of Brexit, credibly seek to claim they are an acceptable choice for this role?
They were sat around the top table when decisions were made and must take responsibility for them.
I would sup with a very long spoon indeed with those who are complicit but now claiming they can offer the Party new leadership and direction.
The British public are not stupid and our Party members know what they are voting for.
They wont be fooled by those born-again ‘Leavers’, who trumpet their devotion to Brexit even though they have done nothing for the last three years to advance the return of British sovereignty.
The British public and our long suffering Party members know where the responsibility for the greatest breach of trust in our democratic institutions lies.
TIME FOR CHANGE
After three years of being repeatedly told that ‘nothing has changed’, the time has come for ‘everything to change’.
The British people are desperate for our country to leave the EU on 31st October. They are crying out for leadership which will put the country and our people first.
The European Elections clearly reflect that and anybody who has knocked on doors or engaged the public in recent times knows that.
We simply must move on and move out of the EU and fast.
And in doing so we must move into a trade negotiation as has been outlined through numerous proposals over the last 12 months.
Unfortunately Theresa May’s Cabinet showed themselves unwilling to listen to detailed proposals which would have a delivered the genuine Brexit the public voted for.
So now the priority is to exit the European Union and move forward to negotiating a future relationship with protects British interests and keeps open the global prizes and benefits of Brexit which the British people voted for.
Ministers who claim they are pro-brexit have failed to stand up for the 17.4 million who voted to leave and make that robust case to deliver the referendum mandate.
Theresa May’s Cabinet showed themselves unwilling to listen to detailed proposals which would have a delivered the genuine Brexit the public voted for.
The people were promised we would have left the EU months ago and that ‘no deal was better than a bad deal’.
Having danced to the tune of the tune of the EU, spent billions of pounds on ‘no deal’ preparations, our country must just get on and leave the EU.
Too many people in our political class lack confidence in our country and trust in the public. They have sought the comfort of the EU making our laws rather than making the decisions themselves. No wonder the British people feel betrayed.
They expected the UK to leave the EU on 29th March as they were promised. Every day longer we remain in the EU adds salt to that wound.
The governing class has broken trust in our politics.
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The British people voted to take back control and for Britain to be free, independent and self-governing again. Our destiny is as a global beacon of free trade, not a satellite of the EU.
The Conservative Party must quit the navel-gazing and stop the rot of this Brexit betrayal.
Those of us who believe in our Country and people, who respect our democratic and political freedoms, will continue to stand up for our liberty to make sure the days of betrayal are over.
- Priti Patel is MP for Witham, Essex.
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