Plots, coups and plans, PM Theresa May nails her colours to the mast and declares No customs union with EU, Brexit is still moving forward, the sooner political parties realise that Brexit is an issue that we are all in it together the happier they will be, direct democracy of the people has won out

Dear All

Plots, coups and plans, the stuff of politics, at the sharp, politics can be a lot of fun, but it can be a lot of hard work, thankless hours knocking on doors trying to get someone elected you hope will do some good for the community.

Referendums are different, you aren’t electing anyone but committing yourself to an idea, in my case, I picked Brexit for the UK for a simple reason; the UK needed to regain its sovereignty for economic and national security reasons.

The European Union is a failed project!

I previously supported the EU because I like many hoped that the good things about the EU would outweigh the bad, that balance has now been tipped, what the EU is now is anti worker, anti country and anti democratic. Instead of uniting Europe, we are seeing countries who wish to pull away from it.

In the fight to keep the UK in the EU, some parties want ‘soft Brexit’, if you don’t know what that means, it means betrayal of direct democracy which was the vote in June 2016. The Remain side want access to the single market and the custom union, in effect EU membership, all of the negatives and none of the pluses for the UK.

What is clear from the vote of 2016 is that ‘out’ means ‘out’, not part out, not a toe hold, not a backdoor deal, as the clock ticks down to leaving, we are reminded that whether some like it or not, the rules say once you formally ask to leave the two year clock starts running.

Despite repeated attempts to sabotage Brexit, threats of court action, and some people being a nuisance, the UK Government is pressing on with the business of talks, one thing which is clearly stated by Downing Street is that there will be No customs union with EU.

The Conservatives took the UK into the EU back in 1973, Ted Heath, the then PM signed us in, and only a Conservative government would have the courage to sign us out. I back the UK Government to take us out of the UK, in this case, the country and everyone in it is historically all in this together. The scare stories we all heard pre vote and post verdict are still around, but the reality is the EU needs access to the UK market, so there will be a deal.

Since the PM has nailed her colours to the mast on no customs union, it may ease the internal party tensions in her party from placate Tory MPs and ministers, they are unhappy because customs union could have prevented the UK striking trade deals around the world.

Tory Brexit rebel Anna Soubry claims the "hard Brexit" European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, has a "deeply unattractive" plan which involved leaving the customs union "to chase unicorn trade deals" at the expense of existing relations with the EU. What Anna Soubry fails to recognise is that the UK had deals prior to joining in 1973, and I would expect that the UK would want to generate more deals with the Commonwealth Countries.

The Commonwealth comprises 52 countries, across all continents; that means its members have a combined population of 2.3 billion people, almost a third of the world population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

I don’t see this as a unicorn, do you?

One thing about Brexit is plots within the Conservative Party to unseat Theresa May and install someone else such as Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees-Mogg but the plotters may find themselves on shaky ground as the public back the PM, they want Theresa May to finish the job.

The public want Theresa May to finish the job and they will be very unhappy towards anyone who gets in the way of that basic truth. So, if anyone thinks that a leadership challenge is the way to go, they might find that when they look around for support there will be precious few in their corner.

Until the deal is done, the dust has settled and we see how things pan out, everyone should wind their necks in and bite the bullet, shouting the odds and then being seen as having made a fool of yourself; is not a good strategy for advancement in public office, it might in fact be an career ending moment.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University